The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  “So you’re here to what?” I demanded furiously. “Help me feel a bit better before I die?”

  “I don’t know.” His hand shook on the flask, and he looked up at last, frustration burning in his eyes. “I don’t know what to do. My brother could stop us with a thought if I tried to help you escape. Just drink the water, all right?”

  “I was counting on you.” Hells, I should be kinder, but I was too exhausted and afraid and hurt to be kind. “Now you show up and you’re cursed useless.”

  A spasm of pain or anger crossed his face. He threw the flask down; water seeped between the boards, wasted. “I’m trying to help you,” he hissed.

  “You’re not very good at it.”

  He stood, disgust at one or both of us carving lines in his face. I pulled against my chains, afraid of missing my chance. “Severin, listen. You have to get a message back to Gloamingard. They must not destroy the obelisk. It’s not a gate after all, it’s a—”

  “Are you done here?” Voreth asked, returning.

  Severin looked at me, then at Voreth, his expression remote and cold. “Yes,” he said. “I believe I am.”

  I didn’t get another chance to talk to Severin; Voreth stayed between us, clearly suspicious. When my throat grew so dry that I started coughing uncontrollably, they tossed me another water flask, and I had to bring it to my lips using my feet and knees.

  Whenever I got the chance, I glared at Severin, past however many soldiers rode between us. Send the message, you idiot. Tell them about the gate.

  His eyes always slid away from mine. Just like everyone else’s had, all my years in Gloamingard. I supposed I must be uncomfortable to look at, bruised and battered and hungry as I was. Everything hurt.

  It didn’t help to remember that I was likely going to hurt a lot worse soon enough.

  Through my exhausted haze, I tried to stay alert for opportunities to make a run for it. But Alevar was a low, wet country, and the roads our horses traveled were often raised causeways held in place by tree roots and surrounded by swamp. I wouldn’t make it three paces before slimy things pulled me under the water and held me in their dead tangle to drown.

  At least I could take bitter satisfaction in watching mosquitoes descend on the guards who’d beaten me in swarms; they died when they landed on my skin, of course. Ha. One less life to give power to the Shrike Lord. I’d take my petty victories where I could.

  I still hadn’t found a chance to escape when the Shrike Lord’s castle reared up before us, a collection of sharp spires like pointed teeth bristling on a low hill. Clouds of birds circled above it, stark black silhouettes against a storm-gray sky.

  What paltry options I had left vanished one by one as the wagon rolled through the maw of the gate into a stone courtyard. Thorny vines climbed the walls and sleek, brindle-furred chimeras, like a cross between weasels and panthers, prowled a restless guard. Deep, visceral fear tightened my gut at the mad predatory hunger in their eyes.

  Now even my grandmother couldn’t rescue me. Not from inside another Witch Lord’s own castle. The last spark of hope I’d been cradling in my heart sputtered and died, leaving gray ashes in my chest.

  The wagon stopped. Two soldiers folded down the back, while others kept pistols trained on me. Severin climbed into the back of the wagon, then crouched down to face me with troubled eyes.

  It was all I could do not to burst out in hysterical, panicky laughter. Oh, I’m sure this is all very upsetting for you.

  “I have to unlock your chains,” he said.

  “So kind of you to do that now,” I retorted.

  “You’re in my brother’s castle.” His voice was subdued, and he hunched his shoulders as if constantly expecting a blow. He rubbed at the scars on his neck. “He’s watching us. I can feel his attention on you. Please come quietly.”

  “You want me to go meekly to my death?” I gave him a flat stare. “Why, so he’ll pat you on the head and tell you you’re a good brother?”

  Severin winced. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “You are literally asking me to walk peacefully into the presence of a man whose stated intention is to torture me to death.” I shook my head in wonder, because it was easier to be disgusted with Severin than to let in the fear that scrabbled at my mind with curving claws. “I honestly don’t know if you’re mocking me, or if you’re such a hopeless pile of contradictions you can’t help yourself.”

  Severin’s face went rigid. “Fine. You’re right. I’m a coward. That doesn’t mean I like any of this.”

  “I’m sure your disapproval of the situation will be a great comfort to me.” I dropped my voice to a bare whisper. “Did you send the message? Did you tell them about the gate?”

  Severin’s brows lifted in apparent surprise. “I haven’t—”

  “Do you require assistance, Exalted Atheling?” Voreth asked pointedly, appearing behind Severin. “Your brother is not known for his patience.”

  Severin grimaced, and his face went remote and haughty again. “I’m going to remove your chains now,” he said. “I suggest you cooperate, or I’ll find someone far less gentle to do it for me.”

  I let him unlock my chains. His hands trembled, and those disheveled strands of hair fell into his face as it bent next to mine.

  “I’ll do what I can for you,” he whispered.

  “Maybe you’ll at least manage to return my corpse to Morgrain,” I replied bitterly.

  Then he stepped back, and I was loose. My shoulder muscles creaked as I brought my arms forward at last, rubbing my wrists. The chains had left red marks on my skin, but they bothered me less than the bruises on my ribs. Still, I was very aware of being whole and alive, with all my pieces intact and attached. For now.

  Soldiers formed a ring around me, with long pikes and pistols. They tried to look grim, but it was fear I saw in their eyes, in their white knuckles, in the too-tense way they held themselves. I was free, with death in my hands. If I chose, I could kill at least a few of them before they finished me, and they knew it.

  But they had been born into the Shrike Lord’s service, and were only doing their jobs. And besides, I couldn’t die until I got my message out. I walked with them peacefully enough, in the center of a ring of spears, chimeras circling beyond the soldiers with gleaming eyes and sharp white fangs.

  Kessa is alive, I reminded myself. There’s hope we can salvage this. You have a job to do.

  A certain shivering unsteadiness stole up my legs, however, as they herded me with their spears into the Shrike Lord’s throne hall.

  Briars covered the soaring walls of the Shrike Lord’s hall, black on gray stone, forming intricate abstract patterns that teased the mind with their negative space. The vaulted ceiling arched in ribs of curving wood, black to match the briars, over more gray stone. Every line in the place seemed to subtly converge toward the far end of the hall, where a few plain stone steps led to an austere black throne.

  I couldn’t help but notice that some of the briars decorating the hall wove through bits of bone: threading through a piece of rib cage here, a skull’s eye socket there. All of the bones looked human. I shuddered.

  The hall was far from empty. Courtiers and officials parted as we entered, opening a path to the throne for us. Their clothing was sober and practical, for a royal court, and their faces solemn. If they expected to enjoy this, it certainly didn’t show in their faces.

  The Shrike Lord sat on his throne, radiating the presence of a man who knows without question that he is in command of everything around him. His power filled the air with a pressure like an impending storm. He was in the briars on the walls, the hills at his border, the depthless swamps with all their ancient layers of decomposing history that stretched for miles around us. His was the strength of tangled whispering boughs, of open expanses of hissing marsh grasses beneath a clouded sky, of water deep and black enough to drown the greatest army. You could sink into his power forever, in layer after layer of darkness and ancien
t death, and never find a bottom.

  And all those layers of his power reverberated with barely suppressed rage. I had never been so hated in my life. The very air I breathed wanted to choke me. I faltered, but made myself keep walking. Sweat slickened my palms.

  It was unsettling to see his fine-chiseled face, so like Severin’s, set in lines of brooding cruelty. His mage mark stood out stark white against his dark eyes, burning his hate into me from across the hall. He had dyed a broad storm-cloud gray streak into his hair, leaving it black on the sides like a shrike’s mask; it swept back from his forehead and fell loose to his broad shoulders. Tattoos of intricately twisting briars wound up his bare arms, more heavily muscled than his brother’s, and vanished into a close-cut black vestcoat that looked more like a military uniform than royal raiment. Only the gray cape flowing from his shoulders held an edge of silver, one bright gleam in his stark hall.

  Voreth and Severin waited by their lord’s side—Voreth kneeling at the bottom of the steps, and Severin standing one step up. I met Severin’s haunted eyes, staring a challenge at him; he mouthed something at me, but I couldn’t make it out. It had better not be Sorry again.

  “So,” the Shrike Lord said, his voice rich and resonant, filling the hall and vibrating in my bones. “This is Lamiel’s killer.”

  The soldiers melted away from around me, as if they didn’t want to be associated with me by proximity. I stood alone in a clear space halfway to the throne, the Shrike Lord’s animosity bearing down on me with all the force of ancient stone, iron roots, and deadly talons. My vision dimmed under the weight of his power, and I found it suddenly hard to breathe. He wanted my legs to buckle beneath me; I could feel it. He wanted me to kneel.

  I had touched the Hells themselves with my bare hand. I stood straight before him, setting myself grimly against the burden of massive magical power hanging so heavily in the air.

  “Exalted Lamiel trespassed in forbidden places, abused our hospitality, and attacked me without cause,” I said, my voice ringing from the thorn-clad walls. “I await your apology, Most Exalted.”

  Severin winced. The entire hall sucked in a sharp collective breath, a gasp edged with ragged fear. It suddenly seemed half-empty, the space growing even wider around me.

  The smoldering presence in the air ignited to rage. It hit me in a great black wave, and I rocked on my feet with the force of it. Maybe that wasn’t the most diplomatic opening move.

  “Bravado does not become you.” The Shrike Lord’s voice remained controlled, despite the fury blistering the air. “My grievance far surpasses yours. You killed my betrothed while she was your guest, an envoy of peace to your house. Do you deny it?”

  “No,” I said, my voice thickening.

  “You will die for this.” He said it quietly, but every stone in the hall heard his words. His hands curled tighter on the arms of his throne, knuckles whitening. “You understand that. I will take your life as you took hers, and only then will my grievance be satisfied.”

  “I understand.” I didn’t accept it, even here at the heart of his power; it didn’t seem real. His bleak logic, however, I recognized all too well. “There’s something you need to understand, first.”

  “You will not profane the solemnity of your last moments with tedious insults, I hope,” he said.

  “No.” I clenched my fists at my sides. I had to make him listen to me, no matter what. Or if he wouldn’t listen, I had to get through to Severin. The atheling stood by his brother’s throne, face ashen, eyes locked desperately on mine as if trying to send me some silent message.

  I was done with his pleading looks. They were worth less than nothing if he didn’t support them with action, and I was well past the point where I could bear to hope that he had some subtle plan. But by the Graces, he could convey a simple warning.

  I drew in a breath. “You know of the artifact at Gloamingard. I’ve discovered that it’s not a gate at all; it’s a seal on an existing rip in the world. I need to get that message to the Rookery.” The Shrike Lord’s expression hadn’t changed. Surely he must care about this—his domain would be affected, too, if the Nine Demons strode the world again. “We must strengthen the seal, not destroy it. Guard it, not fight each other to possess it. I could have killed half these soldiers, but I walked in here willingly for one reason: to urge you to help Morgrain guard the seal against any who would threaten or misuse it.”

  Severin’s eyes widened while I spoke, then narrowed. I was sure he heard every word and understood their implications. The great sickening knot inside me relaxed a little; at least I’d passed on my information.

  But the Shrike Lord’s face remained stony, and the cloud of his anger grew no less oppressive in the air. If anything, it intensified.

  “Do not think for a minute,” he said, “that I care what you want.”

  “This is for the safety of all Eruvia, Alevar included,” I insisted. “Not just Morgrain.”

  A sudden raw intensity flashed onto his face. “You dare much to suggest that I would lift a single finger to help the domain that slew the one person in the world I loved.” Severin bowed his head at that, his hair swinging forward to hide his expression. “I will deal with the gate as I see fit, but your pleas I cast into oblivion. I do not hear them.”

  The Shrike Lord rose from his throne, his gray cloak falling around him. The briar vines on the walls began to shift, serpentine. Severin flinched away and closed his eyes.

  “Enough words,” the Shrike Lord said. “Now I claim my blood price, Exalted Ryxander of Morgrain.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I stepped back, fear stabbing into my racing heart at the killing intent in those dark eyes. I searched frantically for some weapon, some trick, some last-minute ally, some word that could protect me, but there was nothing.

  The briars slithered down off the walls, reaching for me, their black shadows falling across my face.

  “Wait!” Severin cried, reaching out toward his brother.

  The Shrike Lord flicked a contemptuous glance at him. “Do not demean yourself by pleading for her life, Severin.”

  “Of course not.” The disdain in Severin’s voice trembled on the edge of credibility. I held my breath, heart skittering in my chest like a dropped marble. “But she clearly knows a great deal about the gate. Don’t you think you should get as much information out of her as possible before killing her?”

  The Shrike Lord didn’t take his cruel eyes off me. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t.”

  And all the reaching thorns struck at me at once.

  I lashed out in instinctive panic, smacking one vine with the flat of my hand; it turned dead and brown, starting at the point where I’d touched it and spreading a good arm’s length from there. Another vine touched my ankle and withered instantly. A wild thread of fierce hope slipped through me: I could fight him.

  I turned to grab a third briar, its barbs pressing into my hand as it went dry and brittle at my touch. Another whipped suddenly at me, lightning fast; thorns tore my clothes and cut my skin as it lashed around my waist. As it died, it went hard as oak, its grip on me unyielding. Pox, pox, pox.

  I struck out at another whipping branch in a rising terror, but now the dead ones were reaching for me, too. Dozens of them lifted up, swaying like rearing snakes, and descended on me all at once.

  The vines seized me in their barbed grasp, coiling around my arms, my legs, my throat. Thorns hooked through my clothes and skin, winding around me. I choked back a scream; I didn’t want to give the Shrike Lord the satisfaction.

  “Ryx!” Severin cried, starting toward me.

  His brother didn’t even look; he’d expected this. The back of his hand crashed into Severin’s face, knocking him down to the hard stone floor.

  “You’re lucky I’m willing to save you from treachery, brother,” he said softly. Severin wiped blood from his mouth with a trembling hand.

  The briars flexed like a great spiky fist around me and snapped back to the w
all, flinging me flat against the stone.

  A light flashed across my vision, and my breath whooshed out. For a moment I became nothing but a struggle to get air back into my lungs—nothing else mattered, not the briars pricking me or the throbbing of my skull or the Shrike Lord staring death at me or the crowd watching in terrified silence. Then I drew in a great hoarse gasp, and another, and with it a sustaining fury.

  Only half the crowd remained, pressed back against the now-bare walls, no doubt more afraid to leave and risk the Shrike Lord’s wrath than they were to stay. Severin wouldn’t look at me as he climbed slowly up off the floor. But his brother watched, jaw set, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.

  “Pathetic,” I croaked, as the thorn vines slithered around me, pinning me tight to the wall ten feet off the floor. “You’re just a bully after all.”

  “Justice requires strength to punish the wicked,” the Shrike Lord said. “It is a ruler’s duty. Still, in this case, I confess that I’ll take great pleasure in watching you bleed to death.”

  “You pretend to be an honorable man,” I spat, “but there’s no honor in gloating. It’s petty and cruel.”

  That got a reaction. Something flared in his eyes—anger or guilty recognition. His lips peeled back from his teeth.

  Sudden pain pierced me in half a dozen places as dagger-length thorns sprouted from the briar vines. This time, I couldn’t keep from crying out. Wet warmth spread from each wound, the fabric of my clothes drinking up the blood. Grace of Mercy, help me.

  Severin flinched and squeezed his eyes shut, his hands balled in tight fists at his sides.

  “You’re worth more than this,” I gasped, hoping he’d know that I spoke to him and not his brother.

  His shoulders bunched as if he wanted to strangle someone, his face twisted in self-loathing.

  The Shrike Lord ignored him, watching me bleed with narrowed eyes. “The wonderful thing about vivomancers,” he said, “is that they take so long to die.”