In perfect unison, every single scarab leaped into the air, their gossamer wings blurring. Dozens of the creatures zoomed towards Caina, and she had perhaps two seconds before the scarabs overwhelmed her and drove her to the ground. Riona stumbled back, gathering power for a spell, her left hand outstretched.
Caina had one instant left in which to act.
She hammered her valikon down upon Riona’s left arm. The ghostsilver blade sheared through Riona’s wrist, and her left hand fell to the ground.
With it tumbled the jade scarab amulet.
Riona’s eyes went wide, and she screamed and collapsed to her knees, her body quaking. The power of the scarab must have let her ignore the wounds the beetles had carved in her flesh, but with the scarab gone, she had no protection against the agony.
Caina stabbed down with the valikon, plunging the sword into the amulet.
The flying beetles dove towards Caina.
The scarab amulet shivered and crumbled into ash beneath the valikon’s point.
Power exploded out from it in a hot wave, and the blast hit Caina and knocked her over. The back of her head bounced off the ground and stars exploded before her eyes. The diving scarabs dissolved into mist.
Blackness swallowed her.
###
Ariadne wobbled on her feet, leaning on her staff for balance as silence fell over the clearing.
The destruction of the Maatish amulet had unbound the winged scarabs, unraveling the necromancy and destroying the creatures. It had also unleashed a pulse wave of raw psychic energy. Ariadne had years of practice wielding psychokinetic forces, and so she had been able to withstand the blast.
The others had not.
Ariadne stooped over Sophia, checking the girl. To her relief, Sophia was fine. The psychic backlash had stunned her mind, but she should wake up in a few moments. The others would be unharmed as well. Ariadne was more concerned about Caina, who had been standing over the amulet when it exploded. She was also concerned that Riona was still alive and working another spell.
Ariadne sprinted across the clearing, heaved herself onto the platform (Caina had done it much more gracefully), and hurried to Caina. Her niece lay on her back, the valikon near her hand, her eyes twitching behind closed lids. She had hit her head on the ground, but not hard enough to cause permanent damage. She would likely awake any moment with a nasty headache.
As for Riona, she would not awaken at all.
Her left hand was missing, and she lay in a pool of blood. The scarabs had tunneled their way out of her flesh, empowered by the amulet, and that amulet had given her the strength to endure the wounds. Likely it would have healed them in another few hours. But without the amulet, Riona had succumbed to her injuries, her eyes glaring up at the vaulted ceiling.
The golden mask lay near her remaining hand, its eyes reflecting the glow from the Ascendant Bloodcrystal. No, the eyes weren’t reflecting the light, they were glowing on their own. Likely it had absorbed the power released from Riona’s death. Well, that wasn’t surprising. The foundation of necromancy was death, and the Maatish necromancers of old had been skilled at harvesting death…
Ariadne stared into the mask’s eyes, fascinated.
It seemed like the mask was staring back into her.
And all at once, Ariadne understood.
She understood how to make the world clean.
Chapter 21: Deserving Death
Caina jerked back to consciousness.
She sat up, seizing the hilt of her valikon. She had a nasty headache, and the back of her head felt like it was on fire, but that didn’t matter. Riona was likely still alive, and…
But as Caina stumbled back to her feet, she saw that it didn’t matter.
The battle was over.
Riona lay in a puddle of her own blood a few yards away, sightless eyes glaring at the vaulted ceiling. Her face was twisted in a mask of rage and pain, her eyes glittering in the light from the Ascendant Bloodcrystal. Caina turned, seeking for the others, and felt a stab of alarm as she saw Kylon and Morgant and Sophia and Calaver lying stunned on the ground.
She leaped off the platform and sprinted to Kylon’s side, horrible memories rising in her mind. Caina remembered the burning theatre in Risiviri, remembered frantically trying to drag a dying Kylon out of the building before the ceiling fell on their heads. He had almost died there…
But her fear dissipated as she dropped to one knee next to Kylon. He was only unconscious, and his breathing and heartbeat were good. His eyes twitched behind closed lids, and Caina saw a faint arcane aura around him, a lingering effect of mind sorcery that was dissipating even as she looked at it. It had come from the destruction of the scarab amulet. The backlash had unleashed a wave of raw telepathic force, a wave that had knocked everyone nearby unconscious. It should pass in another few moments. Caina had been immune to it, but she had struck her head against the ground, which had been almost as effective. Ariadne, with the mental discipline of a high magus, might have been able to resist the effect, but…
Wait. Ariadne.
Where was Ariadne?
Caina got to her feet and looked around, but she couldn’t find any sign of Ariadne.
And the mask. Caina realized that the golden mask hadn’t been with Riona’s corpse. Had Ariadne taken it? An uneasy feeling went through Caina, her old suspicions rising to the top of her mind. Maybe this was what Ariadne had planned all along, to take the mask and leave them in the Tower of the Cataphract. But that seemed wrong. Caina didn’t think that Ariadne had lied to her.
She concentrated, focusing on the vision of the valikarion, on the sorcerous auras she saw around her. Mighty arcane forces saturated the strange forest and the pillars, and she saw the auras around Morgant’s weapons. Caina concentrated further, a wave of dizziness and nausea going through her as she turned in a circle…
There!
She spotted the mask’s aura about a quarter of the way around the clearing, at the edge of the guardian trees. It wasn’t moving. Had Ariadne taken it there for some reason? Caina started running. The mask’s aura flickered a few times as if the person holding it was shifting from foot to foot.
Caina raced around the curve of the platform and came to a horrified stop.
Ariadne hovered a few feet above the ground, a noose tied around her neck, blood dripping from her right hand, the mask lying discarded on the ground nearby. She had written the word CLEAN in blood across the tree’s trunk. The rope was stained with blood.
Caina’s first thought was that Ariadne had hanged herself.
No. She was still alive, still breathing. Her face did not have the horrible purple cast of a hanged corpse, nor even the darkening red of growing asphyxiation. The noose was around her neck, but it hadn’t yet drawn tight around her throat. Caina saw the faint glow of a levitation spell around Ariadne, which explained how she had gotten that rope around the branch overhead.
When Ariadne released the levitation spell, she would fall, and the noose would snap tight, either breaking her neck or crushing her windpipe.
“Ariadne!” shouted Caina. “Stop!”
She ran closer, and Ariadne’s eyes fell on her.
They glowed with a green light, the same light that had flickered around the golden mask. Caina saw the twisted aura of the mask’s sorcery wrapped around Ariadne. She must have touched the damned thing after Riona’s death or gotten close enough to be enthralled by its aura.
“Don’t come any closer!” said Ariadne, her voice eerily calm. “Another step and I will let myself drop.”
Caina stopped. Ariadne had done a thorough job of tying that damned noose around her neck. If she released her levitation spell and let herself drop, she would probably choke to death before Caina could cut her down.
Unless…
Slowly, carefully, she let her hand slide towards the baldric slung across her chest.
“Stop!” said Caina. “This is madness, Ariadne. The mask is twisting your thoughts. It’s t
ricking you into killing yourself.”
“No, Caina,” said Ariadne. “No, you don’t understand. The mask showed me the truth. It showed me my true nature.”
“And what true nature is that?” said Caina, easing a step closer. “What did it show you?”
A little closer. She just had to get a little closer.
“I always wondered what was wrong with the world,” said Ariadne, still speaking in that calm voice. “I always wondered why evil men prospered and the innocent suffered, suffered as those children in my husband’s warehouse did. The mask showed me the truth at last.”
“And what truth is that?” said Caina.
Another step closer. Caina shifted her valikon to her left hand, the fingers of her right hand flexing. Ariadne took no notice.
“I am what is wrong with the world,” said Ariadne.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Caina.
She took a longer step, but still, Ariadne did not notice. Or she was so wrapped up in the madness that the mask had induced that she did not care.
“I am a monster,” said Ariadne. “I killed my first husband. I couldn’t save all his victims. There is so much evil in the world…and I am not strong enough to stop it. That makes me a monster. There is only one way to make the world clean.”
Clean. All seven of the mask’s victims had written that word in blood on the wall. Or for Decius Aberon, the nearest tree.
“I must kill myself,” continued Ariadne. “I must spill my evil blood. Only then will the world be clean. Only then will I have cleansed the world from the blight of my existence.”
“That’s insane,” said Caina. Just a few more steps and she would be close enough. “You’re not responsible for what your husband did. You tried to stop it. You did stop it. And you’re not responsible for what the Umbarians have done.”
“But I didn’t do enough to stop it,” said Ariadne, and though her voice was calm, tears filled in her eyes.
“You’re not a god,” said Caina. “You’re not even an emperor or a king, and it is madness to blame yourself for all the evil in the world.”
“You fought against it,” said Ariadne. “I should have done the same.”
“Listen to me,” said Caina. Just a little closer... “I’ve failed in the past. I couldn’t save my father. I couldn’t save the man I loved before Kylon. I’ve failed to save people, and I’ve made serious mistakes. But the state of the world is not your responsibility. Your only responsibility is the decisions you make. And right now, you are making a bad decision.”
“No,” said Ariadne. “The world has to be made clean.” The tears slid down her cheeks. “I have to rid the world of the blight of myself, of my failures.”
“Ariadne Scorneus Hegemonar Ildimer Maraeus!” shouted Caina at the top of her lungs. Ariadne flinched at the shout. Hopefully, it would draw Kylon or Morgant or Calaver if they had regained consciousness. “I am a valikarion of Iramis, a guardian against the powers of evil sorcery! Do you think I would hesitate to kill you if you were a woman like Talmania, a cruel necromancer-tyrant like the Iron King, or a scheming murderer like Decius Aberon? I would hang you from that tree myself. But I saw you are not. I say you are a good woman with a good heart, with a husband and a stepson who love you!” She took one more step forward. “You don’t deserve this. Come down!”
“Farewell, Caina Kardamnos,” said Ariadne, and a sad smile went over her face. “I am glad you are my niece, and I wish had I gotten to know you better. But this is for the best. The world must be made clean!”
Her voice rose to a shout on the final word, and she let the levitation spell give way.
Ariadne started to fall, the remaining slack of the rope beginning to go taut.
But Caina was ready.
In one smooth motion, she stepped forward, yanking the throwing knife from her baldric. Her arm snapped back and then forward, her whole body quivering like a bowstring, and she sent the weapon spinning towards the rope. For a horrible, eternal heartbeat, time seemed suspended around Caina, the knife glittering as it flew, the rope starting to go taut, Ariadne’s face serene in the final instant of her life. But it wouldn’t remain serene for long, Caina knew. Her eyes would bulge. Her tongue would swell over her teeth. Her face would turn that hideous shade of purple.
Then the whirling knife sheared through the rope. It started to go taut and snapped instead. Instead of hanging, Ariadne felt the remaining distance to the ground. She landed with a gasp, her legs buckling beneath her.
Caina sprang forward as Ariadne sat up. She shifted her valikon to her right hand and stabbed with the weapon. The tip of the sword sank into Riona’s golden mask, and the artifact’s twisted necromantic aura started to unravel. The mask itself warped and bubbled, melting into the earth, and the valikon’s hilt grew hot beneath Caina’s fingers.
The necromantic spell shattered, and the mask crumbled into dust.
Ariadne let out a heaving gasp, and her eyes went wide with sudden panic as she jerked to her feet.
“Oh, gods, oh, gods,” she said, clawing at her throat with bloody fingers. “Get it off, get it off, get it off me…”
“Here! I’m here,” said Caina, and she grabbed her aunt’s wrists and forced her hands down. She raised her valikon and slashed through the rope, and the noose fell away. Ariadne stumbled back, doubled over, and threw up.
Caina heard footsteps and looked to see Kylon, Morgant, Calaver, and Sophia running towards her.
“What happened?” said Kylon.
“The mask caught her,” said Caina. “I think I stopped it in time.”
Ariadne straightened up, wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her robe, her eyes haunted.
“Caina,” she croaked.
“Yes?” said Caina.
“Did I throw up on your boots?”
“You did not,” said Caina.
“Oh,” said Ariadne. “Good.” She looked at her gashed palm, grimaced, and undid her sash and wrapped it around her hand to staunch the bleeding. “Thank…thank you for my life. Gods. Another second. If you had been another second slower, I would have snapped my own neck.” She shuddered and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I would have left poor Conn a widow again.”
Ariadne really did love Conn Maraeus, Caina reflected. Else she would not be thinking of him now.
Caina hoped that Conn was worthy of her.
“What did it feel like?” said Caina.
“I was…I was so certain I had to kill myself,” said Ariadne, taking a shuddering breath. “All my mistakes – and there have been so many – swam before my eyes, and I thought that they were the source of all the evil in the world. I thought the only way to make it right, to make the world clean, was to spill my blood. Then you broke the mask…and I realized that I had almost killed myself. Gods.”
“Then it’s over?” said Calaver. He looked bone-weary. There had been a great deal of hard fighting in the Tower of the Cataphract.
And, Caina thought with some satisfaction, she couldn’t be an easy woman to hunt.
“No,” said Caina. She found Ariadne’s staff and handed it to her. “Come with me.”
She led the way across the clearing to the platform and jumped onto it. The light from the unfinished Ascendant Bloodcrystal shone in her eyes, and Caina strode towards the altar. The malignant, mighty aura of the evil thing stabbed into her senses, and her skin crawled with revulsion.
Caina walked to the altar, drew back her valikon, and swung the weapon.
The ghostsilver blade tore through the bloodcrystal. The Ascendant Bloodcrystal shattered into a thousand glittering pieces that rained across the altar and the ground like broken glass. A moment later the shards crumbled into ashes, and the malignant aura of the thing faded from Caina’s vision.
“Now it’s over,” said Caina.
“Caina?” said Ariadne.
“Aye?”
“I changed my mind,” said Ariadne. “I’m very glad you bought those throwing knives.�
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Chapter 22: First Magus
Two days later, the high magi of the Imperial Magisterium elected a new First Magus, and Lord Conn Maraeus and Lord Valerius Hadrazon returned with news that rocked Artifel.
Caina stood in the chamber of the Great Dome as an invited guest of Ariadne Maraeus and watched the vote. Hundreds of high magi had gathered to hear Ariadne’s account of the death of Decius Aberon, and as evidence Ariadne offered Decius’s corpse, the dead maid at the Black Mirror (the poor woman had been named Cornelia), the corpse of Riona, the broken shards of the Maatish mask, and the testimony of Calaver Aberon and Tempora Aureon.
Under the Pact of Iramis, Caina gave testimony as a valikarion, detailing what had happened, though both she and Ariadne omitted the Ascendant Bloodcrystal, Talmania’s interference, and the Cataphract’s survival. She wanted the high magi to think of the Tower of the Cataphract as a place of fear and dread, and she didn’t want them to start poking around inside it for ancient secrets. For one, if they did, they would likely be killed. For another, the Cataphract might have hidden worse things than an Ascendant Bloodcrystal inside his Tower.
The evidence and the testimony together proved enough. The high magi voted with an overwhelming majority to posthumously depose Decius Aberon as the First Magus and to expel him from the Imperial Magisterium. The law of the magi required that the high magi elect a new First Magus at once.
Valron Icaraeus, Praesar of the Magisterium, won with a solid margin.
The new First Magus gave a speech shocking in its brevity. Caina gathered that previous First Magi had taken their office with pomp and ceremony to rival the coronation of a new Emperor. Valron dispensed with all that. The Magisterium was at war, the new First Magus proclaimed, locked in a battle for its very survival. Within a week, Valron would depart for the front in Nova Nighmaria, and he would take every able-bodied magus with him to aid in the fight. The Magisterium faced two options, Valron argued. Either the Magisterium would have to reform itself, becoming a vigorous shield for the defense of the Empire, or the Umbarian Order would enslave and destroy them.
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