“No.” Elias lowered his sword. “I will not become like them.”
“He’s too dangerous to be taken alive,” Ogden said.
“His power is broken,” said Elias.
“I can see that,” said Ogden, “though I never taught you the spell of binding. It is too complicated for most veteran wizards to even comprehend, let alone an apprentice. How did you learn it?”
“My father taught it to me.” When Ogden arched an eyebrow at him, Elias said, “It’s a long story. The point is that he’s of no threat to us. Not now. I’ll not murder him, even for all he’s done.”
Sarad looked up at Elias with wide and cloudy eyes. His lips trembled as he opened his mouth to speak, but what he was to say would forever remain a mystery, for at that very moment an indistinct black shape swooped over him and when it passed all that remained of Sarad’s throat was a ragged hole of dangling sinew.
Chapter 40
Bound
“Talinus!” Elias roared.
“A thousand pardons, Marshal,” the disembodied voice of Talinus cried, “but the old man is right—Sarad is too dangerous to be left alive. In any case, you have much more pressing matters at present. Your daring entrance—impressive though it was—has roused half the city. As we speak the remainder of the Scarlet Hand is closing in on you! Luck to you, Marshal. Until we meet again!”
“They’re close,” said Bryn. “I can hear their footfalls.”
Elias knelt by Sarad’s side and pressed a hand over his ruined throat. Sarad clasped a hand over Elias’s and began convulsing. “Take the queen to safety, Danica, through the way we came. I’ll hold the hall. With the head of the dragon gone, Oberon will yield the throne once we make ourselves known to the other Houses.”
“No.” Eithne stepped close to her Marshal. To Ogden she said, “Bar the doors, wizard.”
“Elias is right, child,” Ogden said. “We can retake Lucerne, but not if we die here today.”
Eithne stood tall despite the wracking pain in her back. “No more running,” she said. “We’ve cowered from this evil long enough. Here we stand or here we die. There are swords in Lucerne yet loyal to their queen, once they know she still lives. All we need do is hold until they get here.”
“Your wait will be short!” Bryn cried. “They’re rounding the corner!”
“You have your orders, Sentinel,” the queen said.
Elias locked eyes with Sarad and wondered at the other man’s thoughts. The necromancer’s hold on his hand weakened and a wry smile crinkled his blasted face. Elias held fast as the lights went out of his murky eyes. Sarad Mirengi, Prelate of the Church of the One God, dark lord of the Scarlet Hand, exhaled a wet sigh and died.
Ogden said no more and stepped away from the party. He lifted his hands and drew deep on the final dregs of his power, fueling his magic with all the raw emotion that had sustained him through the terror of the last fortnight. With a mighty groan the marble doors that Elias had sundered from their hinges rose and creaked back into place, even as he saw the first ranks of the Scarlet Hand racing down the hall. With near mind-breaking effort Ogden held them in place while he wove an energy barrier to seal them. A powder blue force field crackling with arcs of lightning formed in the archway.
Ogden turned to Eithne and blinked against the headache forming between his eyes only to discover that he was sitting on the floor. He tried to push himself back to his feet but motes of white light danced before his eyes.
Eithne knelt by his side. “Rest now, old friend,” she whispered.
“We need a plan and we need one fast,” said Danica. “Lar, help me gather weapons.” She looked about the chamber. “Lar, where are you hiding?”
Agnar rested a hand on Danica’s shoulder. “He fell, lass.”
Danica looked up at the northman. “What?”
“He took on one of the enemy barehanded to protect your flank. Picked him up clean over his head even though the fiend poured enough black magic into him to kill a leviathan.”
“Lar was a leviathan,” Danica said in a broken voice and knuckled tears from her eyes. “Now help me gather weapons. We need a plan or we’ll see him soon enough.”
Agnar complied, gathering the fallen Handsmen’s effects with Bryn and Danica, while Phinneas and Eithne tended Ogden and Elias absorbed himself in studying Mirengi’s spellform.
“It’s a pity,” Agnar said when he neared Lar’s body. “He was a good man, and we sure could use his sword arm now.”
The first hammering of blows fell on the other side of the doors.
“Angar,” said Danica,” don’t just stand there like a frightened doe. They come!”
“By Vornac’s axe,” Agnar swore, “I think he’s still alive!”
Danica dropped the cache of weapons she held in her arms and rushed to Lar’s side. Upon his face lay the pallor of death—bloodless and ashen skin spiderwebbed with purple veins. The fell wizard had literally sucked the life from him. Danica laid a hand on his clammy forehead. “Lar, I’m here.”
“Dan-i-ca,” Lar said wrestling with his black and swollen tongue to form the word. “Is-it-o-ver?”
“Yes, we’ve won—for now. Mirengi’s reinforcements are at the doors, though Ogden has barred them.” Tears slid down her face. “We could use your help, but here you are just lying about and taking it easy while the rest of us work.”
Something like a smile split his blasted features, then a dry, hacking cough seized him. “Dan-i-ca. Are my eye-s o-pen?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I-I can-t see.”
To hear the naked fear in the voice of the towering and indestructible Lar, who never had the good sense to fear anything, was more than she could bear. Black despair soon burned away under the white fire of her anger.
“They’ve breached the doors,” Agnar said quietly. “All that restrains them now is Ogden’s magic.”
“Then we best get Lar up and outfitted for battle.” Danica kept one hand on his forehead and splayed the other over his sternum. She closed her eyes and at once felt a peculiar dislocation from her body as she spiraled down into the void.
Agnar watched, dumfounded, as a veil of green light clothed Danica’s splayed hand. For all its brilliance, the glow had a gentle quality that seemed to embody the very essence of spring. The glow fanned out until it encased Lar’s entire body. Then Agnar had to look away, for the light shined so bright that it dazzled his eyes. He turned back to see that Lar had sat up and, aside from an expression of bewilderment, looked as hale as the day Agnar had met him at the queen’s banquet.
For Agnar’s part, a feeling of wellbeing overtook him and the fatigue and myriad aches that had plagued him moments before vanished. “If it is our fate to die today,” he said, “I can go to the halls of my fathers contently, knowing that I do so by the side of some of the finest people I’ve ever known.”
“Don’t give up the ghost yet,” said Danica as she helped Lar to his feet. “Look now, my brother has a plan.”
Elias crouched over Sarad’s spellform thoughtfully, oblivious to the rest of the party and the thunder of magic on the other side of the doors. “I’ve seen this symbol before,” he said as he traced the six sided star with his eyes.
Phinneas looked up from Ogden. “I should think so. It’s on your badge, and the Denar coat of arms.”
“Yes,” sighed Elias, “I know that. I mean that I’ve seen it somewhere else as well.”
“How long will Ogden’s wall hold against them?” Bryn asked.
“Not long, I think,” said Phinneas as he peeled back Ogden’s eyelids and peered into his senseless eyes.
“If you have a plan, hero,” Bryn said with a levity in her tone that she did not feel, “now’s the time.”
“I bound Sarad’s magic with the spell of binding,” Elias said.
“And if we get out of this, I’ll be curious to know how you managed it.” Phinneas looked up again as a particularly loud crash issued from the other side of th
e ruined doors.
Elias glanced at his father’s badge and the heraldry of House Denar, a stag standing before a tree with seven stars caught in its boughs. “Seven six sided stars. Seven founding houses of Galacia. Draw a line between the stars and you find another six sided star, with one in the center, caught in the circle of the tree boughs, just as Sarad stood in the center of a spellform that was a six sided star set in a circle.”
Elias’s thoughts turned to the vision he had when he touched the wytchwood and saw Lucerne palace from above. “Of course! How could I be so blind.”
“What is it?” Bryn said.
Elias noticed that the party had drawn about him, steel in hand and prepared for battle. He glanced up from the spellform as the doors to the throne room fell away. Now naught but Ogden’s wall of iridescent, blue energy stood between them and the remainder of the Scarlet Hand’s forces. “Six outer towers on the palace walls,” he said, “six inner spires set around the central dome of this room. Draw lines between the outer towers and what do you have?”
Phinneas put a hand on Elias’s shoulder. “A six sided star, but what does it mean?”
“It’s the same with the inner spires—another six sided star with this throne room at the center, just as House Denar is the central star in the coat of arms. That’s why Sarad chose this room. This entire palace is a colossal spellform, set inside another spellform, with the outer and inner walls drawing the circle, and the throne room is the center of it all.”
“Impressive, professor,” Danica said, “but as we’re all about to buy the distillery how does this help us?”
“The spell I used to bind Sarad’s magic is based on the principle of empyrean geometry.”
“Sacred geometry?” Phinneas said, naming the ancient Eurinthian school of thought. “It’s held as just a myth by modern arcanists.”
“It’s no myth,” said Elias. “My father’s lessons began and ended with empyrean geometry.” He stepped into the center of Sarad’s spellform and raised his sword to the skylight. He hoped that his sword had absorbed enough power, and that enough remained in his own dwindling stores, to complete what he had in mind. “Step clear of the circle. I’m going to bind the Scarlet Hand.”
Elias spoke the words of binding again, the ancient incantation bubbling up from his subconscious mind. The words at once drove him into the center of the void, a quasi trance state where all things he had ever learned were known to him. A beam of white energy erupted from his sword and shot into the night, where it disappeared into the black, untold reaches of the sky.
Ogden’s wall flickered under an arcane assault from the Scarlet Hand, even as six lesser beams of white light split from the central beam discharging from Elias’s sword and lit the stained glass on each of the six spires of the inner keep of Lucerne Palace. From the spires the beams of light crisscrossed and returned to the central pillar and thus erected a three dimensional, six sided star of light. Elias uttered the last word of binding. “Thus do I bind the Scarlet Hand!” he cried, his voice charged with the otherworldly resonance of the Deep Arcanum.
Elias lowered his sword, which was now spent of all arcane energy it had absorbed from Sarad’s ritual. A hush fell over the chamber as the queen’s party vacillated between gaping at Elias and the monumental, glittering star of light that hung over the skylight, bright as a midday sun. As one, they turned their attention to the throne room entrance as Ogden’s wall dispelled with a crash of sparks.
Elias remained in position in the center of the spell-circle as the first of the Scarlet Hand stepped into the throne room, motioning for the others to hold their positions. “That’s quite far enough,” Elias said.
“You’re in no position to make demands, Marshal,” said a tall Handsman with oiled hair and the caramel skin of the warrior tribes of Aradur. “There are three-score swords at my back. You are to be applauded for your rout of Lord Mirengi, but it was no less than he deserved for his lax judgment. It will go better for you if you surrender peaceably. You cannot hope to stand against so many.”
Elias glared at the Handsman but remained stock still. He knew that their fates and that of Galacia hinged on his performance now, even as he felt so drained from his momentous arcane workings that he could hardly keep himself from swaying on his feet, for though the Hand’s power was bound, so many could indeed overpower the queen’s party. “You Handsmen keep on saying that to me, and yet here I stand. Again.” He opened his hands and snorted. “What say you, Your Highness? Do we surrender?”
“Not ever,” said Eithne who stood to her fullest height, and, affecting all the regality of a woman who had lived thirty years under the royal roof of House Denar, glided across the throne room to stand by Elias’s side. The rest of the party fell into position and formed a line across the center of the chamber.
“There you have it,” said Elias. He felt Danica’s surreptitious hand on the small of his back, for she sensed his faltering strength and lent him her support.
The lieutenant responded by raising a hand, and, on cue, four Handsman fanned out behind him and followed suit. Bursts of puce magical energy formed before their hands and then fizzled into a stutter of sparks. The Handsman exchanged bewildered glances.
With a casual flick of his wrist Elias cast out a ripple of force energy, visible in the air like the disturbance in a pond caused by a skipping stone. The lieutenant was ripped from his feet and sailed through the air and down the long hallway, bowling over his compatriots and then bouncing off the far wall, whereupon he went still as a sack of grain. “Your power is broken and quite beyond your reach,” Elias said with a cold thunder in his voice.
The Hand’s formation shifted and another man took point. He drew his scimitar and took a cautious step toward the queen’s party, his sword raised in a high guard. As the light from the golden star above fell upon him, the black steel of his blade shivered and dissolved into ash.
Elias did not raise his voice but it gathered gravity and echoed down the hall and through the inner keep with tenacious, insistent power. “Even your dark-tempered steel will not avail you here, sons of the Scarlet Hand. Take your lives and flee this land before I repeal my oath to not put to the sword disarmed enemies.”
The Lieutenant threw down the hilt of his ruined sword and began to speak. “You may have won thi—” he began before Elias sighed and flicked his wrist again, and the new point-man followed his predecessor down the hall on a gale of arcane wind.
The Scarlet Hand’s ranks broke like a black tide upon a lighthouse dam. Elias stood fast in the center of the spell-circle and watched as the enemy fled. When the last of them disappeared, Elias exhaled the breath he had been holding since his father and Asa had died three months ago at Midsummer’s. His knees buckled, but Danica and Lar were there to catch him.
“I can’t believe it,” Danica said, her green eyes smiling.
“Dad buried his lessons deep, but well,” Elias said as his vision blurred.
Danica’s eyes too grew wet. “No,” she said, “I can’t believe you solved that puzzle with the star. You almost failed geometry!”
For the first time in many, many moons the throne room of Galacia filled with laughter.
Elsewhere in Peidra, citizens from swaddling babe to wizened elder, were drawn from their slumber by a golden light raining from the heavens. One by one, from pauper to high lord, they peered out their bedroom windows to see the star of Galacia hanging over Lucerne Palace, the ancient symbol on the heraldry of House Denar, and the herald of a new dawn.
Epilogue
First Marshal
Elias was amazed by how quickly Peidra returned to business as usual once Sarad and his minions had been defeated. For the common folk, seeing the star of House Denar lighting the night sky like a midnight sun was enough to convince them of the legitimacy of the queen’s return. Galacians, ever a pragmatic people—fostered Elias supposed by its tenuous position in the center of a continent that seemed too small for all its hungry
nations, and thus no stranger to war—were content to leave magic to the arcanists and government to queen and council as long as their sons were kept safe and bread was on the table.
As for the gentry, none were satisfied with Oberon’s brief reign—least of all Oberon himself, who had sequestered himself in his chapel for a stint of self reflection and prayer since his run-in with Mirengi. As for Vachel Ogressa, he had been keeping to his townhouse and his cups, devastated, as rumor had it, by the betrayal of his friend and confidant, Prelate Mirengi. While that was doubtlessly true, Elias thought shame the driving factor that kept Ogressa cloistered. That, and a lingering chagrin that he and his coconspirator Oberon had backed the wrong horse.
Houses Mycrum and Antares had wasted no time in forming an alliance after the queen’s disappearance. Mycrum for one had a natural distrust of anyone not from House Mycrum and bristled at the idea of so many swords milling about that had exclusive loyalty to House Oberon and the church. For his part, Josua of Antares knew that foul play had occurred, particularly when he had not been allowed to view his niece’s body. As Oberon had withdrawn from the public eye, their combined forces easily reassumed control over the Blackshields and Galacian Regulars after the queen’s return. As for Rabidine, the somber air that pervaded the capital since the queen’s disappearance more than convinced him to receive the return of his monarch with open arms.
Captain Blackwell, who had been taken alive with the queen’s party, and momentarily forgotten in Treacher’s Tower, was well-loved by the Red and Whiteshields, and quickly reasserted authority over them in conjunction with House Mycrum and Antares. He, along with several other valorous individuals, had been honored in a ceremony in the throne room, followed by a reception in the great hall.
The queen spared no expense or pomp, for she wished to demonstrate that the wealth and strength of House Denar remained intact. She declared a Hunt Holiday the day before the ceremony, opening up the Hartwood to the gentry and common folk alike. Overnight the kitchens worked nonstop to prepare roasted boar and venison, summer squash and sweet corn, wild rice and mushrooms, cornbread and honeyed sweet cakes, and every other harvest bounty imaginable.
Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 44
