by David Hair
He had to admit that the gnosis-work was exhilarating, though. He was making breakthroughs with every session. All the old fears that had held him back now had no sway: he could summon spirits or use necromancy if he chose, without that mind-numbing fear that had plagued his Arcanum years. His aptitude for each Study was constantly increasing.
He felt sorry that Ramita wasn’t being allowed the time to do the same, but she was tied up in the negotiations with Hanook and the mughal. She was being pulled away from him, back into the world of courts and harems, and that was the counter-balance to his excitement over the gnosis. He was losing her, and there was nothing he could do. It left him feeling sick with longing.
At least the Scytale work was paying off: his hand-drawn chart of all the runes and the ingredients they represented was completed, the last of the herbs and chemicals having fallen into place, but it was now clear that these were just additives, to some master ingredient, and he could find no clue in the Scytale for the nature of that base compound. He had learned so much, only to find out that there was more to find out – but he was now convinced that knowledge must be out there, and his determination to learn the remaining secrets was undimmed.
He still couldn’t decide if he should reveal the Scytale to Hanook: the vizier’s determination to see Ramita wed to the mughal was undermining his faith in him, Antonin Meiros’ grandson or not. He appeared to have the mughal’s interests far more in mind than Ramita’s, or her sons.
He missed the time when it had just been him and Ramita. The time they had spent together was beginning to feel increasingly idyllic; now that he looked back on it from a comfortable manor in the city all the cold and hunger and fear seemed somewhat romantic. Those miserably uncomfortable nights pressed back to back beneath a blanket in the tiny windskiff, trying to sleep while petrified by every night noise: now that felt like the stuff of ballads. He badly wanted to talk to her, but he wasn’t at all sure what he wanted to say. In the meantime, all manner of possible conversations played out in his imagination:
‘Perhaps it is best if I just leave?’ She bursts into tears and begs me not to go. We never see each other again. She’s fine, I die of loneliness.
‘I pledge myself to your service as your bodyguard.’ She accepts my service, I save her life from assassins and we have a passionate affair, until we’re executed together when discovered by the vengeful mughal.
‘Come away with me, and we’ll find your family.’ She refuses, and I go off alone. I’m captured by Inquisitors and tortured to death.
‘I’m going back to the monastery to become a Zain monk.’ I die alone and miserable in a mountain retreat, the only white man for a thousand miles.
Happy endings were rare in his daydreams.
These depressing thoughts were filling in his head as he headed for his rooms. Ramita was being fitted for a dress suitable for a banquet with the mughal, but he could hear the distant squeals of the twins, and the footsteps of servants echoing along the marble corridors. He reached the landing for the top floor, where the stair carried on upwards to a roof garden. He was just wondering whether he should get some fresh air up there …
… the door exploded, and the concussion staggered him backwards, dazed and terrified. He grabbed the balustrade and gaped upward as billowing smoke poured down the stairs toward him.
For a moment there was silence, then someone on the roof bellowed in agony and someone else shouted – words he couldn’t make out through the ringing in his ears – and a cacophony of beast noises echoed down the stairs.
A year ago, he might have frozen, but by the time the first shapes poured out of the smoke he was mentally broadcasting warnings as he ran towards his room.
The auras of the attackers were like tentacled blobs: the same auras as those who had attacked the Isle of Glass: Souldrinkers!
*
Ramita’s eyes went wide and she spun around, ignoring the protests of the three tailors. ‘Hanook? What is it?’ Then inchoate warnings filled the aether: Alaron’s mental voice, shouting for her to run.
The vizier’s face was ashen, but he was already on his feet. ‘An attack,’ he said instantly, then shouted, ‘Dareem!’ both aloud and with his mind.
The animal sounds were muffled by the carpets and tapestries covering the marble floors and walls, but to Ramita they sounded horribly close, and horribly familiar; she knew at once who it was. Huriya. White light kindled in her hands, fuelled by fury and fear, and the tailors backed away from her in confusion and then terror at this visible manifestation of the forbidden gnosis.
‘My children!’ She leaped from the low table, the heavy weight of the sari jingling. She ignored the tailors squawking in protest, her mind fixed only on Nasatya and Dasra as she stormed towards the door.
‘Lady Meiros!’ Hanook called, striding after her, and the tailors stared: even to the naked eye he was enmeshed in faint skeins of light, and the sapphire he always wore on a chain at his throat was glowing. Two of them dropped to their knees and wailed prayers, Jindas-sahib shrieked ‘Rakas! Rakas!’, then they all ran for their lives.
Ramita hurried towards the nursery, ignoring Hanook shouting after her: nothing else mattered but getting to her boys. But between her and her children was the main stairwell, right ahead of her, and smoke was filling the shaft.
Darikha-ji be with me! she prayed as she ran down the corridor.
*
Malevorn Andevarion descended the stairs slowly, feeling horribly exposed and mortal without any gnostic shielding. Hessaz leaped past him, an arrow nocked and her eyes blazing, vanishing into the smoke followed by a jostling pack of jackals and wolves, snapping at each other in their eagerness to reach the enemy.
Blue light stabbed out of the glowing air from the right and one of the jackals was illuminated bright enough to see its skull, then it thudded onto its side, stunned or dead.
Mage-bolt! Kore’s Balls! If one hits me …
Hessaz flattened herself against the balustrade and kindled light on her arrow before spinning and firing into the smoke. Malevorn heard a faint roar as it exploded, but no sound of pain. The Lokistani woman cursed and readied another arrow as Malevorn edged up behind her and pressed himself into cover. Around him, the shifters yowled and poured towards the source of the mage-bolt, then another flurry struck the nearest Dokken and a wall of flames ignited, trapping the next wave. They were all shielding now, but some less than effectively, for he heard semi-human screams as the front rank were flung backwards out of the smoke, their bodies dead and burned black.
The remaining shifters howled in fury.
‘Release me!’ Malevorn demanded of Huriya. ‘I can kill him for you!’
‘Move, Inquisitor.’ She flung him aside like a discarded toy as light flashed past him and shattered on her shields. She shouted in Keshi and the pack charged forward again, and this time those with Fire-gnosis breeched the flame-barrier. Huriya blasted air along the corridor, dissipating the smoke enough to see that there was just one man there – but he dodged through a side door as Huriya released mage-fire. A shifter in bear shape ran forward and began to batter the door down, while the jackals yowled and ran on, seeking easier prey.
Malevorn looked left, where the corridors continued deeper into the interior, as a dark shape appeared, tearing along the corridor towards him with a gaggle of beasts on his tail. He raised a hand to blast the newcomer then dropped it, snarling, ‘Damn this!’ But in that instant, the runner reached a lamp which illuminated his face.
Alaron Mercer.
Ignoring Huriya, Malevorn sprinted towards his old foe.
The Scytale must be here!
*
Alaron ran down the corridor towards his rooms and the Scytale. Ramita was still on the floor below, and probably Hanook too. He thought he was the only one on the top floor, and he had a pack of jackals on his tail. He skidded around a corner as a servant put his head out of a door, his dark face wide-eyed with fear. ‘Sahib?’ the man called
, then the jackals swarmed around the corner behind Alaron and he slammed the door shut again.
Twisting as he ran, Alaron fired a mage-bolt behind him and caught the lead jackal. Energy crackled around its shielding, making it skid on the slippery marble and giving Alaron a moment to kindle Fire-gnosis at the end of one ghost-arm, and hurl a ball of flame behind him. It gulfed the next pair, throwing them backwards, yelping and ablaze. He punched another mage-bolt into the first jackal and this time it burst through the shields and the beast rolled over, stunned.
It was the first time he’d used his new skills in real combat, but that was lost on him in the urgency of the moment. He needed to protect the Scytale and his notes, and he needed to be downstairs. Ramita will get to the twins and I’ll join her after this, he promised himself, sprinting towards his room. He glimpsed movement ahead of him on the main stairs: more bestial shapes, several of them bipedal, and among them a bearded man in rough chainmail. They all saw him, roared wordlessly and charged in his direction, the beasts at the front, the Keshi following.
He’d had a thought about what to do if they encountered shapechanging Dokken again … morphic-gnosis was an Earth and Hermetic combination: its opposite on the gnostic spectrum was Air and Theurgy: illusion. He hurled illusory mage-bolts at the heads of the pair of Dokken in front of the bearded Keshi; they went straight through their shields unchecked and frazzled their brains. Both dropped, and the Keshi ducked for cover.
That bought him the time to reach his door and dart inside, reaching ahead with the gnosis and cancelling the wards over the Scytale even as he spun and slammed the door shut with telekinesis, right in the face of the foremost Dokken, a shaggy bipedal man with a face like a wolverine. Wards! He kindled already primed shields on the doorframe and backed away. Claws raked the wood, but the door held.
Without a backwards look he engaged Earth-gnosis and wrenched up the marble tiles while he grabbed his pack and stuffed his notes and the Scytale case inside. He shouldered it whilst he gestured towards his sheathed sword, leaning against the wall. It flew to his waist and belted itself; he gestured again, and his Zain staff flew to his hands. Part of him was marvelling that he could keep so many threads of the gnosis active, but the greater part was already planning the next move: sixteen motes of gnostic light were now alight around his aura: sixteen ways to fight.
Something tore at the window shutters and a fist punched through the bars, smashing the glass. He glimpsed red glowing eyes outside. More blows struck the door to the room and his wards began to go turn from blue to purple as the force against them built.
I’ve got half a minute, and I’m trapped – or am I?
He looked down at the floor and gathered his Earth-gnosis.
*
Huriya Makani was wrong-footed by Malevorn’s sudden lunge to the left and she lost sight of him. His absence left her feeling naked and vulnerable, without a man-shaped shield before her. She spat a curse and went to go after him, until a bellow from Wornu, who’d gone after the mage she’d confronted, transfixed her with indecision. She’d never been in a real fight before, and neither had Sabele. The Seeress had fought duels but never in battles, where an attack could manifest from any direction. With a flush of self-recognition, Huriya realised that she was actually afraid.
Cursing herself, she flooded her shields with power and began to edge down the stairs, listening with all her senses for any sign that something was about to be launched at her. Her brood shrieked for her to help them, but her thudding heart and trembling legs would not let her go faster than a limp.
‘Seeress! Here!’ Hessaz shouted. ‘There’s a magus!’
I know, bitch! Huriya reluctantly went that way, although she could see that there were bodies strewn along the corridor – and all of them her Dokken. A quick check showed most were just stunned, but at least three were dead and a storm of light was stabbing through a broken door like a celestial swordsman at bay. She saw Wornu caught in the midst of it: his shields were being shredded by skilful blasts and as he staggered aside, she saw his chest was a mess of criss-crossed burns and the left of his face was seared like roasted meat. His eyeball was gone. He was trying to use sheer power to storm forward, but his more skilled opponent was cutting him to pieces.
‘Seeress, help us!’ Hessaz was cowering the shadows, her arrows gone and her thigh charred. ‘He’s too good.’
‘There’s just one?’
Hessaz scowled bitterly. ‘Yes.’ She admitted, whimpering over her burned leg.
Something had to be done: Wornu was barely defending himself. Huriya gathered kinetic energy and pulled him from the fray, sending him sliding behind her down the blood-slick marble of the corridor.
One man. I can face one. Sabele has experience of duelling … Though surrendering too much control to her alter-ego was as frightening as facing the mage himself, she pulled the old Seeress to the forefront of her mind and stepped into the line of fire.
A blast of mage-fire flashed against her shields, making her cry aloud, but they held. She peered at her foe and her Sabele-memories identified his facial stamp as being kin to Vizier Hanook. She immediately realised the implication: the Vizier of Lakh is a mage. Then a barrage of attacks drove everything but survival from her mind.
The vizier’s son was clad in a nightgown and stood in the midst of a lounge filled with stuffed birds and bats, clutching a green periapt and a rod of carved ivory. His calm face shone with exertion.
Mage-bolts stabbed her shields, but the real battle was unseen. He was primarily a sorcerer, and his strongest affinity was mesmerism; he must have been ripping into Wornu’s mind even as he fired his mage-bolts. Sensations of fear and pain enclosed her too, as if she’d fallen into venomous thorns, and the psychic barbs started ripping at her composure as her shields wavered. A blast of mage-fire struck her left knee and she shrieked as her skin blistered. She was almost lost in that instant, for her body was unused to real pain and her mind, never before invaded by another, began to yield before the man’s clinical attack.
Then Sabele reared up inside her, she who had dwelt at the margins of civilisation since the time of Corineus. She had been cornered by magi before and had fought like a cornered rat to survive then – and mesmerism was her own forte, her weapon of choice in combat. She recognised the mage’s techniques and after walling off the mind she shared with Huriya, she began to nullify them. For a second Sabele’s wizened visage filled Huriya’s head, but she slapped her back down and took over the shields the old Seeress had so flawlessly erected and started gathering in the strands of power she held.
Right, you …
Huriya went on the offensive.
She met the vizier’s son’s eyes and assaulted him with the same mesmerism he had employed against her. She had no finesse – and was too scared to open up to Sabele again, lest she couldn’t shut her down this time – so she fought her own way, screaming abuse and invective as she sought to flood his senses with waves of hurt, using raw power against technique.
It didn’t immediately work; the mage was an illusionist as well as a mesmerist and he fought with dogged skill. It seemed to her that her skin was boiling off her in red strips, her sight was flashing and throbbing, and every sense was overloaded. She could barely block his bolts, and every step was agony. Three of her jackals tried to aid her, but the first rolled over with its teeth bared in a rictus of agony and went limp and the other two soon backed away in terror, unable to intervene between the unseen forces.
But she had Ascendant strength and for all his skill, she was by far the stronger. ‘I’m coming for you,’ she screamed. ‘I’m going to rip your eyeballs out.’
He began backing away, then the ivory rod in his hand suddenly blazed to life as he changed tactics, going defensive against her mental attacks but launching something new.
On every side, the stuffed animals on his walls came to life, turning their heads and stretching their wings, then launching themselves at her. She slapped at
them with contempt, but to her utter amazement they manifested their own wards and started flapping in slow motion through her shielding, claws extended, eyes burning with unnatural intelligence. For the second time she lost her composure, and they almost reached her.
But again Sabele spoke in her mind. Wizardry, her dry mental voice croaked. You destroy them like … this.
Power flared inside her mind and as one the skulls of each of the birds and bats exploded and the twice-dead corpses rained to the floor as she staggered. She gained a momentary respite as he retreated, and now she could sense desperation in him. She staggered him with a pure kinetic blow, then followed up with another and another, shrieking in hatred and battering at him with inefficient but overwhelming force. She stormed closer, step by step, until she gestured and the ivory rod snapped. He blanched and tried to back away, his face suddenly fearful.
‘Yes, call your daddy. I want him too!’ She flung the vizier’s son backwards against the wall and pinned him there, helpless as his wards wavered and vanished. Blood smeared the cracked plaster behind his head and his eyes rolled backwards. She opened her hand and slapped with an avalanche of telekinetic-gnosis behind her, his head spun sideways as his neck broke and he sagged in her gnostic grip, his eyes emptying. She threw herself across the room, gripped his face and kissed him furiously, gulping in the smoky essence of the man and refilling the well of her gnosis.
Dareem … Son of Hanook. Born and raised in secret, in Hebusalim and in monasteries and palaces all over Ahmedhassa. A fussy and inflexible child taught humanity by a patient father, who revered his grandfather …
… Antonin Meiros.
Huriya felt Sabele inside her gasp in amazement and she felt much the same. What have we stumbled upon? But there was no time to dwell on this; she had also seen another face in the flood of memories that flowed past her as Dareem perished.
