by William King
“About you very specifically. I think he has come here to look into Queen Kathea’s death, and I would not be surprised if he bears a Royal Warrant.”
“He would be a fool if he came with anything less,” said Asea. “And that is one thing Joran is not.”
“You know him?”
“He and I have had dealings in the past. He is a Terrarch of some subtlety. By nature he sees plots everywhere. The Inquisition is a natural home for his sort.”
“These days, Milady, he may be right. Queen Kathea is dead after all. Our situation here in Kharadrea grows daily more precarious. With my own eyes I have witnessed Terrarchs of the ancient nobility working the darkest of sorcery.”
“I fear, Lieutenant, that you will witness much more of that before the end of this affair.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ancient evils stir in the East. Lord Malkior and Jaderac were not the only dark sorcerers to come out of those lands. The plague winds that have blown all winter are no accident. I have seen sorcery like this before, on Al’Terra, used by the followers of the Princes of Shadow.”
“You think someone has rediscovered that ancient magic?”
“Or someone has been taught it.”
“By the Shadow? Terrarchs? Here?”
Asea nodded.
“And what motive would they have?”
“Why have people always served the Princes of Shadow? Power, revenge, ambition. I saw a whole world fall once. Only ten thousand of us escaped.”
“And you think some agents of the Shadow came with us.”
“I am certain of it.”
“If you are right something must be done.”
“I have already written to Queen Arielle informing her of this. I believe we should march East.”
“That would be suicide,” said Sardec. “We do not have the manpower for an invasion of the Dark Empire now. It would take months to assemble such an army and we would have to strip our Western borders.”
Another one struck Sardec. “Do you think the High Inquisitor’s presence has anything to do with this?”
“Doubtless we will find out in due course.”
Sardec looked at Rik once again. His face was pale and his lips moved silently as if he were trying to form words in a language not meant for human tongues. Was he sick or going mad? Sardec had heard that this happened often to human sorcerers. He had been this way since they escaped from Harven. One thing seemed certain — it would be best if Asea kept him away from the Inquisitor.
“Are you all right?” Sardec asked. Rik’s eyes seemed to be focused in the middle distance. He gave the impression that his mind was not there at all. A moment later intelligence and sanity returned.
“I am fine,” he said. “I have been unwell but I am getting better now.”
“You should be more careful of your health, for all our sakes.” Sardec hoped that the two of them picked up on his meaning.
“Will you have something to drink?” Asea asked.
“No,” said Sardec. “I must return to my duties. As always, Milady, a pleasure.”
“This is very poor timing,” Asea said, once Sardec had gone.
Rik nodded. In the depths of his mind, the presences that had been there since he had eaten the soul of the alien Quan gibbered agreement. They had erupted when the Lieutenant had brought the news. Rik hoped that Sardec had not suspected the truth of what was going on. If he did, he would most likely report it to the Inquisition at once, and Rik would hardly have blamed him.
He had, after all, practised the darkest form of magic when he destroyed the vampiric Elder World demon, and he had taken its memories, and all the memories of those creatures whose souls it had devoured into himself. There were times when he felt that what he had done would drive him mad, if it had not already done so.
Asea looked disturbed. “You need to get yourself in hand. I do not think you could meet with the Inquisitor at the moment. He would believe you to be possessed.”
“And you think I am not?”
“I think you are suffering the after-effects of a complex piece of sorcery that was almost beyond your ability and that you are lucky to be alive and with your mind intact.”
Rik could not disagree with that. For a while there, things had improved, but, with the persistence of malarial fever, the attacks of madness returned. His dreams were haunted and sometimes fragments of those dreams broke into his waking hours.
There were times when he found himself remembering the Quan’s underwater home near Harven almost with fondness, when he recalled the strange rituals of the squid-faced aliens with something like understanding, when he found himself reaching out for the flows of magical energy around him with a knowledge he had never gained from his studies with Asea.
Worse were the times when he recalled the lives of the people the Quan had devoured. Sometimes he remembered being a sailor on the cold grey waters of the northern seas. He had flashes of his lungs filling with water as the Quan ate his soul. He woke unsure of whether he was alive. There were moments when he thought he was the one who had been devoured and lived only in the Quan’s dreams.
Sometimes he wished he had never left Sorrow, never met Asea, never become embroiled in the deadly intrigues that surrounded her. He might have been happier if he had not attempted to claim his Terrarch birthright and master magic.
He pushed the thoughts aside as worthless. He had made his decision and accepted Asea’s patronage and now he would have to find a way of living with the consequences.
“Rik, pay attention,” said the sorceress. He realised that he had missed a lot of what Asea was saying. “Your life depends on this. Perhaps mine does too.”
“I don’t see why?” he said coldly. “You are of the First. You are kin to the Queen and to General Azaar. I am sure you will find a way to survive.”
Her smile was cold and dazzling and not without a hint of humour. “Your faith is touching, but misplaced. We are at war now, and not just with the Sardeans. The Princes of Shadow reach out for this world, and that means the power of the Inquisition will grow. Soon no one will be beyond its reach. Believe me, I have lived through such times before. Everyone will come under suspicion. Soon we will be our own worst enemies. Such mistrust has always been the Shadow’s greatest weapon.”
Rik knew she spoke the truth about the danger. He was descended from a long line of servants of the Shadow, and that of itself was enough for the Inquisition to put him to the stake. He supposed it would be possible that they might do the same to Asea if they found out she had been sheltering him.
Under the circumstances it might be in her best interests to have him done away with. He had been a useful tool for her, but he might have outlived his usefulness.
“You have that calculating look in your eye,” she said. “What are you thinking?”
He considered his answer for a moment and then he told her.
She smiled again. “I know you find this hard to believe but you are far more useful to me alive than dead, and that’s leaving aside the fact that I would prefer that you not come to harm.”
She had a point. Like Malkior, his lost father, the Queen’s assassin, he was a Shadowblood, undetectable by normal magic, unstoppable by magical wards. With the sorcery she was teaching him, he was becoming an ever more deadly killer. And he had the ability to sense when other Shadowblood used their abilities near him. He was the perfect bodyguard against the deadliest assassins who had ever lived. And those assassins would be coming for her soon, if her fears proved correct.
He had every reason to want to keep her alive. She was one of the very few people, and the only Terrarch, who had ever actively tried to help him, who even cared what happened to him, and he was not about to turn on her. She was, in her own way, as honest with him as she was capable of being, and he appreciated that too, with the sort of appreciation that only came after a lifetime of being deceived.
And she was teaching him astonishing things, secrets of
magecraft that he had no other way of acquiring and which he had to have, if he was going to survive, and that was a thing he fully intended to do, despite the presence of the voices in his mind and enemies all around him. He intended to see that Asea survived as well. He had failed Queen Kathea. He was not going to fail her.
“What shall we do?” he asked.
“There are potions I can prepare that will calm you, and help you mask the symptoms. They will take some time to acquire the ingredients and to brew. In the meantime, avoid High Inquisitor Joran.”
“Might it be better if I vanished for a while until you create the medicine?”
“Where would you go?”
“Halim is a big city. I am sure I can find a place to hide.”
“What would I tell the Inquisition?”
“That you do not know where I am, and that will be true until I contact you.”
“And how will you do that?”
“I have a talent for finding my way into places where I should not be. I might surprise you.”
“I would not want you to surprise me so much that Karim or I killed you.”
“I am sure that finding such a way is not beyond my wit.”
“I do not know, Rik. I think it would be best for you to remain in the palace for the moment. If you disappeared it would only draw attention to you and make the Inquisitor even more suspicious.”
There was a discreet knock on the door. On invitation, the servant entered. She bore a sealed letter on a silver tray. Asea automatically reached for it, inspected it and then raised an eyebrow.
“It’s addressed to you,” she said, handing it over to him.
Rik recognised the hand-writing at once. It was from Malkior’s daughter, an agent of the Dark Empire, his half-sister, a sorceress and a Shadowblood assassin, perhaps the most dangerous woman he had ever encountered.
He opened it and scanned the few brief lines within.
“It’s from Tamara,” he told Asea. “She wants to meet.”
Chapter Three
Rik invoked the illumination spell. A faint ball of flame flickered within the crystal sphere Asea had given him. It was barely more than a witch light but enough to let his half-Terrarch eyes see the broken machinery and shattered glasswork around him.
Rik did not like this place. The last time he had been in this basement, he had found a vat full of undead soldiers. Now it smelled of acid and blood and death and fire. The voices in his head were uneasy too, as they should be, for if he died they lost their last desperate finger-hold on life as well.
Rik kept his back to the wall and checked the pistol. It was loaded with a truesilver bullet of the same type with which he had killed Malkior and he wondered whether he was going to have to do for the daughter as well. He would prefer not to. For all her viciousness, he had always rather liked Tamara, and the last time they had met, he thought they might have reached some sort of understanding.
He wished that he had time to find Weasel and the Barbarian and have them back him up. Then again the last time the three of them had gone up against Tamara things had not ended well. He felt uncomfortable standing in the cellar with spring mud on his boots and clinging to the cuffs of his trousers. The stairs were rickety and would not make a good escape route, and that was something he had learned early in life that you should always have. It would be easy enough to trap him here given enough men.
Why had he come, he asked himself again? He was still not entirely sure. Perhaps he was just past caring. He was tired and the Inquisition might find him at any moment and cart him off to be burned. And he was curious as to what Tamara wanted. And, if she expected him to be easy prey, she was in for a surprise. The last time they had met he had not possessed the skill in sorcery that he did now. Perhaps that would help.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, a tearing sensation ripped at his soul. A patch of shadow in the corner of the room clotted and hardened. A humanoid outline appeared in it, a shadow that no one had cast. In moments it took on three dimensions, bulged outwards and Tamara was standing there, a beautiful Terrarch girl, snub-nosed, bright big eyes alive with mischief. A blade glittered in her hand. There were runes in it, and he guessed that it was a thing of peculiar deadliness. He rested the barrel of the pistol in the crook of his arm. Not accidentally it pointed directly at her.
“I am surprised you came,” she said, a smile quirking her too-broad lips. If having the pistol sighted at her made her uncomfortable she gave no sign of it. She wore men’s clothing, dark and tight-fitting. He noticed there was no mud on her boots.
“No you are not. You knew I would come.”
“I suppose so.”
“What do you want?”
“Exactly what I said in my letter. I want to talk with you.”
“About your father?”
“Yes. Rumour has it that you encountered him recently.”
“I did.”
“And how is he?”
“Dead.”
“Are you sure? People have thought that before but he always returned.”
“I killed him myself.”
She laughed in a way suggested that she did not believe him. There was also something about her expression that suggested that she might want to. “You killed him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“With a truesilver bullet just like the one in this pistol. Then Asea cut him into little pieces and buried his remains in lead lined caskets in five different places.”
She shook her head. Her expression was a little dazed. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you choose. It does not alter the truth one little bit.”
“It’s not possible. He was a great sorcerer and a greater assassin. You are only a half-breed soldier.”
“He under-estimated me. You people have a habit of doing that.”
She cocked her head to one side and studied him for a long moment. “That I know. I have done it myself. Still it does not seem possible that he’s actually dead. He was one of the First. He had walked Al’Terra. He served…”
“He served the Princes of Shadow.”
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“He told me. He told me a lot of things before he died.”
“And why would he do that?”
“He was my father.”
She just looked at him, then she sheathed the blade and leaned against the workbench, arms folded across her chest.
“He always wanted a son. He told me that often enough. He did not think it was possible though.”
“Apparently it was. He killed my mother or had her killed before he found out about me.”
“So you have the power too?”
“I believe so.”
“Which would explain how you knew about my arrival. Only another Shadowblood would have known that and then only one with peculiar gifts.” She spoke slowly as if putting things together for the first time in her own mind. She glanced at the glowglobe. “And Asea has been teaching you, which explains why you are not afraid of me.”
“I am very much afraid of you, which is why I have this pistol trained on your belly. Please be very careful. A gut shot is a painful way to die and I would rather not see it happen to you.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I would appreciate it if you would make no sudden moves. I have bad memories of the last time the two of us fought.”
“It would seem you’ve come a long way since -unless you were only pretending then.”
He said nothing, not bothered if she wished to jump to the wrong conclusions.
“I can understand why Lady Asea has taken such an interest in you now. Did she ask you to kill me?”
“You mean the way you asked me to kill her.”
“She is the enemy of my nation and she was the enemy of my father.”
“She is not my enemy.”
“I can see that you believe that. Were you ever what you pretended to be?”
“Interested in killing her? No, not really.”
“Do you intend to try and kill me?”
“No. We talked about this before. It might be useful to both of us to have a friend on the other side.”
“Are you trying to recruit me?”
“No. I am just telling you what I think.”
“And you really expect me to take you up on that, after you killed my -- our -- father.”
“I am just letting you know the offer still stands.”
She slumped backwards and laughed again. It was an odd sound, half mirth, half sorrow. “I can’t actually believe that this time he won’t be coming back. He always seemed invincible.”
Rik could not disagree with that. One thing Malkior had not lacked was self-confidence. He had planned to use the entire human race as cattle if he got the chance. It was no small ambition.
“So the old monster is finally dead,” said Tamara. “And I am free of him after all these years.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Rik cautiously.
“He was hateful and he made me the same.”
This was not exactly the reaction he had been expecting.
“And what am I going to do about you?” she asked. “I doubt the Empress would recognise any claim of yours to his estates.”
Was that what she was worried about? Malkior must have been extremely wealthy. He had been one of the First and one of the most powerful nobles in the Dark Empire. If that was what she was concerned about, she could stop.
“I don’t want anything that belonged to him,” he said, and was surprised to find that he meant it. Not that it made much difference anyway. Tamara was right. The Sardeans would never accept a legal claim from someone like him. “It would appear that you are rich.”
She studied him closely. The appraisal in her gaze started to make him uncomfortable. “You got more from him than I think you know.”
“Forgive me if I seem ungrateful.”
“I think you inherited some of his personality as well as some of his gifts and his tastes. I noticed it during our last meeting. You have taken up thanatomancy, haven’t you?”