Mourningbird (Empire of Masks Book 3)

by Brock Deskins

  Rastus’ eyes were wide and he leaned forward in his chair. “You saw sorcery, from them both?”

  Bertram shrugged his shoulders. “Sorcery is as good a word as any. It was magic, darker and more vile than anything I have read about. They created weapons made of shadow and formed the blood and offal of dead men into…I don’t know how to describe it. Uncle, Nimat is a vile taint, an evil within this city, but she is an evil we know. This other man, this creature, I don’t know him, but he is not a friend of Nimat’s and certainly not of this city. Do you know of this man? Have you heard anything about another being like Nimat?”

  Rastus shook his head and let out a long breath. “No. I find this news very troubling. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Do you have a plan to ferret him out and bring him down?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought I would have to deal with sorcery.”

  “Let me make some inquiries before you rush headlong into a confrontation with him. Deal with the more mundane criminals, of which I am sure you have plenty to keep you busy for some time. I will send for you if I find out anything more.”

  “Will you, Uncle, even if it means I become a threat to Nimat?” Bertram asked, his words coming as a challenge.

  Rastus met his nephew’s stare and held it firm. “Do not ever think that I do anything that is not in the best interest of this city or its people. Just like you, I will give my life in its defense.”

  Bertram relented, allowing the tension to flee his body. “Thank you, Uncle, I hope you are able to find out something useful. In the interim, I have several prisoners to interrogate.”

  ***

  Kiera banged on the metal door leading into the kingdom of Russel with her baton. “Russel!”

  “Maybe you should use a less hostile tone of voice, if you have one,” Wesley said.

  “I have one!”

  “Then why don’t you dust it off and give it a try?”

  “How about I dust off…your…the stupid off your…” Kiera sputtered.

  “Come on, you almost have it. Really dig into that limited vocabulary.”

  Kiera glared at Wesley for a full half-minute, her chest heaving with barely suppressed rage, before returning her attention to the door. “Russel, sweetie, please come to the door so we can talk about the stone you found before Nimat, Fred, or that horrifying sorcerer man comes and kills us all in search of it. How was that?”

  “Sweet and positively terrifying.”

  “See, nailed it.”

  Both sets of eyes swung toward the door at the sound of the bolts retracting. Russel opened the portal and stared, the lenses attached to his hat making his right eye appear comically enormous.

  “Well?” Kiera demanded when it became apparent that Russel was not going to start the conversation.

  “What?” he signed.

  “What do you mean what? You stole that stone from the man in the mask!”

  “Yes. So?”

  “So? So there are now three people who are more than willing to slaughter us, and probably half the city, to get their hands on it!”

  “They won’t find her. Hidden. Shielded.”

  Kiera grabbed the odd boy by the shoulders and pierced him with her glare. “I’m not hidden! They can sure as heck find me! Did you calculate that into your crazy brain?” She saw his extended finger rising toward her face and shoved herself away. “Don’t you dare shock me, or I swear to the gods I will burn this airship to the ground!”

  She rubbed her throbbing temples with her fingers. “At this point, I don’t even care about how you managed to steal the stone from that man. I just want to know why. Why would you do something that is almost certainly going to result in all of our deaths?”

  “I needed her, and she needed me. Death has come, and only I can stop it, and I need her to do it.”

  “Death is coming because I failed to get the stone for Nimat because of you! And why do you keep calling it a her? It’s a damn rock!”

  Russel sighed, turned, and began walking away. He stopped and waved at the pair over his shoulder before disappearing into his warren.

  Kiera looked at Wesley. “He’s letting us down into his kingdom?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “OK, now I’m really worried.”

  “Do we follow him?”

  “I think it’s the only way we’re going to get some real answers.”

  “Wow, this is momentous,” Wesley said as he followed Kiera inside. “This must be how the first person to fly an airship felt.”

  The two climbed down a ladder that stretched below the airship’s hull and into the pile of rubble upon which it rested until it deposited them in a small chamber. Another metal door lay open to reveal a dank passageway of finished and set stone interspersed with collapsed rubble held up by supports.

  “This place is enormous,” Kiera said as they traversed the ruins. “We’re living in a couple of ramshackle boxes while Russel has an entire palace. I mean, it’s filthy and decrepit, but it’s huge!”

  “Yeah, I guess we’ll have to rein back the sarcasm when we refer to it as his kingdom.”

  A chill ran up Kiera’s spine as a thought came to her. “Oh, crap, is this part of Undercity? Nimat could crawl right up our asses from here!”

  Russel appeared out of nowhere, making Kiera jump and issue a small screech. “Blocked off. No entrance to Undercity unless I want it. Safe place. Safe for me. Safe for Ashlea.

  “Who the heck is Ashlea?” Kiera whispered as she watched Russel disappear back down the passage. “Does he have a girlfriend we don’t know about? If so, is she down here of her free will?”

  Wesley shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Gods, is this what you feel like all the time?”

  Kiera threw a blind backhand behind her and caught Wesley in the gut. “Shut up.”

  They passed several chambers, the dim light of oil lanterns and glowing bits of mage glass revealing an assortment of mysterious tools and contraptions. The hall ended in a large room with several workbenches covered in bits of metal and wire. Alchemic apparatus filled one side of the chamber with mysterious chemicals brewing over open flames amidst a maze of glass and copper pipes.

  “Wow, the heart of the kingdom,” Wesley said.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Russel ordered.

  “No problem there,” his brother responded.

  “Will you tell us what you are doing now?” Kiera asked, her irritation overriding any curiosity she felt.

  “Ashlea.”

  “What—?” Kiera began to ask.

  Ashlea’s spectral form appeared and stood just off of Russel’s left side. Kiera’s baton was out in an instant and flying. The length of wood capped in bronze tumbled end over end, passed through the girl’s incorporeal body, and crashed into a workbench, scattering several tools and components.

  “Stop!” Russel’s hands waved.

  “You got a goddam ghost bitch in your laboratory!” Kiera shouted back.

  “Not a ghost. Ashlea’s life energy is held in stasis by the arcanstone, from which she can form and project into an ethereal simulacrum.”

  “So…ghost bitch.”

  Russel began pounding on his head with the heel of one hand. “No, no, no, stupid brain, blind brain. Can’t think, can’t see beyond its limited experiences!”

  Wesley took ahold of Russel’s arm. “It’s OK, Russel. She just doesn’t understand.”

  “Like you do!”

  “No, and I’m not going to even pretend I do, but I will go with it. Russel, who is Ashlea and why is she here?”

  “I am Ashlea,” the ghostly girl said. “I am here because a great danger has crossed the Tempest Sea and come to the city. Russel is the only hope for stopping them.”

  “You mean the man I fought last night in the warehouse?” Kiera asked.

  “He is no man. He is a Necrophage, a being of great evil and corruption.”

  “Yeah, I kind of got that. He�
�s like some kind of sorcerer.”

  “No! He is nothing like the sorcerers. The sorcerers drove their kind out of Eidolan a long time ago. Yes, they wield magic as the sorcerers did, but it is a very different kind of power. It is dark and evil, its only purpose is to destroy and enslave everyone who is not one of them.”

  “Yeah, sounding a whole lot like sorcerers to me,” Kiera scoffed.

  “You must believe me, the two are very different. If the Necrophages return in force, Eidolan will fall into darkness.”

  “How does Russel fit into all of this?”

  “Only the sorcerers can defeat the Necrophages, and only Russel can resurrect the highlords.”

  “Resurrect—that’s insane! That’s like setting loose a bunch of horned devils to drive away dune drakes! Besides, the highlords are dead.”

  “So am I, but here I am.”

  Kiera glanced at Wesley and jerked her head toward Ashlea. “See, ghost bitch, just like I said.”

  “Please, Kiera, we must all work together to defeat this terrible, common enemy,” Ashlea pleaded, ignoring the nightbird’s barbs.

  “Russel, you can’t be taking this…thing, seriously. Even if it was possible to bring back the highlords, they enslaved us!”

  Russel shook his head. “No, other ways, new paths open every second. Not ready anyway. More to do. More to fix. Have to fly.”

  Ashlea turned to Russel. “Russel, this is the only way. We can find another airship to take us to Phaer. Please, we are running out of time.”

  Kiera rolled her eyes. “OK, the royal airship Insanity has officially left the mooring yard. We aren’t going to Phaer. No one goes to Phaer. They can’t. Certainly not on this wreck of a tub. Russel, I’m sure this is all very interesting to you, but Nimat wants that arcanstone, and she is going to do anything to get it. Let’s just give it to her. Maybe Ashlea can talk her into going to Phaer and committing suicide instead of us.”

  Russel signed, “Nimat will not find Ashlea. We have to help her. We have to stop the Necrophage running loose in the city.”

  “That was…freakishly coherent. Crazy, but coherent. There’s no way to convince you to hand over that stone?”

  Russel shook his head.

  “What am I supposed to do then?”

  “Don’t die yet. Fight. Learn.”

  “Fight who? Learn what?”

  Russel’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know yet. Not enough information to complete the probability equation. Too many unknown variables. Fate will lead the way. It leads us all.”

  “Great, so much for coherent. Try not to die. That’s what I’ll take away from that bit of gibberish.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Dorian’s soul stones were nearly depleted, using most of their stored power to accelerate his healing, even after going so far as harvesting several souls from those unfortunate enough to cross his path during his escape. The wound had been severe, and there was a limit to magic’s healing efficacy, but at least it was no longer crippling. These new weapons the humans possessed were not something to be taken lightly, but if they were their best defense, they were insufficient to stop a full invasion.

  His first course of action was to shed this skin and attain a new identity. If the abomination he had faced in the warehouse maintained any connection to its Necrophage heritage, it would stop at nothing to find and destroy him, just as he knew he would likely have to kill it. Unless he could enlist it as an ally.

  As repugnant as the notion was, Dorian needed allies, or at least powerful minions. Obviously, he would have to destroy it when it was no longer of use to him. It was deformed and should have been killed at birth, as was required by custom. Anything less than perfection was to be destroyed lest it contaminate their species.

  The biggest problem would be if it possessed the amazing soul stone. The abomination was strong and older than he was. He guessed its age was near that of his mother, but its power was not honed by proper tutelage. It had a somewhat raw aspect and was likely self-taught, seeing as it was an exile. Still, if it possessed the stone, its power would be beyond him.

  However, that was a matter for later. For now, he needed a new identity, one that afforded him a certain amount of protection and comfort as well as access to people in powerful positions for him to exploit. The smart thing to do would be for him to book passage on one of their airships going to Nibbenar so that he could weaken that city from the inside in preparation for its impending invasion. That was assuming that his mother would launch one even with his proof of the sorcerers’ demise. He had to believe that the leader she had once been was still inside her.

  But the stone was here, and that creature was here. Nimat, he had learned from one of the souls he had captured after the battle. He needed the enormous soul stone if he was ever to stand beside his mother as an equal and put his sister firmly beneath his boot. No, he would stay in Velaroth. The city appeared to be the center of this empire now, and it required his attention more than Nibbenar did.

  Dorian left the mercenary’s skin and clothing in an abandoned building where he had spent the night and the next day recovering from the battle. He relished the feel of being himself and wished he could continue gutting this city without donning another gruesome disguise, but it would only be a matter of time before the gendarmes and the abomination’s minions began searching for a tall, pale man in dark clothing.

  The man he followed through the streets of Liberty was well-dressed, like most in the district. He traveled using his personal carriage, another indication of his wealth and station. His advanced age was also an asset. It meant any children he might have were unlikely to live at home. Assuming he had a wife, her sudden death would not only be less likely to rouse suspicion, but any lapses in his memory or odd behavior would be attributed to his grief.

  Dorian shadowed the man using a cabriolet. Money was easy to come by when one had no qualms about killing to get it. He had left several corpses behind in the lower district called Blindside, stealing not just their coin but their life force. The old man had made several stops throughout the afternoon, likely as part of his business or duties. Dorian pretended to be a tourist from Nibbenar to explain his random directions to the cab driver. He thought about killing the driver when his prey finally returned home, but a death in Liberty was not likely to go ignored like those in Blindside.

  Dorian tipped his driver handsomely and lingered on the street in front of the old man’s luxurious home. The sun was setting, and he had several hours before his target and the rest of the household went to sleep. He longed to visit one of the taverns and experience the wide variety of alcoholic beverages these people enjoyed. Noirbedoj produced only a single palatable liquor distilled from a type of cactus.

  Unwilling to risk the possible scrutiny that would come from patronizing one of the taverns, Dorian walked the streets. He covered his face with a strip of cloth, as appeared to be the custom for many people who did not wear a porcelain mask, and listened in on passing conversations.

  His eavesdropping garnered him little useful information beyond a few specific points of the city’s happenings. He would learn more once he had time to skim memories from the souls he captured instead of immediately consuming them for their power.

  His wanderings took him past the manor once every hour. On his fourth circuit, he found most of the lights extinguished and decided it was time to make his move. While a fine home, it was smaller than many within the wealthy district, and yet there were several armed men constantly patrolling the grounds. Dorian considered choosing an easier target, but his instincts told him this was a perfect match. The smaller home indicated that the man’s position was not so high that he would come under constant, close examination. The number of guards suggested that he did occupy a position of some importance. Either that or the man was simply paranoid.

  Regardless, Dorian had chosen his target and would stick with it. He tapped into the waning pool of energy stored in his soul stones and shrouded him
self in shadow. The exterior was well-lit by oil lamps as well as a few mage glass lights, but there were enough dark pools in which to conceal Dorian’s approach.

  The iron fence surrounding the manor was as much ornamental as it was a functional barrier and posed little in the way of an obstacle for the Necrophage. Drawing the last of the power from his soul stones, Dorian leapt from the top of the fence and clung to the second-floor window ledge some fifty feet away.

  He was about to try the window when a word floated into his subconscious. Alarm. Dorian plucked at the memory’s loose threads back to those of the mercenary whose identity he had stolen. An alarm was a mechanical device that made a loud noise when tripped. As he had consumed the man’s soul, new memories were lost to him forever, however he was able to trace that word back to a more coherent thought tucked away into the deep recesses of his mind.

  While clutching onto the top of the window frame with one hand, Dorian unholstered his collapsed void lance, willed the end to flatten to a fingernail’s thickness, and slid it between the sill upon which he was perched and the bottom of the window. His wary probing was rewarded when he felt the lance catch on something. Channeling the weapon’s power, Dorian caused the metal pin to corrode and seize in place before he opened the window and climbed inside.

  Although dark inside, Dorian’s eyes had no problem cutting through the gloom and picking out every detail. He marveled at the waste of energy that went into mere decoration and ornamentation. Necrophages lived lives of purpose, and their architecture followed suit. He paused to touch the bed and the thick carpets. All of it was soft. Too soft, like the people themselves.

  With his void lance in hand, Dorian left the smallish guest room and stepped into the hall. He detected only one presence moving about the house on the first floor and two sleeping in the next room. Those were sure to be his prey.

  Dorian crept into the room, his movements as silent as the shadows cast by the moonlight streaming through the window. The old man and woman shared a bed, which warranted a bit of caution if he was going to claim them both without rousing either of them and risk alerting the guards. Under normal circumstances, this would be a simple task, but he needed to make the old woman’s death appear natural.