The Spirit Siphon (Magebreakers Book 4)

by Ben S. Dobson

  She couldn’t see Henred Klenn among them, though he could easily have been face down on the table, or hidden from view in a heap on the floor. Despite everything, she found herself hoping he was somewhere safe.

  At the head of the table, Kaiser Gerrolt sat in a high-backed chair, clutching the arms to keep himself upright. His skin was ashen and slick with sweat, but he was still himself; there was a soul behind his wide, terrified eyes.

  Urnt stood beside him, gripping the back of the Kaiser’s chair as if he needed the support. Playing the part of the victim. “Here they are,” he declared. “Come to finish the job? Haven’t your spells done enough already?”

  Gerrolt lifted one hand as if to ward them off. “Guards,” he croaked. “Help.” His remaining arm gave way, and his head slumped down to the surface of the table.

  “Stop this, Urnt.” Kadka’s voice came out thin and quavering. “Is not the way. Endo is using you.” She could barely keep her focus on him; everything was a blur, and the room seemed to be getting darker.

  “You’re mad, Audlander,” Urnt spat back with more vehemence than he should have had the strength for, if his act was to be believed. “Your spells are killing us!”

  “There’s no point, Kadka,” Carver said. “He won’t listen. Not here. We need to move him.”

  Beside them, Indree began to chant magic words, her brow creased with intense focus.

  “You see?” Urnt said, though Kadka suspected that anyone who mattered was too far gone to be listening anymore. “The witch is casting some spell!”

  Kadka dipped her head at Carver and then circled around the right side of the table, keeping her hand on the surface as she moved so that her legs didn’t have to hold her full weight. Carver nodded and went left, moving into position. He looked ready to fall over, and she knew she had to look worse. But between the two of them, she had to believe they could do this. Urnt might have magic, but he was untrained, and she was certain he’d never been in a real fight. He would go down.

  He had to.

  Indree completed her spell, and behind Urnt, a silver-blue portal tore open the air with a noise like thunder. He whirled at the sound, released his grip on Gerrolt’s chair. Stopped pretending.

  At the same moment, Kadka forced herself into a run. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Her legs were little more than dead weight, clumsy and heavy and cold, like the blood had frozen in her veins. And it only got worse as she closed the distance.

  Urnt took a step back from the portal. “There are wards in place! How—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence.

  Kadka was stumbling more than running now, but her momentum carried her forward. She half-fell, half-dove into Urnt’s knees just as Carver tackled him in the gut. Touching the man felt like touching a wraith; she could feel everything vital flowing out of her and into him. The last memory of warmth in her body drained away.

  All three of them tumbled together into the portal.

  For an instant, everything was gone. There was only Astral silver, infinite in all directions.

  And then they came through the other side. A flash of snow blanketing the ground, white fading to grey. Stars overhead, their light rapidly dimming. Walls on all sides. The embassy courtyard.

  Kadka landed hard on the cold ground, and she didn’t get up. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t feel anything to move. The color and light had drained out of the world. Only dim grey outlines remained, silhouettes in the dark in front of the spot where her head had come to rest.

  This was what it felt like, she realized, to be riven. To have the magic taken away.

  She didn’t want it to go.

  Everything faded to black.

  _____

  Tane tackled Urnt around the midsection at the same moment as Kadka hit him in the knees. The drain was intense at this range, a palpable feeling of loss as his life siphoned rapidly away, but Tane managed to clumsily slap the cuffs against the other man’s left wrist.

  And then they hit the portal, and everything was silver.

  It spat them out in the embassy courtyard in the exact positions they’d been in when they entered, mid-tackle. Tane landed on top of Urnt in a patch of snow between barren flowerbeds emptied for winter—it was cold and wet, but yielding enough to cushion their fall. The cuff he held pinned against Urnt’s wrist was still unlatched, hanging open at the hinge.

  Urnt started to speak in Belgrian, but the words crackled untranslated in Tane’s earpiece. He was casting a spell.

  Before Urnt could pull away, Tane thumbed the free end of the cuff into the latch. It clicked into place.

  As soon as the cuffs closed, Urnt’s words began to translate properly, stripped of their magic and surprisingly mundane. “—off of me!”

  Nothing happened. No wave of force, no Astral tendrils lifting Tane away. Denied that option, Urnt began to struggle, tried to heave him off, throwing snow in every direction. Tane didn’t have the energy left to fight; instead, he just slumped down, a dead weight against the chancellor’s chest. It was enough. The hum of the portal ceased behind them, isolating them from the palace.

  “We got him, Kadka,” Tane said wearily. “And you thought I wouldn’t keep up my end.”

  No answer.

  No. Tane strained his head around. There she was, slumped near Urnt’s feet. She was completely still. Her knife had fallen from her hand; it lay in the snow nearby.

  There might still be time. There was a razor-thin chance that she’d fallen unconscious from the drain before the last spark of Astral energy was taken from her, and a spark was all she needed. No matter how far gone, as long as the link was still there, it would flood with new strength as soon as Urnt’s spell ended. Life was resilient that way.

  But at best, she had a few minutes left. Seconds, maybe.

  “What did you do?” Urnt was still trying to push him off. “I had them! The ones who make mages live like slaves! I could have wiped the slate clean of—”

  “Shut up,” Tane said, cold and flat. The spreading emptiness had eaten away the feeling in his limbs until he couldn’t feel the lesser chill of the snow beneath him. So much had already been pulled away, leaving little but a hollow void inside. But something made him move, a final surge of strength that came from seeing Kadka lying so still. Rage. “You unbelievable idiot. All you did was nearly give Endo what he wants. I don’t have time left to explain how stupid you are right now, so just shut up and do what I tell you, before it’s too late. Look around. It’s done. You’re not getting Gerrolt from here unless you mean to drain every non-magical in the city, and I don’t think you want that. You need to end this spell right now.”

  Urnt shook his head. “I was so close. I can still—”

  Tane felt his lips peel back, baring his teeth just the way Kadka would have. He reached out, grasped her knife, dragged it to Urnt’s neck. He’d never lifted anything so heavy. “Do it, or I swear I’ll do it for you.”

  Urnt swallowed nervously, his neck moving against the blade. “You wouldn’t. You’ll start a war.”

  “That woman right there is my best friend in the world, and she might already be gone.” Tane pressed the blade against Urnt’s throat. He wasn’t sure he had the strength left to break the skin, but he was willing to try. “Your life isn’t worth a thing to me compared to hers. War or no.”

  “Wait!” Urnt let his head fall back. “You’re right. This… this was never what I wanted. I’ll end it.” He closed his eyes, furrowed his brow.

  Nothing changed. Tane felt his awareness slipping away, faster and faster. His vision was growing dim; everything looked grey and colorless. “Now, Urnt!”

  “I’m trying!” Urnt opened his eyes again, his pupils wide with abject panic. “He said I’d be able to… It won’t stop!”

  And Tane could only laugh, weak and bitter as it was. “Of course. I should have known. Endo was never going to leave you in control. You’re just the artifact carrying his spell. Failsafes in
place, he said.”

  His head fell against Urnt’s chest as his strength failed. He saw it now. Endo had known from the start that they were likely to find him. He just hadn’t cared. He’d avoided killing them all with dragonfire when he could have in the cave, because he’d known that once the spell was in place there would be no way to stop it.

  No way but to do exactly what Endo wanted.

  “I’m sorry,” Tane said. He meant it, though a moment ago he’d been willing to kill for Kadka’s sake. It felt different now. Now he was acting as Endo’s instrument, whether he wanted to be or not. The Audish agent murdering the Belgrian chancellor. A chancellor who was only a pawn himself, who wasn’t even wrong about the evils of the system he was trying to fight.

  But there was no time left, and no way out. Too many lives at stake.

  Kadka’s life. Nothing else mattered.

  He focused all the will he had left into lifting his body just a few inches. One hand clenched tight around the hilt of Kadka’s knife, and he heaved the other onto the blade, pushing it down against Urnt’s throat.

  Urnt’s eyes went wide. “No, please, I—”

  As the blackness closed in, Tane bore down on the knife with all of his weight.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  _____

  INDREE STITCHED THE portal closed, sealing the wound in the Astra before anything dangerous could get out. The palace would be safe from the effects of Urnt’s spell for now, until the range grew much larger.

  But Tane and Kadka wouldn’t be.

  She had to get to the embassy, and quickly.

  “Tinga. Urnt is gone. We need to get out of here, and fast. The council chamber is past the throne room. Head toward me and I’ll meet you.”

  “I’m coming. I feel much better now. Did it work?”

  “This part did, but Tane and Kadka might be in trouble. I’ll explain in person. Run.”

  Even as she sent the message, she noticed some of the men around the council table begin to stir. The Astra abhorred a void—as long as there was a link left, it came back quickly. Just as many remained still, or stared blankly ahead with empty eyes, already riven. Presumably the ones who had been first to arrive for the council meeting. Just a few seconds' difference. We got here right on the margin. Her eyes went to Kaiser Gerrolt. He was already pushing himself to his feet, recovering even faster than the others. Doesn’t matter where you are, the person in charge is always the last to arrive.

  Gerrolt looked up. His eyes met hers, and his face flushed red with fury.

  “Guards!” he bellowed. Even without the earpiece to translate, she’d have gotten the gist. “Get her!”

  Indree was already running for the door.

  Outside, the guards who still could were already rising. She barrelled past, shouldering one man aside when he tried to block her way, still a bit shaky on his feet. With a few quick words in the lingua, she cast a shield across the hall behind her, blocking them from following. It wouldn’t last long without her there to actively maintain it, but it was something.

  She tried to open a channel to Tane as she sprinted down the hall, but she couldn’t reach him. Couldn’t find him to reach. His Astral signature was too weak.

  If anything was left of it at all.

  She slid around the next corner and saw Tinga running toward her, just leaving the throne room. A half-dozen guards were chasing after her. Indree chanted a spell, and tendrils of silver slammed the large oaken doors closed behind Tinga. Another few words of the lingua and the wood began to stretch and warp, jamming the doors in the frame. They wouldn’t open easily.

  She met Tinga halfway down the hall, and they both skidded to a halt, breathing heavily.

  “Sorry to bring company,” Tinga said, still panting. “Taking down the wards set off an alarm. They were on me as soon as they could stand again.” She glanced over Indree’s shoulder, frowned. “Where are Tane and Kadka?”

  “They took Urnt through a portal to the embassy. I can’t get a sending to them.” Indree could hear the worry in her own voice.

  “Then let’s go help,” Tinga said.

  “My thoughts exactly.” Indree focused her will, began to speak in the lingua. Asked the Astra to open before her, and directed the resulting threads of magical energy to weave a hole between locations. A silver window blinked into existence before her.

  And then it disappeared.

  In the space of an instant, Indree lost contact with the Astra entirely. One moment the magic was there, and the next she was chanting nonsense words into the void.

  “Spellfire,” she swore. “They put the wards back up.”

  Tinga frowned, pulled a crumpled roll of paper from her waist. “I took the scroll. They must have spares.”

  “They went this way!” A voice from behind, the way Indree had come, somewhere around the last corner. There was no shield to stop them anymore, and no putting up a new one now.

  From the other direction, heavy thuds and squeals as the doors inched open under the constant battering of the guards.

  Indree glanced around, looking for a way out. There was a side hall just behind Tinga, but she had no idea where it went. At least it’ll buy us some time.

  “Come on!” She grabbed Tinga by the hand, and darted down the passageway.

  It was a dead end. Some twenty yards down, it terminated in a stone wall.

  Behind them, she heard footsteps turning the corner, and then the throne room doors give a great creak and screech as they were forced open. Guards coming from both sides.

  Indree turned back, drew her baton. She was outnumbered, and bludgeoning some guards wasn’t going to help convince anyone of Audland’s innocence, but she had to get to Tane. She wasn’t giving up without a fight.

  “Stay behind me,” she said to Tinga. They were out of sight in the side corridor for now, but it wouldn’t be long.

  The footsteps drew closer.

  And then a door swung open, just beside her. Indree whirled, raised her baton to strike.

  Henred Klenn raised his hands, his eyes wide with alarm. “If you don’t hit me,” he said, “I can show you a way out of here.”

  _____

  “Kadka! Wake up, you have to wake up!”

  Kadka couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t breathe. She was floating in a sea of black, drowning in nothingness.

  But from somewhere far away, she heard Carver’s voice. And when she focused on it, she could see a pinprick of silver light in the distance.

  She didn’t move—couldn’t move—but somehow that light was getting closer. It started slow, growing from a pinprick to a candle flame, but it got faster the closer it came. Now it was a lantern-light, now a bonfire. She couldn’t see her body, but she felt a tingle of life begin in her fingers and toes, a slight itch that moved up her limbs toward her heart. The light roared closer, now a raging inferno of silver chasing away the cold. She almost felt able to move, to at least try to roll away.

  She didn’t. She craved the warmth. Instead, Kadka just laid her head back as silver light rolled over her.

  Her head came to rest on a cool, yielding surface. Icy powder tickled at her ears, landed lightly on her cheeks and melted there. Snow.

  She opened her eyes.

  She was lying on her back in the snow-drifted embassy courtyard. Carver’s face hovered over her, blurry and unfocused. But she could make out the colors. Brown hair dusted white with snow, pink skin flushed red at the cheeks with cold. Life came rushing back into her body, filling her chest, and she gasped in a breath as if she’d been starved for it. As if she could make the magic come back faster by sucking in air.

  “Kadka!” Carver still sounded scared. As her eyes found their focus, she saw that his cheeks were wet with tears. “Are you still in there? Do you know me? Say something, please!”

  The strength was returning to her quickly now. She lifted her hand, and wiped his cheek with her thumb.

  And then she grinned, and shoved his hea
d aside. “Too close. Is no room to stand.”

  Carver barked out a laugh that was almost a sob. “Thank the Astra. Here, let me help.” He climbed to his feet and offered her a hand.

  She clasped it and rose, leaning on him when her balance threatened to desert her. Looked around, taking in her surroundings. The manicured gardens of the embassy courtyard were empty save for the two of them.

  And Chancellor Wilnam Urnt, lying lifeless and still at their feet. Blood pooled in the grass from an ugly gash across his throat.

  “Did you do this?” Kadka looked at Carver with a frown. “Is going to cause war, you said.”

  Shame flashed in Carver’s eyes. He looked away, hung his head. “I couldn’t see another way. Endo didn’t give him control of the spell. He couldn’t stop it. And I… I wasn’t going to let you…”

  Kadka clasped his shoulder, reached out to lift his chin so that he was looking at her again. “Thank you, Carver. This cold inside… Is not way I wanted to go.” She grinned. “Is just like you to save me by making more trouble than before.”

  “That is an understatement.” The voice came from the door to the courtyard, and Kadka looked up to see a nine-foot-tall figure approaching. Despite her eyes still struggling for clarity at that distance, it wasn’t difficult to identify Ambassador Althir by size alone.

  “You’re supposed to be evacuated,” Carver said accusingly.

  “I was,” Althir replied as she drew near. “Those of us nearby felt… whatever this spell was, even from a distance. It was quite clear when it ended. I waited for a time, but when no one emerged, I thought you might be hurt.”

  “Is my fault,” said Kadka. “He has to wake me first.”

  “And I might have been unconscious myself before that,” Carver said. “It’s hazy.”

  Althir’s eyes went to Urnt’s body. “I suppose this was… necessary?”

  Carver lowered his eyes again. She’d seen him fight before, when he had to, but Kadka didn’t think he’d ever done anything quite like this. She wished he hadn’t been forced to. The weight of it wouldn’t rest easy on his shoulders.