The Black Knife

by Christopher Nuttall

  He turned and looked down at Hind, lying on the bed. She looked unnaturally pale, but she was breathing normally and should be fine, assuming that her sleep wasn't interrupted. Eric wasn't the expert in magic that she was, yet he knew enough to know the spell she’d used and the price it extracted from its user. She was going to be out of it for hours to come, but once she awoke she should be fine. He kept telling himself that, watching the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed deeply, yet it was hard to be sure. So much of his life had turned upside down that he couldn’t bear to lose her too.

  Eric stood up and paced over to the single window, staring up towards the mountainside, up towards where the Golden Palace stood. The castle itself was cloaked in darkness, but the ever-present background noise of the wards was gone. Every magic-user for hundreds of miles around would have sensed their collapse; by now, the entire world would know that something had gone badly wrong in the Golden City. Eric knew enough to know that most of the Lords would sit on the sidelines and wait to see what happened before committing themselves, even if the wards hadn’t fallen. Duke Herod would have all the time in the world to consolidate his power and claim the Empire for himself. That left Eric as the only real threat to his power and, at the moment, all Eric had was one of the Great Swords and a comatose magician. His father’s Great Sword was lost.

  He looked back towards Hind and found himself captivated by her beauty. Even in the semi-darkness of the inn – the innkeeper had reluctantly consented to loan them a torch, burning merrily in a wall socket – she was beautiful. He felt a sudden surge of lust and almost reached out to touch her, before pulling back and cursing himself. Waking her now could be fatal to her, or at least force her back into a longer healing trance to heal herself. Besides, the second half of the ceremony hadn’t been completed. They might not be legally married.

  Eric chuckled inwardly, laughing at himself. The chances were that it wouldn’t matter in the slightest. Duke Herod had an entire army in the Golden Palace. Eric had one other person to call to his banner. The Great Swords had raised and destroyed entire kingdoms in their day, but Duke Herod had a Great Sword of his own now, the one wielded by Eric’s father. Any resistance would likely end with their rapid capture and executions. It was what Eric would have done in his place.

  He turned and looked back up towards the Palace. It was tempting, terrifyingly so, to just take the Great Sword Morningstar and walk back up to the Palace. He knew a handful of secret passages and entrances that no one else, even the most-trusted allies, knew about and he could gain access. With the Great Sword, he could cut a bloody swath through the guards until he reached Duke Herod and cut off his head…no, it wouldn’t work. The Great Swords were powerful, but they weren't omnipotent and Duke Herod had an entire army behind him. It would just be a quick way of committing suicide. He reached down to touch Morningstar’s hilt and was surprised by a sudden burst of confidence emitting from the sword. Old memories seemed to flicker through his mind, memories of great heroes who had suffered defeats, yet lived to avenge themselves on their enemies and see them slain. The history of the Great Swords was more than a little murky. They had passed through many hands before two of them finally took up residence in the Golden City.

  The thought made him smile. Every so often, rumours reached the Emperor that someone had uncovered Shadow, the missing Great Sword, and intended to use it. The Emperor had to investigate, but every rumour had rapidly proven false; the uncovered sword had been one of the lesser swords, or a simple enhanced sword created by an enchanter. No one knew what had happened to Shadow, only the fact that destroying the Great Swords permanently was supposed to be impossible kept people from believing that it had been destroyed. It was probably buried in an old mine and forgotten about years ago.

  He leaned back, one hand on Morningstar’s hilt, and breathed deeply, entering a meditation trance. He didn’t dare sleep, not when Duke Herod’s sorcerers were probably already looking for them, but if he meditated he’d at least get some rest and he’d be up and fighting if they burst into the room. The hours slipped by slowly, despite the trance, reminding him of just how alone he was in the darkness. Hind’s breathing was a comfort, but he wanted desperately to take her in his arms and pretend that everything was normal. And yet, how could he? The entire world had been turned upside down.

  Damn you, Herod, he thought coldly, feeling the sword’s power thrumming against his hand, promising bloody revenge soon enough. What the hell made you take up arms against my father?

  It was an easy question to answer. The Great Lords, the rulers of a thousand kingdoms, some large, some small, had never been easy bowing the knee to the Emperor. Many of them were related to the other Great Lords through intermarriage, and, like the Royal Family, they integrated commoners into their ranks. But each of those commoners came in on their own; raising an entire family of commoners into the peerage was a direct challenge to those men and their power. The Emperor had believed that the long-term interests of Touched demanded that the peerage be expanded and had hoped to use his final year to push through the reforms. They – the Emperor and his son, Eric himself – had calculated that the Great Lords would take several months to get their opposition together, surmounting the hundreds of petty rivalries that would make it harder to get them to agree on anything. It was clear that their calculations had been badly in error. If it hadn’t been for Duke Herod, someone who was in line to the Throne…

  He shook his head grimly. One day, he promised the shade of his dead father, there would be a reckoning.

  ***

  The moon was high in the night sky when Duke Herod walked out into the courtyard, breathing deeply and inhaling the fumes of hundreds of dead bodies. The stench was appalling, yet part of him found it appealing, a premonition of what was to come. He looked up towards the moon and felt his magic twist and jump in response to the suddenly-heightened currents of magic flowing through the air. Out in the wild woods, werewolves would be losing their minds and reverting to beasts, while good folk would be locking their doors and trusting to small charms to keep them safe from ghosts and goblins and things that went bump in the night. Commoners were always terrified of magical creatures, having no magic themselves, and needed protection from their betters. Herod smiled at the thought, knowing that the night was about to birth new terrors.

  He muttered a spell under his breath and suddenly he could see perfectly, taking in the sight in front of him. The guards had simply dumped the bodies in the courtyard, without bothering to line them up or put them in order – although, he noted with a smile, they had taken the time to go through their pockets and steal anything valuable. Herod had ordered that the main court be preserved, but the thought of desecrating the remainder of the Emperor’s apartments had amused him. The guards had torn through sheets worth a king’s ransom, urinated and defecated in the Emperor’s bed and held a wild party in the Great Hall. They’d also done other, darker acts. Some of the bodies added to the pile were those of maids, who hadn’t survived the attentions of the guards. Herod didn’t care. For all the power he’d amassed into his person, he couldn’t break the loyalty spells binding the maids. They just couldn’t be trusted.

  A large convoy of servants was already on its way from Azimuth, but they wouldn’t be at the Golden Palace for months to come. Once they took the Golden City, Herod had decided, they would simply round up a few thousand people and enslave them, putting them to work in cleaning up and repairing the Golden Palace. When the time came to declare himself formally as Emperor Herod I, he would be doing it from the seat of ancient royalty, putting another stamp of legitimacy on his claim. Once he’d taken the Golden Throne…

  His lips narrowed angrily. As long as Eric was alive, anyone who sat in the Golden Throne would die; the powerful charms and spells woven into the Throne would kill them in screaming agony. The enchanters and alchemists he’d brought with him had taken a look at it, wondering if they could undo the spells, but after four of them ha
d been killed by the Throne’s defences, they’d given it up as impossible. It was frustrating and Herod had been tempted to simply blast the Throne to rubble and create another, but it was all-too-likely that that would be impossible.

  Herod shook his head angrily and turned back to the pile of bodies, drawing on his power. Necromancy, like a handful of other magical disciplines, worked better at specific hours of the day…or, in necromancy’s case, specific hours of the night. There were good reasons why necromancy was banned, but it was growing harder and harder to even think of them as he advanced, using the power to smooth away all the obstacles in his path to power. The dead bodies ahead of him seemed to glow with potential power. He had slain them…and, in the act, gained vast magical power. He knelt in front of them and focused his mind. This wasn't going to be easy, even for him. He’d practiced back at Azimuth, yet…

  His awareness expanded suddenly, showing him the bodies and the complete absence of any life energy within the empty shells. Necromancy hadn’t just killed the humans, but everything inside them as well, leaving them completely dead. The bacteria that made up part of the human body’s digestive system – discovered by a long-dead alchemist thousands of years ago – were gone. Their absence was actually slowing the decay that was threatening to render them useless. Carefully, he reached into his magic and slowly started to filter it out over the bodies, directing it to enter them and work one of the darkest of magical acts. His power infused the bodies, sliding through them and into their dead brains. Controlling such a massive reserve of power was difficult, almost impossible, yet somehow he held on. The legendary necromancers had thought nothing of it. How could he do any less?

  One of the bodies, a former Royal Guardsman, twitched. Its eyes opened and gazed sightlessly upon the world. A moment later, it started to get up, struggling against gravity, decay and the sheer absence of any organic memory to remind it how to move. The power flowing through the zombie grew stronger, more practiced, and the zombie staggered to its feet. Others were rising to their feet behind it, their cold sightless eyes locking on Herod’s face and waiting for orders. The waves of magic were fading now as they were sucked into the zombies, creating and empowering a whole army. Herod relaxed as most of the remainder of the dead bodies stood up and joined the ranks of silent zombies. A handful who had been too badly injured in the fighting couldn’t move, although they were dragging themselves forwards on their hands and knees.

  “Good,” Herod said, as the zombies stopped and stood in ranks, facing him. A terrible wellspring of power was burning through him, pushing him towards darker and darker acts. The zombies weren't very smart individually, but combined they presented a formidable threat…and they were completely loyal to the man who had raised them from the dead. He caught sight of a dead chambermaid, her pretty neck barely marked despite the blow that had broken her neck and killed her. No one would realise that she was a zombie until it was far too late. The thought was delightful, for there was another trick to the spell that had created them. Anyone bitten by one of his zombies would rise from the dead and join his zombie army.

  A pack of zombies made a formidable and terrifying opponent. A zombie felt no fear or pain – or scruples. The only way to kill the monsters was to completely destroy their bodies and their ability to move – even a crippled zombie could be dangerous - whereupon the spell would fade away and vanish, leaving the dead body behind. They could be shot by arrows or stabbed by swords and they would just keep coming at their target, moaning aloud to summon other zombies to the battle. Best of all, a zombie could never be disloyal to the necromancer who had summoned it into existence. They would just obey orders mindlessly and wouldn’t be deterred by certain death.

  He reached out with his power and felt the spell covering them. It was easy to give directions to the zombies, ordering them to positions down near the Golden City. He didn’t want to show them to any potential enemies, not yet, but used properly they could still block anyone from escaping the Golden City. The zombies turned with eerie silence, marching towards the gates and down to the long road leading down from the mountainside. Some of them would probably lose cohesion and collapse along the way, but it wouldn’t matter. There were plenty more where they came from. It would be easy, after everyone in the Golden City had been put to the sword, to summon them from the dead as well. His army would increase exponentially.

  The gates clanged shut behind the last of the zombies and Herod tried to relax. The Academy had told him, time and time again, that working heavy magical spells had to be done carefully and had to be followed by relaxation, but somehow it was impossible to relax. He didn’t feel tired or drained; he felt…as if he could go on, as if there were no limits to his powers. It was on the tip of his mind to go find the General and order an immediate march on the Golden City, but he stayed his hand. It would take the zombies, despite their complete immunity to cold weather or most of the creatures prowling out in the darkness, several hours to reach their destinations. The spells he’d wrapped around them would keep people from looking too closely at them and realising what they were, but like all such illusion spells, they worked better if they were unchallenged. He would wait. He had waited ten years to make himself Emperor and he could wait a little longer.

  He was vaguely aware of the looks the guards cast at his retreating back as he strode back into the Golden Palace, passing ruined paintings and destroyed statues as he walked towards the Library. The guards had to be nervous after they’d seen him perform one of the darkest of magical acts, creating an entire army of the dead. They had to be wondering if he intended to do the same to them. Herod had no such plans – zombies, for all of their advantages, had weaknesses as well – but it would keep them on their toes. The guards could have their fun this night – there was no danger of anyone attacking the Golden Palace tonight – yet he would need them alert in the future. Many of the Lords would go along with him, but others would not…and then there was always the Grandmaster. The longer Eric remained alive and free, the more challengers would gather to try to unseat Herod from his stolen throne.

  The Library’s door opened in front of him and he stepped inside, sitting down on a sofa and forcing himself to relax. When dawn broke, his forces would advance down to the Golden City and claim it for his own. And, if Eric had remained within the city, he would be taken too. And then the Throne of Touched would be his.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Your body wishes to heal as much as you wish it to heal,” old Master Wolf had told Hind, many years ago. It was normally easier for female Apprentices to pick up the rudiments of the healing disciplines and spells than it was for males, but Hind had been an exception to that rule. “Healing is not a contest with a body determined to suffer just to make you suffer, but working with the body to heal together.”

  His words echoed through Hind’s mind as she slowly came out of the healing trance. Her body – any body – knew what it needed more than her mind and the healing trance discipline reflected that, shutting down her mind and allowing her body to tap into the magical power within her. Given enough time, her body could heal itself completely, far more than she could accomplish with healing spells, potions or enchanted amulets. Any person with even the tiniest fraction of magical power would fall into a healing trance. It was perhaps the most common magical discipline in the world.

  She felt oddly clear-headed as she started to surface from the trance, yet there was a sense of something missing. Alarmed for the first time, she reached within her mind and felt out the borders of her magic. It was still there, waiting deep inside her for her call, a glowing core of power she could draw upon at will. Puzzled, she reached out with her senses and realised that something was missing from the background. A second later, memory snapped back and she remembered the collapsed wards. The entire world would know by now that something had happened to the Emperor.

  Her eyes snapped open and she looked around. She was lying on a bed, fully-clothed, with one hand presse
d against her heart. Someone stood up on the other side of the room and she looked over towards him, reaching for her magic, before realising that it was only Eric. The Crown Prince – no, he was Emperor now, she reminded himself – looked fresh, but she could tell through the ring that it was a lie. He needed sleep as desperately as she had needed it, coming off the mountain.

  “Eric,” she croaked. Eric took the hint and passed her a cup of very fresh water, which Hind sipped gratefully. “I…Eric, where are we?”

  “We’re in an inn,” Eric said, and rapidly filled her in. “How are you feeling?”

  Hind considered her answer as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “I’m fine, I think,” she said. The effects of the Blood Rites had faded away, thankfully. She still felt dirty, but it was merely the effect of not having washed for what felt like years, not because of the blood splattered on her clothes. “This isn’t exactly how I intended to spend my wedding night.”

  Eric surprised her by laughing, before his face darkened rapidly. “I know, my love,” he said. Hind felt the sudden wave of tenderness and protectiveness through the ring and reached for him, taking his hand in hers. “Are we actually married now?”