by Aaron Crash
Ymir was forced to run from the dog thing, the hellhound, maybe. It wasn’t from hell, but that hardly mattered. It was limping toward him, still gathering power, still trying to wiggle through the tear in reality. The stink of it turned Ymir’s stomach.
He saw Della floating upward, using Moons magic, and he reached out and touched her dusza before it was out of reach. He was taken away, up into the Princept’s Chamber. He was tempted to look into her past, but he only had a few seconds.
The hellhound’s snarls were becoming louder. It wasn’t below him, but still about a dozen feet behind, coming closer. If it got its teeth into him...it had teeth and it drooled, but that spit wasn’t of this world.
Della, the current Della Pennez, was in her bed, with Haylee, which wasn’t surprising. That was the Lover’s Knot at work, a subtle magic that hadn’t robbed the Princept entirely of her wits. It had eaten away at her logic and resolve.
Haylee had struck at Jenny, yes, with the demon on the island. When that failed, she knew she had to be careful, so she waited. At the same time, the half-elf’s plans never changed. She cast the Lover’s Knot on the Princept to both hinder her Flow magic and to win her heart. Haylee bided her time. Then, that night, she’d summoned another orisha, a wormy piece of soul energy that wasn’t human but something else. Haylee wanted to kill Jenny and seduce Della on the same night.
The Alumni Consortium would investigate, and Haylee would force Della to give up her position and to request that the half-elf professor be made Princept. The arrogance of it made Ymir laugh with scorn, but he saw this from Haylee’s mind and the demon-summoner saw no irony in it. The deluded never did.
The knowledge flooded into Ymir’s mind. The ring on his left pinky finger was both sunshine and darkness. He knew that the corrupted Della trusted Haylee more than anyone. He only had one choice to free the Princept, and he didn’t have the power to dispel Haylee’s magic. Others might, but would they listen? It was doubtful.
Besides, Hayleesia Heenn tried to kill the woman Ymir loved. The clansman would get his vengeance himself.
He thought the only entrance into the Princept’s Chamber was through that door at the top of the Coruscation Shelves. But no, he saw someone in the past, just after the fortress became a school. He saw them climbing up a ladder through the mirror in the Princept’s bathroom. A ladder led up there from a secret passageway on the fifth floor.
He wanted to look around more—he thought there was something else skulking around the Princept’s Chamber—but he couldn’t tarry. He heard the slippery slap of the hellhound’s many feet on the floor, in this piece of reality, and he was exposed, his dusza out in the open. This Veil Tear Ring business left him exposed like nothing else.
AWAY, FOOL! the voice of the Akkir Akkor warned. YOU HAVE WORK YET TO DO. THERE ARE EIGHT RINGS! WILL YOU STOP AT TWO?
Ymir let himself drop down, down, down through the center of the Librarium. His soul sought his body. His dusza slammed back into his flesh. He took in a breath, feeling his lungs expand, feeling his fingers, and his eyes were seeing all the people, back in the citadel, a thousand years of foot traffic in front of him.
And then he saw a man striding across the room, a man with long black hair, a thick black beard, and a crimson cloak falling away from his shoulders. He was confident and powerful, a lion in the body of the man. And he didn’t look a thousand years old. He was seeing Aegel Akkridor. He was seeing the vempor. And he had the idea that the mythical king, a conqueror, a bloodthirsty despot, was seeing him.
Ymir yanked off the ring.
He heard the howls of the hellhound and then nothing. He was sweating, breathing hard, and Lillee was in front of him.
“Was that enough time? Did you see what you needed to see?” she asked. “It was only a minute or two.”
Ymir couldn’t talk. He felt so limited now, trapped in seconds, bound in inches, like what the Akkir Akkor had said. If he touched Lillee, he wouldn’t see her past stretch out behind her. He wanted to put the ring back on. Maybe he could kill the hellhound. Maybe he could find the Akkir Akkor, slay them, and stay in that otherworldly place, where information was a simple touch away.
He grinned. “Fucking magic.” He wouldn’t put that ring on again, not until he needed to. It was tempting, and it was dangerous, and besides, this ring business had turned decidedly dark. The Akkir Akkor wanted him to make more, he knew that. He couldn’t stop thinking of their taunts. And before they mentioned the sleeper, the awakened, and the dream. What did that mean?
He touched Lillee’s arm. Her face was small, pale, and yet so pretty. They had their own magic. He could learn about her past. All he needed to do was ask.
Could he have delved into the future? He could’ve with some practice. It was something to consider. It also made him suspect that doing so might be very bad. If the hellhound had found him in the past, those minutes were gone. If it had moved into the future with him? It would know where he’d be. And when.
“You have to say something,” Lillee said in a small voice. “You’re scaring me.”
He put the ring in Lillee’s hand. “It’s dangerous. It’s a powerful tool, but it’s dangerous. Don’t let me put it on again, not for awhile. And we might have to rethink this Akkiric Rings business. The Amora Xoca is a lot safer.”
He still wore the Black Ice Ring, and he wouldn’t take it off until the night’s work was done. It did act as a Focus ring—it focused his power, gave him additional magical stores, and protected his dusza. He was still an imprudens scholar and needed the protection. The other imprudens wouldn’t be getting their rings for another few weeks.
Ymir set his satchel down. “I’m going upstairs, into the Princept’s Chamber, and I’m going to kill Hayleesia Heenn. Don’t let the professors up there. Do whatever you have to do to stop them.” He then told her, briefly, the high points of what he’d seen and the fifth-floor secret door he would use to gain access to the Princept’s Chamber.
From the satchel he took his hatchet and slipped the sheath into his belt. He also had the two knives, the silver dagger Jenny had given him along with the Sapphire Fang.
He put the hatchet on his left side and the two daggers on his right. He planned on slitting Haylee’s throat while she slept, in Della’s bed, and they could wrap her up in the sheets. He’d show the Princept the mark on her hand, the same mark where Haylee had touched her with the ashes from the Lover’s Knot.
Della would understand. She’d killed before, or so she’d said, and she’d understand this murder. It would be just like in the poem about the murdered groom, only shorter and more secret.
Lillee nodded. She understood that they couldn’t get any of the other professors involved. At this fucking school, they’d want to discuss the pros and cons of the assassination. Ymir wasn’t going to sit around and let these southerners muck up his vengeance with their laws and due process.
He was going to remove the threat, and then he was going to send a message back to Josentown. No one would ever hurt his Jenny. No one. And if Auntie Jia didn’t fully understand that, then she might need to be removed from the world.
Chapter Thirty-Two
YMIR JOGGED UP THE worn stairs to get to his table, and there, he slipped off his boots and socks. The stone was cold under his feet, but it also felt good. He could move quieter barefoot. He left his satchel at the table, as well as his shirt. He could wash the blood off his skin easily enough. He’d already ruined one leather shirt that night. He didn’t want to ruin another.
He moved silently, up through the Coruscation Shelves. Lightning crackled across the shelves, giving him light. The noise also helped hide his footsteps.
He thought of Gatha, which wasn’t all that strange since he was near her beloved books. She’d talked about her honor. What would she think of Ymir? Would she think he had no honor? Probably. Who cared? What was she to him? Gatha had given them some pleasure, she’d given them access to the Scrollery, and then she’d made it clear
that she didn’t want them in her life. Fine.
As for honor? Grandfather Bear had told Ymir a story about honor. Bear had been a young man when the bad king Yllgar reigned over the Red Elk Clan. Yllgar was a madman, a cruel tyrant, and his people nearly broke under his rule. The Red Elk wise women asked the Black Wolf Clan for help, though they didn’t want war between the people. They wanted outsiders to come and slit the madman’s throat while he slept. They would make arrangements.
Grandfather Bear and his battle brothers played a game of stone, stick, moss, and mud to see who would be given the job of murdering the king. Bear had lost. He and his brothers, naked, smeared with mud, slipped into the camp. The other warriors went with Bear to protect him in case he was discovered. In the end, though, Bear would be the one to murder the sleeping king.
And he did. Silently. The Black Wolf warriors vanished into the night with the Red Elk Clan none the wiser.
Grandfather Bear wasn’t proud of the murder, but he didn’t hide it, and he talked about it as an example of how the world gives us tasks that are beyond the notions of honor and fair play. Yes, he killed the bad king Yllgar. How many more would’ve died if Bear had lost his nerve? Good men would’ve died in battle. Good women would’ve been widowed. No. Sometimes murder was justified. That was a reality of the world, especially up north where the weather didn’t care about your fucking morality.
Ymir was going to cut the cancer out of Old Ironbound. Della would either understand or she wouldn’t.
On the fifth floor, he tracked the titles to the north side of the tower. The lightning sizzled past him, and he let it go. In his vision, he’d seen where the entrance of the secret door lay. But how to open it? He didn’t know.
However, there was an Obanathy cantrip for that. It could reveal a secret door or a trap. You had to be close. And you had to be clever.
“Jelu jelarum.” Four volumes glowed on the shelf in front of him. He saw they were a collection of the works of Octovato, his four volumes on mathematics. Ymir felt the ice on his spine. How had Octovato known about the Veil Tear Ring? And might his biography point to the truth of the Akkiric Rings? It was a clue that Ymir might be able to follow.
Octovato had a strange love of the number eight, saying it was perfection, even, easily divisible, and twice the number of both the elements and the Studiae Magica. He espoused the idea that one man should have seven wives, and that was the perfect family. Maybe it wasn’t so odd that there were eight Akkiric Rings.
Ymir could read more about the eight-obsessed sorcerer later. His volumes on math, The Divine Perfection, were out of order. They numbered one, three, two, and four.
The clansman switched the third volume and the second. He was careful not to touch the shelves, but the books were safe to touch—they were bound in leather, not iron. They were meant to be moved to open the passage.
The minute he slid the third volume in the correct slot, he heard a click, and the section of shelves swung out. He stepped inside and closed the shelves behind him just as the lightning came crackling past. The radiance seeped through cracks in the bookcase, giving him light. A ladder rose upward. He saw where he could lift a latch to push out the secret door. He’d closed it, but it wasn’t locked. Shifting the volumes would do that.
If all went well, he could cut Haylee Heenn’s throat and then slip away undetected. That might be for the best. Then he could leave a note for Della to tell her about the Lover’s Knot and the half-elven professor’s love of demonology. It did make Ymir wonder about Linnylynn Albatross because the Scatter Islands woman had the same interest.
He climbed up the ladder and came to a rectangle of glass glowing with light from the inside. It was the mirror in the Princept’s bathroom. He pushed it open. He got lucky. The hinges didn’t squeak. If it were him, he would’ve made sure they were rusty to give him some warning. He turned, put a foot on the sink, and then lowered himself out of the rectangle in the wall and onto the floor.
He crouched, waiting to see what he heard. A few Sunfire candles burned in the other room. That would give him light. He heard nothing else. He unsheathed Jenny’s dagger.
Ymir crept noiselessly off the tiles of the privy and onto the wood floor. There, in the bed, Della and Haylee slept. Neither moved. Della lay on her back. Haylee lay across her.
Ymir snuck across the room to the far side. He ignored the half-elf’s beauty and the scent of her perfume, tinged with their lovemaking. He focused on her throat. It would be a quick kill. She was laying on her right side. The left side of her neck was exposed.
Ymir readied his left hand to hold her head down. His right hand would do the slashing.
He felt his heart pounding, and he felt the revulsion, and he didn’t want to do this, but he had to. She was evil. She wouldn’t have thought twice about killing Jenny or destroying the Princept’s life. Ymir knew that for certain—he’d been inside her life.
He pushed her head down, and he cut into her neck. Something behind him circled rubbery flesh around his arm, tugging him backwards.
He spun and saw the demon, a ball of tentacles, clinging in the shadows to where the wall met the ceiling. A black tendril curled around his abdomen and caught his left hand. He was pulled off the floor, and then the thing’s scent, hidden somehow, burst forth. He gagged on the stink. It was like any squid or octopus, only this one hadn’t swum through the ocean in its wretched life. It was a creature of darkness, summoned from the abyss, a gash in the veil. Most of its tentacles held it to the wall, where it had waited like a nightmare watchdog. The other tentacles struck.
Before they could seize him, Ymir used his magic. “Jelu jelarum!” The Black Ice Ring flashed with a dark light. Pointing the dagger with his right hand, Ymir iced over two of the tendrils. The temperature in the room plummeted.
Other coils reached for him, and he froze them as well.
Lastly, he cast an armatus spell over him, covering his skin with ice. The demon squealed, tossing Ymir around, shaking him and trying to throw him loose. That wasn’t going to happen—the clansman was glued to the thing with ice.
The clansman was spun back around, jerked this way and that. He caught a glimpse of Haylee.
The half-elf assassin was sitting up, her hand on her throat. Blood poured down her chest, covering her left breast.
Della was awake as well, but only for a moment. “Caelum caelarum!” A Focus ring glowed on Haylee’s left hand, and it gleamed with a crimson light. That light was reflected in Della’s eyes. She sank back down, slapped back into an unnatural sleep. Ymir wondered what Moons spell that was. It would’ve been very handy.
The demon squid paused in shaking him loose. The slimy ropes holding him stank despite the ice, but he had the idea that the thing had gotten too cold to move.
Haylee gazed on him, fear in her eyes, and tears as well. “Why would you try to kill me? I’m not even sure I know who you are.” It was clear that speaking hurt, which would slow her spellcasting down.
For an instant, Ymir thought she might be telling the truth. Had the Veil Tear Ring tricked him? With fucking magic in the mix, it certainly was possible. Then he saw the malice gleaming in her eye. “You’re an assassin,” he spat. “You were hired by Jiabelle Josen to kill my Jenny. You didn’t have the courage to do it yourself, so you summoned your orishas.”
The woman got out of bed, still holding the wound closed on her neck. The gore dripped off her tit, down her belly, and onto her left thigh.
“No, you’re mistaken. I came here because I love Della Pennez. I wanted to become the Moons Studia Dux. And someday? Maybe, if I am worthy, I’ll become the Princept. Yes, I know Jennybelle, and I’ve met her Auntie Jia, but I wouldn’t take money to kill anyone. Please, I’m cut badly. I need help. I need a healing spell. Please.” Even though tearstains marked her face, the woman smiled. For a moment, Ymir had doubted, but no more. She could have asked her lover for help instead of putting her to sleep, and there was cold murder in her eyes. This per
formance was for the Flow magic the professors would cast. The half-elf assassin was covering her tracks.
The squid came alive. One of the tentacles, encrusted in frost, tried to capture his right arm. If he lost his weapon hand, he’d die. Once it got warm enough, the demon would crush him like its serpentine cousin had crushed Jenny.
He stabbed into the tentacle holding his left arm, and it recoiled out of reflex. He then stabbed into the tentacle around his waist, but it held, so he swept his left hand behind him, caught the tendril of rubbery, stinking flesh in his elbow, and pulled. Twisting, he sawed the blade down through the icy coils, and the thing let out a squeal followed by a shriek.
Ymir stabbed, slashed, sawed until the thing dropped him.
He landed on the floor, crouched and ready. Some of the demon squid’s tentacles were still frozen. Others had been hacked to pieces. One was a stump. It flung out all its arms, screaming and showing Ymir its center. Like both the bear and the snake, it had white needle-like fangs, gnashing and chomping in a puckered central mouth surrounded by lead-dead eyes—eight of them. Octovato would’ve loved to have this thing as a pet.
Ymir was trapped—the demon was on his left, and the half-elf assassin was on his right. She had her hands raised. Her Focus ring glowed. Her throat was damaged, but she was going to try to use her magic anyway. She was a fully trained sorceress, with any number of spells at her command. She could electrocute him with Moons, or freeze him in place with Flow, or conjure boulders to come crashing down on him using Form. Or she could simply burn him to death with Sunfire, though that would make such a mess.
Haylee, however, would be alive to make up any story she wanted. Della would be at her mercy because of their inappropriate relationship.
Lastly, with those tears on her face, she would be convincing. Or maybe that was how she lived the life of an assassin—by believing the tears she cried for the many she’d killed.
