The Seventh Sentinel

by Mary Kirchoff

  Lyim sank back with a gratified sigh among the herbal bubbles. Despite a certain loss of freedom, being potentate had much to recommend it. In addition to ordering the torture of anyone he liked—or rather, didn’t—without retribution, the palace’s private bath was one of the position’s greatest perks. Servants had revealed that Lyim’s predecessor had seldom taken advantage of this room, more proof of Aniirin III’s idiocy.

  The bath chamber, totally enclosed to hold the steam, was not large. In the middle of the room was the pool, a perfect square, which stretched the length of two men. The deck was perhaps as wide, though a bit crowded with lush tropical plants in bronze urns. The first potentate had chosen a big, bold, serpentine black-and-cream tile pattern.

  Sweat beaded up on Lyim’s brow as he relaxed in the water, heated by the boiler stoked by servants in a room beneath the pool. Sitting in a corner of the basin, Lyim held his arms above the water by propping them on the cold mosaic deck. He dared not risk getting the gauntlet wet, and he dared not take it off. Not that he wanted to.

  Opposite the potentate, an auburn-haired woman lay casually on her side on the deck, her head supported by an angled arm. Ruby gauze, the color so rich it looked as if real gems had been crushed to make the dye, draped her lithe form.

  Never particularly modest, Lyim had still found it disconcerting at first to dress and undress before a woman who stared at him so blatantly. He had grown accustomed to it, though, especially in light of the fact that Ventyr was not real. At least not a real woman. It was a difficult thing to remember, since she appeared to every man who wore the Gauntlet of Ventyr as his ideal of the perfect female. Lyim’s eye always sharpened keenly after wenches with red-gold hair. Beyond her physical attributes, Ventyr touched his mind—even his soul—with the slightest caress of her misty limbs. She satisfied his needs in a way no human woman ever had, and he had spent a great deal of his youth in that pursuit.

  If you ask me, you’ve become too dependent on me for companionship since you had the amirs tortured to death, Ventyr remarked, her voice whispering like wind inside his head.

  “I don’t recall asking you,” Lyim snarled good-naturedly, paddling hot water with his left hand so that it lapped over his half-submerged chest.

  How are you going to produce any heirs? she pressed. You had all of Aniirin’s concubines slain, too.

  “I remember fondly.” Still, Lyim made a mental note to engage some tolerable-looking female from the city at his first opportunity, if only to keep Ventyr from becoming too sure of his dependence on her.

  The potentate stretched out a leg and used his big toe to turn the tap, releasing more hot water. He heard the whistle and rattle of pipes just before steaming water spurted through the copper spigot. Lyim watched it with great satisfaction, though he was careful to keep his foot from getting too close to the scalding water. But his look of satisfaction turned to one of puzzlement as the white stream turned an odd shade of pink, then brilliant red. With a shout of dismay, Lyim leaned forward and closed off the spigot, then sprang from the tub to escape the eerie water.

  Ventyr sat up, her beautiful face creased with concern.

  But before Lyim could ask her what was happening, Isk, on temporary leave from his travels to slay wizards throughout Ansalon, ran into the bathing chamber without preamble or excuse. The man skidded over the mosaic tile, which was moist with condensation. His wavy dark hair, bobbed at the jaw, was wet and streaming over his face, smeared with bright red blood and soot. The sleeve of his tunic was ripped, a fresh wound oozing.

  “Potentate, there’s a … disturbance in the boiler room below! One of the stokers is dead, and the other ran to alert me—” Isk’s eyes fell to the bloody water in the pool. “You’d best get yourself to safety.”

  Lyim looked to the vision of Ventyr that only he could see. We have visitors, she said ominously.

  “Assassins?” he asked aloud.

  Worse.

  “I don’t think so—” Isk said, thinking Lyim had addressed him.

  The potentate snatched up his robe. “Take me to the boiler room,” he instructed Isk.

  The man hesitated only briefly, knowing better than to contradict the potentate. Just outside the bathing chamber, the assassin led Lyim down a narrow flight of enclosed stucco stairs.

  Isk kicked open a door, and they plunged down three more steps into near darkness. Lyim had never been in the boiler room, which was situated underground beneath his bath. Steam billowed and roiled. A few steps in, Lyim could see a red-hot fire of coals burning beneath an enormous copper pot contorted into the shape of a still. Stuck through the side of the pot, like a hideous cork, were the picked-clean bones of a man, presumedly the stoker. Steam hissed around the moist, red bones.

  Above the hiss of the boiler could be heard heavy, hideous breathing. And unmistakable slurping. Lyim was not a man easily frightened, but the scene chilled him.

  “What happened here?” he demanded of Isk.

  Lyim’s head of security trembled visibly. “Just before he passed out from his torn arm, the stoker who found me described a grotesque monster bursting through the wall behind the boiler. He said the thing raked out with claws and snatched up the other stoker. The creature slammed the man’s head through the boiler, then proceeded to devour what remained outside it.

  “Of course I didn’t believe him.” Isk’s filthy face contorted as he viewed the chewed legs. “Until I saw this for myself. And then the thing raked out at me.” He held up his wounded arm.

  “What kind of creature is it?” asked Lyim.

  Isk directed Lyim’s gaze to the wall behind the boiler. The shimmering blue color that covered the wall was unmistakable to someone with Lyim’s background. It was a gate, a magical doorway to another dimension. It shimmered and dimmed while it formed, as if the doorway were a living thing that had not yet reached maturity. Its edges pulsed with unearthly, cyan light. A dark shape twisted and churned at its center. Occasionally it slowed enough to reveal glowing eyes, glistening fangs, and long, clawed, grasping arms. Lyim and Isk scrambled farther back as one dripping talon snaked out of the wall toward them.

  Nabassu, Ventyr answered Lyim at last. Fiends from the Abyssal plane.

  He looked at the mist woman in surprise. You know of these beasts? he asked her mentally in Isk’s presence.

  I’ve spoken with their kind telepathically, she responded. It would appear that the concentration of stored magical energy here at the palace has weakened the wall between the Prime Material Plane and their home in the Abyss. The nabassu are trying to emerge through it, but the bulge hasn’t quite burst to give them total access—yet.

  It’s your job to power and protect the palace, accused Lyim. Can’t you stop them? He considered the claw that raked the boiler room. Patch the bulge at least?

  Temporarily, agreed Ventyr. But the magical energy you’ve directed me to store here has to be spent, or it will overflow again. It’s only a matter of time before the nabassu and others like them try to emerge in the weakening created here.

  Just do what you need to do to protect the palace and the stored energy, ordered the potentate.

  With no visible effort on Ventyr’s part, the blue light faded. The edges of the portal contracted until they met at the middle, and then the doorway disappeared.

  Lyim ordered Isk to see to the removal of the body and the repair of the boiler. As the assassin departed down the corridor at the top of the narrow staircase to execute the potentate’s orders, Lyim stepped back into the bath chamber. Tension had returned tenfold to the cords of his neck. He caught sight of the cold, red pool of water and wrenched the door back open with a scowl.

  “Have the pool drained and scoured, as well!” he called after the head of security.

  They’ll come back, Ventyr whispered at his side.

  Lyim jumped. He’d nearly forgotten about her. “Can’t you just seal them out again?” he asked aloud.

  I told you, not if many more come—and t
hey will. Ventyr reappeared across the pool. But, like any fiend, nabassu can be controlled by a powerful mage.

  “Or a powerful artifact?”

  Ventyr merely smiled.

  Lyim removed the robe thoughtfully and slipped his clothing back on. “There may be a day in the not-too-distant future when creatures like that could come in handy,” he mused.

  * * * * *

  Bram sat at the desk in his study, staring vacantly at the marble mortar and pestle he used to grind herbs. He seemed unable to focus on one thing for more than a fleeting thought, before his mind leaped elsewhere.

  The lord of Castle DiThon snapped back to the present.

  What is the matter with me? he asked himself. I haven’t time to be daydreaming like a schoolboy. Guerrand will be expecting me in the gallery at any moment, bags packed for Qindaras, and I’m not nearly ready. Why not? What’s holding me back?

  He had started his meditations for mental strength several times, but let himself get distracted after the initial mantra. He was thinking of the confrontation that was to come instead of preparing for it.

  Primula’s training told him to consider the reason for his distraction, not just banish it, or it would only return. It wasn’t caused by fear. There was no tightening in his throat or quickening of his pulse when he thought of what he must do.

  He had never killed a man. Was that it? Killing another living thing was in opposition to tuatha philosophy. Bram had spent years trying to save all life in Thonvil. Even before his sojourn among his mother’s people, he had believed that nature should determine the cycles of birth, growth, and death.

  Despite all that, Bram had to admit he felt no ethical conflict at the thought of killing Lyim Rhistadt. First, the man posed an enormous threat to magic and the balance of good and evil. Second, he had caused endless suffering to Bram’s family, not to mention the village of Thonvil.

  Bram recognized, then, the cause of his distraction. He might never see this place again. He had learned many things from Primula, but he would never be nomadic like her. His human grandfather, Rejik, ran too deep in him. Bram’s father, Cormac, had frequently told him as a child that Rejik used to brag lovingly about the extent of his holdings.

  Bram had none of his grandfather’s vanity for his position, but a great deal of pride in what had been accomplished. Things were very different around Thonvil than they had been in his father’s time.

  Even Cormac’s study would have been unrecognizable to the former lord. Upon his return from the tuatha realm, Bram had tried to reclaim the sunny, multiwindowed gallery facing the sea. But Guerrand had already staked out that spot, and he’d insisted the lord of the manor must occupy the study on the second floor, as always. Bram had agreed reluctantly, but vowed to make some changes.

  Those changes included removing the heavy wood desks and bookcases that had cluttered and darkened the room. He had chipped away at the narrow windows so that they afforded a full view of the fields between the castle and the village, as well as enough light to sustain the vines and various plants that now filled the study. He relied on the scent of plants to awaken his senses each morning like other people used chicory or ale. These days he trekked to the herb garden for solitude, not spell components, since he grew most everything in clay pots on his windowsills. Cormac’s old study was now a cheerful place kept warm by sunlight.

  Bram’s longing for Thonvil had nothing to do with his power or position as lord. This was the only place he felt totally at peace with both sides of his heritage. With Primula, he had always been acutely aware of his human half. She had never criticized him for it, even during his first stumbling attempts at spellcasting. But he could never quite forget that she had left Weador’s domain to distance herself from humans.

  Here, in the privacy of his study, however, he was free to find his way as a human with tuatha skills. Outside this room the Orders of Magic had expectations of him. Bram was forced to admit that fear did play a part in his distraction now. He was not afraid of Lyim, or even of death, but of failing. He could not let that happen.

  Bram called to mind the plan he and Guerrand had devised so that he could bring the necessary supplies. The Council of Three had informed them that they had no time to waste in Qindaras, since Lyim’s defenses would almost immediately signal the presence of a mage. Spies had informed them, before mysteriously disappearing, that mages were immediately slain without benefit of a trial. That meant Guerrand had to seek a face-to-face audience with Lyim first and hope the former mage of the Red Robes would be curious enough to meet with his old friend. Neither Bram nor his uncle had any doubt Lyim would order Guerrand slain, once his curiosity was satisfied. They would have only the one chance, a heartbeat long, to slay Lyim first.

  Just then, an image appeared in the window before Bram, as if it were a reflection in the glass. It was Guerrand’s face, lined with worry, and it spoke to Bram with a hollow-sounding recreation of the mage’s voice. “I expected you to be here by now. Is there a problem?”

  “I’m sorry,” Bram said hastily, filling a calfskin pack as he spoke. “I spent longer meditating than I’d intended.”

  “Finish whatever you need to,” Guerrand said, “but do it with the least amount of delay.”

  “Yes, Rand.” Bram tossed a long dagger onto his pile of necessary equipment. “I’ll meet you in the gallery just as soon as I say good-bye to Kirah and … just Kirah.” Bram had thought about stopping by Rietta’s chamber, then changed his mind. She knew nothing about Primula, yet things had never been the same for either of them since his return from Weador’s realm.

  Guerrand’s image faded away and Bram finished gathering up the few things he thought might be useful, then tied up the bundle and slung it over his shoulder.

  Pausing, Bram touched a finger to the leaf of a rich, green herb. Tomorrow, Maladorigar the gnome would take over the care of these plants until Bram’s return. They would be in good, if excitable, hands.

  With that thought, Bram left in search of Kirah.

  * * * * *

  Bram arrived in the bright and sunny main hall a short time later with a puzzled expression on his face. He dropped his pack onto Guerrand’s crowded table, where the mage sat penning a letter.

  “Thank the gods. You’re here at last,” his uncle mumbled. He brushed the drying sand off the letter, then folded the sheet neatly into thirds. “Let’s get going,” he announced briskly, pushing himself up from his chair.

  Bram scarcely heard his uncle. “Do you know where Kirah is?” he asked distractedly, rubbing his chin. “I’ve looked everywhere: her chamber, the counting house, the kitchen. No one has seen her this morning.”

  Guerrand shrugged as he moved to the back wall and selected a double-edged long sword from the assortment of weapons racked there. It seemed many lifetimes ago that he had trained with this blade as a prospective cavalier. But if his magic would do him no good in Qindaras, perhaps the sword could. “Kirah seldom keeps to any predictable schedule,” he said, strapping on the sword. “She could be in the village, in the drying houses checking on crops, speaking with one of the tenants, sitting in the cave by the shore … I said my farewells to her last night, and that was difficult enough.”

  Bram shook his head. “I was sorry we had to tell her the reason for our absence when we asked her to assume my duties again.”

  “I tried to avoid the details, particularly about Lyim,” Guerrand sighed. “But you know your aunt. She’s never satisfied until she ferrets out the whole truth. She always knows when I’m lying.”

  Guerrand fidgeted with the sword belt, adjusting it meticulously as if the weight bothered him. “She was very angry about not being able to help destroy Lyim,” he recalled. “I didn’t realize how much she still hated him for tricking her during the medusa plague.”

  “Maybe she’s still a little bitter that I’m going with you, but she’s not.” Bram said. “I’m just relieved she finally recognized the need to remain here to keep things runni
ng smoothly until we return from Qindaras.”

  “We’re traveling the faerie road, so well be back in a matter of days,” Guerrand assured him. “Kirah has grown up a lot since suffering the plague; she’s not nearly as headstrong as she used to be. She knows what she’s doing with the estate, if that’s troubling you.”

  Bram shook his head slowly. “I’d just feel better if I could speak with her first.”

  Giving a resigned shrug, Bram hefted his pack full of herbs and other supplies onto his back and arched a brow at his uncle. “Ready?”

  Guerrand reached for the strap of his own leather knapsack, stuffed to capacity. “I just have to pack the mirror Belize gave me, and we’re all set.”

  “Gods, yes, don’t forget that,” said Bram. “We’d have little hope of defeating Lyim without it.”

  Guerrand gingerly slipped the shiny, palm-sized fragment of precious magical glass into a blue velvet sack for protection. “If Belize had known how useful this bit of glass would prove to me over the years …”

  Bram shrugged. “He couldn’t have predicted it, since he expected you to die shortly after he gave it to you.”

  Guerrand paused, his dark eyes taking on that faraway look again. “Lyim’s master expected me to die many times over.”

  “So has Lyim,” charged Bram. “But you’ve defied them both quite handily.”

  “So far,” Guerrand agreed. With great determination, he slipped the mirror into his bag.

  “You’re not having second thoughts about our plan, are you? You do think it will work.”

  “Not if we don’t get there.” Guerrand stuffed the cumbersome bell-shaped cuffs of his gray wool robe through the straps of his pack.

  With a frown, Bram stared at his uncle. “Are you sure the mirror’s magic won’t be affected by Lyim’s gauntlet?”

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Guerrand admitted. “I don’t believe the mirror will be affected, nor does Justarius, because the mirror neither gathers nor disperses energy. It is either charged from within, or it draws energy from the strange dimension that it constantly borders and opens into. Unless the gauntlet’s effect is far more pernicious at close range, I expect the mirror will function just as it always has.”