The golden characters wrote themselves in a graceful sweeping row down one of the Scrolls: No more than you deserve.
This shocked him so deeply that for a moment he could not formulate a thought, let alone a question. Golden characters spilled down the next Scroll in a great hurry.
You were a fool to think you could hold me bound and disempowered forever.
He took a step back and his blood ran cold. The Scrolls filled with words, one after the other.
Do the Mancers know what you did?
Do they understand the war I have with them?
Or do they follow you without question?
“How?” he said again. It didn’t matter. He began to murmur a spell to create a barrier between himself and his enemy but the words came out quite wrong, jumbled in his mouth, nonsensical. Somehow, without his realizing it, a Confusion had taken hold of him. He could not move to tear his eyes away from the characters on the centre Scroll, which began to flow rather differently, in long sweeping lines, outlining the form of a woman in gold ink. The ink became flesh and the Sorceress Nia stepped out of the Scroll into the study. Kyreth’s tongue was stilled, his hands frozen.
“Hello, Papa,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek.
Chapter
~6~
Eliza hammered on the walls, shouting, but no one came. She turned back towards the Oracle, seated on her eight legs in the middle of the room, eyes glassy and vacant.
“Get somebody to come and let me out of here,” she begged. “I have to go!”
“She will come for me,” said the Oracle faintly. “She will come for me here.”
Eliza’s mind was hurtling along a trajectory of worst fears and nightmare scenarios. She needed to get out and she needed her dagger and she needed Charlie.
“Rhianu!” she screamed, pounding the wall again.
“The Chamber shall not be entered or left while I am here,” said the Oracle in a faraway voice. “They cannot open it.”
“Then leave,” said Eliza furiously. “I need to get out!”
“She is coming for me. I will remain here. We cannot flee our destinies,” said the Oracle.
“I have to warn the Mancers,” pleaded Eliza.
“They will fall before her,” said the Oracle. “I have seen it. I have seen my death today.”
Eliza stared at the spot where she thought the opening should be. She felt her way up the walls with her Deep Knowing to the ceiling and the flagstone that had opened before. She pushed at it with all her will but the presence of the Oracle was like a magnet holding the room tight together. Eliza was not strong enough to break it.
Around her neck she wore the shard of crystal Kyreth had given her long ago. He had told her she could use it to summon the Mancers if ever she needed them. For all her battles with Kyreth, now, when her greatest fear was materializing, she wished desperately that he were here. Nothing terrible could happen if only the powerful Supreme Mancer were watching over her. Why had she left the safety of the Citadel? She closed her fist over the crystal around her neck and squeezed it, begging, “Help me, please.” The crystal gave a sudden, dramatic flash. Light poured out between her fingers but the light struck the walls and bounced back without penetrating them.
“You have to let me go,” said Eliza again, more feebly. It was no good. She sank to the earthen floor and buried her face in her hands. The Oracle’s voice hissing that she would cut her own heart out came back to her. She choked back a sob and leaped to her feet again. She would not wait in this hole for Nia to come.
In this way the night passed, and much of the following day. She swung between despair and grim determination. The air was getting thicker and her head was pounding from hunger and thirst. As long as the Oracle remained, nobody would bring her food or water. At this rate, she might be dead before Nia even arrived. She thought she was dreaming when a sudden groaning and straining sounded from overhead. The Oracle stared furiously at the hinged flagstone, which trembled as if some great force were trying to shift it. Then the flagstone dropped away and the Oracle leaped to her feet, spitting. Eliza backed against the far wall with the Oracle, assuming it was Nia come for them, but instead Swarn’s face appeared above.
“Pardon my intrusion, O Oracle of the Ancients,” she said in a rather perfunctory tone. Eliza was so flooded with relief she could have wept.
“Insolence,” hissed the Oracle.
“Eliza must come with me,” said Swarn. “I have received a message.”
“We are doomed,” the Oracle replied in a dead voice, not budging. But Eliza leaped for the arm Swarn extended her and Swarn pulled her up and out of the pit. She drank back the fresh air outside it, the fog in her brain clearing as if in a sudden breeze.
“It’s about Nia, nay?” said Eliza, her heart hammering in her chest. Swarn gave her a sharp look.
“What about Nia?”
“She’s coming,” said Eliza. “She’s free of the barriers.”
“I did not know,” said Swarn quietly. “A messenger bird from the Citadel came to me with two words only – Eliza Return. It was sent in great haste by your Spellmaster.”
“So Foss did know where I was all along,” said Eliza. “And they must know about Nia already, aye.” Her panic was beginning to subside. This time, she would not have to face Nia alone. She had the Mancers and Swarn on her side.
“Yes. You will be safer with them than with me, I expect. Your friend the Shade is waiting outside. Come.”
The daylight was so bright after her days in the Chamber of the Oracle that her eyes watered. Rhianu was waiting with Charlie and Swarn’s dragon in the shadow of the Temple. She handed Eliza her dagger and Eliza took it gratefully.
“It’s Nia,” Eliza told Charlie immediately. “She’s free.”
His face tightened slightly but all he said was, “You look thirsty, aye.” He gave her a flask and she drank it dry before turning to Rhianu.
“Your hospitality...” she began, but she was too agitated to think of the right words. “I’m sorry to leave this way,” she said. “Thank you.”
Rhianu bowed and said, “Your Destiny awaits you.”
Eliza did not find this particularly comforting, given what the Oracle had told her of her destiny, but again she said, “Thank you.”
“This is for you,” said Swarn gruffly, untying a long, bright spear from her dragon’s spikes. “It is deeply enchanted. When the time comes to use it, aim for the heart.” She strapped it expertly to Eliza’s back. Eliza could feel its power against her spine. Then Swarn pressed a small leather gourd into her hand. “A potion, also. Should you need it, it will give you some extra hours of strength when all your strength has been sapped.”
Eliza put it in the pocket of her robe gratefully. Such a potion was very potent indeed and she happened to know it required the mucus of a giant, no easy thing to come by.
“I wish I could have stayed longer,” said Eliza. “What will you do?”
“Warn the Faeries,” said Swarn. “When you arrive, Eliza, tell Kyreth we await his call and are ready to join the Mancers in Di Shang if need be.”
“I’ll tell him,” promised Eliza.
“May the Ancients keep you safe and guard you always,” shouted Rhianu as they took off, heading for the black cliffs around the lake of the Crossing, where Swarn commanded the Boatman to take them home.
~~~
They disembarked on the silvery beach and headed in among the trees. No reply came to Eliza’s request for entry and no barrier stopped them as they passed through the dark wood into the grounds of the Citadel. She had a sudden, panicky urge to flee with Charlie to the desert and her father. But that was foolish. She was safer with the Mancers. Perhaps in her exhaustion she had simply not felt the usual acknowledgement of her arrival, or the barriers may have been down in expectation of her.
“Something feels different, aye,” said Charlie. “I dinnay like it.”
“You dinnay need to stay,” said Eliza.
“Lah, I’m not leaving you here alone,” he said grumpily.
When Eliza’s eyes fell on the Inner Sanctum she gave a cry of surprise, for its usually gleaming white dome was black and spiked. It was a moment before she realized it was covered with silent ravens. She and Charlie exchanged a horrified look and approached it together. Eliza had never been inside but the ravens covering it looked at her hard as if willing her to go in. Whether that meant she should or should not enter she couldn’t say but curiosity won over prudence. She drew her dagger.
“We’re nay supposed to go in there,” Charlie said, but Eliza ignored him. There was no door barring the way, just an arched opening tall enough for a Mancer leading down a gleaming marble corridor. She followed the corridor all the way to the main hall, where the Mancers worked their Magic, and there she stopped. Horror pooled live and cold through her veins.
The Mancers stood in formation, more than two hundred of them. Their arms were raised, their eyes looking up towards the domed ceiling. But they were made of stone. All of them. Eliza ran from one group to the next. Here were the manipulators of wood and water and fire and earth and metal, frozen into statues. The manipulators of earth formed a pentagon around an empty centre. This was where Kyreth and the Emmisariae ought to be, Eliza assumed, but they were missing. She noted with a mixture of relief and trepidation that Foss was not among the manipulators of water.
“Forsake the Ancients!” Charlie whispered, entering behind her. “What happened?”
“She’s here,” said Eliza. Her voice sounded odd to her, like somebody else’s voice. “She must have taken them by surprise, aye. They had no time to...act.”
“We’ve got to leave,” said Charlie urgently. “Come on, Eliza. We have to go straight back to Tian Xia, find Swarn.”
Eliza’s mind was as frozen as the Mancers around her. She could not force it into action.
“Eliza!” shouted Charlie, grabbing her shoulder and shaking her. “You need to get out of here! Let’s go! Now!”
Eliza pulled away from him. “I need to find Foss. We’ll look in the Library.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Lah, she might not be here anymore. But if she is, she already knows we’re here and it’s too late. I need to know if Foss is all right.”
“We could still escape,” insisted Charlie.
Eliza shook her head. “Too late. You know that.”
She swung Swarn’s spear from her back. It comforted her to have something flowing with such power in her hand. Charlie became a half-hunter, a ferocious, thick-skinned beast, part-lizard, part-hound, that walked on two legs and bore weapons. Although she knew an enchanted spear and a half-hunter would be no match for Nia, Eliza was glad to have the hulking creature at her side. They left the stone Mancers and the raven-shrouded dome behind them and headed across the grounds back towards the north wing. The usual birdsong in the grounds was silent. There was no sound at all, in fact, until they approached the Old Library and heard a hollow sort of thunk. They both froze, but there was no further sound. The half-hunter sniffed the air, then nodded his great head at Eliza, baring teeth as long as daggers. Cautious and alert, they continued a little further. A human-sized hole had been smashed through the thick marble wall. They stepped through it into the Library.
The Library looked as if a giant had been rampaging through it. A great number of the vast, marble bookshelves had been pushed aside, some of them collapsed against the next stacks like toppled mountains. In the space created at the centre of the Library there was a large pile of books. On top of this pile stood Nia, wearing a red dress and a white fox-fur coat. Her hair was loose, spilling in red-gold curls over her shoulders and down her back, and she wore a jaunty white fur cap. She had a book open in her hand and was running her fingers along page after page very rapidly. The pages fluttered aside under her touch. She seemed to be concentrating deeply and didn’t notice them for a moment. Eliza saw Foss frozen against the wall, stone arms raised before his stone face as if fending off a blow, and her heart broke.
Without thinking what she was doing, she found the spear was flying from her hand straight for Nia’s heart. Nia’s head shot up. She reached out and caught the spear with one hand, stumbling back on her pile of books as she did so. There was a groaning moment while Nia clutched the spear, straining against its Magic without dropping the book in her other hand, and then it snapped in two and Eliza felt the Magic crumble.
“Why is it that whenever I see you, you’re terribly angry with me and in desperate need of a bath?” asked Nia, tossing aside the broken spear. “As a personal favour to me, next time you come for a confrontation, please have a shower first. Honestly, what have you been doing?”
“Speaking to the Oracle,” said Eliza grimly. Nia had not changed at all from Eliza’s memory of her. She was still utterly bewitching. There was no point running away from her now, so Eliza stood her ground.
“Fascinating, I’ve no doubt,” said Nia, arching an eyebrow at her. “I suppose that explains your outfit. And you’re still hanging about with the Shade – sweet. You know you can’t trust those things, though, don’t you?”
Eliza said nothing. A low growl rumbled deep in the half-hunter’s massive chest and he drew two short swords from his leather harness.
Nia laughed and looked Eliza up and down appreciatively. “Look how tall you’ve become, Smidgen! And your hair...well, your hair is still a fright but it’s lovely to see you anyway. I assume that since you greeted me with a less-than-friendly spear throw, you aren’t here to help me take my revenge.”
“Why are you taking revenge on Foss?” cried Eliza. She couldn’t bear to look again at her teacher made stone.
“Oh yes, have you seen the others too?” asked Nia. “I know it’s hard to tell the difference, but if you look at them very carefully, you’ll notice that they’re ever so slightly slower than usual.”
Tears spilled unexpectedly from Eliza’s eyes. Nia’s face fell.
“Go on, that was funny. You don’t feel sorry for them, do you, Smidgen? Look, these beings have kept me locked away in the Arctic for more than twelve years. Why should I take pity on them now?”
Eliza wiped her tears away angrily. “They had no choice,” she said. “They had to protect people.” It was absurd, really, trying to rationalize things to Nia.
Nia tilted her head on one side and smiled warmly. “One of these days, Smidgen, I’m going to have to enlighten you about your friends the Mancers. But that’s not what I want to talk about with you right now. Something has been baffling me ever since you snuck off the last time and I’ve just got to know – how in the worlds did you lay your hands on Faery blood? I’ve been dying of curiosity for more than two years now!”
It had not occurred to Eliza that, of course, Nia didn’t know she had stabbed the King of the Faeries and so her escape must have remained a mystery. Sealing her inner thoughts away tightly, she said, “The Mancers and the Faeries are allies. They help each other.”
Nia shook her shining curls and laughed scornfully. “Eliza, please! Don’t insult me by suggesting that Faeries are giving their blood to the Mancers! They only tolerate each other at all because they’re all terrified of me. No, Smidgen, the Mancers don’t have a secret stock of Faery blood. And yet you had some. I haven’t been able to figure it out.”
“Lah, let me know when you do,” said Eliza, struggling to keep her voice steady and calm.
Nia laughed again. “I couldn’t stop thinking how clever you’d been. Just a little girl really, not even able to use your Magic, and yet you escaped from me. And look at you now, so much stronger and more confident! Oh, I know better than to underestimate you, Smidgen, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s left me with a difficult decision to make. I could come for you first and take your power the way I always intended, but then my enemies would have time to get ready for me and I do prefer to keep the element of surprise on my side. So I settled on the second option – crushing
them all as quickly as possible and then coming back for you when I’m done. But starting with revenge meant that I had to come up with something to keep you entertained and out of the way in the meantime. You see, I’ve been terribly busy since we last saw each other! So many things to prepare and the timing had to be perfect.”
Eliza drew her dagger and waited. She didn’t trust her own voice, she didn’t trust what words might come out of her now. She was feeling that familiar, awful, irresistible tug, the helpless desire to be embraced by Nia, to do as she said, to be as she wished. It took all her strength not to drop the dagger and run to fall at her feet.
“I intend to be merciful towards two of my enemies,” continued Nia, “and give them quick deaths. For the other two, I have something more elaborate in mind, something along the lines of eternal torment. Nothing so easy as oblivion. And then you, my lovely Eliza, will live on in me always! It’s going to be very jolly. I should be getting on with it but I got a bit sidetracked here. The Library of the Mancers! I know the place will be crawling with every kind of horrible fiend once the word is out, so I thought I should get what I can while this place still exists. Watch this!” She tossed the book she’d been holding over her shoulder and it landed with a thunk. She picked up another book, opened it wide so Eliza could see, and ran her fingers across the pages. The pages flew aside rapidly and as her fingers passed over them the ancient ink disappeared, leaving them blank. Foss had taught Eliza such a deep reverence for the books here that to see them drained in this way was like a knife to the heart.
“You cannay,” she gasped, relieved for a moment that Foss couldn’t see what was happening in his cherished Library.
“For millennia the Mancer Library has been revered in both worlds as the greatest Library ever to have existed,” said Nia cheerfully. “Even the Faeries coveted it! And now...most of it is here.” She touched her temple with her fingers and tossed the empty book with the others. “Smidgen, are you all right? You don’t look very well.”
The Unmaking: The Last Days of Tian Di, Book Two Page 8
