The Mark of Gold

by A. S. Etaski

  “What?” Mourn asked. “When?”

  “Inside the circle of protection against the warp-rotted.”

  Golden eyes blinked in disbelief; the mercenary looked at me. I put my head and arms on the table, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to breathe and stay awake. I listened to them.

  “She tried mere moments after striking a deal?”

  “Moments after she traded the blue stone to you out of fear and confusion,” the death mage replied. “I do not believe it was her but the demon who tried to puppet her to throw itself at you.”

  I groaned to hear that; my jaw hurt from gritting it in shame that he had to speak for me. Maybe they still would not accept Gavin’s explanation.

  “For whatever reason,” he continued, “their wills clashed, and this attempt failed before the dagger left her hand. Since she has had the stone back, I have witnessed vast improvement.”

  “What improvement?” Krithannia asked, her voice calm and interested.

  “There was a ‘magical squall’ in the Archipelago,” Gavin said. “That is what you call it, yes?”

  “Yes, I have experienced those. Go on.”

  “I have not experienced such turbulence in my visions of the dead since boyhood, and I have never before seen places and souls I recognized as ‘home’ but outside my own time. I was lost and could get no bearing until Sirana offered her soul as a lodestar. Her… thoughts cut through the storm. They were a line to her life and time, a preserver I could cling to until it passed. Her will is extraordinarily strong even as she doubts. I do not think another could, or should, carry the relic long term.”

  “Yet she would take it with you inside the temple sanctum?”

  I lifted my head, snarling, “I want the Guild’s help finding Jael! Unless she is in the sanctum, I do not need follow Gavin everywhere.”

  “Jael?” asked my grey scholar. “The third of you, of the Blood Sisters?”

  “Yes, my sister,” I croaked. “She seeks someone specific at Manalar, no doubt influential in the coming siege. I do not know why or what she was to do. She couldn’t tell me, but I know her. It was only from watching hints in her face when my elder was teaching us of the Surface.”

  Krithannia’s eyebrows remained expressive, a delicate lift. Her voice was gentle. “Why couldn’t she tell you her mission, Sirana?”

  “Nau’chinder,” I answered hoarsely, feeling a tic spasm in my face.

  Mourn rumbled in thought, and Krithannia had understood as well.

  “Forbidden,” she repeated for Gavin’s benefit. “Very well.” The Naulor considered her next words with care. “When you are ready, Sirana, if you can… show me that you can hold the Soul Blade, be the bearer. Then allow me to set a magical peace knot upon it, and I shall help you locate your sister.”

  Ah, on the condition…

  I frowned. “How does one set a ‘magical’ peace knot?”

  “I inscribe an interlinking rune on the hilt and scabbard. You need never draw it.”

  Gavin shifted similarly to how he’d reacted to Sarilis’s spoken plans about his vials, and I sensed a warning at the back of my mind as well.

  I met her eyes. “The thing is covered in runes. How powerful of a caster are you? Can you be certain yours will keep blade and sheath together and override the others, or might they interact and conflict?”

  Any reasonable mage-scholar would look concerned, I thought. Fortunately, the Naulor did. She looked to Mourn. “You have seen it. Your salt ring worked to quiet it.”

  He nodded confirmation.

  “Are the sigils not Infernal or Abyssal?”

  “Infernal and Abyssal are both present, yes.”

  “We can work together on the spell, then.”

  The Dragonchild considered but shook his head. “There are some sigils I do not recognize. I agree with Sirana’s caution in adding magic to the relic, even temporary spells. It would take study to find something the demon couldn’t overcome while not risking the structure of what is already in place. Time we may not have.”

  “What else do you suggest?”

  “I can draw and sheath it again,” I said. “I know I can, especially if Jael’s life and freedom depend on it. You do not need the peace knot.”

  Mourn turned to me slowly. His gold eyes were set in a challenge. “I think that must be proven once again before I can negotiate any further with you, Baenar.”

  Now, then. I drew in a huge breath, let it out. Of course, it must be.

  After all he’d done for me, had seen around me; a pregnant Dark Elf with “unusually” vivid dreams, acting on the edge of insanity, unpredictable at times. I had come as close as I could in telling him my geas was partly about him. He must have caught it.

  I didn’t feel insane, though, and I’d done enough thus far that Gavin saw me as an anchor. A lodestar. Experience and wisdom were gained only by doing, and Jael needed me to try.

  I withdrew the Ridhian from my pouch and leaned to my left, setting the red gem in front of the mercenary. He looked down at it but did not jump on it; he offered a questioning look.

  “Can you break its attunement from me?” I asked. “Or rather, from Soul Drinker. I am sure it lied about that. I do not want the foul Ma’ab thing anymore, and the relic will not use it against me when we speak.”

  Mourn considered this. “I can. It is fairly easy.”

  “Please, do it now.”

  Without hesitation he reached out and closed the pendant in his fist, whispering something in Draconic. I swore my ears popped, and Krithannia smiled.

  “Done,” he said, leaving the ruby on the table for now.

  I squeezed my thighs together. “And where can I relieve my bladder?”

  Krithannia blinked twice but pointed at a smaller door. “That closet.”

  “Thank you.” I stood up. “Gavin, please have Soul Drinker’s bundle on the table when I return. I really should take a piss, first.”

  The Deathwalker’s expression looking up at me made me smile and Mourn audibly chuckled.

  “I will go next,” he said, “and will watch over you. Show us what you did at Brom’s Inn where none of us could witness it.”

  “Deal. Be right back.”

  No demons but us.

  CHAPTER 16

  I had that short time squatting in private to center my mind and body at once. This was the first time since the struggle at the inn’s kitchen that I thought about my “tether” settled low in my gut. An unseen presence not always felt but which needed me to return sane. The “lifeline,” as Gavin put it, that would help pull me out when I was ready.

  I saw again Innathi’s mature, joyful face as she assured me that I would dream my baby’s face at some point. She assumed it was a Daughter, of course, as most Davrin of importance did. We Nobles “always” wanted our first to be a cait, knowing half the time this did not happen. I’d always thought it a strange omission, an unspoken pressure to willfully ignore the reasonable possibility until it stared one in the face, be it in Reverie or in holding a tiny, newborn body.

  Some matas seemed to adjust to the First Son well enough, and others chose to be resentful of the time and energy spent to have him. Some blamed him for having to “begin again.”

  As if he could help being born male.

  But then, it all had to do with ever-evolving power and status, not the baby. The pregnant caits who were soldiers, servants, and merchants verbalized caring far less if their first was cait or bua, so long as they were not sickly or deformed. None of them could invest further if the child would never be able to care for themselves. The Priestesses were aware of this and very persuasive as their agents sought to collect them.

  A shiver passed through me as I finished my time in the privy, resetting my leathers but removing my belt and cloak. Had that conversation with Innathi been what I thought it was? Was this the Dark Queen of the Desert from millennia ago, or was it only the demon in the dagger using
another form to trick me, to urge me to carry it to Sivaraus?

  I must find out if I could. Here and now.

  I returned to the office, holding my belt and cloak for Gavin to take. “If you please. I don’t see where these would help.”

  My spiders moved inside their pouch. I’m sorry, no.

  Subtly, Krithannia nodded in agreement, and Gavin accepted and took them over to a small couch by the shaded window where both our packs rested. I noticed the table had been cleared of food and drink, and the wrap holding the red rune dagger rested there as I’d asked.

  Mourn passed behind me on his way to the closet, and I grinned, wondering if he was silent in all things if he wished to be.

  Irrelevant, of course.

  “This room has been sealed,” Krithannia said, “and I have cast a defensive shield upon Gavin and me. Mourn can cast for himself and will be watching for the demon turning on you and your child. We will take all precautions to turn the blade should it gain control.”

  “And if it does?” I asked.

  “We must discuss the peace knot again or find a place it may be secured but not scried by the Deathless sorcerer or the Ma’ab Ascended.”

  “The threats I heard from the void,” Gavin offered helpfully, “should we try to isolate it in a vault or similar, suggested it had unpleasant retaliation prepared against living, dead, and not yet born. I do not know the extent of its truth, but it will not go quietly. I believe there is a cost.”

  “My first choice is to face it,” I said. “Abyssal lies have a cadence to them I can hear. I know the demon is not as certain as it sounds.” I shrugged. “However, if I am wrong about its true strength beneath the lies, well… I am glad you are here to do what you must. It might not matter to me, then.”

  I bore in mind this was no different from confronting Jilrina and Kaltra, or later on, Wilsira and Kerse. As with those I once knew in Sivaraus, all of them dead, I may have begun this confrontation alone and beaten, but it hadn’t ended that way. Soul Drinker feared Mourn and could not overwhelm Gavin, so it tried to coax me away from them, insisting I should distrust them when their actions only spoke of helping me live.

  The demon had wanted me to throw away Shyntre’s pendant, and that had decided a crucial contest I realized too late it was winning. No wonder I was so ill for days after my allies had wrested it from my grip.

  Here in Yong-wen, I remembered D’Shea’s laughter in her quarters when she discovered that she—even she—could not see who I thought of while wearing the saphgar stone. Neither could Cris-ri-phon see my Valsharess’s face in my memory when he wanted it most.

  Mourn emerged from the closet, signaling he was ready; with a tiny smile, I reflected that I hadn’t heard any base function from the half-blood this time. Finding no words beyond those spoken, I stepped to unwrap the bundle, hearing the joyful whispers before the runes flared like fresh blood.

  I lifted it with both hands.

  *Yessss! Sirana! At last!*

  ~Hello, Soul Drinker. I have questions.~

  *Goood. Drawww meee…*

  The rush of energy and chaos I expected did not materialize as before. I did not stand upon ever-eroding stone beneath a surreal night sky, with a churning, blue well of light falling into a single point behind me.

  A heavy, smothering silence surrounded me in a void. The darkness was total; my eyes could detect no Radiants as in the Deepearth. I reminded myself I wasn’t using my real eyes or ears.

  Her will is extraordinarily strong even as she doubts. I do not think another could, or should, carry the relic long term.

  “Let me see,” I said.

  The darkness thinned and drifted like fog as Soul Drinker responded, *Are you sure?*

  Ancient stone spread out before me without color, I recognized the same sense of being underground, of the massive, awe-inspiring presence of the stone and earth cradling me. Although, despite a shadow of Kain’s comfort and expertise perking up in interest, I had no sense of its true age.

  *Have care. Thiss is not the Deepearth, Sirana.*

  The enormous room was a hollowed-out part of a mountain several times larger than the Valsharess’s richly decorated throne room high in the Palace, although the only indication of a similar center of rule here was the stone seat atop a rise of stairs to my right. The base of the throne had been neither set upon nor fixed to the platform but flowed into it, carved from the stone itself. All else of value had been stripped long ago.

  The floor had once been polished and flat, perhaps covered in rugs, but scores of scuffs and scorch marks scarred the fine gloss now. The walls had been dressed by stonecutters to rise as straight-lined sentinels toward a ceiling which disappeared like the Great Cavern. Even these great walls showed their age in cracks left untended after many quakes and tremors.

  Broken stairs led to my left away from the throne, but these were nothing like the shallow, consecutive steps leading to the platform. Steep and tall, the path lifted the climber into empty air without railings to hold on to, reaching a dizzying, uncertain height.

  I didn’t make out where this path led before something cooed and sniggered, its voice caressing the throne. I watched as a deep, impenetrable shadow swirled around the base of the throne before pouring into the hard, bare seat. It attempted to form a torso, four arms, and a head with a set of deep red eyes. It found no need for legs at present.

  *Ssiranna. Warrior. My bearer. You’ve felt how powerful I am, and I know you’re afraid of me. So long I’ve waited after you pawned me to the Deathwalker to spend time cuddling with the Dragonchild. And now you’ve stripped the Ridhian from me before finally answering my call? Tsk. You’re not treating me fairly after what I’ve done for you. We must renegotiate my providing any further aid.*

  “Where is Innathi?” I asked. “I made the agreement with her about receiving aid. Or was that just you in Davrin form, and there never was a Desert Queen?”

  The demon chortled, the edges of its form curling into wisps which broke off before sweeping in to reblend in its core. *Oh, there was, and still is after all this time. I may have provided hints, for I know what she wants. I always have since the day she drew the blade.*

  “Where is she?”

  *Such a poor question displays your ignorance of what you try to wield yet can hardly bear instead.*

  “How do I speak with her again?*

  *Ahhh… there we are. Simple enough. You must get past me.*

  It raised its incorporeal limbs above its “head,” indicating the featureless space behind the throne. I saw neither door nor wall.

  *I am the keeper of every soul ever taken,* crowed the demon,*every morsel of Vis and Vitas given birth, yet to be sundered and drained from their meat. As one, we crave this, and the bearer must be loyal and serve this need. Or we turn on the bearer and find another.*

  “Why did you try to claim Morixxyleth the moment he turned his back?” I asked. “That was truly a stupid impulse. Gavin and I would have been overwhelmed, and you not only would have no chance to find the Davrin, but the cannibals might have taken you to the heart of the warp rot.”

  The floating eyes flared, a rope of runes appearing briefly across its chest like the tracks of a scurrying mouse. The demon hissed, *I could puppet your corpse. I would have won.*

  “Hah. You would have been dragged shrieking into something more primal than you. Ignoring what may have happened to the land, the black blade would have been torn apart and transformed, and you with it. You lost contact with me when I got too close. I’d even been holding the dagger, and that severance scared you. I felt it. Like all denizens of the Abyss, you can’t keep to a strategy or a bargain to save your existence, so why should I renegotiate anything with you? You’ll just change it again.”

  *Chillld,* it cooed. *What else can you do? You must deal with me, or I will make your life pure…unending… torment. I will suck down your unborn’s soul like the genital slime that it is. I shall
trap your Vis with the Queen of long ago, feast on your Vitas, and you will regret your choice for eternity like all the others.*

  “That is no choice. I know your sort too well, from my earliest memories in the nursery. It never helped me to accept a threat in hopes of avoiding it.”

  *Yesss, but the pain gets worse, until one of us dies. Isn’t that how your compulsions work? And unlike these others, I can’t die. But you can, yet never find peace.* It adopted a hairstyle my eldest sister once favored, growing ears shaped like hers. *How you hate feeling so helpless, hmm? You remember.*

  I smiled, resting my hands on my hips. I could feel the custom fit of my red uniform muting its jabs. Shyntre’s pendant soon hung visible from my neck, glowing as the only light in the throne room.

  “The Soul Blade is well made,” I said. “So many layers of magic. Abyssal, Infernal, and others. And so old.”

  *Nice bluff, warrior. You repeat what you’ve been told.*

  “Mm-hm. I heard that and wondered. Do you even know who set the rules for you anymore? Or how you got here? Can you leave if you wish? Surely you didn’t choose this begging dependence. I wager it was someone more powerful putting a leash on you. A curse works both ways.”

  The four-armed creature launched off the throne, flying straight at me like a phantom cat, screeching, claws outstretched. I reacted with the speed of thought, of my memory, mimicking my wizard when his magic had shielded me from harm while I’d lain bleeding out.

  Except, I had no magic.

  Soul Drinker struck a dome of raw, compressed visions, sounds, and sensations as if this moment were as solid as stone. To push through would be to feel everything that I had, Kerse with Kain and me. It recoiled in momentary disgust, its eyes changing from that deep red to a familiar, sickly yellow, then to crimson again. A low, rising cackle swelled in the chamber along with its spreading shadow losing any appearance of a body.

  *Is that all you have, Ssirana? Soon, I shall sup on that agony built by the Spider Queen.*