Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  “Do you need to go?” Arrow asked.

  “No. Let’s see what we’re dealing with first.”

  With one mind, the expanded group turned to the closed door.

  The door opened with anti-climactic silence, revealing what looked, for a moment, to be an ordinary cellar room. Then Arrow blinked, eyes sliding away from objects.

  “Glamour,” she told her companions, and set her will to unravelling it.

  More footsteps on the stairs had everyone on edge, looking back to find Dorian and his deputy clattering down the stairs. They made even more noise than she did, Arrow thought. For once Dorian looked deadly serious.

  “What’s going on? What have you done?” The demand, spat out in an urgent tone, was addressed to everyone.

  Arrow turned her shoulder on him, returning her attention to the glamour spell.

  Torn aside, the glamour had been hiding a spell circle drawn with crude skill. Not a master magician. But efficient enough.

  Arrow’s breath caught at the sight of the stone sculptures set at regular intervals around the circle. Five of them in total. Stone that used to be white. Whoever had drawn the spell circle and used the stones for power had used forbidden magic, the sticky unclean feel of it making her skin crawl. The stones were coated with blood. At the side of the room a pile of bodies lay. Humans. Too many arms and legs to count in one, swift glance.

  The floor within the circle was pooled with blood, the sweet iron taste of it catching Arrow’s throat. In the air above the blood was an inky black coil she had never seen before.

  “Not a surjusi,” she said, taken aback. Her sword was in her hand, ready to be used, silver glinting along its length.

  “Worse.” Miach’s voice was hoarse. “A portal.”

  “A what?” Matthias demanded. “How is that worse?”

  “A gateway between their world and ours.” Arrow forced her lips to move. “So there is no limit to what might come through.” She pointed to one of the stones. “Those stones were what the Collegia magic users were stealing. Zachary knows,” she added, turning to Matthias. He jerked his chin once, mouth set in a flat line, acknowledging. “And blood power,” she said unnecessarily.

  “Can you seal it?” Miach demanded.

  “With time, yes.” Arrow was quite certain. It was a spell. Just a spell. She had undone dozens, perhaps hundreds, of spells over the course of her life, including a triple-layered trap set on Farraway Mountain. The black twisted sinuously, bottomless heart seeming to mock her. Just a spell.

  She put the sword away and took a step towards the circle. Nothing had come through the portal yet.

  “This has only just been opened,” she said, chill running down her spine. “The disturbance last night must have been the preparation.”

  “If it’s only just opened, where’s the magician? And those people ahead of us. With backpacks?” Matthias asked.

  “Good questions,” Kallish acknowledged. Her grasp of common tongue was improving, Arrow noted. Far faster than Arrow’s combat skills.

  Miach had his sword up, battle ward shining around him. He extended his ward to Matthias and the pair of them made a slow, careful circuit around the room, pausing to check the sorry pile of bodies as they went. Kallish and her third went the other way, likewise surrounded by battle wards, leaving Kester a few paces away. Close enough that she was aware of his presence, far enough away to let her work. A quick glance at his face, set and determined, and she realised he was not going to move.

  Arrow shoved aside the presence of the warriors and Kester’s scowl, calming her mind as she had been trained to do, kneeling just outside the circle, opening her second sight. The work was crude. Lines drawn with a heavy hand. Someone who knew what they meant, or thought they did, but had little practice using the runes. Someone who had no qualms about stealing the stones, using their power and, worse, killing people to fuel their spell. Several someones, she suspected. It looked like only one hand had drawn the runes, but there was a large pile of bodies. Too much for one human to manage, she thought. The spell worker was not a magician she knew. The blunt approach reminded her of the combat magicians, but she could not tell their magical signatures apart.

  Matthias and the White Guard were on the other side of the circle when one of the shadows behind the open door moved, forming into a cloaked figure that sprang forward out of shadow and, screaming words Arrow could not understand, threw a spell at her.

  Kester yelled, a fraction too far away.

  Arrow’s wards flared, protecting her from whatever magic the figure had thrown at her, but the concussive force of the blow sent her forward, across the line of the circle, the unclean magic scoring her skin as she went, and, before she could brace herself, into the portal itself.

  The last thing she saw of the world was Kester’s face, still with that set and determined expression, following her into darkness.

  CHAPTER 10

  She fell.

  She screamed as she fell.

  The sword flared. Blinding.

  She fell.

  Her voice ran out. Her lungs were starved, chest working to get air in. There was no air.

  And still she fell.

  On and on and on and on.

  Until there was no more falling.

  The silence rang through her skull, so loud there was nothing else for long moments. No up, no down. Just the echo of nothing in her head.

  She tried to get up and floundered, arms and legs going in different directions, heart thudding loud enough to break the silence. She could feel nothing. Sense nothing. Her fingers stretched out into endless space, her feet had no surface under them. Her lungs would not work. She tried to touch her face and her arms flailed.

  No. That was not right. She tried to move her body and found there was no body. No arms no hands no fingers no stomach no legs no toes. Not even her hair brushing against her face.

  She opened her mouth to scream and silence emerged. No mouth. No lungs. No heart.

  Blackness all around. Inky dark with no beginning and no end.

  She was suffocating without her lungs. Dying without her body.

  Panic choked her non-existent throat and sent her absent heart thudding in her absent ears.

  Nonsense. Nothing made sense.

  But she still had a mind. And a memory of being whole. Of feet that stood on solid ground. Of fingers that held objects. Could identify different textures. Of flavour in her mouth. The sharpness of fresh fruit. The decadence of chocolate. The aroma of coffee.

  She remembered the weight of her body, the feeling of clothes around her, the kri-syang that sat along her forearm. The scabbard across her back, the non-weight of the sword a constant presence at the back of her mind. Like her unthought breathing.

  Her lungs burned, breath harsh and loud. Her ears popped. The inky black faded slightly to reveal shadows. Her heart was too fast and too loud.

  Wards were dormant, the slightest silver shimmer reassuring her she still had defences.

  With no immediate danger she pulled more air into her lungs, settling them. Her heart slowed, quietened. Her eyes cleared a little more.

  It was dark. Barely any light to see. Even a full-blood Erith might struggle in this. She spared a little energy for a spell to enhance her sight and it did not reveal a great deal more. Shades of dark in all directions. The surface underfoot was a deep earth tone, the air above endless pitch with the tiniest threads of paler tones.

  When she turned in a circle to see where she was, a sound outside her own body finally met her ears, the scrape of her boots against a hard surface.

  Extending her senses there was no life within her immediate range. Not one creature.

  All at once the memory of falling through the portal returned and she gasped, doubling over, knees hitting the hard surface, panic rising.

  Through the portal.

  Down for what had seemed an eternity.

  She was not in the world any more. Somewhere else.

>   Her mind shied away from the notion, throat closing.

  Through the portal. In the surjusi realm.

  She looked up, half expecting to see the portal’s eye opened above her. The sky above stretched, unyielding and unbroken, as far as she could see.

  Her senses, cast out again, could not trace a single spell. There was no portal. Nor even the remnants of one.

  Her heart was loud again. Trapped.

  In the surjusi’s realm.

  With no surjusi.

  That brought her to her feet. If this really was the other realm, the place the Erith believed the demons lived, the barriers between this realm and her own should be thin. She should also be surrounded by the spirits. If what the Erith believed was true.

  Trying to open second sight was painful, her other way of seeing not working at all. She was left with her primary vision, and a glimmer of second sight. Enough to trace the presence of her own wards and spells.

  Apart from her, there did not seem to be anything else here. Which could not be true. Even if the Erith had got a lot of things wrong, this was the realm where surjusi lived and there had to be at least some of them here.

  And Kester. Her chest constricted as she remembered his face above, and an arm stretched out, trying to catch her. She could only hope he was safe in the world.

  She settled on the ground cross-legged and opened her senses further, ignoring the pain of trying to use her second sight, her training at the Academy and years of service to the Erith allowing her to set aside the physical discomfort and follow her senses out much further than she could normally reach.

  Not that far away. Something breathing. No wards, no other signs of life. Definitely alive, though. She marked its location in her mind and reached further.

  There.

  At the absolute edge of even her enhanced senses.

  Something.

  A flicker of life.

  And high magic. Erith magic.

  Her eyes snapped open, silver blazing in the dark. Erith magic. Here. In the surjusi realm. Possible allies against a common threat.

  The thing that was breathing was closest.

  The Erith magic was far beyond that.

  The only things she had found. Places to aim for. Somewhere to start.

  She was on her feet and moving before she had made a conscious decision, checking that her messenger bag was in place, sword settled in the scabbard. There were Erith here.

  ~

  The ground underfoot continued flat and featureless, stretching out as far as she could see, and sense, one immense plain of hard surface and dark sky with no signs of life.

  She had been walking for what felt like an eternity. And yet she was not hungry. Or thirsty. Or even particularly sore with the effort. Her strides were still even.

  The breathing thing was tantalisingly close now, so close she should be able to see it. She paused in her stride to check her wards. Her sword remained dormant, settled across her back, wards calm. She was not in the least calm. She was in the surjusi realm. The Erith’s nightmare. A place of creatures that could swallow her whole. Her heart kept trying to race out of her body. She was trying to ignore it, moving forward with purpose and trying to ignore the knot of panic that kept catching her throat. Crying would not help. Nor would screaming. She almost wanted to try screaming, throat closing at the fear of drawing attention.

  There. Ahead.

  A different shade of dark. A shadow on the ground.

  She slowed, taking careful note of everything around her, wary.

  And the thing on the ground moved, Erith amber flaring bright, and Kester sat up, eyes bright with power as he looked around.

  “Arrow.”

  She stopped in sheer surprise.

  He tried to get to his feet, failed, settling back on the ground, pressing fingers to his temples.

  “Ugh. That hurts.”

  “Do not try to use second sight,” Arrow advised, crouching beside him. “It does not seem to work here.”

  “Where is here? What happened?”

  “You followed me into the portal. We are in the surjusi realm.”

  “What?”

  Her eyes were adjusting to the dim light, and she caught the complete astonishment on his face, followed quickly by apprehension as he looked around, then frustration as he reached for a weapon and realised that he was dressed in his gentleman’s clothes, most of his White Guard weaponry left behind. Attending a summit as a delegate of the Erith should not have required a warrior’s weaponry.

  “There are none close by.” She pointed to the sword at her back. “I think this will warn us.”

  “You think?”

  “It was made to fight spirit.”

  “That is true.” He turned to her and before she knew what he was doing, twined his fingers around hers. “I am sorry.”

  A simple apology, directly given. She could not remember the last time anyone had apologised to her, and certainly not any Erith.

  “What …”

  His thumb traced a path across her palm, effectively silencing her. Every time she thought she was growing used to his effect on her, he surprised her again. At least he had not tried to kiss her. Yet. She tended to lose all thought at that point.

  “Thomshairaen. You are right. It was not your story to tell. And he did not want to be found. Until now.” His jaw tightened for a moment. “I wish he had come to me.” The last was in a low voice, words ripped out of him.

  “He has been living on Farraway Mountain for a long time. He and Zachary are friends.” The words sounded clumsy in her ears, all that her mind could come up with. She wished she had something more elegant to say, and yet he did not seem to mind, the tightness leaving his face.

  “I saw that.” He smiled slightly. “An odd pair.”

  His thumb was still making its lazy journey across her palm and for a moment, thoughts scattered, Arrow was not sure what he was talking about, remembering with effort. Thomas and Zachary.

  “Both old. They have both seen too much,” she said.

  “True.”

  “Why did you follow me?” Arrow asked, the question pulled out of her. Part of her was delighted he was here and she was not alone. And yet they were both now in danger. “You were safe.”

  “I could not just let you go,” he told her, fingers tightening around hers. “Not alone.”

  Arrow had no idea what to say to that, not even clumsy words coming to mind. She shivered slightly as she realised she would have done the same thing, without a second thought, and returned the clasp of his hand.

  “There are other Erith here.”

  “What?” He shook his head slightly. “That seems impossible. And yet.” He shook his head again.

  “Some distance away. I sensed active wards.”

  He blinked, taking stock of their surroundings again, amber shimmering in his eyes as he saw his wards bright against the dark. A moment later and his wards died, becoming the merest hint of amber against his clothing, as Arrow’s were the faintest sheen of silver.

  “We should go, then.”

  But he did not let her go or make a move to stand, keeping hold of her for a long moment more. Arrow had been right. Kisses completely destroyed her thinking.

  ~

  Kester was an oddly comfortable and undemanding travel companion, content to move at her pace which was, she was sure, far slower than he would have managed. He was also content to travel mostly in silence as they kept most of their attention on their surroundings. The little conversation that they did have was about this new realm, the apparent sameness of it, Kester’s perfect Erith eyesight not able to detect anything more than Arrow’s enhanced vision.

  Still, it was Kester who spotted something different not far from them. A different shadow lying on the surface.

  Approaching with caution, unable to sense any life at all, Arrow’s eyes made out the lines of a body lying on the hard ground. The shape it made on the ground told its own story. Dead. And not e
asily.

  “Broken neck,” Kester said, circling the corpse with measured steps, eyes taking in every detail. “Unexpected. No defensive wounds.”

  “Human,” Arrow added, making a circuit of her own. “Not one of the magicians or the delegates. At least not from today. He looks familiar, though.”

  “One of the perimeter watch?”

  “I do not think so.” Her breath caught in her throat. “He was one of the magic users that broke into the workspace.”

  “What? When? What happened?”

  “A few days ago,” Arrow said absently, head tilted as she studied the man. Released from custody, straight back to the Collegia, she assumed.

  “Arrow.” The impatience in his voice brought her attention back to him. “Are you alright?”

  “As you see.”

  “What did they want?”

  “I am not sure.” She crouched next to the body. “He is carrying a backpack.”

  “That is significant?” Kester’s voice still held a trace of impatience, but he crouched across from her, eyes keen as he studied the corpse.

  “When we went down the stairs to the basement, there were at least two people ahead of us, going into the portal room. Carrying backpacks.”

  “They came here deliberately?” Kester was astonished, then grim. “I had not thought humans so foolish.”

  “Determined, too. This took planning. Stealing the stones. Capturing the humans used for sacrifice.”

  Arrow shook her head slightly, crouching by the human’s head. The neck had been twisted almost all the way around, her stomach uneasy at the sight even though she had viewed many dead before now. The human’s expression was one of shock.

  “How much strength would it take to do this?” she asked, glancing up to catch Kester’s attention. He tilted his head as he considered her question.

  “A lot. And training would help. No one simply stands whilst their neck is broken.” Amber flared in his eyes for a moment. “There are far more efficient ways of killing that require less force.”

  Arrow absorbed that in silence for a moment, wondering just how many ways Kester knew to kill someone efficiently. Curiosity had the question on the tip of her tongue, but he spoke before she could voice the question.