The Brush of Black Wings

by Grace Draven

  She was a puppet tugged and pulled, her physical body subject to the player’s hand. Her spirit recoiled and fought against the compulsion that sent her downstairs, through the great hall and vestibule and into the loggia frosted in new fallen snow and iced by moonlight.

  A soft growl sounded nearby. Cael followed her, staying just out of reach. His muzzle wrinkled into a snarl, revealing teeth sharp and strong enough to shred flesh and snap bone. His red eyes watched her, unblinking.

  Stay away, Cael, she wanted to say, but like her attempt to call out Silhara’s name, the words stuck in her throat. The magefinder didn’t attack her, but his fur bristled stiff off his back and neck. He tracked her as she raced for the wood and the irresistible command of a demon king.

  Her vision of him, standing calm and watchful within the unbroken temple wavered and finally disappeared, replaced by the reality of broken stone and a man no longer clad in armor but in a cloak of tortured souls. He offered a pale, graceful hand, and even though her mind didn’t translate all his words, her spirit clearly understood him. “Join me, witch of the wild grove. Set me free.”

  Silhara’s wards, a duller red than Cael’s eyes, pulsed a warning. To cross their barrier was to die, and still Martise stepped closer to the boundary. The warning voice clanging inside her head incessantly shrieked and begged her to stop. Her terror, the catalyst that always brought forth her Gift, didn’t work this time, and the magic that had saved her more than once from both death and abduction refused to manifest.

  She felt its presence, a solid weight of power that, for whatever reason, coiled in a tight knot inside her and did nothing, even as her hand touched the mage-wards, split their fatal threads, and grasped the demon king’s icy fingers.

  A fiery pain, followed by a wrench on her skirts broke their clasp and almost broke the geas set upon her. Martise spun, dragging Cael’s heavy weight as he clenched her skirts between his teeth and tugged with all his might. A hot wetness trickled down her burning calf to pool inside her slipper. The magefinder had bitten her in his zeal to yank her away from the temple.

  The geas’s power, greater than the dog’s strength, pulled her back to the boundary. She had no choice but to obey, even if it meant dragging Cael across the mage-wards with her. Somehow the geas protected her from their deadly defenses, but she feared such protection didn’t extend to Cael.

  Cael! His name was merely a shouted thought, but the hound released her instantly. His crimson gaze flickered from her to the entity and back again as if waiting for her next order. Martise prayed the dog might somehow have heard and understood her silent cry and listened for more.

  The power of the geas wrenched on her spine, sending a hot spear of pain down her back as if someone pressed the length of a fireplace poker pulled straight from the coals against her skin. She resisted the agony and bent to stare deep into Cael’s eyes. Fearsome and intelligent, he sat on his haunches, quivering from head to tail. Martise placed all her hopes on the slim chance that whatever made his kind sensitive to magic also made them sensitive to thought. Megiddo! Run!

  The dog bolted, long legs stretched as he flew across the snow and into the wood, his bays a cacophony as he raced for the manor.

  Martise tried to flee after him, but her feet refused to obey her will’s edict, and she turned back to the demon king waiting silently in the temple ruin. He reached for her once more, and the powerful wards fell away like straw in a breeze as she clasped his hand.

  “Let me go,” she pleaded in a mournful voice.

  His eyes, reflective as polished steel and pitiless, widened for a moment before darkening with the shadows of madness. “Bring me home, kashaptu, and I will.”

  His cloak swirled around them, wrapping both in wailing, shrieking shadow until Martise no longer saw the forest or the temple, the snow or the moonlight, only a gray howling and the touch of the dead on her skin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Silhara jackknifed from the bed, slammed awake by Cael’s raucous bays and the feel of black sorcery suffocating the bedchamber. The place beside him was empty, Martise nowhere in sight. The gut level alarm that warned him something was horribly wrong propelled him out of the bed and toward the door at a dead run.

  A mass of foul-smelling fur hurtled into him the moment he opened the door, punching Silhara across the room. He landed on his back, smacking his head on the wood floor hard enough to see stars. Cael stood on top of him, head lowered, great chest bellowing in and out with his rapid pants. Silhara tried to shove the dog off of him, certain he’d die either by asphyxiation or drowning in a wash of drool.

  Cael didn’t budge, only snapped his teeth. The Master of Crows stilled under his crimson gaze. A pair of large hands wrapped in the magefinder’s scruff and pulled. Cael growled low in his throat and braced his weight on Silhara’s chest as Gurn struggled to pull him off his master.

  “Gurn, wait,” Silhara said on a thin breath.

  The servant let go and stepped back. Dog and sorcerer stared at each other for a long moment. Silhara peered hard into the canine gaze, searching for the message Cael so desperately wanted to convey.

  He’d never before tried seer bonding with someone not human, and he hesitated now. Who knew how the magic might work between the two? Or if it worked at all. He had little faith in the spell on its own, but his sorcery still surged with the power he’d bled from Martise’s Gift the previous day. He might well kill his devoted magefinder in his attempt to learn what lay behind that stare, but he’d have to risk it. Somewhere his wife faced an unknown danger alone; he knew it in his bones, his very spirit. And if Cael’s behavior was any indication, the dog knew it too.

  He rested his hand on Cael’s head and murmured the words that invoked a bonding. Far more fractured and abstract than the easy bonding Silhara shared with Martise, this connection skipped across his mind’s eye—fleeting images of the forest in shades of blue and yellow. Rabbits dashing through the trees to bank off their trunks in a frantic bid to escape him.

  Smells overrode the images. The meaty, coppery scent of a fresh kill flooded his nostrils along with the gagging sweetness of orange flower, the pungent odor of the bailey and the astringent bite of sapling evergreens dusted in snow. They were all overlaid by a more unnatural smell – long death and old agony, purpose and malice. Fear. Martise’s fear.

  Silhara snarled, and Cael echoed the sound. A new vision rose, this one of Martise’s face, wide-eyed and blanched of color. Behind her, the broken temple loomed, bathed in viridescent light. Her beloved features filled his inner sight and two words thundered in his mind.

  “Megiddo! Run!”

  The hound jerked his head from under his master’s touch with a whine. Unprepared for the effect of an abruptly broken bond, Silhara cursed as a shock of pain ricocheted between his temples. This time, when he shoved the dog off him, Cael went, unresisting. Silhara rolled to his feet, staggered a moment and waved away Gurn’s offer of assistance.

  Who—or what—the fuck was Megiddo?

  He donned shirt, trousers and shoes, uncaring that he was decorated with muddy paw prints and slimed in dog drool. Gurn and Cael kept pace with him as he raced down the gloomy hall. He caught glimpses in the corner of his eye of the servant’s hands sketching signs.

  “Where is Martise?”

  “Taken,” Silhara snapped, and skipped the last six steps of the stairwell to vault over the banister. He snatched his cloak from a hook by the bailey door and left Gurn to catch up. Cael loped easily beside him, his earlier bays silenced, his eyes the fiery shade of hearth coals.

  Their journey to the temple ruin lasted an eternity, at least for Silhara whose fear for his wife’s safety wrestled with an overwhelming rage that someone dared invade his land and steal that which was most precious to him. Corruption had once destroyed his orange grove. Silhara had grieved and then replanted, mollified over the grove’s loss by the god’s destruction at his hands.

  Martise was not an orange grove easily re
placed, and he vowed to himself that if she came to any harm, he’d wreak a vengeance that would make a god’s execution look like child’s play.

  He chose the stealth of creeping up to the ruin instead of the blunt force of the invocation he’d employed when the wood’s curse magic had rippled a warning that something wrong was at work on his lands. The faint hope he might once again discover Martise standing near the temple, frightened but unharmed, died a quick death. Disappointment warred with relief. His fury over her assumed abduction would be nothing compared to his horror if he found her dead, his efforts to protect her through mage-wards the reason for her demise.

  The structure stood empty as did the spoked-wheel design surrounding it. The deadly wards Silhara had raised to confine whatever had used the temple as a gateway were broken, remnants of their presence still lingering in haphazard scorch marks seared into the temple steps and columns. A few still smoked, sending acrid whiffs of black char into the air.

  He should have obliterated the damn thing yesterday! Left it a smoking heap of rubble suffocated in salt and warded harder than a Conclave bishop’s virginal daughter. He’d waited instead, acquiescing to Martise’s more level-headed response that they learn more about the temple before deciding on the best way to dispatch it. And this is what caution had gained them. It was the last time he’d listen to his wife!

  Places like these, built by an Elder race, held ancient secrets, and he picked his way carefully around the spoked wheel, barking the order at an overly curious Cael to stay put. Gurn soon joined them and waited with the dog on the edges of the wheel’s perimeter.

  Silhara possessed a Gift of extraordinary power, but that power was human-born, and this temple was not. His wards, strong enough to entrap a gaggle of adept priests, had disintegrated as if woven by a novice who’d forgotten half the incantation.

  As with the first time he’d reconnoitered the temple for Martise, he cast multiple spells—revelations, seekings and second sights. He sketched sigils in the air and traced them on the temple floor, designs whose origins in the black arcana guaranteed Silhara an appearance before a Conclave tribunal if they witnessed his actions now.

  Nothing happened. The snow-laden wind gusted through the trees; branches creaked, and a nearby crow cawed. Even the blackest sigil did nothing more than leave a greasy, foul-smelling smear on the floor pavers. Whatever took Martise had disappeared from this world, leaving no trace or echo behind it.

  Silhara raked his hands through his hair, spitting out curses between his clenched teeth. The urge to unleash his anger in a hail of spells and turn the temple into a gravel pile almost overwhelmed him. He held onto his fury and did the next best thing—called out his wife’s name.

  “Martise!”

  The unseen crow’s caws ceased. The wind did not, and Martise didn’t answer.

  “Martise!”

  This time he shouted her name, the command that she answer him right now implicit in his tone. Still, she didn’t reply.

  The third time, her name boiled up from the depths of his spirit, a desperate bellow likely heard by the citizens of Eastern Prime on the seashore and the Kurman nomads at the feet of the Dramorin Mountains.

  “MARTISE!”

  A heavy clasp on his shoulder made him whirl, nostrils flared. Gurn’s steady gaze blunted the frenetic edge of helpless panic fueling his rage. The servant signed, his eyes conveying the message as much as his hands did.

  “The library. She has notes.”

  Of course she had notes. Silhara knew that, but reviewing her notes meant leaving here, and for a moment he refused to move, even while acknowledging that anything else he tried based on guesses was futile.

  Gurn nudged him with a shoulder, making Silhara stumble. “The library, master.”

  Silhara nodded. He’d done all he could at the moment with what little information he had. Anything else was a waste of precious time. Martise had discovered something in her scouring of his library—something that made her leap away from his touch and cower under a table like a cornered rat. His memory of that moment served only to boil his blood even hotter.

  His journey back to the manor didn’t require stealth, and the spell he used to return left Gurn and Cael in the wood to trek back home on foot. He pounded up the stairs and threw open the library door. Martise’s books and notes were as she’d left them the previous evening.

  A small dread dissipated inside him. He’d worried that whatever had entered his home and abducted his wife had stayed long enough to destroy any clue about its nature.

  Martise’s precise script tracked across the parchment pages in neat lines. Silhara scanned them, too impatient to sit and study each word. His gaze caught on a pair of passages she’d underlined. The first were gibberish to him, likely the antiquated Makkadian she’d spoken of earlier when she’d translated the word kashaptu for him.

  Saruum ina etuti abu redu gi su ikul kir.

  Hamsum saruui emu, duranki shuhadaku.

  Saruum shuhadaku. Shuhadaku saruum.

  Rebu saruui iksuda. Isten saruum halqu.

  Saruui Buidu.

  Her translation made him reel.

  The king who dwells in darkness leads the shadows that eat the world.

  Five kings made spirit, bound to the sword.

  The king is the sword. The sword is the king.

  Wraith Kings.

  His heart, already knocking against his breastbone, stopped for a moment, then restarted on a hard gallop. Wraith Kings. Bursin help them, let that translation be wrong.

  She’d listed all five of their names. They meant nothing to him except one—Megiddo Anastas.

  Megiddo. The word Cael had carried back with him to the manor, along with the terrified “Run!” that followed it. Not just a pesky demon lurking about but a fucking Wraith King!

  Silhara snatched up the half empty inkwell and hurled it at book shelf. “Gods damn it, Martise!” He glared at the black stain splattered across book spines and the ink pot rolling across the floor. No wonder the woman had shrieked loud enough to bring the rafters down when he’d startled her awake. She’d discovered the origin of her temple nemesis and fell asleep with that knowledge humming through her mind.

  Bursin’s wings, all he ever wanted was to be left alone to live his life in peace! Instead, he’d dealt with meddlesome priests at his door, an exiled god bent on possession and world domination and now a demon king traipsing off with his wife who harbored a reawakened Gift more curse than blessing.

  A box of quills met the same fate as the ink pot, shattering to splinters when it struck the wall. Silhara paced. Demons didn’t scare him. He’d battled a few in years past, controlled an equal number as well. He’d even summoned one to frighten Martise in those early days when they’d first met and viewed each other as adversaries.

  This was different. Far, far different. These weren’t gibbering toadies serving a greater, more intelligent force. The Wraith Kings were ancient, powerful beings. Neither Elder nor human, they were gods in their own right—dark ones who once led legions of demons across the earth. Warring kingdoms had united to stop them, the loss of life catastrophic in the aftermath.

  Knowledge of their existence had faded from memory and legitimate record as if an entire epoch had chosen forgetfulness in order to heal. What few tomes spoke of them were jealously hoarded and guarded by those who traveled the necromantic path or were stashed away by crow wizards like himself who dabbled in the black arcana. Silhara was not at all surprised to find that Martise had made her discovery of the kings in grimoires stolen from a lich’s barrow.

  Her ability to uncover the most obscure information was as astounding as her luck was abysmal. Silhara muttered under his breath. Leave it to his hapless wife to go out for a morning jaunt of mushroom-hunting and end up drawing down a damn Wraith King!

  Gurn strode into the library, hands in motion. “Did you find anything?”

  Silhara scowled. “Of course, and it’s predictably a hundred times
worse than I anticipated.”

  He forced himself into a reluctant calm. Marching back to the temple and leveling it to the ground might make him feel better, but it would be a brief respite and ultimately make his task of retrieving Martise much harder. Instead, he seated himself at the table stacked with her notes, ordered tea from Gurn and set to work reading what she’d gleaned from his library.

  One line in her translation drew him time and again. “The king is the sword. The sword is the king.” Martise had told him she believed the entity was drawn to that particular structure by an artifact buried beneath it—a sword that acted as a tether connecting one world to another. After reading several more pages of her research, Silhara agreed with her. Beneath the ruin lay a sword wielded by an abomination long forgotten by all but a few.

  He tore down half the library shelves, scattering books and scrolls across the floor as he searched for gate and lock spells, traveler incantations that bent the space between worlds and hurtled the luckless and the malcontent into times and places not their own. Every one of them warned of a gruesome death if not performed correctly.

  More snow had fallen when Silhara returned to the temple, and a fresh fall of white obscured the spoked-wheel design. He’d come alone, and only by threatening to lay a geas on Gurn and shackle Cael to one of the exterior walls. Gurn replied by raising the shovel he held in warning.

  Silhara glared at him. “Cracking my skull open with that shovel isn’t my idea of helping, and it’s stupid to think we can dig the sword out from under all that stone. Even with both of us—and the dog—digging for days, we’d get nowhere, and I don’t have days.”

  He’d already lost hours in the library. Bursin alone knew what was happening to Martise in that time. The thought ratcheted his temper and his panic up another notch.

  Defeat slumped the servant’s broad shoulders. He signed to Silhara who nodded. “We’ll return. Both of us. You have my word.” Gurn knew him well enough to believe the effort he’d make to fulfill that vow even if he couldn’t guarantee the outcome.