The Cartographer Complete Series

by A. C. Cobble

  Sam was scrambling back, sliding away from the questing grip of a corpse. Clad in the tattered remnants of a burial shroud, the thing looked ten years dead.

  Gripping his broadsword, Oliver charged, taking advantage of the grotesque creature’s focus on Sam. He thrust his blade into the reaver’s back. Moaning, low and angry, the monster twisted, the steel of Oliver’s blade gouging flesh. He jerked his sword out moments before he lost his grip and retreated, watching in horror as the animated corpse turned on him.

  Its mouth opened in silent laughter. Yellowed teeth, flecked with red, filled its maw. Its front was covered in the fresh blood of its victims. He could see through the gaping hole in its hollow chest where he’d slammed his broadsword into it.

  “Frozen hell,” he muttered.

  It shuffled closer to him.

  “It’s faster than it looks,” warned Sam. Then she darted at its back, lashing the reaver with her kris daggers.

  The creature ignored her blows, not feeling or not caring about the damage, and kept after Oliver, picking up its pace. He fell away, staring in horror. It lurched after him, its eyes burning malevolent purple, its mouth open, a hungry moan chasing him backward.

  He could see flesh stuck in its ancient, broken teeth. Those people, missing their skin — it was because the damned thing was eating them!

  Feeling the heat of the burning books at his back, Oliver switched tactics and attacked, swinging furiously, bringing his blade against the creature’s wrist and severing it, striking at its chest and smashing ribs hidden beneath desiccated flesh. He disemboweled it, opening its stomach and showing an empty cavity where its entrails should have been.

  Behind it, Sam continued her attack, coming close and stabbing her daggers into it, yanking on them and tearing away hunks of dry meat that rained down to the carpet. The creature spun and swept a hand at her face. Panic in her eyes, she ducked.

  Oliver leapt at the opportunity and slashed his broadsword against the reaver’s neck, feeling the blade crash through tough muscle and crunch into the brittle bone of its spine. Its head was severed from the strike and spun free, thumping down and rolling across the ash and embers on the carpet.

  The reaver kept going, punching its arm against Sam’s head. Only the fact that Oliver had cut off the appendage at the wrist keeping it from grabbing her. Sam fell back and rolled away. Headless, the creature pursued her.

  Staring helplessly at its back where Sam had riven devastating blows, Oliver cursed. He’d cut the thing open. There were no organs inside. There was nothing they could strike to kill the monster. They might be able to chop it to pieces, but…

  He glanced at its head, a pace away from him on the carpet.

  Hate-filled eyes stared back at him. Its jaw snapped helplessly.

  Grimacing, he kicked the head, sending it flying like a sports ball into the burning stacks of books around them. With a whoosh, the dried flesh, fabric, and bone caught fire, and he saw its mouth open in a wordless scream as the flame consumed it. A clatter of bone drew his attention, and he looked to see the motionless body of the reaver laying a few paces from Sam.

  “Thanks,” she gasped, staring in horror at the fallen creature.

  “That was a reaver?” he asked, moving to help her up. “What… what is it?”

  “Dangerous, it seems,” she said, taking his hand and standing. “A corpse with the spirit still bound to it, I think. It must have escaped from its prison, the figurine Adriance was studying. The tablet your father— Duke, we’ve got a problem.”

  He turned, following her gaze, and saw that behind him, one of the fallen guards had risen. The man’s eyes burned with the same glowing purple hatred that the reaver’s had. His neck was a bloody mess of torn flesh where the creature had bitten out his throat, but that didn’t stop him.

  “It will keep coming,” whispered Oliver. “The old man in Imbon said it would just keep coming… It’s not just a spirit bound to a body, it’s… Hells. What is it?”

  The guard picked up a gleaming steel sword and started toward them.

  “Duke, we’ve got to get out of here,” hissed Sam.

  “And leave that thing to roam freely?” he cried. “We have to kill it. Again, I mean!”

  “How?” barked Sam as they both retreated down the main aisle of the library.

  All around them, books and papers burned, filling the room with heat and smoke. They coughed on the suffocating ash and struggled to breathe in the stifling hot air. The guardsman pursued them with the same shuffling gait as the previous corpse, a bubbling gurgle escaping its ruined throat.

  “Fire,” declared Oliver. “Flames killed the first one. We can shove it into the fire.”

  “And another will rise right behind it,” snapped Sam. “We can keep tossing these things into the flame, but they’ll keep coming as long as there is a dead body nearby to inhabit. You can’t kill them. That’s why the Imbonese locked them in the uvaan. That’s why they were buried and flooded. Duke, you have to understand. We cannot kill this thing!”

  “Can we… can we put it back in the statue?”

  “The way to the room Adriance was in is blocked by flame,” snarled Sam, shuffling back quickly toward the door they’d entered. “If the figurine is still there, it’s almost certain to have been burnt to nothing by now. Besides, I have no idea how to put the thing back in. We need… we need an opening in the shroud. A sacrifice we can tie the soul to and send it—”

  “What are you saying?” shouted Oliver, walking backward beside Sam, his eyes fixed on the approaching reaver.

  “I’m saying we’ve got to form a bridge to the underworld to send this thing back to hell,” she growled. “It’s the only way.”

  “That’s—”

  “Oliver!” cried a voice.

  Oliver spared a look over his shoulder and saw his brother John entering the burning library. He gripped a broadsword in one hand, and in the other, he carried a golden circlet.

  “We must put this on the creature’s skull,” he said, striding boldly to stand beside Oliver and Sam. Only the trembling of his broadsword gave away how terrified he was.

  Oliver, not bothering to ask how his brother knew such a thing, warned, “It’s far stronger than us but clumsy. Keep out of reach, John. I’ll take off its arms, and you two get that circlet on it.”

  Not waiting for a response, Oliver charged, counting on the creature’s jerky movement to give him a chance.

  The animated guard slashed at Oliver with its blade, the attack awkward and stilted.

  Oliver parried, letting the powerful blow slide off the edge of his steel. Then he counterattacked, not bothering with a feint at its body or head, knowing neither would slow it. Instead, he whipped his blade into the creature’s arm. He fell back, letting it strike at him then countering again and again with blows to its limbs. The reaver had immense strength, and it could be quick, but it had no skill.

  Oliver gritted his teeth as he fought it, forcing himself to ignore the bloodstained Wellesley livery that it wore. The man who’d once been part of his family’s guard was dead, thinking of him would do neither of them any good.

  Acting frustrated, the reaver struck wildly, disregarding potential injury, attacking relentlessly.

  Oliver ducked a slash and swept his blade down on the thing’s leg, severing it at the knee. Toppling over, the reaver kept coming, dropping its sword and crawling on its belly. Taking his time, Oliver aimed a blow and severed one of its arms and then the other.

  Slipping by him, trying to avoid the flames in the stacks of books around them, Sam and John approached. She sat down on the back of the reaver and gripped its head, keeping her fingers wide of its gnashing teeth.

  John knelt, stuck the circlet on its head, shoved it down hard, and then leapt away.

  The three of them watched as the glowing purple eyes faded white and then went dark. The guard’s head fell to the carpet. They turned to run, racing out of the burning library into the streets
where a massive crowd had gathered.

  Shouting to the fire brigades clustered in the plaza, Oliver called, “The books and manuscripts are lost already! Do what you can to make sure the fire doesn’t spread to other structures.”

  “Doesn’t spread,” muttered Sam quietly, looking at the surrounding crowd. “I’m afraid we’re too late for that.”

  The Priestess III

  “Well, at least we know what’s in the figurines,” remarked King Edward Wellesley.

  “Yes, it seems we know,” agreed Sam.

  The man was seated in a comfortable-looking chair in front of the fireplace in his study. He gestured for her to take the seat opposite of him.

  “I, ah…”

  “You’re nervous about having a drink with me?” asked Edward.

  “It always starts with a drink,” she mumbled, looking away.

  He grinned at her.

  Looking into his fire, shifting uncomfortably as he studied her, she wondered, would it be such a bad thing? The king was a spry man, and he had an air of confidence and experience that was magnetic. Confidence was always a good sign, she’d found. Duke wouldn’t approve, of course. She frowned when she realized that would bother her.

  “I’m not trying to sleep with you, Samantha,” assured the king. “You’re a beautiful woman, but you’re more useful to me for your skills rather than your looks. No, when that desire strikes me, I find there are plenty of servants around who require little convincing. That’s not why I’d like to speak with you tonight.”

  Somewhat reassured, she settled into a chair across from the older man, feeling as if she was moving through a strange, fanciful dream. It was closer to dawn than to midnight, and she’d just fought a corpse in a burning library. She was sharing a drink with the king of the largest empire the world had ever known. She needed that drink.

  “How did the reaver escape?” wondered the king.

  She shrugged. She hadn’t been there.

  “The man who was studying the uvaan,” pressed the king, “did you give him the tablet that you got from me?”

  She coughed into her fist and admitted, “I did.”

  Taking a sip of his drink and then sitting back, tugging on his goatee with his free hand, King Edward did not comment.

  “I didn’t think… You must understand, m’lord, I had no idea—”

  “No idea it would work?” he asked her.

  She blinked at him.

  “You’ve seen enough to know that sorcery is real,” chided the king. “It’s very real, and it’s a threat that lays all around us, sitting there in ancient documents and artifacts, waiting to be discovered anew. My ancestors spent their lives destroying what evidence they could find, as have I, but it’s never enough, is it? One must always be prepared to battle the darkness. It’s the role of your Church, the Council of Seven, though I’ve been sorely disappointed in them of late. This latest attack actually happened on the grounds of the Church, the one place it should be least likely!”

  “Prepared to battle,” she repeated. “Yes, we must be. I will admit I was not prepared for what happened earlier this evening. It seemed no one was, except…”

  King Edward raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  “Did you give Duke John the circlet we used to banish the reaver?” she questioned.

  “He told me a churchman gave it to him along with instructions of what to do,” responded the king, smiling at her. “We’ve inquired with the Church as to the identity of this man, but it seems no one can find him. Whoever it was, it’s clear they were wearing a disguise. No one is who they seem, are they?”

  She shifted.

  “Why do you ask if I was the one who gave it to John?” wondered the king. “Surely you don’t mean that to sound like an accusation.”

  She swallowed, realizing he had not answered her question and also hearing his warning. “You kept the tablets. I thought that maybe…”

  He kept pulling on his goatee, watching her.

  She glanced at the door to his study, the back of it visible from their seats by the fire. It was studded with stout locks and chains. She wondered if there were other defenses as well. It made sense for the king’s study to be secure, but she couldn’t help thinking that kings were not the only ones who guarded their secrets closely.

  “I want to tell you something, though perhaps it is something you already know,” said the king, interrupting her thought. “Lilibet Wellesley was walking the dark path. No one understood how far she’d progressed, the depths of her knowledge, until it was too late. She, like many of the capital’s peers, spent time in the secret societies, learning their strange rituals, perusing their libraries, hoping to find knowledge the rest of them had overlooked. She surpassed those fools. She began her own study, her own, ah, research. It wasn’t until Northundon that it became obvious how far she had traveled.”

  Sam sat, watching the old man closely.

  He offered a wan smile and continued, “When the shades attacked that place, we responded. We carpeted the city in explosions and fire but not the keep. Not my wife’s place. Even now, I am not sure why. Why did we avoid it? Was it because deep down, we suspected? We knew? Days and weeks later, after the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the structures in the garden were plain for anyone with an airship to see. It was obvious someone had performed sorcery, but again, we did nothing.”

  Sam nodded. The king was saying what she’d thought, what she’d been too afraid to articulate to Duke. She shivered, realizing that her suspicions were not just wild guesses but the hard truth. She knew the king was telling her the truth. It was beyond doubt that Lilibet Wellesley had survived the fall of Northundon.

  “We had correspondence from the city the morning of the attack, you know?” continued the king. “It described Lilibet’s actions in court the previous day, decisions she’d made in her role as queen. All seemed well. Just the boring hum drum of running a kingdom. The next message we had was from Glanhow.”

  “The pattern that was erected in the garden would have taken half a day to assemble,” suggested Sam.

  The king, his fingers on his chin, nodded.

  “If… if you believe your wife was a sorceress, what do you think she intended to accomplish?” wondered Sam.

  King Edward sipped his drink and replied, “Escape.”

  Sam frowned.

  “It is uncomfortable to say, but Lilibet felt smothered in her role as my wife,” explained King Edward. “Our relationship and her responsibilities as queen were a burden to her, a drain on time she would rather spend in other pursuits. She loved her children, but she also loved the forbidden knowledge that the dark path offered. She kept it secret, how far she’d come, but it consumed her. Consumed her until she could think of nothing else. It consumed her to the point that she knew she could not continue as my wife and queen. She had to leave that life behind to take up a new one. A life where no one would question her, where she was free from expectations except those she set herself.”

  “Escape to where?” wondered Sam.

  “Where do you think?” asked the king, smiling at her slyly.

  “The Darklands,” whispered Sam.

  The king nodded. “The Darklands is the one place in the known world Enhover does not send emissaries, and of course, such a place would be a tempting location for a sorceress. Did you know that during the fight over Northundon, we lost an airship? Just one. It vanished without a trace. No one saw what happened, whether it chased the Coldlands raiders over the water and was taken down or if it crashed in some forest and has remained hidden. In the heat of war, it was ignored, and we lost additional airships once we began the campaign against the Coldlands. That first one was forgotten, just another statistic in the sum of war, but we must consider the possibility it did not go down.”

  “You think she boarded that airship and flew south?”

  The king looked back at her.

  “It is possible,” said Sam, her mind swirling. She took a sip of her
drink, wondering.

  “That is why I want you to stay here,” said the king, suddenly sitting forward. “I want you, and my son, to remain within the empire of Enhover. It would not be good for him, Samantha, to learn the truth.”

  “But, he already—”

  “He does not know,” said the king, shaking his head. “The evidence is there, plain to you and I, but he does not believe it. He remembers his mother fondly, and that is best. What would it do to Oliver if he were to find the truth? What would it do to him if he was forced to confront the fact that his mother was involved in Northundon, that she left her family to walk the dark path? After his uncle… Would the boy survive? He is strong, but I worry he is not strong enough for that.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” asked Sam suddenly.

  “Because I sense you understand,” responded the king. “You understand the burning hunger to learn more, to walk farther. You, more than anyone, may understand Lilibet and her choice. Because you understand, you can help me. You can help Oliver.”

  “You want me to convince him to stay here?” guessed Sam.

  “I do,” confirmed the king.

  “I don’t know if I can,” she replied.

  King Edward sat back. “You are a strong woman, Samantha. If you want to convince him, you can. That creature, the reaver, it was headed to the palace, correct? Oliver has little care for his personal safety, but for me, for his nieces and nephews who were asleep under this roof, he cares a great deal. For his brother who had to plunge into the burning building to save you both? Oliver seeks his mother, but with proper encouragement, he will understand that his family is here. His place is here in Enhover.”

  “He’s my… my friend,” stammered Samantha.

  “Keep your friend safe,” suggested the king. “Spare him what he would find in the Darklands.”

  She gapped at the king, struggling for a response, struggling to decide if her loyalty to Duke required an angry refusal or if her loyalty demanded compliance with the king’s wishes. A trip to the Darklands was certain to be fraught with danger, and it was no lie that Duke may not return, that she may not return. How would he react if he learned what she just had, that Lilibet was alive, she was a sorceress, and the king had always known?