Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01]

by The Mask of Tamrel (epub)

  “Stubborn children! How is it that such potent creatures have come beneath my sway, yet resist me so completely? I am your chosen tutor, and Jacobson my chosen form!” Tamrel spoke with uncharacteristic heat, his words sharp as whip-cracks. “I know that coincidence is illusion, even in this fallen world. We have been brought together by the tides of fate, borne here for the purpose of remaking the world in its true image. Any other conclusion is foolhardy. I stand ready to do my part, but my students, my masters, refuse me, all on account of the body I chose and a few toppled buildings. Fah!” The bard combed nervous hands through Jacobson’s tangled hair, his eyes straying from Kelrob to Nuir to the harp lying in twisted impotence on the floor. “Find me another instrument,” he demanded, thrusting out a hand. “Let the quest continue, for it is the only means I see of freely winning your trust.”

  As he spoke the latch on the sealed door rattled, twisted, groaned. The companions looked up the sweep of steps to the conservatory’s spell-sealed entrance, the key still glowing in place at the door’s heart.

  “They’ve found us,” Nuir said.

  The latch rattled with increasing urgency, then the door began to shudder, a body or bodies clearly being hurled against it. “Open this door!” came a gruff, commanding voice, muffled by wood and spell. “In the name of Lord Azumana I command you, Nuir shalqi!”

  Nuir’s black eyes narrowed. “That is Dalti Thalit,” she said. “Father must have dispatched every member of the household, no matter how august, to search for me. We need to work fast; as clanhead, Dalti has a key like mine. It will take him a few minutes to break down the seal, but no more.”

  Kelrob swore under his breath, kicking at the edge of an ivory dais. A uliean sound-bladder fell from the wobbling stand to deflate noisily at his feet. “So we run,” he said, with a wrenching glance at Jacobson.

  “Yes,” Nuir said. She looked around the conservatory, her eyes clouded with defeat. “I see no good in continuing our pursuits here anyways.”

  The hammering on the door subsided, replaced with an ominous silence. Kelrob was sure he could hear a man’s voice muttering faint words of command. He bowed his head, then looked sidelong at Tamrel. “We need Jacobson’s help,” he said.

  The bard bowed deeply, Jacobson’s body warping until the mask’s forehead tapped against the chalcedony floor. “I must confess I enjoy a somewhat leisurely relation to this quest,” he said as he straightened. “Very well. You may have your precious man to carry your burdens and defend you with his ready blade. I shall recline, and savor the unfolding of events.” With a final smile the mask went blank, the glowing cerulean of Tamrel’s eyes fading, leaving Jacobson staring out from behind the almond-shaped slits. His steel-blue eyes blinked, and he slouched forward, shaking his head as if to clear it from a dizzy spell.

  “The demon left me cleanly that time,” Jacobson said when he found his voice. “He’s been memorizing me, exploring the furthest branches and deepest pits of my brain, savoring my memories like a conqueror bathing in gold.” The big man spat, then straightened, his right hand falling to clutch at the hilt of Andrych. “But if that means I no longer pitch insensate to the floor the moment he releases me, I suppose I should thank him. How long before that door comes down?”

  Dalti’s voice had risen in volume, declaiming the same words over and over again. The door began to glow a dull red, like heated iron, the key burning brightly against the smoldering wood. There was a shudder of distant explosions, causing the instruments to totter on their daises.

  “Not long,” Nuir said despairingly.

  “All right. Nuir, we’ll need you at the secret entrance, ready to open it when I go for the key. Do I need any super-secret words to keep my hand from burning off?”

  Nuir shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t think so. I have never done this before, but breaking the seal shouldn’t require a keyword.”

  Jacobson nodded. “Somewhat reassuring at least. Lad, you stick close to Nuir. When she opens the way you both go through. I’ll grab the key and run after. If I’m overcome, find another member of the household with a key and get out of this city. If I die Tamrel is freed, with no oaths to bind him.”

  Kelrob froze in mid-agreement, his brows drawing together. “I’ll pull the key from the door,” he said.

  Jacobson leveled a hard glare at him. “Absolutely not. You’re to get clear and free.”

  “My life is less valuable than yours.”

  “A toad’s pox on that! If you die the deal is broken just as cleanly. If anything Nuir should go for the damn thing.”

  Kelrob closed his eyes, the black spots gathering anew. “Nuir needs to open the way. She has also taken up our quest; if I die the agreement won’t be broken.”

  Nuir nodded, her hand curling into a fist which she pressed over her heart. “I never sought to be a slayer of demons,” she said, “but I accept my role with a horrible joy.”

  Jacobson drew himself up, his blue eyes bright with fear behind the mask. “Lad, I’ll not let you do this. What if that key fries off your arm?”

  “Your concern is noted, but we don’t have time to discuss every grim possibility. If they catch me I may be slain, but they might also simply detain me. If you die, Tamrel is freed to take another host. I will pull the key from the door. If something happens, you two will escape together.”

  Jacobson looked from the door, glowing with an increasingly ruddy light, to the hidden entrance at the conservatory’s opposite end. “It’s not too bad a sprint,” he said in a grudging voice. “Just don’t trip over your robes.”

  Kelrob smiled. Turning, he scaled the shallow flight of steps, breaking into a sweat as he neared the smoldering door. Vaguely he wondered if he should simply throw it wide and surrender himself, trusting that the highly-conditioned House-guards were in command of their mercies and not frothing at the mouth. This appealed to him little, and he looked across the conservatory’s egg-shaped circumference to where Jacobson and Nuir stood at the ready. Kelrob nodded to them, then turned to the door and edged closer. The chanting had risen to a fever pitch, inciting the wood to burn; Kelrob recognized the keyword as a Taskmaster favorite. He flexed his already-burned right hand, then decided to retrieve the key with his left. If he lost it at least he would still be able to write.

  The door gave off a strong, weltering heat, the panels peeling and shedding ashen flakes. Kelrob edged close, drawing his robes close about him, then darted in to grab the key. His hands wrapped around its smooth shaft, cool to the touch, though cinders and running lacquer bit at him. With a grunt of effort Kelrob wrenched the key loose, the tips of his hair smoldering as he staggered back, the prize clutched in his still-intact hand.

  Now. Run.

  Kelrob turned on his heels just as the door blasted inward, shards of burning wood raking against his cheek. He staggered down the steps as the clank of armor and the cry of furious voices flooded the acoustically perfect conservatory. “They have the lady Nuir! She is their captive! Kill them!” A black arrow hissed over his left shoulder, discordantly burying itself in the body of a harpsichord. Kelrob ducked his head, lost his footing, and tumbled down the remaining steps. He slid to a stop in the middle of the chalcedony oval, his back impacting harshly with one of the high-backed chairs. Kelrob groaned, then struggled to his feet, the act unwittingly sparing him from a second arrow. As he shoved aside the chairs and made for the chamber’s opposite incline, he could hear armored bodies rushing up behind him, accompanied by the hungry wailing of enchanted swords. He reached the first carpeted tier, scaled it, lurched around several ivory pedestals, and jumped over the second, cursing the conservatory’s highly unorthodox aesthetics. Several priceless instruments wobbled and crashed to the floor as he made the second tier, then the third; a sword whistled close enough to slice through the hem of his robes, and Kelrob whirled to face his pursuers, three men in hulking suits of combat armor emblazon
ed with the ascending falcon of House Azumana. One was Dalti Thalit, and the others were his sons, Rakisha and (Kelrob struggled to remember the older sibling’s name) Akalt. Their eyes were feverish behind their helms, driven to paranoiac battle-lust by the imminent fall of House Azumana and the vanishing of their charge. They edged towards Kelrob through the display of instruments, moving with exquisite care, their need to protect the wealth of their lord warring with their need to kill. Conditioning against conditioning.

  Kelrob grinned insanely. Lashing out with his arms, he toppled several of the ivory pedestals, raining instruments down on his meticulous pursuers. The three House-guards staggered back and stared dumbly at the destruction, Akalt even bowing to retrieve a fallen fugelhorn. Kelrob jumped up another tier and hurled more instruments, a drum fashioned from a great hollowed ruby shattering against the tier’s lip. The House-guards wavered, their feverish eyes leaping from the destruction to its cause. Conditionings melded, and Dalti Thalit raised his black-bladed broadsword and charged forward, heedless of the destruction he caused. “To me, my sons!” he cried as he scrambled over the edge of the tier and raised his famished sword, intent on cleaving Kelrob’s skull.

  A sword lashed out from behind Kelrob, whining as it sliced across the patriarch’s exposed gorget. Dalti Thalit staggered back and clutched at his throat, where the protective metal had been rent. His sword lowered, and Jacobson hurtled from the tier above, Andrych cleaving into the patriarch’s spell-strengthened helm. Magic warred against magic, but Andrych’s hunger was great, and the helm parted with a squeal of tearing metal. The top of the patriarch’s head was severed, and he fell to his knees, a look of transcendent bliss passing over his face as his eyes went dark. “I die in the service of my lord,” he mouthed, then collapsed forward, fragments of brain spilling from his sundered cranium.

  Kelrob fought back a wave of nausea. Rakisha and Akalt were gaining the tier, their cries of bloodlust turning to keens of fury as they saw their sire lying slain. Jacobson stood beside Kelrob and couched his blade, Andrych vibrating softly as it lapped up the blood of its first kill. “You were late,” he said, with a glance at Kelrob.

  Kelrob shook his head. “You should have let me go.”

  “Never.”

  The two House-guards surged over the body of their patriarch, Rakisha wielding a thin longsword with a wickedly serrated edge, Akalt bearing a pair of leaf-bladed shortswords, a bow and quiver slung over his back. For the first time Kelrob remembered the shortsword slung at his hip; he brought it to bear just in time to effect a clumsy deflection of Rakisha’s longsword. The friendly youth, who had once guided Kelrob through the manse’s many wonders and spent long hours in companionship with him, was red-eyed and foaming. “Traitor!” he screamed as the serrated edge of his sword bit into Kelrob’s conventional blade, sending a jarring pain up the mage’s right arm. The shortsword fell from Kelrob’s nerveless fingers, and he fell back as Jacobson rushed the pair, bellowing a war cry enhanced by the ghoulish sight of the mask. Rakisha and Akalt fell back, but recovered quickly, the shortsword-wielding brother sheathing his blades and pulling the bow over his shoulder. Drawing a black arrow, he set it to the bowstring and drew back, leveling the missile at Jacobson’s throat.

  Kelrob acted without thinking. Reaching into a pocket of his robes, he drew out a small packet of flashpowder. This he threw at the archer’s feet; it exploded with a loud snap!, causing Akalt to stagger and his arrow to fire upwards, where it clattered against the conservatory’s apex. Jacobson, seemingly, had expected the trick, and rushing forward he sliced through the archer’s wrist, Andrych pulsing with a sickly green light. The House-guard screamed, but did not flag, his remaining hand drawing one of the leaf-bladed shortswords and launching it at Jacobson’s chest. The throw was weak, but the blade bit nonetheless, digging into the flesh below Jacobson’s left knee. The big man grunted with pain, and staggering forward he struck at the guard’s neck with Andrych. The sword, energized by bloodletting, cut easily through the magic-hardened steel of Akalt’s gorget, and he staggered back with a choking gurgle, blood spilling from his mouth. Jacobson fell into his victim, the sword still protruding from his knee. Kelrob watched helplessly as Rakisha advanced on him, longsword poised to strike, his voice raised in a tortured wordless cry.

  “Rakisha Thalit! Hear my words! You will cease your attack at once!”

  The sword halted in mid-strike, wavered, and fell to the House-guard’s side. Rakisha pushed back the visor on his plumed helmet and turned his eyes to the topmost tier, where Nuir Azumana stood in haughty splendor, veil thrown back and black eyes burning. She frowned at him, and said, “Why do you attack these men?”

  Rakisha trembled where he stood, then fell to one knee. “I fight in your defense, my lady,” he said in a cracked voice, a boy’s voice. His eyes, looking up at Nuir, were flooded with conflicting emotions, conditioned obedience at war with personal grief.

  Nuir pointed grandly towards the exit, golden bracelets jangling on her arm. “Leave here,” she commanded. “Go and tell my father that I am safe, that I am escaping the city with Kelrob and his hired man. Go tell him now.”

  Jacobson recovered his balance, pushing aside the dead body of Akalt Thalit and tearing the leaf-blade from his leg. The wound gushed fresh blood, refusing to heal; Kelrob thought he saw a faint smirk on the mask’s lips, and knew Tamrel was purposefully withholding his aid. Jacobson grunted and drew Andrych up into a striking position, but made no move to slay Rakisha, who knelt in conflicted obeisance before the daughter of his sworn lord.

  Nuir gestured again. “Go and obey, scion of Thalit. You are now the representative of your clan.”

  The young man’s head bowed, tears streaming from beneath the helm. “My father...” he said in a choking voice. “My brother...”

  “Your father and brother died because they attempted to kill my betrothed. You deserve the same sentence, but I am choosing to spare you. Now go to my father and deliver my message!”

  Rakisha dropped his sword, his hands clenching into fists. He began to strike repeatedly at the floor, the conservatory’s perfect acoustics capturing and amplifying the sound of cracking bone. “I am sworn to serve my lord,” he said, froth beginning to form at the corners of his mouth. “I serve no will save that of Lord Azumana.”

  “I am his daughter. You serve him by serving me.”

  Rakisha lips curled into a sneer. “You are the property of my lord. I must defend his property.” His armor-cumbered body twitched as he spoke, then suddenly he was on his feet, mangled fingers snatching up the serrated blade. He rushed at Jacobson, who swore and held up Andrych, ready to parry the imminent attack. But Rakisha made no attempt to strike. Instead, with a wild sobbing laugh, he hurled himself onto the extended point of Andrych. The sword burned with a gangrenous light, and the young House-guard died gibbering as his body was drained of blood. After a few moments the blaze dimmed to a faint, satiated glow, and Jacobson stared at the boy’s desiccated corpse, still impaled and dangling. “Just like an Ak,” he said in a pain wracked-whisper. Quickly he lowered the youth’s body to the floor, withdrew Andrych, and sheathed it. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said to Kelrob, voice emerging dead and hollow from behind the mask.

  Kelrob nodded, tore his eyes away from Rakisha’s corpse to help Jacobson scale the first tier. The big man’s leg was still bleeding, and he could put little weight on it, laying much of his crushing bulk on Kelrob’s slim shoulders. Nuir watched from above, speechless, her eyes fixed on the three dead members of her household. She had known all of them as names, but not as people.

  A sharp noise cracked in the perfect acoustics of the conservatory, causing Kelrob to falter and clap his hands over his ears. A bullet collided with the lip of the tier, blasting away a patch of carpeting and chipping the stone beneath. Fragments of rock cut across Kelrob’s face, and he clutched at the wound as Jacobson groaned and slid dow
n to a sitting position, his bleeding leg crumbling beneath him.

  “Father!” It was Nuir’s voice, spoken from above but carried impeccably to Kelrob’s ear. Head still ringing from the blasting sound, he turned and stared towards the broken doorway. There stood Lord Azumana, clad not in the ostentatious fineries he had worn to dinner, but dressed in far more practical black hose and jerkin, a thinly-hammered steel breastplate secured over his chest. He wore a slender, doubtlessly enchanted sword at his side, and his hair was in disarray, smudges of hastily-removed makeup marking his cheeks. At his left and right stood Kisha and Bergir, his utterly loyal heralds, each wearing full hawk-emblazoned House armor, their bodies festooned with weaponry. Kisha had a pistol drawn and leveled, the smoking barrel attesting to the source of the projectile. With a quick motion she reloaded the weapon and pointed it straight at Jacobson, her mouth twisting into a crooked leer. Bergir echoed her grin, and drawing a duplicate pistol aimed it at Kelrob, who immediately raised his hands into the air. Foam was visibly streaming from the heralds’ mouths, and their eyes burned with sickly yellow servitude as Lord Azumana swept down the steps and inspected the bodies of his slain men, his frame trembling as he knelt beside Dalti Thalit’s corpse. “My most loyal servant,” he said; then, rising with a snarl, he struck Kelrob across the face, his beringed fingers biting deep. The mage staggered and fell against the edge of the tier, his head striking the carpeted lip. Dizzy blotches of black swarmed over Kelrob’s vision, and he shut his eyes and remained motionless, listening to the rustle of armor as the heralds joined their lord in inspecting the bodies.

  “Father, what are you doing?” Nuir rushed down the successive tiers, knocking over several instruments in her haste. She came to stand between Azumana and Kelrob, black eyes blazing and veil hanging askew. “We have no time for this. We must escape!”