Dagger's Edge (Shadow series)

by Logston, Anne

  “If you didn t need another sacrifice, what are you doing with me?” Jael asked, almost shaking with frustration as her body refused to move.

  “I said we no longer needed the Gate,” Urien corrected her gently. “You’re the final sacrifice, the sacrifice that will give Eiloth flesh in this world. For that we needed a very special sacrifice—an uninitiated mage of noble birth and powerful family.”

  “And a maiden?” Jael guessed.

  Urien laughed.

  “Dear Jaellyn, Eiloth has no more use for your virginity than you do,” he said kindly. “I’m sorry that you will die without ever knowing the pleasures of man and woman. I would gladly have shown them to you, but deflowered maidens often suffer from guilt or remorse afterward, often resulting in confiding in their mothers or fathers, and that might have had serious consequences for me. I was quite disappointed, I can assure you.”

  “Well, why should it matter that I’m of noble birth, then?” Jael asked, wondering how much longer she could keep Urien talking. Gods, what time of night was it? Surely someone at the castle would discover that Jael was still missing. “There must be plenty of other uninitiated mages in the city, ones whose abduction wouldn’t cause such a stir in town.”

  “But only one who is the Heir to the ruling family of Al-lanmere,” Urien told her. He replaced the pendant he’d given her around her neck and slipped the bracelet back over her wrist. “Hmmm. No, those earrings won’t do.” He carefully removed Solly’s gold rings, replacing them with exquisite drops that matched the pendant.

  “Our ritual will be timed carefully with the Grand Summoning Ankaras will be performing,” Urien continued almost conversationally. “Sunrise isn’t the most propitious time for summoning one of the Greater Darklings, but in this case it works to our advantage. At the moment Lord Eiloth manifests, he will consume you utterly, soul and mind and body together. The magic released by your death at that moment, aided by the residual magic from the summoning above us, will bring Lord Eiloth fully into this world. As I told you, Lord Eiloth is a master of seemings. When he has consumed your memories, your knowledge, he will assume your form, just as he took the seeming of Baaros for his purposes, and Jaellyn, Allanmere’s Heir, will return home.”

  “But I’m not confirmed as the Heir,” Jael argued. “In fact, it’s likely that Mother and Father will choose one of the twins instead.”

  “There are many ways to be certain you’re chosen,” Urien assured her. “Those who protest the choice might die, or simply disappear. Of course, it might be simpler if the twins disappeared instead. Hopefully none of that will be necessary. I’m sure Lord Eiloth will be able to convince the High Lord and Lady that you—he—would be the best choice.”

  Urien walked around Jael, eyeing her critically.

  “Beautiful,” he said. He bent to brush her cheek with his lips.

  “I wish it didn’t have to be you,” Urien said with a sigh. “I assure you that my feelings for you are quite genuine. But the final sacrifice must be prepared days in advance with the proper ceremonial herbs for purification, and you were the one chosen for preparation.”

  Jael grimaced. Of course—the tea and the ointment. Gods, how easily he’d manipulated her! A little flattery and attention, a few gifts, some pretty words, and she’d been his. Or Eiloth’s, more accurately.

  “But I can see this is disturbing you, as of course it would.” Urien sighed again. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to sleep peacefully, die unaware. I didn’t want you to suffer fear, although I’m almost certain you’ll feel no pain. If you like, I’ll try another sleeping potion.”

  Jael’s mind raced. What if she asked him for some Bluebright instead? Grandma Celene had said that some potions could temporarily overcome soul-sickness, as the potion she had taken in the forest had done. If the Bluebright had made her capable of feeling desire, could it make her somehow able to change stone, as she had at the Forest Altars, or when she’d melted the mug in her room? But that had been instinctive, unconscious. She wouldn’t know what to do, how to begin.

  But there was one thing she knew she could do.

  “No,” she said. “I’m the High Lord and Lady’s daughter. I don’t want to die sleeping.”

  Urien smiled.

  “Bravely spoken,” he said. “As you choose, then. Come, my priests should have finished the preparations for the ceremony.” He picked up her belongings. “Lord Eiloth will need these. Follow me, and quietly.”

  Jael obeyed, shivering at the cold, damp stone against her bare feet. Apparently Lord Eiloth liked his sacrifices’ bodies anointed and clean, but he wasn’t so particular about their feet.

  Urien led her back out into the main storage area of the cellar. Dimly, Jael could hear voices from the top of the stairs— talking, not chanting, so the ritual had not yet started. Ankaras’s voice was plain, demanding, and Jael was certain she could hear Tanis’s softer replies. Gods, if only she could shout! She tried to concentrate on the magic muffling her voice, binding her limbs, tried to find the warm, buzzing, tickling sensation she associated with magic. Why hadn’t she talked with Nubric sooner, learned to somehow use this thing inside her?

  The trapdoor was up, and again, Jael could hear something moving. Obedient to Urien’s commands, now she could not even shiver as she padded silently after him across the open area to the dark opening.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Urien said. “What you hear is my priests preparing for the ritual. The demon is guarding the other end of the subcellar. You won’t have to see it.”

  Sudden light startled Jael’s eyes as Urien uncovered a lantern resting on a case of bottles of Bluebright. He picked up the lantern and took Jael’s hand, steadying her down the steep, rather narrow stairs that curved gradually around. To Jael’s surprise, as they descended the stairs, light grew ahead of them; apparently the stairs curved enough to block the light from below.

  When they reached the bottom, Jael would have stopped in surprise if she could. The subcellar was huge, much larger than the cellar above; as she thought about it, Jael realized that the subcellar must extend even beyond the area of the abandoned temple. Only a small portion was lit with torches in wall sconces and tall oil lamps on stands, but the movement of the air and the echoes of every sound told her that this area must be gigantic. Jael’s heart sank when she saw the oil lamps; she’d hoped that Urien would light his temple with light globes, as Ankaras did. An exploding light globe at the wrong moment might cause his ritual to fail.

  Not far from the bottom of the stairs, an altar had been built of smooth stone deeply incised with runes. Jael wondered at it; had it been here already, or had Urien somehow brought it with him? Had it perhaps been magically created? Dark stains on the stone around the base of the altar made Jael think of the previous rituals that must have been performed here, but a sheet of dark blue velvet stitched with silver designs, similar to those on Jael’s robe, now covered most of the altar’s top. On a table past the altar, four long knives with thin, toothed blades had been pushed aside.

  Urien’s three lesser priests were still busy with preparations, meticulously setting out small bowls filled with powders, pastes, or oils, or chalking designs here and there on the stone floor. The acolytes were equally busy assuring that the oil lamps were full, and placing ritual candles of various colors at certain points on the chalked markings as they were completed. As soon as Urien and Jael entered the chamber, however, one of the acolytes bowed to Urien and hurried out of the lighted circle, and the others moved to stand at the opening to the stairs.

  Jael had wondered how Urien planned to pace his ritual with the one far above them. She shortly had her answer as the acolyte returned from the darkness with a small crystal sphere, such as was commonly used in scrying, which he placed carefully on a stand near the head of the altar. One of the lesser priests laid his pale hands on the crystal’s surface briefly, and suddenly muffled sounds emerged, and a dim, poorly focused image of the summoning nearly ready to begin abov
e. Another of the priests stepped forward, bowing to Urien.

  “Everything is prepared,” the priest announced, accepting the small bundle of Jael’s belongings.

  “Excellent,” Urien said. “Jaellyn, come here. You two, lift her up. And clean her feet.”

  Jael raged inwardly as the two acolytes lifted her awkwardly onto the altar, unable to struggle even slightly. The stone of the altar was cold even through the velvet, but its solidity was comforting, and Jael fought desperately to calm herself. Stone was firm and unmoving, alive only if you knew how to look deep within it. She would be stone, strong and solid and enduring. She would be stone, anchored firmly to the bones of the world.

  “We begin,” Urien said. “Light the candles of invocation.”

  I am stone, Jael thought firmly. She could not move her head, but that was all right; stone did not need to move. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the movement in the ball of crystal, hear the chanting as Ankaras began his own ritual of summoning. Her heart leaped as she saw Tanis assisting him, but she quickly turned her eyes away from the globe. She might destroy the scrying spell and cause Urien’s ritual to end at the wrong time, but that was no assurance that he wouldn’t succeed anyway.

  Urien had begun to chant. One of the priests approached with a bowl and a brush and painted something on the palms of Jael’s hands and the soles of her feet in an ink that smelled suspiciously like blood.

  “Light the candles of summoning,” Urien said from somewhere near Jael’s feet.

  Jael realized that the scrying ball had only been necessary, actually, to time the beginning of Urien’s ritual. As she had in the hiding place in the main temple hall, she could feel the power of the Grand Summoning gathering even here. A similar power was gathering in this hidden temple, slowly eclipsing the awareness of magic from above, and Jael’s heart pounded as she tried to focus her concentration on Urien’s spell, listen to each word, to feel the magical energies he was calling to him. She ached with frustration because she could not see him.

  Something was beginning to disturb the air over Jael, as if a slight breeze blew there. A priest stepped to the head of the altar and turned Jael’s face to the other side, and now she was staring directly into the crystal. Ankaras was standing before the altar, his arms raised as he began the final chant of the summoning, but the image was dim and vague.

  Time to try.

  Jael stared as intently as she could into the crystal, trying to feel the energy of Ankaras’s spell, trying to focus more clearly on him. If she could yank a summoning off course once before, she could do it again. Gods, if only there was more light, if only she could see him more clearly! This time she’d yank it so far off course that—

  The scrying globe flared with light, then went black. Urien’s chant faltered for only a moment, then continued, and Jael could have screamed with despair as the priest quietly turned her head back upright. Now the disturbance above her was more visible, like a cloud of oily smoke, just as she’d seen at the Lesser Summoning, but concentrate as she might, Urien’s ritual was proceeding smoothly, the cloud growing more solid. Now she could see something like features in one part of the cloud.

  Jael tried to ignore the forming image and focus only on Urien’s words, on the ticklish awareness of magic inside her. Gods, why was it that she could ruin every spell when she didn’t try, and couldn’t send one spell awry when she tried?

  Because maybe I’m trying the wrong way.

  She’d never deliberately tried to cause a spell to fail until she’d gone to the cellars with her mother, and then she’d been too queasy to do anything but touch the corpses and hope it would work. Even in Nubric’s workroom, she’d hoped that his spells would somehow succeed, that he would find some clue toward solving this problem of hers.

  All right, then.

  I’m stone, Jael thought again. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to speak. I want to lie here perfectly still, like stone, and this spell Urien’s cast over me feels warm and nice, like a blanket against the cold. I like it.

  Nothing.

  “Light the candles of admission,” Urien commanded.

  How nice it feels, like floating in the bathing pool, Jael thought firmly. Soothing, relaxing, making me feel safe and warm and—

  Then the warmth was gone. Jael moved her fingers once experimentally, and a shock of joy ran through her. It was all she could do to keep herself from leaping off the altar and shouting triumphantly.

  No sense in that. I couldn ‘t get far enough away, not with the acolytes guarding the way out. Jael forced herself to lie still. The image above her was almost complete now, and she could see a face clearly, beautiful and terrible, and eyes, eyes that drew and yet repelled, eyes that tugged at her soul, made her want to give herself—

  “The door is open, Lord,” Urien said triumphantly. “Pass through and be whole.”

  All right, Jael thought grimly, staring into those eyes, letting them draw her. If you want me, Eiloth, I’m all yours. Body, mind, and soul—and especially soul.

  The figure above her reached for her, and quickly curling to gather her legs under her, Jael leaped as high as she could to meet it. For a moment her fingers clasped something, something not quite as solid as flesh—

  —then an unearthly scream shook the world, and another, and another, and Jael felt her hands now grasping nothing but smoke. She fell, and this time stone was not her friend; she crashed awkwardly, striking the edge of the altar with her shoulder, and lay where she landed, all the breath driven out of her lungs and her head spinning. One of the oil lamps crashed over, and there was another terrible scream. A priest in a burning robe ran past.

  Jael lifted her head and her vision cleared. Urien had fallen to his knees only a few feet away, his head and shoulders enveloped in the same oily smoke Jael had seen earlier. His body was shaking violently, his scream fading. One priest lay dead on the floor beside him. Jael could not see the other priest, but from the dark area beyond the lamps she could hear the gruesome, wet sounds of something feeding.

  Jael forced herself to her knees, glancing frantically around to see where the priest had laid her belongings. There! Using the altar to pull herself to her feet, Jael stumbled over, picking up her sword and sliding it out of its scabbard. She had to use the altar to steady herself as she walked back.

  Urien’s screams had faded to a whisper now. The oily cloud was gone, but Urien’s features were changing, melting like the wax of a candle, re-forming slowly. His eyes snapped open.

  Jael hurriedly looked away from those eyes and raised the sword.

  Just a practice pole, she thought, and struck. There was a brief resistance; then her sword was free. Hot liquid spattered her legs, and Urien’s head thumped wetly to the floor, the melting features becoming still.

  Jael felt her gorge rising, but then she remembered—there were still the acolytes. She turned as quickly as her dizzy head would allow, but the acolytes were gone, whether they had dissolved into the air or merely fled up the stairs.

  That left only the demon, and Jael, still shaking, had no illusions that she would survive a second encounter with it. Listening to make certain that the ugly feeding sounds still continued, Jael quickly retrieved the rest of her possessions and hurried toward the stairs. She’d just have to retreat back through the temple, block the trapdoor so the demon couldn’t get out, and send some of the City Guard to finish here.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, rapidly approaching. Jael quickly flattened herself against the wall, sword ready, only to slump against the stone in relief as Tanis emerged, followed closely by Donya, Argent, and the twins, all in full regalia.

  “There you are!” Donya said angrily, seizing Jael’s shoulders. Her anger evaporated instantly as she saw the blood spattering Jael’s robe and the dripping blade in Jael’s hand. “Are you hurt? What’s—” She stared over Jael’s shoulder and her eyes went wide; before Jael could react, Donya wrenched the sword from her fingers and threw J
ael behind her. Tanis caught Jael before she could knock everyone off their feet.

  The demon had obviously finished with the priest. Spattered with gore, it squatted just outside of sword range, its eyes darting from one to the other as if contemplating which might make the choicest morsel.

  “All of you, back up the stairs,” Donya said, her voice steady. “Markus, Mera, you guard those robed men we caught and send the guards back down, and send for a mage who can perform a banishment. Argent, you guard the trapdoor and be ready to close it if anything tries to come up that isn’t me. Jael, you and—whatever your name is—”

  “Uh-uh,” Jael said, swallowing heavily but not moving. She drew her dagger. “I’m staying with you.”

  Tanis glanced disgustedly down at his ceremonial robes, looked quickly around, and pulled one of the torches from its sconce.

  “Then I’m staying, too,” he said, his voice shaking.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Donya snapped, striking at the demon as it stepped forward. The demon batted at the sword, but retreated a pace. “You can’t kill a demon with ordinary weapons.”

  “Then what are you doing with my sword?” Jael panted, wondering if the dagger was too light for a throw. With her skill, she’d probably miss anyway.

  The demon darted forward again, and this time Donya struck true; the sword buried itself halfway in the demon’s gut and then pulled free. A little bluish ichor trickled out and the demon roared with anger, retreating a few steps, but it seemed otherwise unharmed.

  “Keeping it back until we can get a mage down here,” Donya replied, advancing and forcing the creature back a little farther. “Which I could do much more effectively, Jaellyn, if you’d do as you were told and leave.”

  “What about fire?” Tanis suggested, swinging the torch feebly in the direction of the demon.

  The demon roared and leaped forward, swatting at the torch and Tanis with all four arms. Tanis screamed and went flying backward, blood flowing freely from five deep gashes in his shoulder. Without thinking, Jael struck, burying the dagger to the hilt in the creature’s belly as she leaped away. At the same time, Donya wheeled and brought the sword flashing down, and the demon roared with rage as its severed arm dropped to the stone floor, claws still flexing.