Tethiel said, “Then I see no need to make myself a slower target.”
“I intend to challenge Sheamab to a battle of wits,” Hiresha said.
“Careful,” Tethiel said. “Many people are immune to wit.”
“But not, I trust, to a mist of enchanted diamond dust.”
Fos’s stomach rumbled with the sound of distant thunder. He said, “Consider that my battle cry. Past time we went out and freed Alyla.”
“If I could steal Hiresha away first,” Tethiel said, “I would like her consultation on one display, ‘The Copper Raptor.’”
Hiresha followed him to a pedestal, where a black-lacquered manikin balanced on one foot as if frozen at the beginning of a running leap. The wooden figure’s outstretched arms were feathered in red daggers. The blades were layered over each other in the shape of wings, with a fan of individual razors jutting farther than the rest in the fashion of a hawk. It was a crimson plumage of sharpened metal.
“Tell me, my heart, could such deadliness grant a man flight?”
“The rector often boasted you could leap off the plateau wearing this and land safely on the valley floor.” And the rector was right to be proud. The Copper Raptor is brilliance in metal form. “In favorable winds, you could glide. I should like to see you wear them. They would protect you from any falls caused by the Academy.”
“I’m not certain they match the Lord of the Feast’s aesthetic, but uncouth times call for uncouth measures.”
Removing the Copper Raptor from the manikin proved to be a labor. Despite Hiresha’s care, she cut herself on the front of the wings, which also had a razor edge. Fos bandaged her hand with more curtain fabric. He scowled at Tethiel who was pushing one arm into the wings.
“They’re meant for spellswords. Not a Feaster.”
Tethiel’s neck muscles tensed as he flapped one arm. “Perhaps he is right. They weigh entirely too much. I can’t imagine flying better than a falling rock.”
“In my dream I can both empower and activate them,” Hiresha said. “They will Lighten you so you weigh no more than a child. That’s both an advantage and a vulnerability. Any blow would exert more relative force on you and likely break bones.”
“So I’ll become bird boned, then? That seems fair.”
“Hiresha, don’t give him this.” Fos rested his broad hand on her arm and glared straight at Tethiel. “He’ll only use them to escape off the cliff and leave us.”
“Then I’m surprised you’d object.” Tethiel curled one wing in front of himself, the daggers hissing as they slid over each other. “Do you not think a copper trinket worth the price of my departure?”
Hiresha knew the metal wings to be beyond valuable, with a functioning enchantment. After a few days without her dream magic, their power would wane, and their value would plummet to that of an ornament. Not that she thought Tethiel would flee. What better chance will he have to kill Bright Palms?
His jaw firm, Fos stepped behind Tethiel and helped pull the wings on the rest of the way. Tethiel had needed to remove his torn jacket. Copper supports branched from the wings down his chest and back, covering most of his scars.
“I will be cold,” he said, “but that is better than being cold and dead.”
Hiresha made Tethiel kneel beside her, and she went to sleep with a hand on the flat of his wing. That much of a connection allowed her to ready the enchantment as she had promised. She also empowered Tethiel’s Crown of Plate.
“We mustn’t forget to protect them from poisons.” Her Intuition sat on the operation table with her knees under her chin.
“Quite right. The jewel duper is still at large.” Two rectangle-cut gems slid from Hiresha’s sash. The green tourmalines spun about Hiresha’s hand as she enchanted them against the most likely paralyzing toxins.
Awake again, Hiresha dispensed the protective tourmalines. Fos pocketed his. She had to place Tethiel’s into his mouth so he could swallow it, with his hands encased in feathers. He dashed between the pedestals, moving faster than ever before on his bowlegs. His wings no longer made sibilant noises as their blades slid over each other, though snapping them to full extension brought a metallic ping.
Tethiel stood in front of the crystal wall, his wings arching upward, spines of feathers overhead, and light traced over their razor edges. The sun burned low on the horizon behind him, descending among the thicket of mountain peaks. Ruddy triangles reflected off his wings onto the floor and wall. Hiresha saw her own face in the copper blades, and she wore a fierce smile.
She thought the Copper Raptor suited Tethiel. With a wingspan twice as long as his arms, he was beyond the scope of mortal men. Half monster in appearance, half wonder, and wholly dangerous. Hiresha wished she had crafted him the wings.
But I did heal him, as he saved me. It is enough.
Hiresha decided she was glad she had shared a dream with him. Painful as it had been, part of it had been glorious. She was proud to have survived it and suspected the nightmares would have buckled most people’s wills and broken them. He believed in her strength, and she approved of his vision of restraint for Feasters.
Yes, I will trust him. She placed a hand on the copper bands over his chest.
Acknowledging that connection with the Lord of the Feast caused her to feel like she stepped into a swirling bath that was both too hot and too cold. Warring sensations washed over her skin, at once refreshing and painful.
“You trust me,” he said. Daggers sawed to either side of her as he closed his wings. Air flowing around the razors ruffled her hair. “But not as much as I trust in you.”
She kissed him then, and he held her, the flats of his daggers pressing against her back. After, she realized Fos must have seen the embrace because he looked everywhere except at her. Hiresha was sorry that her spellsword did not approve, but she would not apologize for what she felt right. She wished she knew how she could possibly bring Fos to accept Tethiel.
I cannot expect Fos to embrace Tethiel after these few hours, when it’s taken me years.
The enchantress rested a hand on Fos’s arm. She said, “It is time for us to free your sister and the rest. Open the armory door.”
He pulled on the silken chord. Stone began to slide against stone. Fos swung his weapon in front of him, six feet of Lightened jasper lifted in one hand. His was a voice deep and measured.
“They should be waiting for us outside.”
“I hope so,” Hiresha said.
36
Tower’s Crest
Enchantress, spellsword, and Feaster advanced into the hall.
The traitorous novice threw off a rope she had used to secure herself to the wall and greeted them with an upraised weapon. Two Bright Palms rushed in from either side, one the youth with a polearm blade, and the tight-lipped man who had repeatedly tried to apply his fists and kicks to her person.
“Three and three,” Fos said. “A fair fight.”
Tethiel snapped one bladed wing forward. “There’s no such thing.”
The club Emesea spun was serrated with the razor edges of black glass. “Hundreds of beasts must die for one jaguar to live, and right now to me you all look like turtles and jungle pigs.”
“Then you have fewer eyes than I do.” Fos turned the side of his face toward her for a clear view and charged. As he swung the massive sword, the full weight returned, and the momentum whisked him forward in a streak of purple and red.
Hiresha expected to see Emesea cut in half, but the short woman must have expected the burst of speed because she had already begun her roll to his blind side. He pivoted, and the ruby eyes of his snake-shaped circlet flashed.
Her own pocket lit red from her diamond. Something was peeling away her defensive enchantments. But what? Again the diamond flashed, and then she felt the familiar sting of a dart in her neck.
Jewel at the ready, she turned all the way around but could not spot the venomous Inannis. “I can’t see the thief.”
“He’s on top of
a statue and afraid,” Tethiel said, sidestepping the polearm’s blade.
Now she spotted a grey shadow clinging to the back of a giant spellsword. “Fos, attend to him.”
Fos forced Emesea back with a sweep of jasper then positioned himself for a jump. The slanted cut of her hair swished to the side as she sprang back at him. She might have had him, but Hiresha’s jewel Attracted her to the side. Emesea spun in the air, dragging herself away from the spell’s tow.
In an enchanted leap, Fos launched overhead. Hiresha was overjoyed to see him finally succeed at timing the jump as he sailed twenty feet through the air. His jasper cleaved through the statue in a booming spray of marble.
Inannis swung to safety a moment ahead of the red death, using a rope tied further down the wall. Fos lowered a knee to leap after the thief again.
Hiresha had no time to see the result. A flurry of kicks forced her to retreat back into the armory. The tight-mouthed Bright Palm now seemed adept at dodging her every jewel. She ran between racks of swords. Above, spears hung from the ceiling on gold chains.
The fast-fisted Bright Palm never blinked as he stepped over the corpse covered with curtains and a paintbrush. The living man swung around a pedestal adorned with a blue-bladed axe. He snapped a leg toward Hiresha’s head. She leaned forward by reflex, and her intuition saved her. As she passed a pedestal, she hid an orange sapphire behind its pillow. She had the highest hopes for this gem’s unique enchantment.
Hiresha heard the slapping pad of the Bright Palm’s feet running after her. She turned in time to see the delayed enchantment activate. He skidded—feet pumping—toward the orange sapphire and was sprawled over the pedestal.
She said, “You’ve made a terrible mistake.” He should never have followed a woman with Attraction enchantments into a room filled with weapons.
Spears sprang down from the ceiling. Swords were ripped from their displays. Sickle blades rotated on pillows and were flung with the rest toward the Bright Palm. Bronze inlaid with scrollwork impaled him from every angle, and his light flickered then faded.
Another invader stricken from the records, she thought. I am doing the Opal Mind’s will.
On her way out she passed by the silk cord that would close the armory door. In the hall, Tethiel was crouching on the ceiling. The Academy enchantments must have failed under him, flipping him overhead. As Hiresha watched, he sprang and swooped down to the floor. The Bright Palm leaped to meet him with a sweep of bronze, but the weapon cut through an illusion that split into black fibers.
Another Tethiel appeared to the side of the youth. A red-metal wing sliced into the Bright Palm in cuts that bled whiteness but seemed less than distractions. The pole of his weapon bent with the force of his inrushing curved blade, and Tethiel had to spring aside, going farther than he no doubt intended in his Lightened state and falling on his back.
The green gem in Hiresha’s hand gave the Bright Palm pause, but Hiresha was too far to stop Emesea from pouncing toward Fos’s blind side. The enchantress called out a warning. The spellsword turned in a sweep of red stone, used the weight of the blade to pull him to the side to dodge Emesea’s attack.
The woman dropped her obsidian club to grab him, to claw at his last eye. She was too close for him to swing at, and when he leapt with his enchanted greaves, she clung on, so ferocious that Hiresha felt queasy with worry for him. Her imbalance sharpened to dread when Inannis stalked in, two needle daggers in hand.
Both poisoned, or I’m a baboon. In a flash of painful knowledge, Hiresha understood that even if her tourmaline protected Fos from the toxin, she probably would see him blinded and stabbed to death in moments. She ran toward him but knew that any jewel she threw would hit Fos, too, in such close-quarters fighting.
“Tethiel,” she said, “save him.”
On one knee, Tethiel swept his wings toward the distant melee. Razor feathers exploded in streams of hissing bronze, and though Hiresha knew it had to be illusion, the shrieking gusts of blades caused her to shrink against the wall.
The deadly feathers skewered Emesea off Fos. The bronze swarm parted around the spellsword and would have overwhelmed Inannis, but the thief stepped back—by chance or design—into orange rays shining from a window. The sunlight dissolved the assault of daggers into black mist.
Fos swung his sword upward, and Hiresha hoped to see him crush the traitorous novice, who reeled on the floor.
The Bright Palm stepped between Tethiel and Emesea, blocking the stream of razors, and the blades embedded in her winked out of existence. She rolled, and the jasper sword pulverized the floor tiles just behind her.
The thief darted in and nicked Fos’s ear. Hiresha’s insides clamped, hoping it was only strychnine or curare that poisoned the dagger. We’re enchanted against those. Even as she thought it, she noticed a burning sensation on her neck like someone dribbling hot candle wax on her skin. The spot where the dart struck.
Confound it! He’s used a different poison. Hiresha knew she had to finish this battle quickly, to have time to reach her dream laboratory and find a cure. Her gaze shot from the rays of red sunset to the Bright Palm. With them both removed, Tethiel’s magic will have free reign.
“Change of plans,” she called out to Fos, “kill the Bright Palm.”
The shining youth torqued his weapon, bringing the polearm back around faster than Hiresha would have expected and clipping Tethiel. It appeared a weak hit, but Tethiel was pitched off his feet. In a slicing arc of wing blades, he crashed through a window. The Bright Palm leaped after him.
Her heart racing in painful beats and her neck on fire, Hiresha scrambled through the window shards to see Tethiel running up the slanted side of the tower. The youth pursued him with polearm raised.
Fos flew over Hiresha’s head, his enchanted jump landing him outside on the slope. Hiresha followed, hearing Tethiel’s warning cry from the topmost curving crest of the tower.
“Hiresha, blades behind!”
The enchantress ducked under a slicing blackness of obsidian. Her hands and jewels were knocked aside by the shaft of Emesea’s club. Hiresha was stunned not only by the suddenness of the onslaught but also by the joyous frenzy that rolled off the woman in waves of unbalancing heat.
Hiresha was not aware of shrieking, but perhaps she did because Fos doubled back in time to save her. He locked himself in combat with Emesea, his enchanted force and speed against her predatory limberness. Her brutal grace alarmed Hiresha, and Emesea predicted Fos’s every attack, hounding him with her serrated club.
Emesea’s laugh rang off the mountaintops. “You’re tough, but not sea-monster tough. And I hunted krakens as a child.”
Hiresha wiped at the sweat sheeting down her brow, trying to line up a jewel to throw. It felt as if the hot wax was burning its way to her spine. A melted neck is not conducive to victory. May the jewel-duper drown in his own blood! She thought she spotted his crouched form scuttling up the tower. The curve of the slope prevented a clear view.
“Fos!” Hiresha tossed a spray of jewels to force Emesea away from him. The enchantress jerked a hand up to the tower’s crest. “Remove the Bright Palm at once.”
The youth shone atop the curved back of the tower, hacking at Tethiel. With a snap of sharp wings, Tethiel spun to the side and lunged to cut at the Bright Palm’s foot. At the same moment, Fos thumped down behind the shining figure.
Hiresha staggered her way toward them, all too aware the poison was slowing her. She dropped jewels behind her to complicate Emesea’s pursuit.
Tethiel threw himself into a short glide, outstretched wings blazing in the last light of day. The evasive maneuver baffled Hiresha until she spotted the thief, his blow-pipe aimed at Tethiel. She had to hope the dart had missed. How wretched if he poisoned all three of us.
The Bright Palm swung his polearm around to meet Fos’s sideswipe. The parry would have protected against a sword of normal measure, but the jasper smashed in with the weight of twenty scimitars concentr
ated into one wedge. The polearm buckled, splinters flying. The red blade ripped apart the Bright Palm with the same ease. White light sprayed over the top of the tower. It darkened along with the sunset.
The side of a peak to the west turned molten then cooled into shadow. The sky surged with reds and triumphant purple.
Now we have them. Hiresha’s head thudded with thick fire. She slumped to one knee. Tethiel will…“Tethiel!”
In a scrape of wings, he collapsed and slid off the side of the tower.
The poison! Hiresha could not even move her sluggish arm fast enough to try to save him with a Lightening jewel. But he has wings. He must recover and right his fall. He’ll glide to safety. A deeper part of Hiresha knew that even if he survived he could not return in time to save her and Fos.
How could this have happened? I had all my jewels.
The flat side of a club rested on Hiresha’s shoulder. Sections of obsidian scratched her neck.
Were we simply outmatched?
“Provost Hiresha,” Emesea said, “you fought like the thunder. If you come with me to—”
A thing of blackness and fangs snatched Emesea into the air. She hung from the snaggletooth grip of a crocodile’s maw, except that its eyes fluoresced with malice, and blue flames spurted from its snout. Either the stonework shifted under Hiresha or she was hearing the creature’s rumbling growl.
The voice of the Lord of the Feast destroyed all other sound, each word falling like a curse. “Monstrous enough for you, little Eme?”
The face of a branded god lofted above them, the figure so large that he overshadowed the tower. The colossus did not look overmuch like Tethiel, apart from the three-sided mark on his brow. Three sides, three heads. Beside the face of the transcendent man and the jaws of the fire-breathing crocodile, a third head rose.
A banded length of dark hide pulsed, a tendril of the night coiled over the tower. More hideous than a snake, the eyeless creature opened a mouth in a cavern of teeth that spread below Emesea. She punched at the crocodile that held her, still struggling, though anyone could see it was hopeless. Her club had fallen beside the enchantress, and the best Emesea could do now was choose between the giant fangs that gripped her and the pit of triangular teeth below.
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