“No . . .” Amerdan whispered. “Dotty.”
Caldan frowned, but he couldn’t decipher his meaning.
“They’re afraid!” screamed Amerdan. A strange smile spread across his face, then he sobbed. “Please, don’t.”
What was happening? Amerdan had changed in a heartbeat. Why the sudden reversal? Caldan’s limbs trembled, but his strength didn’t wane.
Shouts echoed around the riverbed. Selbourne and his men. Amerdan’s struggles began anew. Twisting, grunting, pushing, and pulling, searching for an opening. He was heedless of the knife, and it scored tracks across his skin.
Caldan met all of Amerdan’s moves with counters. Often only his raw strength prevented Amerdan from breaking free.
More shouts. Closer this time.
Amerdan glanced frantically into the darkness. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped struggling. He looked at Caldan with intensity.
“There’s a physiker in Anasoma,” he said, as if the words were being dragged out of him. “Zakarius. A bald man. Find him. He’s caring for my sister, and two others. Promise me you’ll look after them.”
Had his voice wavered? Why was Amerdan asking this of him? Why was he . . . desperate? “You can look after them yourself. We only want to . . . study what you are.”
Amerdan laughed, as if Caldan had uttered a feeble joke. “Promise me?”
Puzzled, Caldan nodded. “I promise.”
Amerdan relaxed slightly. “The sorcerers,” he hissed. And Caldan had never before heard the word uttered with such hatred. “They are evil. Remember that.”
“It’s all right,” Caldan said, attempting to reassure Amerdan. “We won’t harm you.”
“I am no slave,” Amerdan said flatly.
“We don’t—”
“I won’t be imprisoned again. Tortured.”
“Amerdan—”
“If I can’t have your talents, then I’ll become part of you.”
What? And Caldan became acutely aware of their position: him on top of Amerdan, the knife turned to point downward, tracks of blood across Amerdan’s collarbone and chest. And the only thing stopping the blade from sinking to the hilt was Amerdan’s resistance.
“Don’t,” Caldan pleaded.
“You’ll become greater than you can imagine. Something not . . . human. This flesh is but a vessel, and I am far more than you can imagine.”
And though Amerdan’s body was in its prime, his eyes possessed the wisdom of ages.
Wisdom or madness?
Or both?
In a sudden movement, Amerdan pulled Caldan’s hands toward him. The blade disappeared, slipping between ribs. Amerdan’s mouth opened, and he gasped.
Light and heat emanated from Caldan’s hand—the trinket. He tried to pull the knife out, but Amerdan clutched him tight.
“Together,” the shopkeeper whispered, “we will become even greater.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“You’ll see.”
Glittering white light wormed its way between Caldan’s clenched fist. A single thread. It wavered in the air. Caldan recoiled in horror. In moments, it thickened and extended, sliding behind Amerdan’s neck. It latched onto Amerdan. He could feel it, sense its sorcery. Then a pulse traveled along it. Caldan tried to open his hand and drop the trinket, only to find one of Amerdan’s hands tightly clasped around his. A smile came across Amerdan’s face. Nothing evil. Nothing sinister.
No, it was . . . relief?
When the bulging pulse reached his hand, a blinding pain erupted in Caldan’s mind. He screamed, unable to control himself. A massive pressure formed inside his head. His brain felt squeezed to the size of pea. Caldan roared again as another pulse entered him. And another. Agony lanced from all directions. Tears poured from his eyes. The pain . . . how long it went on for, he couldn’t tell. But eventually, it lessened. Then disappeared completely.
Caldan came to lying prostrate on Amerdan. Shouts sounded from close by, one bellowing orders. Booted feet clattered over river stones. He opened his eyes and found himself atop a grotesque hundred-year-old corpse, gray skinned and desiccated, like it had been entombed and left to mummify. A husk, drained of all vitality.
He scrambled free, panting, exhausted to the point his limbs shook and his hands could barely hold on to the stones underneath them. The stench of the body flattened him, forced him to retch.
Selbourne ran into view, face dripping sweat. His greatsword held in both hands, he slowed and approached cautiously. “Here!” he bellowed. Answering shouts come from the darkness. “Are you all right?”
Caldan nodded. Tried to speak. Couldn’t. He swallowed. Eventually he was able to get out, “I think so. He . . . killed himself.” A few paces away, his wolf simulacrum stood motionless. Its surface was scratched and dented in places.
Selbourne grunted, looking pointedly at the hilt sticking out of Amerdan’s chest. “Looks like you did for him. And not just the knife. You did something else.”
“I didn’t. He pulled the blade down.”
“If you say so.”
Caldan kept silent. He was in no mood to argue or explain. The implications of what Amerdan had done to him skittered about in his thoughts. He’d been violated, infected with corrupt sorcery.
He realized he still held the trinket in his hand. He opened it to reveal a spherical metal cage of tightly woven strands. A faint rattle came from it when it moved. He squinted but couldn’t see inside.
He stood on wobbly legs and took a few shambling steps away from Amerdan’s corpse. He was at once drained and energized. A peculiar feeling. He shuddered as a wave of heat ran through him. It was like, and yet unlike, the heat of his Touched abilities. Those were physical, he realized, while this was . . . something different.
The clatter of stones echoed; dead sticks snapped. Caldan waited for Quiss to join them.
Selbourne seemed to sense his mood and remained quiet. The mercenary knelt next to Amerdan’s corpse and poked at a bulge beneath his shirt. He reached in and drew out the gray rag doll.
Caldan looked at the stained and patched thing. A toy for little girls. Whatever Amerdan’s story, his mind hadn’t survived the onslaught. His soul had been degraded. He’d killed for pleasure and to take possession of someone else. In the end, he’d been unhinged.
Would that be Caldan’s fate? He knew not how the trinket had changed him, but he knew it had.
Quiss stumbled out of the night. Caldan tentatively reached into his own mind and searched, not for his well, but for others. And with numb certainty he found them and counted.
Eleven.
Somehow, his soul had been bound to others. Churning inside him, mixing and changing him . . . As molten metal and ores mixed within a crucible, so did a multitude of souls roil within the constraints of his body. They used to be a part of other sorcerers. Ones like him, with hopes and dreams. All ripped from them in death, along with the source of their power.
Caldan had been defiled.
I’ve become the thing I swore I’d fight against.
For some reason, not all of Amerdan’s wells had transferred to him. But most had. They were blocked, as expected, a hard, slippery barrier covering them—all except one, split by a hairline crack, through which flowed a trickle of power.
He realized Bells must have opened at least one for Amerdan. She’d shown him the way. After that, she’d probably been useless to him, and so she’d been killed.
“Caldan!”
Quiss. He was close. Caldan knew what he had to do. He opened his well and disguised it in the way he’d been taught, using its power to conceal and obscure, leaving only a faint shadow of it visible to sorcerers. Then, he sealed off the cracked well and completely covered all his new ones. Quiss mustn’t find out. No one could. He feared he’d become a lich, or they’d brand him one, as they had the emperor and Kelhak.
Quiss came rushing up, stumbling over the uneven footing. “I sensed a burst of complex sorcery again. Then the
lich’s wells vanished. What happened?”
“It must have been his shield,” Caldan replied, thinking quickly. “It was black, like the dome Bells used when she tore through the emperor’s Quivers. And the wells must have dispersed when I killed him.”
“Good work,” Quiss said. He sounded relieved. “Where is the trinket?”
Ancestors . . . “I . . . I have it.”
“Give it to me.” Quiss held out his hand.
“We should get out of here first. The vormag and the warlocks had to have sensed what happened.”
“We need to leave soon,” Selbourne said. “But the main threat has been neutralized, and Quiss is more than a match for any vormag that stumble onto us.”
Quiss’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at Caldan intently. “Give it to me,” he repeated.
Examining the trinket might be Caldan’s only way of reversing what Amerdan had done to him. But it could also be the key to defeating Kelhak. Reluctantly, Caldan handed it over.
A wind blew along the riverbed, cooling Caldan’s sweat and chilling him to the bone. He tasted dust on the air. Amerdan had found horrors and had reveled in them. He’d found a cup of malevolence and drunk deeply.
Then he’d forced Caldan to do the same.
Caldan stood, ignoring Quiss and Selbourne. The others came running toward them as they finally caught up.
Caldan looked out across the riverbed and spotted a pool of water. With faltering steps, he made his way to it. Along the way, he shrugged out of his shirt, then removed his boots and pants. Caldan stood there naked, as if newborn.
He entered the water and walked in up to his waist. He ducked his head and splashed water across his torso and arms. He washed his face clean of his own blood and rinsed his mouth.
The problem was that no amount of scrubbing would remove the stain Amerdan had forced upon him.
CHAPTER 42
Vasile walked reluctantly back from the Quivers’ kitchens, through the encampment. He followed a path winding between jumbles of tents and wagons, carrying a tray of meat and vegetables and bread. Caitlyn had ordered him, and he had obeyed. Scents surrounded him: smoke, horses, human sweat. He stumbled over a tent rope and almost dropped his load. Rough laughter sounded from his left, but he didn’t look.
Caitlyn was . . . changed. Remarkably so. Vasile reflected on the fact with curiosity and not a little wonder. What power did the emperor possess that he could heal someone so effectively? At least it explained the looks of greed and desire he’d seen on the faces of the emperor’s hangers-on when Caitlyn had been given the vial.
He made it back to their tents and placed the tray by the fire. Aidan nodded his thanks, but he didn’t move from his seat. He’d sat there for more than a full day, since the rejuvenated Caitlyn emerged from her tent. The only time he moved was to piss and eat.
Vasile squatted by the fire and dropped more peat on the coals. He could use some hot tea. Though the day was mild, he felt cold.
“A blind child could have made the trip quicker than you,” Caitlyn said from behind him.
Vasile pulled himself to his feet. He dusted off his hands, then moved the kettle onto the heat. “Did you find out what that storm was all about yesterday? It wasn’t natural.”
Twisting clouds and tornadoes had appeared swiftly, blotting out the sun and creating detonations and chaos and confusion before disappearing. From overheard soldiers’ conversations, they’d gathered the warlocks had been assaulted and lost someone important.
“Don’t you worry about it, Vasile,” Caitlyn replied curtly. “We’ve more important work to do.”
“It wasn’t the only unnatural thing to happen,” Aidan growled.
Vasile looked at Caitlyn for the first time since he’d returned. Again, her transformation startled him. Gone were her limp and stoop, and her voice was strong, skin taut.
Not only did she look hale, but she looked younger.
And she bore herself with authority and grace. Her words dripped with conviction. Vasile could see how Aidan and others had followed her.
“What important work is that?” Vasile asked. “Where is cel Rau?”
Caitlyn ignored him, taking a couple of plates from the tray before sitting on a stool. She began wolfing down food like she was starving. Since her night of screams she’d eaten enough for all of them.
Her body is still healing, surmised Vasile. Aidan was right. This was unnatural.
Fork poised close to her mouth, Caitlyn chewed thoughtfully. In her other hand she clutched a greasy knife. “The emperor’s work. Can anything be more important? We wait for his word. Then we move. Not before.” As she spoke, she waved the knife.
Vasile edged away. Ever since cel Rau’s blade had nicked his throat, he felt a strange anxiety around sharp instruments.
When his water boiled, he steeped some tea and waited.
A short time later, cel Rau strode into their camp. He was grinning like a wolf.
“Lady Caitlyn,” the swordsman said. “We have a mission.”
Caitlyn answered him with a grin of her own. “And?”
“Lady Porhilde has requested we meet with a Lady Felicienne Shyrise, over at the eastern docks.”
Vasile sighed, rubbing his eyes. He swallowed some tea, then flicked the dregs onto the fire, where they hissed and steamed. He looked around to find Aidan staring at him. Aidan nodded slightly. Good. Caitlyn’s transformation had been a shock to them both, but Aidan had taken it hard. A healthy Caitlyn was going to be far more difficult to get away from. Let alone dealing with cel Rau. Vasile gestured to the fire and plates.
“We’ll clean up, then go.”
Caitlyn shook her head. “No. As I said, we have more important work to do. Leave those.”
Vasile shrugged. “As you say.”
CHAPTER 43
As Caldan stepped from the water and stood dripping on rounded stones, Selbourne handed him his clothes. He took them with a brief nod of thanks and dressed slowly. They were soiled with dirt and sweat, and not a little blood, but they were all he had until they returned.
And it was chilly.
Quiss crouched some way away from their group. The mercenaries were all splashed with crimson. Surprisingly, only one was missing. The man who’d been killed by Amerdan as the shopkeeper fled, Caldan assumed.
Quiss held Amerdan’s trinket, examining it with his sorcerous senses. The other two sorcerers stood a short distance away, staring at him.
“You’ve changed,” Selbourne said gruffly. “What happened?”
Caldan looked up, then shrugged. “We fought. He almost killed me.”
“It’s more than that.”
Caldan ignored the implied question. “What happened back there, after Amerdan ran? I didn’t expect to see you for some time, if at all.”
“Huh. Something else occurred. When you chased after the lich, we regrouped and found there wasn’t much opposition. There were already dead jukari and vormag everywhere. As if they’d met an overwhelming force. It was a pretty sight, and not only because it meant we’d have an easier time.”
Amerdan had killed them. Because he was insane, or because he wanted to take them using his trinket? Either way, it didn’t matter in the end. Amerdan hadn’t known they were coming, and his actions had made it easier for them.
All Caldan did was shrug. That was in the past. Now he had to concentrate on the future. To work with Quiss to find a way to defeat Kelhak, all the while hiding his newfound, currently useless, wells. Which was an issue unto itself: Should I even try to unblock them? The very thought filled him with dread and loathing, yet that added power could be useful in taking down the God-Emperor.
At the monastery, he’d just had to do his duties, take his classes, and go about his life. Answers, there, were simple. The monks had trained him for so many tasks, but they forgot to mention one thing:
Outside those walls, no answers were easy.
Because even if he wanted to unblock each well, that wou
ld mean more strings to control—in addition to the ones he already used. He wasn’t a “Bleeder,” as Bells had called them; he didn’t have a natural talent to split his well into dozens of strings. It had been hard work getting to where he was now.
“You look worried,” Selbourne said.
Caldan affected a thin smile. “The sooner we’re away from here, the better. I’ll give Quiss a reminder. We need to get back. We’re too exposed.”
Selbourne grunted his agreement.
With a quick check on his wells to make sure they were concealed, Caldan approached Quiss and Mazoet. If the sorcerers heard him coming, they gave no sign, remaining still and intent on the trinket.
“I take it you haven’t worked out how it functions?” Caldan said.
Quiss frowned and wrinkled his nose. “It will take a good deal of study to determine how it works, what it does exactly. And then we need to come up with a way of turning that knowledge against Kelhak.”
Mazoet glanced at Caldan for an instant before returning his gaze to the trinket, then paused and turned back to Caldan. “You look different.”
Caldan snorted. “That’s what Selbourne said. I’ve never had someone force me to kill them before.”
“I suppose not,” said Mazoet.
I need to put Quiss and Mazoet on the right track and deflect attention from myself. Caldan nodded his head toward the trinket. “You’ve said you don’t use them, right?”
“No,” Quiss said. “I’ll admit we are decidedly ignorant when it comes to trinkets and craftings, apart from using them for applications that require a great deal of raw power. It’s one of the reasons I think Gazija was so intrigued by your automatons.”
“That’s actually perfect,” Caldan muttered.
“What is?” Mazoet asked.
“Sorry—just thinking aloud. But the more I consider it, I’m realizing trinkets and my automatons are much more similar than I originally thought.”
“How so?”
“Because, like the automatons, trinkets are really just complex craftings. They’re made from an extremely hard alloy, but it’s still just sorcery, at the end of the day.”
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