The Silver Sorceress (The Raveling Book 2)

by Alec Hutson

  Keilan nodded jerkily and moved unsteadily out onto the balcony. He put his hands on the black stone balustrade and peered over the edge, to where the dark water gnawed at the rocks far below.

  There was no sign of Niara.

  It was like she had been swallowed whole by the sea.

  Keilan’s gorge rose. He staggered back a step from the balustrade, trying to keep himself from being sick.

  He had killed someone. He had burned his grandmother to death.

  He glanced back inside, trying to focus on anything other than what had just happened. His eyes were drawn to what had been revealed when the giant pearl had been shattered. His mind tried to come to grips with what was lying there among the wreckage of the sphere.

  It was a great faceted jewel the color of the sky at dusk, flowers of purple and blue light blooming and then wilting within its roiling depths. Keilan found he couldn’t look away from the pulsing colors.

  He had seen a jewel just like this before… in the chamber under the mountain, when the sorcerers had fed the souls of the recently dead into it to fuel their dark sorcery.

  Why was it here?

  Keilan stared down at the churning water, his thoughts as agitated as the sea below. He remembered things Niara had said, pieces sliding into place.

  Fate is a fickle goddess, and now here you are, Vera’s son, returned at last…

  Great forces are at work right now… I need you here, by my side.

  We can remake the world to reflect our desires… if we can draw enough sorcery forth.

  Ascension, Keilan. I am speaking of ascension.

  Events are coming to a head.

  A soul jewel. Niara must have been planning some great act of sorcery, and this jewel would have helped her to augment her power. But if it was like what had happened long ago, something terrible would have had to happen for enough people to die… Nel’s words, spoken just this morning:

  If she had been aware of the first cataclysm when it was approaching, she might not care very much about stopping the next one.

  What if Niara had known that the doom they had seen in the Oracle’s vision was coming? What if she welcomed it, so that she could finally complete her great spell and the transformation she had spoken of? That would be why she hadn’t wanted to help them find and stop the Betrayers.

  Keilan shook himself, chilled by the thought. Surely that couldn’t be true. He was exhausted, traumatized, his mind clutching for purchase after this madness. And yet…

  He heard the scrape of footsteps and turned to see Nel and Senacus limping out on to the balcony, the paladin leaning heavily against the knife. Senacus’s face was pale, and a strip of silk torn from somewhere inside was wrapped around his shoulder. That binding was already darkened by blood, but otherwise the paladin looked to be whole. His eyes blazed again with the holy light of the Pure.

  Anger rose up in Keilan. This had all happened because the paladin had come charging into Niara’s sanctuary claiming she was a murderer… and what Keilan had done, he had done to save the Pure’s life.

  “Is she dead?” Nel asked as they came to stand beside him, staring over the balustrade.

  “I don’t know,” Keilan whispered.

  “She is,” Senacus said, raising the arm that had not been savaged by the tiger and gesturing down towards the beach. “Look.”

  A line of shrouded figures were gliding down the path to the black sand. Remembering that one of Niara’s servants had been inside the hall as the madness had unfolded Keilan twisted around to see if it was still there.

  Senacus saw where he was looking. “It is gone,” he said. “The thing must have left after the sorceress threw herself into the sea.”

  Keilan returned his attention to the beach. The first of the Ashen had reached the water’s edge. As he watched, it shrugged out of its dark vestments, letting them puddle in the sand. Beneath the robes the creature was the sickly white of a fish’s belly, its limbs long and knobby. Even from this great distance Keilan could see the sharp ridges of the ancient creature’s spine thrusting up from the flesh of its back.

  “Where are they going?” Nel asked as the lead Ashen waded out into the waves, quickly vanishing beneath the surface of the water.

  “Back where they came from,” Keilan whispered.

  One after another the rest followed, not hesitating or hurrying, until the water closed above them and they abandoned the world once more.

  “The passage to the old throne room is behind this door,” Jan whispered, and she heard the scrape of his fingers against wood.

  Cho Lin stepped towards his voice and reached out, groping blindly into the darkness. She brushed something soft and warm and scratchy… his cheek, she realized with a twinge of embarrassment as she jerked her hand away.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, suddenly grateful for the complete lack of light in these corridors, since it kept the blush she felt rising in her cheeks hidden. They were within the deepest recesses of the Bhalavan, far from the halls occupied by the Skein, and the blackness filling these passages was absolute. He’d brought a torch, she knew, but hadn’t lit it yet.

  “It’s fine,” Jan said, his hand finding hers and then guiding it to touch what was obviously an ancient and pitted wooden surface.

  She restrained herself from pulling away—to be grabbed like this would be a gesture of extreme impudence in Shan, but as she’d learned many times over on this journey, the customs of her home differed greatly from those in the northlands.

  Cho Lin allowed him to bring her hand lower, until she felt what seemed to be a massive block of cold iron.

  “The door is barred,” Jan said quietly. “It’s too heavy for me to lift on my own. But I can make it shift slightly, so perhaps we can do it together.”

  Cho Lin shook free of his grip and traced the edges of the iron. Yes, it did seem to have been placed across this wood. But there was something puzzling her . . .

  “Why would they bar it from this side?” she asked, already dreading the answer.

  Jan was silent for a moment, as if deciding how to respond. “The Skein must have feared what was within.”

  “And what is within?”

  “The way to the throne room where the old queen of Nes Vaneth once held court. If the Skein have discovered that chamber, they might have been frightened of what they saw inside.”

  “Is there something to be frightened of?”

  “No. But the Skein are superstitious. I promise you, there’s nothing that can harm us.”

  Cho Lin wasn’t sure if she entirely believed him, but she found the bottom of the iron bar and braced herself. “Very well. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Just remember: do not drop the bar after we raise it. Set it down silently.”

  For a moment the bar did not budge, and then Cho Lin felt the cool strength of the Nothing flood her and it lifted smoothly.

  “Slowly, slowly,” Jan said, his voice strained, as they carefully lowered the bar to the corridor’s stone floor.

  “Good,” he said, and she heard his hand on the wood again as he sought the handle in the dark. Then came the scrape as the door opened slightly, though Jan hesitated before pulling it wide.

  “Thank you, Cho Lin,” he murmured, and she could hear his nervous excitement. “I could not ask you to continue past this point. I don’t think I will need your help anymore.”

  Cho Lin gave an exasperated sigh. “I am not letting you out of my sight again until we are in Menekar.”

  “You know,” he said, and from his tone she could tell he was grinning, “if you chase the demons with the same tenacity you have me, they’re as good as caught.” With a grunt he pulled the door open, its hinges squealing.

  They slipped within, and he shut the door behind them.

  “Wait a moment,” he said, and then she
heard the sound of a stone striking flint. Sparks flared in the darkness, and soon after a larger flame kindled.

  Cho Lin blinked as the torch’s light revealed their surroundings. They stood within a large room that looked to have been a bedchamber. There was a pile of ancient rushes and several fur blankets scattered about, as well as a tarnished copper urn that might once have been a chamber pot. On the far side of the room was a hole surrounded by fragments of stone and tile, as if the floor had been shattered to reach something beneath.

  Jan hurried closer and crouched down, holding out his torch so that some of the darkness below was revealed. “There was a hidden entrance here,” he said, picking up a sliver of tile and tossing it aside. “But it looks like they simply hacked through the floor.”

  “Who did?” Cho Lin asked uneasily, unable to tear her eyes from the hole.

  Jan shrugged. “The Skein, I suppose. Otherwise why seal off this room? Somehow they found the passage to the throne room.” There was an edge of worry to his words now. “Come,” he said, sitting on the edge of the hole so that his legs dangled within. He passed her the torch, then lowered himself down into the darkness. It was not even as deep as he was tall, and soon he was beckoning for her to join him. She ignored his outstretched hands and gestured for him to move, then leapt into the hidden passage.

  At first they had to crouch, but the corridor soon expanded until they could both comfortably walk upright. Empty wall sconces carved into the faces of demons leered down at them as they passed, their gaping, fanged mouths clotted with spiderwebs. It felt to Cho Lin like they were descending into the tomb of some forgotten emperor.

  “Why would the Min-Ceruthan queen hold court down here?” she asked as she pushed through a web that had grown to span the width of the corridor.

  “Tradition,” Jan replied, brandishing the torch as he led the way forward. “In the earliest days, my people lived in the shadows of the great wraith kingdoms. Those creatures tunneled vast labyrinths out of the mountains, endless spiraling passages that twisted and turned, all in the hopes of protecting the king and his harem at the maze’s heart. When the holdfasts of Min-Ceruth eventually arose, we adopted this practice. The passage we are following now is actually leading into the mountain that rises beside the city. If Nes Vaneth was invaded the queen could collapse this tunnel, and she and her favorites would be safe within.”

  “And there they would slowly starve, sealed inside the mountain?”

  Jan chuckled. “No. There were other passages leading away from the throne room, secret exits the queen could use to escape.”

  “Look!” Cho Lin suddenly hissed, a wave of cold surprise washing through her. Up ahead, far beyond the edge of the flickering light of Jan’s torch, a blue glow was creeping from around a bend in the passage.

  “We are there,” Jan said simply, his pace quickening. Cho Lin followed, wishing that she had something other than just her shurikens to protect herself from whatever had been entombed down here.

  “By the Four Winds,” she murmured as she rounded the corner. They stood at the entrance of a vast chamber nearly as wide as the Bhalavan’s great hall, and the ceiling soared even higher, vanishing into the darkness above. Cho Lin wasn’t certain how deep the throne room extended into the mountain, however, as atop a nine-tiered dais a great wall of ice spanned the width of the chamber, completely sealing away the rest of the room. As Jan had said, this was not like the black ice she had seen in Nes Vaneth—it was infused with a pale blue light, though she did not know whether this glow came from something recessed deeper within or from the ice itself.

  In the lower level of the chamber, below where the broad steps climbed up to the dais, several dozen statues were scattered. There was something unnatural about these figures—they were men and women in intricate armor and beautiful dresses, but they were not striking the sort of poses that sculptors usually carved. Instead of standing tall and wearing expressions of calm certitude, many of these statues were holding out their arms, as if to shield themselves from something terrible. Their faces—rendered in excruciating detail by some artisan of otherworldly skill—showed surprise, anger, and fear.

  “Why are they like this?” Cho Lin asked softly as she moved between the strange statues.

  “They saw their deaths approaching,” Jan replied as he reached out to brush the cheek of a stone maiden. “Even the bravest of men cannot accept their end when it finally comes swirling down.”

  “They were alive?” Cho Lin whispered, peering closer at the strange coiled designs emblazoned upon a warrior’s shield.

  “Many of the greatest heroes of my people are in this hall. I knew them, and they knew me. If I had not quarreled with the queen, I might have been here when the doom arrived.”

  They had nearly reached the base of the steps that ascended to the dais, and Cho Lin found her eyes drawn away from the statues and to the seamless wall of ice looming above them. “How are you going to free the babe? Surely that would require some spell, yes?”

  Jan shook his head as he started on the crumbling steps. “When my memory returned in its entirety I remembered something that eluded me the last time I stood in this chamber. While I do not recognize this particular sorcery, I know of others like it, spells of preservation. One common aspect between almost all of them is that magic is not required when it comes time to break the spell—sorcery is a rare thing, and it could not be relied upon that the rescuer would be gifted.”

  “So how are you going to break the ice?”

  Jan had nearly reached the top of the dais, and he turned back to Cho Lin and raised the torch he still held. “With this,” he said, then touched the hilt of the sword at his side. “And this. I am lucky the king gifted me this sword because of my valor on the hunt, and then let me bring it inside the Bhalavan. Otherwise I’d have to chip away at the ice with a rock.”

  He stayed for a moment where he was, looking out over the cowering stone figures, his expression unreadable. Then he sighed, shaking his head, and faced the wall of ice again.

  Cho Lin lost sight of him as he approached the wall. She waited at the base of the steps, uncertain if he wanted her to join him, until the length of the silence from above made her feel a trickle of unease.

  “Jan?” she called up, but there was no answer.

  The trickle became a flood, and Cho Lin took the steps two at a time until she stood upon the top of the dais. She found him standing next to the wall, his palm pressed to the ice.

  “What is it?” she asked, hurrying to his side. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

  “She’s gone,” he said, his voice distant as his fingers stroked the blue-tinged ice.

  And then Cho Lin saw it: a hole cut into the otherwise smooth surface of the wall. It wasn’t more than a few span deep, barely large enough to reach inside… but it was certainly large enough to hold a newborn babe.

  If there had been one within.

  Jan turned to her in disappointment and confusion. “Where did she go?” he murmured, clutching at her arm as if he needed help to steady himself.

  “I remember this place!”

  The shout came from across the great chamber, and the surprise Cho Lin saw in Jan’s face must have been mirrored in her own. They turned away from the wall, back towards the cursed stone heroes of Min-Ceruth and the mouth of the tunnel that had led them here.

  They were no longer alone.

  A score of Skein warriors had entered the chamber and spread themselves among the statues, swords and axes in their hands, clad in the mottled gray armor fashioned from the skin of wraiths. They were the ones Verrigan had named the Flayed, and like outside the city gates the face of each was tattooed with the visage of some fierce creature. They stared up at her, wolf and bear and lynx, silent and unmoving. Among them was one who was different, a man whose face was not tattooed but burned, and he wore clothes more suited to the sou
thern lands. Cho Lin felt a small shiver of surprise when she noticed that he was staring at her with an expression that made her think of intense hunger.

  The king of the Frostlands was walking among the statues, pausing occasionally to peer closely at the tortured expressions of the doomed Min-Ceruthans. At his side was Lask, the young shaman of the White Worm, pale and silent as a ghost.

  “It has not changed since I first came,” Hroi said loudly, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. Then he glanced up to where Cho Lin and Jan stood upon the dais. “Except, of course, the ice-child is no longer here.”

  “Where is she?” Jan asked warily, descending the steps. Cho Lin followed him, reaching for the Nothing as she considered what she would do if the king ordered his warriors to attack. She wouldn’t be surprised if they had committed some great sin in the eyes of the Skein gods by coming here, but she hoped they hadn’t. Cho Lin doubted very much they could escape this chamber if the king desired their deaths.

  Hroi shrugged. “I do not know. A priest of the Stormforger cut the thing from the ice. I still remember its cries when it sucked in its first breath. I would have dashed the thing against the stone, but the priest took it from this hall and vanished.”

  “When was this?” Jan pressed, and Cho Lin heard the desperation in his voice.

  Hroi chuckled dryly. “Such audacity to demand answers from a king.”

  “Please, Northlord,” Jan implored, “I must know.” They had reached the bottom of the steps just as the king and his shaman emerged from among the statues, and now they faced each other only a few paces apart. Hroi was younger than Cho Lin had first guessed; she doubted he had even seen thirty winters. The hardness of his eyes and the confidence with which he carried himself had made him seem older from afar. He was also slighter than most of the other Skein she had seen, lean strength instead of burly muscle, but she sensed that he knew how to use the sword at his side. Like his Flayed warriors, he was cleanshaven, though there were no tattoos marring his pale face.