The first moans of the returning wraiths echoed above as magic swirled at her fingertips.
Time was broken. The uncomfortable rift between what was happening and what should have happened loomed in Bastun’s mind. The Breath, out of balance with the memory of itself, hung heavy at his side.
In the past, either Athumrani or Serevan had wielded the blade and opened the black door to the Word. Of the two, he could not decide who would have desired such destruction more. Between the prince’s ambition and the Magewarden’s hate and sorrow, both might have fulfilled the Word’s purpose—and both were surely very close when it occurred.
The thought of ambition made him consider Anilya, and though he wished otherwise, he was unable to trust the durthan’s act of noble sacrifice. He listened closely for the sounds of inevitable battle outside, wondering what end she might make for herself—if indeed she truly expected to die at the Cold Prince’s hands.
He shook his head and smirked beneath the mask, carrying no illusions that she would die an unlikely hero for the sake of Rashemen. For that alone he almost admired her tenacity.
A scream cut through the doors. The dull clash of steel rang in muted tones and the floor shook slightly. The sounds of battle returning his focus to the moment, Bastun tried to appear casual as he scanned the scattered piles of extraneous gear left by the wall.
In the light of a nearby torch, a familiar satchel, unceremoniously tossed among the effects of the Rashemi, caught his eye. He glanced at the others. Thaena sprinkled consecrated soil over the gathered swords before her, casting magic upon them that would sharpen their edges against threats not in the world of the living. The fang waited, respectfully silent and echoing the prayers sent to the Three as they observed their own traditional rituals. Duras and Syrolf stood across from each other, the rivalry between them evident, though muted in the face of the true enemies they would soon encounter.
Taking the moment, Bastun knelt and grabbed the satchel, turning his back to the others and shielding it from view. Waving a hand over its simple latch he detected only minor spells had been put in place to deter prying eyes. It spoke volumes about Anilya’s confidence that she would trust such protection among other spellcasters.
Or, he thought, it means she keeps nothing more inside than cheap wine and dried food.
Trusting his instincts and curious to discover what secrets of the durthan he could, he disarmed the latch’s cantrips and reached inside. He pulled forth two large books. The first was likely the durthan’s spellbook bound in a dark cover, the latch on its side fairly humming with protective wards, and he set it aside carefully. Even among allies, most spellcasters kept their arcane secrets shut away and locked with painful consequences.
More screams came from outside, joined by chilling moans and the sound of spells being cast.
Steel scraped against stone as the Rashemi bent to retrieve their blades. Thaena breathed heavily in the wake of the working she had cast on the weapons. Whispered oaths followed swiftly, members of the fang adding their own humble blessings upon the enchanted weapons. The noise only barely registered at the edge of Bastun’s attention. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his brow toward his eye. He blinked it away.
The second book was a much older tome with red leather binding, yellowed pages, and wrapped only in a leather cord. The Nar runes on the cover caught his attention first. By his estimation, they dated the book far older than its appearance suggested. The strange lettering danced under his scrutiny, avoiding his cursory attempt at translation. Just touching the book made him nauseous, and the runes squirmed before his eyes, elusive in their meaning.
The sounds of battle faded, but the groaning chorus of wraiths became stronger. A faint rustling and the sound of chopping wood shook the barred doors.
Setting the books aside, Bastun pulled forth a collection of old parchments and a small brown leather journal. A familiar scent wafted from the pages, and his eyes widened as he laid them flat, smoothing their curling corners. His heart pounded as he looked them over, hands trembling as he leafed from one to the next. He stopped and stared, clenching his jaw, exhaling slowly as he closed his eyes and swore under his breath.
The doors shook violently, the braces across them bowing beneath the heavy blows that mirrored the beating in his chest. The nearness of the prince caused the Breath to grow cold as a shadow of Athumrani’s sorrow-driven hate flashed through his mind. He felt the Magewarden had suffered some loss that had shaken him to his core, and for the moment Bastun did not mind the uninvited company.
With a heavy heart he reached for the journal and opened it to the first page. The signature there as unmistakable to him as his own—KEFFRASS OF VREMYONNI. He closed it and laid it among the old scrolls, all of them stolen from the Running Rocks on the night of his master’s—his friend’s—murder.
“Thieving even now, exile?”
He reacted slowly to the voice of Syrolf, the memory of Keffrass’s death giving way to emotions more easily dealt with in battle. Looking over his shoulder, he found the blade of the tattooed berserker leveled upon him and ready to strike. Syrolf casually acknowledged the approach of Thaena as if proudly displaying his catch of the vremyonni’s indiscretion. The ethran looked down upon him with a stare he had grown to recognize among the wychlaren, even among their pupils. It no longer bothered him much anymore.
Before she could speak, he slid the scrolls and pages around for her to view, laying the durthan’s satchel alongside them. His eyes never left the small leather journal, the edges of its cover darkened as if singed. Raising a hand close to his mask, he could smell the scent of char from handling the journal. The fiery magic that had laid Keffrass low, he had blamed upon himself, the guilt of it guiding many of his decisions since.
One of the door braces cracked, splinters snapping off and tapping on the floor. Thaena knelt before the gathered pages, her fingers brushing the parchment thoughtfully. Years of research, meticulously collected by the vremyonni, were laid out before her. Much of Shandaular’s mystery, here reduced to ink and wizards’ secrets, told a tale of ancient magic, terrible empires, and the sacrifice of a single man. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and speechless, then laid a hand on the flat of Syrolf’s blade to lower it. He raised an eyebrow in confusion and took a step backward. The simple act drew Bastun’s attention from the journal, and he met the ethran’s gaze.
He should have felt something—relief at being exonerated completely of his alleged crimes, his actions justified in the presence of an old friend once lost—but there was nothing there. He felt hollow.
The braces broke. The doors swung free and a fierce cold invaded the chamber. Night hung with burning eyes behind the ivory figure of Serevan, stolen warmth again filling his sunken visage. The fang fell back before the feeding chill of the bleakborn prince, but it was only a momentary retreat. Berserker rage was upon them, and there before them stood the cause of all recent sorrow and chaos. Exhaled breaths became wolflike growls, and gleaming swords marked a sharp line between the prince and their ethran.
“Athumrani!” Serevan’s voice sliced through the room, his ice-rimmed eyes resting on Bastun.
The emptiness within Bastun filled. The trapped spirit of the Magewarden writhed to answer the call, and Bastun rose with him. His axe blade screamed to life as spells swarmed through his mind.
The discordant voices of the wraiths moaned and hissed in answer to the berserkers’ growls. Their floating mass surged, a roiling storm of gloom as they poured into the room. Black blades raised high as they descended upon the Rashemi and rang loudly as they were blocked and turned away. Sibilant whimpers escaped many of the spirits at being denied an easy victory, but they pushed their numbers hard against the fang. Bastun lost sight of Serevan as the wraiths engulfed the doorway and shrouded everything in darkness.
Syrolf charged, slicing deep into the wraith’s body. The spirit shimmered at the blade’s touch, its bright eyes widening as it fought back with a speed unch
ecked by physical reality. Bastun skirted the edges of the chaos, searching for Serevan among the crowd.
Flashes of sparkling light exploded from the opposite end of the chamber—Thaena’s voice rising in victory as several of the undead dissipated into nothing. Bastun summoned his own spell, calling forth a nimbus of flame that glowed and flickered around his hand. A wraith flew too near, and he grasped at its neck, the flames searing through the night black creature. It clawed at his arm as he waded into the fray with the screeching thing. Within the unnatural darkness, the Rashemi appeared as solid silhouettes as they slashed and cut the wraiths to ribbons. Some, fighting despite their wounds, thrashed as the undead surrounded them and pulled them to the ground.
The wraith in Bastun’s fist groaned and fell apart, its form drifting and caressing his skin like a veil of cobwebs before disappearing. Slicing his axe forward, he felled another of the spirits and another, ignoring the cold burn of claw marks on his arm. He realized he was alone, breaking through an invisible circle and surrounded by the white eyes of the desecrated Creel warriors. Gnarled claws and ghostly blades reached to scratch and stab at him, but he held them back.
His foot brushed against something solid. Glancing down he saw the body of a berserker, curled upon the floor, skin white as unbroken snow. Through a brief break in the dark, he caught a glimpse of the west wall, the distant tower of the Word, and the bodies lying broken and bloodied in the snow. The sellswords lay dead, their mistress sprawled out among them, lifeless.
“No!” he whispered in disbelief, stunned by a pang of guilt followed quickly by a sense of vindication: his master’s murderer lay dead. Wraiths blocked his view, moaning as they spun in circles around the Rashemi.
Warmth spread down his arm and through his body. Fever set his senses aflame as he sought the source of the sensation. He turned, slashing into shadow after shadow. He could hear the others struggling to fight the numerous spirits, but only as if from a great distance.
A blazing light appeared from the midst of the darkness, and he recoiled at the sight of it, his eyes burned by the sudden radiance. It pressed closer and touched him upon the shoulder. A jolt of power rushed through his body. Every muscle danced and clenched as he was thrown across the chamber. He slammed into the floor and slid several feet before stopping. His axe, still in his grip, scraped across stone.
He worked his jaw slowly, his mask chafing against skin that felt raw and exposed. The light of a nearby torch flared as his eyes rolled back. He shook and spasmed, gritting his teeth as he forced unwilling muscles to respond. Gulping for air like a landed fish, he managed to place a palm down on the floor and push himself up. Blinking and shaking his head, the taste of copper filled his mouth, and he lifted his mask to spit as he awkwardly regained his feet. The prince appeared, striding through the throng of wraiths, his deathly pallor passing through the spirits and giving the illusion that he was the ghost and not they.
The wraiths no longer came near the vremyonni, focusing their anger on the fang instead. Frost coated the ground where the prince stepped, rushing ahead of him as his aura moved. The ice hesitated at the hem of Bastun’s robes, and where he expected freezing, he found burning. Sweat poured down his face, meeting the contours of his mask and dripping down his neck. Serevan raised an ungloved hand, a graceful finger pointing at him.
“Magewarden,” the prince said, his voice now seeming to echo through Bastun’s mind.
The Breath grew colder against his leg, a relief from the oppressive heat that pulsated across his flesh. Athumrani’s thoughts swelled from the blade, flooding his head with more voices, memories, and emotions.
“We had a deal, Athumrani. You betrayed me once. Do not make the mistake of doing so again.”
Bastun could feel the Magewarden’s mind, struggling to answer. There was to be an exchange: the Shield’s secrets for … something. Pain lanced behind his eyes as the pressure of two minds became too much to bear, and he shouted as the dead wizard’s words commanded his voice.
“Y-you took her! Used her!”
Bastun choked on the words, inhaling swiftly as he fell to one knee.
“The girl,” he muttered as the source of Athumrani’s shame and sorrow revealed itself in his mind. He looked with dread toward the tower stairwell behind him. There, peering fearfully around the corner, more translucent than before, barely more than a memory herself, stood the child, the little girl. The others were barely a haze behind her, tiny dots of darting eyes afraid to look upon the prince that had designed their deaths. The young girl stared at him with fearful eyes, tiny gleaming tears streaking down her face as she looked not at him … but at her father’s tortured spirit. “Athumrani’s daughter.”
“Your king is dead, and your city is burning,” Serevan said. “This stand is less than noble and ill befits a man of your wisdom. Surrender the blade and the ring.”
Bastun’s hand drifted to the Breath, feeling the cold metal pulsing beneath his touch.
“The ring?” He stood, less of his own volition and more as a player’s puppet on strings of time. The strange ring did indeed play some part along with the Breath—a secret kept from him, possibly even from Keffrass.
His head slowly shook from side to side, the Magewarden refusing to yield. A catch formed in his throat, and Bastun choked down Athumrani’s reply. The rushing pace of history as it caught up with the present was overwhelming, but he managed to assert himself—control himself—long enough to ignore the well-tread paths of ghosts and memories.
The axe blade raised sparks as it scored the stone, swinging in a powerful arc at Serevan’s neck. It sang as it met the prince’s own blade, drawn and placed with a cruel precision. Denied the cut, Bastun drew back to swing again, the motion as reflexive as the spells that sprung to mind. The magic curled in his gut, spinning with the blade as the words crowded themselves on his tongue. He backstepped as Serevan advanced, the prince’s actions no longer following the paths of the past.
Their blades met again, the clash of metals matching the rhythm of his casting. Though Serevan snarled, his face a mask of confusion at the re-enactment that refused to obey set course, his skill with the thin blade he carried was formidable and unhindered by the chaos he was experiencing. His white lips moved, mumbling and whispering words of magic that overlaid Bastun’s own intonations.
Power flowed from the vremyonni’s chest, gathering at his shoulder as he raised his arm to direct the energy he had summoned. It danced through his muscles, slid along sinew and bone, through his wrist, and flared into a sparkling yellow light at his palm—and then died.
With a final syllable, the spark was reflected in the glassy eyes of the prince as he countered and dismissed Bastun’s attempt to harm him. Eyes widening in shock, Bastun fell back as Serevan’s blade came again—and faster. He swung the heavy axe against the quick and elegant thrusts of the smaller weapon. The axe-staff became more shield than weapon as the prince fell more out of step with his past and into the murderous fury of the sleeper awoken from a dark and terrible dream.
The proximity to the bleakborn was stifling. The numbing cold that froze anything else burned Bastun’s skin like a bonfire. Frost surrounded them, ice formed on the floor, yet melted wherever he set foot. The hunger in Serevan’s eyes took on a maddening gleam as his cheeks sank in upon themselves. The cracks and rot of a long-frozen death began to spread through the prince’s features.
“The ring!” the prince rasped, his semblance of life falling apart.
Pain lanced through his side as the bleakborn’s blade found an opening. He groaned as the sword was pulled free, blood spattering the floor. He doubled over and Serevan kicked him to the ground.
A scratchy sound like dried leaves escaped a throat that had fallen apart, exposing the lifeless gray tissue beneath. The sword hovered high, its edge wavering in the drawn-out heartbeats that came when death neared. Clutching his wound, Bastun looked upon the blade and wondered if this too was a part that Athumrani had p
layed. Pain and the sudden shock of mortality brought an unexpected clarity to his thoughts. He couldn’t raise his axe in time to stop the sword, but it didn’t seem to matter as much as he’d expected only moments before.
The blade fell, a silver stroke of lightning through the storm of darkness that threatened to overtake his vision. The room blurred, something shoved him out of the way, and he rolled onto his stomach. Steel sang like a stricken anvil as he glanced up and saw Duras standing in his place. Swords locked, the berserker and the prince tested one another’s strength.
Bastun watched in horror as telltale frost crawled over Duras’s gauntlet and the sunken pits of Serevan’s cheeks swelled slightly with a blush of renewed warmth.
chapter twenty-two
Stumbling toward the stairwell, Bastun leaned against the doorframe and gripped the wound in his side. In between pained breaths he reached inside his robes, just beneath the light armor he wore. Focusing on casting a spell and watching the duel between Duras and Serevan, he warded off the effects of shock. Blood ran between his fingers as he completed the spell. He cried out as a burning pain seared the wound shut, but he kept his eyes open, his mind alert, and used the pain as further reminder that he was still alive.
Duras’s blade gleamed as it blocked another of the prince’s thrusts. He hacked at the thin blade with his larger sword, threatening to snap the smaller weapon in two. It stubbornly held and kept coming.
Bastun carefully removed his palm from the sealed puncture. The smell of his own scorching flesh was slight compared to the scent of dying wraiths that hung on the air in a gray haze. Their numbers had thinned, but they’d taken more than their share of Rashemi along with them. Barely ten still stood alongside Syrolf and Thaena, blocked into a circle of swinging blades. Bastun could not help but wonder at the faces of such familiar strangers. Torchlight flashed over the battlefield, obscured intermittently as the howling spirits encircled those still alive.
The Shield of Weeping Ghosts Page 24