The Brush of Black Wings

by Grace Draven

  Martise shuddered in his arms, recalling the image of a tall man with inhuman eyes and swathed in a living cloak of black smoke that writhed and tumbled into miasmic faces twisted with agony. “Demon or no,” she said. “He wasn’t human.”

  A stray thought made her pause. “He spoke Makkadian, Silhara. What demon speaks Makkadian?”

  Silhara hugged her close before setting her from him. “I don’t give a flying pig’s arse if he recited poetry in magefinder,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way to a ladder leaning against one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. “I’m only interested in killing him, not taking language lessons from him.”

  Martise burst out laughing. The Master of Crows was a caustic, temperamental man with a razor tongue and no hesitation in using it to flay someone bloody. Sometimes though, he blunted its edge a little, offering a sharp wit instead that encouraged a laugh and made a day such as this one less frightening.

  She returned to her work table with its stacks of books and notes she’d taken earlier. Open the gate. Open the gate. She tapped the tip of her quill on her lower lip. Was the temple the gate? Ferrin’s Tor with its standing menhirs was a type of gate and one she and Silhara had used to reach Corruption’s domain and kill the god. The temple might be a lesser gate. Such weren’t uncommon, and those always contained an element that anchored two worlds together—some artifact or spellwork that drew one side to the other through ritual or invocation.

  Her Gift might have acted as a beacon to the entity, but she hadn’t recited any invocation or traced the precise and measured steps of a ritual circle. If an ensorcelled gem or prayer bowl were buried there, Silhara’s plan to burn the ruin and salt the ground would destroy whatever link bound Neith to an unknown darkness.

  Martise glanced at Silhara who clung precariously to the ladder. “What do you know of the histories of the ruins in your woodland?”

  Nimble as a cat, he descended the rungs, scrolls tucked under his arms. “Almost nothing. They’ve been here as long as Neith itself as far as I know. Some are human-built; some aren’t. The one we’re concerned with isn’t. An Elder creation I think, but it’s anyone’s guess as to which race.” He dropped the scrolls on the table cattycorner to hers. “You think this ruin is an anchor?”

  “Maybe.” She shuffled through her notes. “Your library surely has something about the structures built in the wood. I’d like to learn a little about this one before you tear it down.”

  Silhara gave her a disapproving stare. “It’s too dangerous to leave standing for scholarly pursuits, Martise. The moment the effects of your Gift wear off and I have better control of my power, I’m turning that heap into a dust pile. The sooner, the better.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” she said. “I hope you turn them all into dust piles.”

  He unrolled one of the scrolls and held it down at the corners with flat river rock. “That’s my intention. I don’t like unexpected human guests at Neith, much less demonic ones.”

  The library fell silent except for the scratch of Martise’s quill as she jotted down notes and occasional mutterings from Silhara as he perused lists of spells. She watched him from the corner of her eye. He searched for the combination of invocations that would dismantle not only the temple’s physical structure but its ethereal net as well and do so without killing himself. The knitted lines between his eyebrows as he glowered at one scroll told her he wasn’t yet successful in his search. Tiny sparks of red light shot off his fingertips as his narrow hands moved in unconscious motion, sketching sigils and signs in the air. Her Gift had fueled his magery, turning a bonfire into an inferno. Infinitely powerful and just as unpredictable. Any spellwork he did while his magic sang with her Gift’s force required immense control and caution.

  Her own research yielded better results. A dozen books and countless scrolls later, and she probably knew more now about the history of Silhara’s home than he did, and the knowledge guaranteed several sleepless night.

  There had once been more than a dozen temples or ritual sites within the woodland that obscured Neith’s front façade. The wood itself had spread over more acreage as well, giving way over time to the plains. Of the five temples that remained in their various stages of abandoned decay, the one she’d visited that morning was the oldest, and as Silhara had mentioned earlier, built by those who weren’t human.

  The mage stopped her as she returned to one of the bookcases. Unlike hers, his hands were warm. Candlelight flickered across his stern face. Winter had paled his burnished skin to the color of honey, making his eyes even blacker than usual. He lifted her chilly fingers to his mouth and blew.

  She sighed her thanks as his breath cascaded over her knuckles, thawing them so they didn’t ache so much from the cold. “If you keep doing that, I might actually be in danger of falling in love with you,” she teased.

  One black eyebrow arched, and Silhara paused. “Such declarations will earn you no additional favors from me, apprentice.” He bit the tip of her index finger gently, smiling when she pinched him with her other hand. “Nor will your abuse.” His lips caressed her palm, and he released her hand. “I leave you to the books. I’ve found two spells that should destroy the temple and any artifact buried beneath it. I’ll test them in the bailey. If they don’t work or your Gift makes them work too well, then the most that will happen is I accidently roast that goat Gurn swears is eating the bed sheets off the wash line. Then we’ll just have goat every meal for the next week.”

  Alone once more in the library, she returned to her work. Gurn interrupted her once, bearing a pot of tea. She nodded her thanks and returned to perusing a set of fragile scrolls whose edges crumbled under her touch.

  They burned her fingers, their surfaces dusted with the remnants of a sorcery different but as dark as that which flowed briefly from the temple ruin. Silhara had pilfered these from Iwhevenn Keep, home to a lich. While the words written on the parchment were merely a historical recounting, the parchment itself bore the mark of necromancy. Martise continuously wiped her hands on her skirts and would have abandoned the scrolls were they not the ones containing the information she searched for in Silhara’s vast library.

  She read through them as quickly as possible, lips moving in soundless dictation even as her heart set a galloping pace. “Not just a demon,” she whispered to herself when she reached one scroll’s end. “A king of demons.”

  Her memory was exceptional, bordering on wondrous—a useful tool for the master who once owned her. Martise possessed the ability to repeat everything she read to Silhara in exact detail. But what she just read rattled her so badly she’d likely stutter incoherently when she told him her news. She took up her quill with a shaking hand, paused for a steadying breath, and continued with her notes.

  The sun arced toward the west with the moon on its hem and then its shoulders. The ink ran dry in the well, and Martise’s hand cramped around her fifth quill as she scribbled into the evening. She stopped to rub eyes gritty with exhaustion.

  Her folded arms made a handy pillow on the hard table, and she rested her head on them. She’d stop for a moment, give her hand and her eyes a rest and then write more. By the time Gurn called her down for supper, she’d be finished and could pass her notes to Silhara for perusal while she indulged in a bracing dram of Peleta’s Fire.

  Sleep came hard and fast. Rest did not. She dreamed vivid dreams populated with images grotesque and unfamiliar—skeletal horses made of smoke and fire and men who were not men armored in black and wearing helmets whose face shields bore the visages of the tortured and the damned. They carried swords with blades that shimmered hot blue, as if the swordsmith who made them captured lightning bolts in a crucible and forged them into the molten steel.

  “The king is the sword; the sword is the king,” she murmured.

  Her dreams changed, drifting from demonic warriors on inferno-eyed horses to a vast and writhing darkness that cavorted and shrieked and withered all it embraced.
Not just death, but Death gone mad.

  “Martise.”

  She erupted from sleep with a scream piercing enough to shatter the windows. Her skirts hobbled her as she recoiled from the light touch on her shoulder. She lost her footing, narrowly missing cracking her chin on the table’s edge as she fell between the bench on which she sat and the table. She scuttled underneath it to hide.

  “Bursin’s wings!”

  The sharp exclamation brought her fully awake. Martise peeked out from the shadows. “Silhara?”

  He bent to peer at her, an angular silhouette outlined by the moon’s light streaming into the library. “Now that you’ve managed to put another white streak in my hair, you can come out from there.”

  Backlit, his expression remained hidden, but she easily interpreted the acerbic tone in his voice. Her reaction had startled him, and he didn’t like it. Nerves still raw from the horrible dream, Martise wasn’t inclined to apologize. He didn’t want her screaming in his ear? Then he shouldn’t sneak up on her while she slept.

  She pulled her lethal skirts to the side and crawled from under the table. He grasped her hand and helped her stand. Seeing him before her, so strong and sure, made Martise forget her annoyance and remember her terror. She threw herself against him. Muscle rippled and tensed as he wrapped her in his arms.

  Life as a farmer had whittled him to sinew and bone, and there wasn’t a patch of softness on him except for the occasional look in his eye when she caught him watching her. The unyielding physique didn’t lessen the comfort she took from his embrace.

  A callused hand traveled the length of her braid before ascending to cup the back of her head. “What is it, Martise?” he asked. “A dream? I found you asleep, the candle melted down and a quill still in your hand.”

  She shivered, recalling the grim images and the words that inspired them. “A nightmare,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. “I thought you were one of them.”

  “One of whom?” He gathered her closer, the fall of his hair brushing the side of her face. His clothes were damp and chilly, as if he’d recently come in from the cold without his cloak.

  “A saruum,” she said.

  His hoarse chuckle sounded near her ear. “I forgive you the extreme insult of the comparison. Knowing the quality of most kings, you’ve every right to scream at the notion of being married to one.”

  When his solid presence had calmed her even more and blurred the clarity of her nightmare, she’d show him her notes. Not all saruui or kings were equal, and those she dreamed of were like no saruum ever born to command armies or sit upon a throne.

  He coaxed her down to supper, brow furrowed when she picked at her food. Gurn’s expression mirrored Silhara’s. He signed, offering to make her something else. Martise declined. “You’re very kind, Gurn. The food is good; I’m just not hungry.”

  Later, in their chamber, she sat cross-legged behind Silhara on their bed and combed out his hair. It had become a ritual between them, adopted not long after Martise’s role in his household changed, and the apprentice became the lover.

  The stroke of the comb always soothed him, and tonight it soothed her as well. His hair spilled down his back to pool in her lap, long locks she twined loosely around her forearms or spun through her fingers.

  “Do you want to see my notes now or in the morning?” she asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

  He turned his head enough to give her a clear view of his profile—sculpted cheekbone and prominent Kurman nose. “Will you sleep better tonight if you show me in the morning?”

  A simple question and the greatest of kindnesses. She dropped the comb and slid her arms around his waist to hug him close. “Yes.”

  Rough fingertips glided over her knuckles before his palms rested atop her hands. “Then morning is soon enough. Unless you found something that might stop me from obliterating that temple.”

  Martise squeezed, loosening her grip a little at Silhara’s corresponding grunt. “No, nothing. Leave no stone standing. Empty the seas of salt if you must to cover that bit of ground.”

  He unwound her arms and changed position to face her fully. Light from the brazier deepened his skin’s swarthy hue and rimmed the black of his eyes in a thin haze of crimson. “It’s a demon then.”

  Martise gave a humorless chuckle. “Oh yes, and if your scrolls are correct, its anchor to this world is buried under the temple.”

  Silhara cursed. “I was afraid of that, though it makes sense. Not so random an appearance then or your bad luck at being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What’s the anchor?”

  “I think it’s a sword.”

  His disgusted snort made her smile. “Of course it is. Never anything prosaic like a lamp or a butter churn—something we could put to everyday use once I broke its enchantment.”

  She gazed at him, endlessly beguiled by his many facets. The Master of Crows, wielder of great magic and destroyer of gods, would have been far happier to discover a butter churn under his heap of a temple instead of a rare, enchanted sword.

  Silhara gave her a puzzled look laced with a touch of suspicion. “What?”

  “You,” she said softly. He remained silent, waiting for her to finish. “I’m very glad that executioner didn’t strangle you on the docks that day.”

  Both his eyebrows shot upward. “So he wouldn’t rob you of the chance to do it yourself?” he teased.

  She yanked on a strand of his hair, making him yelp. “Don’t think I haven’t been tempted a time or two, sorcerer.”

  Her surprised squeak mixed with laughter when he lunged toward her and carried them back into the pile of pillows and blankets. Her hair muffled his playful growls as he nibbled her ear and walked the delicate line of her ribs with his fingers in a ticklish dance.

  “Not just any old sorcerer; an almighty god-smiter,” he said. His fingers skittered faster along her sides, making her squirm and laugh even harder. “Say it, Martise. Almighty god-smiter.”

  “I will not,” she said between gasps. “And if you don’t stop, I’ll wet the bed.”

  Her threat worked faster than any spell Silhara might conjure. He froze and stared down at her smiling face. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t want to.”

  He blew out a defeated sigh and settled his weight more heavily on her. His lips were soft against her as he muttered “You thwart me too often, apprentice.”

  Stretched under him, Martise wrapped her arms around Silhara’s shoulders, tracing routes over the valleys and peaks of hard muscle until her fingers interlocked at the back of his neck. His eyes, usually as black and hard as obsidian were softer now, with the sheen of a crow’s wing in sunlight. “You love me anyway,” she teased.

  “That’s true,” he said softly.

  “Your weakness,” she replied in equally quiet tones.

  “No. My strength.”

  They made love, this time without the power of their combined Gifts flowing hot between them, yet Martise would argue with anyone that its absence made no difference. There was sorcery aplenty in loving the one you held most dear.

  She didn’t know which of them fell asleep first, but for Martise, slumber came with a price. As with the time she dozed in the library earlier, strange dreams plagued her. This time it was of the temple but not as she knew it. Instead of a ruin, it stood whole and pristine amidst trees much smaller than the ones surrounding it now. The green light she’d seen trapped within its confines was gone, replaced by a colder moonlight that enveloped the entire structure.

  A man stood in the temple’s center, head bowed, partially obscured by the cage of columns that held up the roof. Martise recognized him—the entity who’d tried to drag her across the ground and into the ruin’s interior. The miasmic cloak of shadow with its warped faces no longer rested on his shoulders. In its place, a gray cloak fell down his back, shielding armor engraved in strange runes whose outlines glowed hot cobalt. He held a sword, similar to the slender curved blades she�
��d seen Kurmans wear at the hip—designed to fight from horseback with rapid draw and slashing strokes. Unlike the temple luminescence, the light flitting across the blade crackled and shot jagged bolts down the temper line toward the tip.

  “Megiddo Anastas,” she said in her dream, uttering the name she found scrawled across parchment retrieved from a lich’s lair.

  A small voice, the faintest echo of hers, cried out in the dream. “Wake up! Wake up!”

  The dream held fast, and the man she addressed as Megiddo lifted his head and met her gaze with a haughty one of his own. Her breathing quickened in both dread and fascination. He was as she remember, yet different. The same princely features but the eyes not quite so mad or inhuman and as deep a blue as the coldest sea.

  His slow smile sent that warning voice inside her into paroxyms. “This isn’t a dream! WAKE UP!” Martise ignored it, entranced as she had never been before by any sorcery.

  Megiddo’s smile widened, as if he heard the same voice and noted her disregard of its desperate command. “You know my name, kashaptu,” he said in a dialect of old Glimming. “Come forth and know me better.” He held out a hand, beckoning her.

  She rose from the bed, silent and unresisting, even as that inner voice screamed in her head. The floor lay icy under her bare feet, invisible drafts swirling up her legs so that she shivered. Her thin leine offered no protection against the cold. Still, she obeyed the command implicit in the sarrum’s gesture, bound to him by the invisible shackles of dark sorcery.

  Silhara slept behind her, unnaturally still and unaware of the bewitchment taking place in his bedchamber. Martise tried to call to him, but the words remained locked in her throat, silenced by the same spellwork that propelled her to dress quietly and creep out of the room on slippered feet.

  Two visions played before her eyes – Neith’s hallways blanketed in a darkness so thick, she could scoop it with a spoon, and the temple in the forest, unbroken and occupied by an armored demon whose lips moved in a soundless chant and whose gaze trapped her in unwilling obedience.