“A shopkeeper. No—more than that. He’s a danger.”
“To who? You? Or to us?”
“Us? The Mahruse Empire and the emperor?”
“Of course.”
“The empire is rotten to the core. There is no ‘us’ where they’re concerned. And if you insist that you’re still part of them, then we’re done here.” His words dripped with venom.
Grimacing, Felice shook her head. “We do good things, help many people. Without the empire, there would be disorder.”
“The fact the empire does good things is testament to the fact that good people do good things. It has nothing to do with the emperor or those in his inner circle. The warlocks are corrupt. The Protectors are but a tool, whatever they once were. And they all hang on a secret—one they kill to keep, kill to maintain. Self-preservation and self-interest. Old and aging people clinging to power and to the only way they know of warding off sickness and frailty. Never mind that it comes at such a cost.”
“Without the empire, the jukari and vormag would have overrun us. We’d have been slaughtered. We wouldn’t exist today.”
“I don’t believe that. People would survive; they’d have found a way. Look at the Sotharle Union of Cities and the kingdoms to the south. Even Indryalla.”
Felice looked at him with pity. “You think they don’t know about Touched blood? You’re fooling yourself. Of course they know! And a lot of them are less kind than the empire is.”
“So I should be grateful for the chance to be used and worn out?” spat Caldan. “Then bled like a sacrificial animal?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Stop. You may not realize it, but that’s exactly what you’re saying. The only way they expect me to serve is to kill and destroy for them, and then die in a place convenient for them to drink my blood.”
Stepping between them, Quiss interrupted. “Now is not the time for this discussion. We have more important things to worry about. From what Caldan has explained, you now have no protection against the creation of these purified lands, as Caldan calls them. What he did was rash, but it’s possible he’s prevented much worse from happening. I’ll admit, I don’t know how they’re created, but I’ve a better chance of working it out than either of you.”
Felice’s lips pressed together. “The warlocks will kill you all once they find out. I’m surprised they aren’t here now. And there’s no way I’m letting you take possession of one of the trinkets.”
Quiss’s laugh echoed around the cabin. “You have no choice. How would you stop me?”
“I’ve killed one of you before. One of your kind.”
“Ah . . . Savine. I heard. You know you didn’t kill him, not really. Besides, you were lucky.”
“I make my own luck.”
Quiss inclined his head. “As do I. In any case, Caldan has agreed to loan me a trinket to study. I’ll admit, we haven’t paid much attention to craftings or trinkets. We are beyond them. They’re crutches.”
“He’s the only one who can help us,” Caldan said. “What might take me months to figure out won’t take Quiss nearly as long.”
Felice nodded slowly. Her expression was blank, and Caldan couldn’t decide what she was thinking. Likely, she knew she couldn’t alter their path and would try something else in the future.
“It has started,” she said, voice filled with fear.
Quiss nodded, but remained silent.
Caldan knew what Felice referred to. “A second Shattering,” he said. “But this one we can prevent from happening, can’t we, Quiss?”
The sorcerer shrugged, face bleak. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We couldn’t stop the lich, in our world. It’s not a person. Or maybe it once was; no one really knows. It has taken over Kelhak’s form. He is a vessel holding the entity, much as a cup holds water. It has learned how to absorb other people in some way. Their talents, their abilities. But what makes it dangerous, and powerful beyond anything you’ve ever encountered, is that it also absorbs wells. It makes them its own.”
A gasp escaped Caldan. “It takes wells from sorcerers?” he repeated. “How many? Surely it couldn’t use many at a time.”
“Hundreds,” said Quiss. “And you’re right: its control isn’t perfect. But it’s enough.”
“What does it want?” said Felice. “And how can we stop it? What has been tried before?”
“Before?” said Quiss incredulously. He shook his head. “It was all we could do to flee, else we would have perished. A few of us may have tried something, raw sorcery. But obviously nothing that worked.”
“For someone who knows more than we do,” Felice said, “you’re surprisingly short of useful information.”
“There has to be something!” Caldan exclaimed.
“If there is,” Quiss said, “I don’t know of it. If Gazija were here . . . but he isn’t. We need the lich defeated, otherwise it’ll come for us. For all of us. You have the trinkets now, which will stop the warlocks losing themselves in their power and causing another Shattering.”
Caldan reached into his shirt and removed the chain from around his neck. He undid the clasp and removed Devenish’s bone ring. It was identical to his own, but shinier, polished, as if caressed by many hands. He stood and held it out to Quiss. Felice’s gaze followed the ring.
“Take it,” he said. “We have to learn how to use it quickly. I’ve had mine for months, and its workings are an enigma to me. But I want it back in my possession when you’re not examining it.”
Quiss took the trinket but waved a hand dismissively. “Trinkets are just complex craftings. But I’ll study this one soon, if you insist. Now, there’s another urgent matter I must bring to your attention.”
Felice smiled, as a mother might to a wayward child she knew was being evasive. “Then tell us,” she said.
“We have another problem, one that we should sort out first. My people are far more sensitive than most sorcerers, and we’ve sensed some disturbing activity.”
“Activity?” said Felice. “You mean sorcery.”
“Yes,” Quiss said. “I . . . I’ll just come out and say it. There’s another lich.”
Another! Caldan felt weak. The air in the cabin pressed down on him, became too thick to breathe.
“ . . . possibly more than one,” Quiss was saying.
“Pignuts,” gasped Felice.
“Where?” Caldan found himself saying. “Where are they? Are they as powerful as Kelhak?”
“All good questions,” said Quiss. “Another one is: What is their intent?” He shook his head. “Without knowing who they are, we cannot say. But we know they are lesser than Kelhak.”
Felice turned to Caldan. He looked into her eyes and saw not fear but determination. “We are alive so far, after all that’s happened to us. We’ll survive this.”
“Quiss,” Caldan said. “These others—you brought them to our attention because you fear what they might become.”
“Yes.”
As with any game of Dominion, you had to start somewhere. And a child had to play less complex games before he or she could comprehend the true scope of Dominion. What they had to do was clear to Caldan now. “We have to confront these liches first, while they’re weak. They could provide insight into how we can defeat Kelhak.”
Felice nodded. “I agree. Tell us more, Quiss. What do you know?”
“Much. And little.”
Felice snorted a laugh. “We’re not children, sorcerer. We don’t need to be shielded.”
Quiss paused, and then nodded himself. “Very well. The tearing of a well from one person is a painful experience. And one that requires great power, and art in sorcery. The reverberations echo through the air, as they do when the extracted well is . . . grafted to someone else. We felt such an occurrence a number of times. Some were weak, far away. We assumed these were Kelhak, or another.”
The emperor, Caldan thought.
Quiss continued. “But a couple were closer, much closer. One we detected as we
were approaching Riversedge. From among the emperor’s army. I believe there was a sorcerous battle there.”
Caldan clasped his hands to conceal their shaking. “There was bloodshed. The stench of sorcery.”
“Anything else?” Quiss continued. “Something out of the ordinary?”
Pain. His broken sorcery. Hundreds of Quivers dying around him. A desiccated corpse with long black hair: Bells. Amerdan covered in a black shield. Amerdan. Amerdan, who when they’d first met had repulsed Caldan for an instant. Who’d revealed he was a sorcerer among the warlocks, among the destructive sorcery.
He looked up to find Quiss and Felice staring at him. They were waiting.
“Amerdan,” he said. “A shopkeeper who fled Anasoma with us. He was . . . odd. I thought he was Touched. He had similar abilities to me. But he wasn’t a sorcerer. Then he disappeared when we reached Riversedge, only to reappear with Bells. And he could shield himself. It has to be him.”
“So . . . Touched and a sorcerer. Like you,” said Felice.
Caldan met her gaze. “Yes. But . . . if he wasn’t a sorcerer before, how could he claim another’s well for his own? Bells, for all her tragic faults, I couldn’t see doing something so horrible as tearing out another sorcerer’s well and transferring it to Amerdan.”
“Then he has to have a trinket that does it,” Felice said.
A sensible thought, a highly probable path. But had it just occurred to Felice, or had she known all along?
“If a sorcerer can do it,” Quiss said, “then a trinket can be made to do the same thing.”
Caldan’s thoughts churned. What was the truth of what Quiss and Felice knew? What were they holding back? Hiding? For everyone had secrets and kept them close.
“If Bells was the one to teach him, then she’s dead. If it’s a trinket, then he has it. Either way, our focus has to be finding Amerdan. If we can figure out how this process works, then we may have a hope of defeating Kelhak.”
Felice was nodding, making Caldan wonder if she’d guided him to this path. But no, she couldn’t have known about Amerdan—he’d just told her moments ago. It was one of her strengths, he realized. The projection of certainty, of purpose.
Quiss coughed. “Without Gazija, we are at a disadvantage. But my people and I may be able to find this man. We know what to look for: multiple wells. It will take time, but we can do it.”
“How much time?” asked Felice.
“A day. Two.”
“Then you’d better get started.”
Caldan smiled, though he didn’t feel like it. He was tired and wanted to sleep. Miranda was waiting for him, and he wanted to hold her. He needed some comfort. “This wasn’t where I saw my life leading,” he said wryly. “I’m not a hero. And hunting these liches sounds like a quick way to die. But it needs to be done.”
Quiss nodded. “That it does.”
Felice smiled, in the manner of someone who knew a truth you didn’t. “There are many paths one can take, Caldan. It is the same as Dominion. Sorcery, war, life choices. You can see better than most which path will lead to where you want to end up. But some require sacrifice. A path that may seem easier also holds the risk of more going wrong, being open to disruption. You know this.”
Before, when Caldan had been naive, he would have agreed. Before, he would have taken Felice at her word, taken her advice as a lesson he needed to learn. Now, everything had changed. Felice had come alone, unarmed, to a place she might have expected peril. A calculated move on her part. For Caldan realized everything she did was calculated. She’d put herself in danger’s path, she spoke of helping them, of saving the empire, and she’d revealed knowledge they lacked. But could he take her at her word? The old Caldan would have.
Now he simply nodded, as he would have previously. But he reserved judgment.
“As for you, Quiss,” Felice continued. “You know an awful lot about these liches. Is there something you should be telling us?”
Quiss averted his eyes. “The liches, and those trinket daggers you have, Felice—it’s similar to what’s happened to us. What we willingly did to ourselves.”
Felice stared at Quiss, expression blank. Caldan frowned. He’d known these sorcerers were odd, but . . . Quiss had just implied they’d had their consciousnesses trapped.
“What do you mean?” Caldan said. “What’s going on?”
Quiss sighed, his shoulders slumped. “You would have found out eventually. But we are not from here. There was a lich where we came from, the one inside Kelhak. It destroyed our world.”
Caldan’s mind reeled. They are from another world! And Kelhak followed them here. Felicienne was nodding, like she already knew.
“Is that why . . .” Caldan said. “I mean, your people: They have always looked different to me. Denser.”
“Partly,” admitted Quiss. “But mostly it’s to do with our essence inhabiting people from your world. You’re not quite strong enough to hold our essence, and there is . . . leakage.”
He turned an imploring gaze on Caldan, as if he feared what his reaction would be.
“We found a way to escape,” the sorcerer said. “We fled through our wells, but in the process, the flesh was scoured from our bones. We found a way for our . . . essence . . . to survive, though. We had to take over someone else. To use their bodies to house us.”
“That’s . . .” Words couldn’t describe the disgust Caldan felt. And these were the sorcerers he’d thrown his lot in with? They were worse than the warlocks.
Felice cleared her throat. “Just so. Interesting, isn’t it?”
Interesting? “What they’re doing is an atrocity.” Caldan’s voice cracked on the last word. By the ancestors, was nothing what it seemed? He looked at Quiss, whose eyes were downcast, his expression pure contrition. It seemed he’d shrunk into himself further.
“We did what we had to do to survive,” Quiss said, defiant and pleading all at once. “We’re working on a solution.”
“And your ‘solution’ was murder?”
“No! I mean . . .” He sighed. “I wish Gazija were here to explain. He thought he knew how, but . . .”
Caldan warred between his newfound revulsion and his desire to know more. “What happened to him? Did Kelhak really kill him?”
“Gone.” Quiss’s voice was flat, tinged with grief. “He killed himself, rather than let Kelhak take him. There’s nothing on the other side to transfer his consciousness to. He’s gone.” Quiss breathed out heavily. “This is a night of revelations. We have all revealed much to each other, in order to show we are trustworthy. But in the end, what bonds we forge here tonight will all be tested in the coming days.”
Caldan stood. The low cabin ceiling brushed his head. “Anasoma has fallen. The warlocks are in disarray. The Quivers are busy fighting jukari, when their attention should be turned to Kelhak. We are diminished, while Kelhak’s plans come to fruition.”
“This is true,” Quiss said. “But what are his plans? You assume he must have a purpose, but your assumptions are based on false ideas. Whatever the lich once was, he . . . it . . . is no more human than a jukari. Less so. Whatever character he seems to possess is stolen. The body of Kelhak is a shell, a vessel.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Felice asked.
Caldan wasn’t sure she didn’t know already. She was trying to subtly guide them. An impassioned speech here, a prod there. And he knew why.
She thought the end was coming. Another Shattering. And she would die to prevent it.
Which was one thing he knew he could trust.
Because he would do the same thing.
CHAPTER 40
Assume they know exactly what’s going on,” Miranda said with anger. “Then you won’t be surprised.”
He’d revealed everything to her during the last hour. She’d listened closely, interrupting only when she had a relevant question. When he was finished, Caldan felt wrung out but strangely relieved.
Caldan held her tighter. He sat
on the narrow cabin bunk with his back to the wall. Miranda sat practically in his lap, his arms surrounding her warmth. Her hair tickled his nose, and he breathed in her scent. She fidgeted with the cloth of her shirt, her buttons. She sniffed, stiffened for an instant, then softened.
She thinks I reek. He was learning her ways. It felt strange being so close to her. He was embarrassed by his reactions, and yet . . . he didn’t want anything else. The closer they became, the greater his desire to leave all of this—the warlocks and the Touched—behind him.
Miranda pinched his arm. “I worry for you, you know.”
For some reason, the thought that she was concerned about him filled Caldan with uncertainty. They could run, leave this place. But he knew Felice was right. His path was set, and sometimes sacrifice was required to end the game. If he was giving up only a little time in order to help Quiss and Felice defeat Kelhak before extricating himself from the warlocks, then everything would be fine.
“We’ll be all right” was all he said. It sounded lame to his ears.
Miranda shivered, as if cold, though the room and Caldan were warm. “You know sorcery far better than I do. Do you think they can catch Amerdan? And that this will lead to a way to defeat Kelhak?”
“I don’t know. But I know we have to try.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“You disagree?”
Miranda shrugged, then sighed. “If Quiss and his people combine with the warlocks, then what good will one more sorcerer do?”
“A sorcerer and Touched. Yes, I’m only beginning to understand my abilities, what I’m capable of, but it may be that I will be the tipping point.” As much as the knowledge filled him with terror, it also filled him with elation. Terror, because using his abilities would hasten his death; because the fate of the world might rest in their hands. But the elation . . . the joy . . . That was what he felt when he practiced sorcery. Smith-crafting an item, filling himself with his well’s power and controlling it to do whatever he wanted. His gifts were blooming like flowers in spring, and he wanted—needed—to explore them.
“You can’t know that.”
“I can’t not know it, either.”
A Shattered Empire Page 33