The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  Vikal frowned, hunkering down in his chair to think that over. I’d take it.

  Ardith folded their hands on the table. “Destroying the gate is the only way you’re going to get out of a Conclave over this,” they said. “The Eldest themselves are calling one. No one will agree on what to do, of course, and it’ll all descend into war, like you described. Destroying it before the Conclave is a neat trick—like stuffing the last apple cake into your mouth and yelling ‘What are you going to do now?!’ I like it.” They lifted a cautionary finger, cynicism flattening the humor from their hazel eyes. “But I don’t know that the Eldest will like it.”

  “The Eldest aren’t here,” I said, my heart thundering against my breastbone at my temerity. Voreth’s breath hissed through his teeth.

  “I’m here.” Severin rose, with the graceful reluctance of the sun cresting the hills on the winter solstice. “And I don’t have to write to my brother to tell you that he won’t like it.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” I willed myself not to flush as I met his piercing dark eyes. “However, as Gloamingard does not lie within Alevar, he doesn’t get to decide.”

  “Any mapmaker can tell you that borders move,” Severin warned.

  “The same mapmaker would inform you that it takes time to redraw them,” I shot back. “We have no reason to hesitate in this.”

  “Do you not? What does the Lady of Owls say about this plan of yours?” He glanced pointedly around the room, as if expecting to see her.

  That was the biggest flaw in my plan; curse him for seizing on it. If my grandmother didn’t want us to destroy the gate, she could prevent us with as little effort as it would take me to swat a fly. I had to divert him, lest others in the room started thinking about all the people who might have the power to stop us: my grandmother, the Rookery’s superiors in Vaskandar and the Serene Empire, the Eldest, or even my Uncle Tarn if he got enough of my family behind him.

  “If she were here,” I said, “she’d ask why the Shrike Lord thinks he can meddle in her domain.”

  “Because he has a grievance to claim.” Severin’s voice went heavy as he said it. “You may have forgotten Exalted Lamiel, but he has not. If you cannot deliver her murderer as promised, he claims the Black Tower as compensation for her death.”

  “Out of the question,” I said flatly.

  Aurelio half rose from his seat, glaring at Severin. “You can’t just demand the gate in recompense for a death no one but you even believes was a murder. That’s absurd!”

  “More to the point,” Lady Celia said, leaning over the table and spearing it with a finger as if it were a conquered enemy, “you cannot treat this artifact as a bartering chip at all, because it’s a gate to the Hells.” She swept us all with a stony glare. “We can’t delay in dealing with this. Do you have any idea the panic this will cause in the Empire if word gets out to the general population? Even if it stays securely locked up and sealed away?” She shook her head. “You don’t, because I can’t begin to imagine it myself. We are a rational, secular people, but this strikes at the heart of everything we fear most. The Serene Empire is built on order. Do you recall what the Nine Demons are?”

  Ardith frowned, clearly searching their memory of the old stories. “Madness, Despair, and Nightmares… I remember those because we nicknamed three of my da’s old aunts after them.”

  “Disaster, Discord, and Death,” Vikal offered, his voice husky with portent. A chill settled in my bones at the stark, ominous grandeur of the names. This was what we trifled with unleashing.

  “Carnage,” Aurelio put in helpfully. “And I’m forgetting the last two.”

  “Corruption and Hunger,” Lady Celia finished. “They are chaos, plain and simple. Forces of destruction and ruin. Enemies of civilization, and of all humankind. Just nine of them were enough to plunge the world into centuries of darkness.” Her voice had dropped nearly to a whisper. Now she struck the table, loud enough to make me jump. “You can’t trade that. You can’t use that or control it. But people are damnable greedy fools, so that won’t stop them from trying. We must destroy the gate as soon as possible.”

  Severin’s mouth quirked as if Lady Celia’s implication that his brother was a greedy fool amused him, even as Voreth scowled. The urgency with which Celia emphasized moving quickly, however, made me suspect she might be more concerned about forces within her own government.

  “With all respect, Lady Celia, as your military-appointed adviser on magic, I feel we can’t move hastily on this,” Aurelio objected. “It’s too important a decision to rush.”

  “I agree with this Raverran,” Vikal said. “And I know my father would, as well. For four thousand years our family has guarded the Black Tower. You cannot cast aside so deep a tradition on a moment’s whim.”

  “Someone’s decided not to wait to act,” Ardith pointed out. “Given the rash of murders and all.”

  “Lady Celia is right. We can’t delay.” I turned to Foxglove. This was the part I wished I’d had more time to talk to him about. “How long before you have a working plan to destroy the gate?”

  I could see the desire to tell the envoys what they wanted to hear warring with realism in his face. “We’re in the process of designing an enchantment,” he said, choosing each word with care. “The difficult part is that any tampering with the gate has to circumvent its protections, which are formidable. We might have a working solution by as early as tomorrow evening.”

  Lady Celia looked relieved. “That’s not so long.”

  Severin’s brows drew together as if he was less than sanguine about Foxglove’s reply. “No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

  “Fine.” I tried to meet the gaze of everyone in the room in turn. I couldn’t forget that one of them had conspired to kill me; it put extra steel in my voice. “I ask you to hold off on any dramatic action until then.”

  For a moment, it looked like I might have at least that much consensus. But Severin let out a long, pained sigh.

  “I’m afraid that I have my instructions,” he said, “and much as I respect your stance against drama, I cannot oblige.”

  Pox. I had a suspicion where this was going. Voreth looked entirely too pleased all of a sudden. “Exalted Severin—”

  He raised his voice, letting it ring from the walls. “Be it known that the Shrike Lord can wait no longer. He has a true grievance, and he will see it paid.”

  Lady Celia frowned in confusion, exchanging glances with Aurelio. I knew what was coming, and I steeled myself, abdominal muscles tightening; there was no way to warn my gentler Raverran guests.

  Severin pushed back his sleeve and pulled a bone knife from his belt. Grimacing, he drew a shallow line of blood across the back of his upraised forearm. A slim thread of scarlet dribbled down from it as Lady Celia exclaimed in alarm.

  “On behalf of my brother the Shrike Lord,” he said, his voice rough at the edges, “I call for the Rite of Blood and Water.”

  Hells. There was no backing down now, no delays, no clever tricks or evasion. Within a day, I’d have to address his grievance one way or another—or throw it back in his face.

  I offered him the slightest bow I could manage from my seat, my ire rising further with each red bead that dripped from Severin’s arm. He met my gaze, but there was no defiance in his expression; if anything, he looked tired.

  “I hear your grievance.” I tried to keep my voice grave and formal, but it came out sharp-edged nonetheless. “And will see it answered tomorrow at dusk.”

  “What in the Graces’ names just happened?” Lady Celia asked through her teeth.

  Severin had swept out of the room, Voreth trailing behind him. Everyone else had immediately fallen into startled conversation; Lady Celia had set herself beside me at once, Aurelio following pale-faced and shaken.

  “He invoked the Rite of Blood and Water.” I rubbed my forehead as if I could scrub away this additional complication. “It’s a custom to force settlement of a grievance or dispute. Eve
ryone with a stake in the matter gets their say—all of us here will have a chance to speak—and at the end, we either bind ourselves to an agreement or the grievance is declared unresolved.”

  She frowned. “Why does resolving a dispute require dramatic public bleeding?”

  Because this is Vaskandar. “To represent that if the grievance can’t be resolved, there will be blood. Traditionally a duel, but when nations invoke the rite, it means war.”

  “Graces grant me patience.” Lady Celia shook her head in frustration. “After all we went through to sign that peace.”

  “I know,” I said, with feeling.

  “This had better not delay the destruction of the gate,” she warned, lowering her voice. “If certain political parties get the upper hand in the Council of Nine, they might take action to stop you.”

  Lovely. Yet another thing to worry about. “The Rookery is moving as fast as they can.”

  “I’ll talk to them.” She rose to corner Foxglove, leaving me with Aurelio.

  For an awkward moment, we just stared at each other, both too overwhelmed to speak. My painkillers were wearing off, and I wanted desperately to go lie down; the deep pools of shadow under his eyes suggested he needed rest nearly as badly as I did.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” he said at last, emotion roughening his voice. I shouldn’t be happy that he’d been worried, but a warm, comforting feeling bloomed in my belly anyway.

  I managed a smile. “Me too.”

  And I was all right, no matter how much it might feel otherwise. I was hurt, and everything I cared about teetered on the brink of a bottomless cliff, but we hadn’t tipped over the edge yet. We could still recover.

  Aurelio stared at my jess, then at the hands folded in his lap. “It’s been hard,” he said. “For you more than anyone, I know. I must confess I’m in a bit of a difficult place, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “I know what you mean.” Greatly daring, I reached out and touched the back of his hand, brief as a bird pecking at an uncertain seed. I was probably doing this wrong again. “Disaster is hanging over us like a mountain, and it feels like any tiny misstep will send it tumbling down on our heads.”

  “Yes.” The hand I’d touched curled into a fist. “I thought this would be easy—Grace of Mercy, I was just supposed to be here as a magical science adviser. Now there’s all this pressure on me, coming from Raverra.” He swallowed. “My mentor has such high expectations of me, as if he thinks I can somehow fix this whole situation with the gate all by myself.”

  “That’s the terrible thing, though.” I let out a shaky breath, not quite a laugh. “That’s exactly what we have to do.”

  “Lord Urso says we shouldn’t destroy the gate.” Aurelio’s voice went sad and wistful. “I hate being on opposite sides from you. We’re supposed to be partners.”

  Hells. I’d been so caught up in my duties as a Warden, and to my family and even the Rookery, that I hadn’t spent nearly enough time building my partnership with Aurelio. We might well be together for life; I owed him better.

  “We are partners, Aurelio. Even if we’re not always on the same side.” I held out my hand, the jess gleaming on my wrist.

  He hesitated, then clasped it briefly before letting go with a wan smile. “Thanks, Ryx.”

  “Now, forget what Lord Urso says,” I urged him. “What do you think about the gate?” I didn’t know what kind of authority Aurelio had; if the military had sent him to advise Lady Celia, his role could have some teeth to it. And if swaying him might reach back to his mentor and his political circles, well, it would be lovely to be certain the Serene Empire was on our side.

  Aurelio’s shoulders bowed as if a heavy pack had settled on them. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s a gate to the Nine Hells. It doesn’t seem like any good could come of it.” He lifted his head. “But Lord Urso says that fear is always the biggest barrier to discovery. People used to be afraid that luminaries would start fires, or that food warmed in an alchemically powered oven would wind up poisoned. If we brought the scholarly power of the Empire to bear, maybe we could find a way to use that limitless magical energy without opening the gate. Or even if we could just learn more about the nature of magic from studying it, we could change the world.”

  “Changing the world is exactly what I’m afraid of.” I shuddered. “The Rookery have been reading up on the Dark Days, and they tell me that half the population of Eruvia died in the first ten years. The survivors had to endure a century of plague and nightmare, suffering and horror and madness, living as playthings for the Nine Demons as their friends and family kept dying all around them. We’re lucky humanity wasn’t wiped out entirely.”

  “Still, if we were careful—”

  “We won’t have the chance. You heard everyone; if we don’t destroy the gate, we get a global war. Even if that weren’t the case, we couldn’t study it—we can’t let anyone near it.” I dropped my voice to an urgent whisper. “If you get too close, you can hear voices coming from the gate, Aurelio. Even when it’s closed.”

  His eyes widened. “Demons?”

  “Yes. My aunt heard them whispering to her.” The thought set a profound uneasiness swirling in my gut. “There’s no way to study it safely. My ancestors sealed it off for a reason.”

  “I need to think about that.” He sounded profoundly disturbed.

  “Please do.”

  Aurelio had no sooner left to join Lady Celia, frowning in a thoughtful manner I found encouraging, when Ardith plunked down in his place.

  “The Rite of Blood and Water, huh.” They shook their head. “That complicates things.”

  “I noticed,” I said through my teeth. I knew Ardith could use a bow; I tried to match their voice and shape against my attacker, but I hadn’t gotten a good look, and everyone sounded the same when they were screaming in mortal terror.

  “I was hoping that I could stay out of your way and let you and the Rookery take care of the gate. Do my job by doing nothing, you know?” They sighed. “Now that Alevar has called the rite, I’m bound to get orders from above. Half the Conclave is getting in on this now. And I’d lay you a wager that not all the Eldest are going to back destroying the gate.”

  “Why not?” I spread my hands in frustration. “It goes to the Nine Hells! There’s nothing good about it!”

  “Foxglove’s report apparently said something about the Hells being tied in to the natural flow of magic—the source, part of the cycle, I don’t know. I honestly didn’t read it. Too technical for me.” Ardith shrugged. “You know Witch Lords, though. The older they get, the more they hate change, and they have very strong feelings about natural cycles and magic. I should warn you that they’re probably going to at least want a delay until the Conclave can discuss this.”

  “It’s not the Conclave’s decision,” I snapped. It came out more harshly than I meant, but the swelling ache in my leg was beginning to fray my temper.

  Ardith arched their ginger brows. “If you think you can stand up to the Eldest, whatever potions they’ve been giving you are good stuff.” They rose, giving my good shoulder a slap that I supposed was meant as friendly. “Anyway, now I’ve warned you. My apologies in advance for any small role I may play in destroying everything you hold dear, and all that. See you at the rite.”

  I lifted a hand to massage my temple. “Thanks, Ardith. See you at the rite.”

  Hell of Discord—I’d almost had this under control for a moment. Now everything was collapsing beneath my touch once again. The Rookery had best come up with that enchantment quickly, before it all fell apart completely.

  “This is a terrible idea,” I muttered, testing the draw on the slim sword at my hip. It was riding a little too far forward for my taste; I settled my belt more to the left and a bit lower.

  It felt wrong to wear a sword around Gloamingard. This castle was supposed to be the safest place in Eruvia for me. My experience was limited entirely to practice; my mother had thought it would be good for
me to learn the rapier as an ironically less lethal option for self-defense than my bare hands.

  “You won’t need it,” Ashe said cheerfully. “If he so much as sneezes aggressively in your direction, Foxglove and I will have him dead on the floor before you can say ‘seasons bless you.’”

  “Rule Three, Ashe,” Foxglove reminded her airily. “No killing when wounding will suffice.”

  Ashe sighed. “Fine.”

  Foxglove pointed sternly to her sword hilt. “Take that off and swap it for something less lethal.”

  “You’re no fun. I haven’t gotten to use that one yet.” Ashe twisted the obsidian pommel, wrapped in golden wire and shining black beads, and it came off; she handed it to Foxglove. “Give me the blue one, then.”

  Foxglove swapped the obsidian orb for a matching one with blue crystal beads from one of his pouches. “I’m not giving the black one back until after the envoys go home. You don’t need killing enchantments on your sword at a diplomatic event.”

  “Yes, I don’t want any more of the Shrike Lord’s kin murdered in my castle,” I said fervently. “And please do stay out of sight unless I call for help. Just in case Severin actually has a good reason for wanting privacy.” My curiosity itched to find out at last what that reason might be.

  Ashe clapped my shoulder. “Foxglove and I are professionals, remember. You’ll never know we’re there.”

  The two of them withdrew from the Old Great Hall, the shadows swallowing them before they left the room. I remained alone, leaning on the smooth wooden head of my cane, feeling small in the big, drafty space. Shafts of moonlight pierced the darkness, falling from high windows in the hall; it was getting close to midnight.

  I’d picked the Old Great Hall because it was part of the log-built lodge section of Gloamingard, from the era of the Lady of Badgers; most vivomancers couldn’t work dead wood quickly, but a Witch Lord could mold anything that had once lived and grown in their domain with a thought from a hundred miles away. Severin had seen what my grandmother had done to the Bone Atrium, making it sprout deadly lances in every direction; this location was an implicit threat should he—or anyone else—try to kill me again.