He pointed at the two monarchs, still in a position of abasement on the floor. They neither moved nor made a sound to deny his accusations.
Kvepi Mastone quickly began reciting the tale of Ceriba’s kidnapping, this time laying the plot at the feet of the ahalad-kaaslane in collusion with Iisand Samir, aided by the ensorcelled Karalis Vasalis and Karaliene Pavadone. The wizards, he argued, had tried to first guard the ambassadorial party from assault, then to rescue Ceriba before lasting harm had been done. Two wizards had been thus foully murdered and the brave martyr Kvepi Buris dreadfully wounded. How far the corruption of this ensorcellment and treason had gone, he sadly could not tell. But clearly the very leaders of the land had been compromised, as well as many of the nobles.
He spoke confidently, rapping out each detail of his lie with the plausibility of practice, the practiced ease of truth.
Reisil clenched her teeth, feeling for Saljane.
~The Demonlord can’t be so gullible as to believe that tripe!
~Patience, ahalad-kaaslane. The reckoning is not yet made. Do not suppose the Dark Lord is easily fooled, any more so than the Lady. There was a cool edge to Saljane’s mindvoice that cut across Reisil’s sudden panic, calming her with its patient strength.
Kvepi Mastone completed his oration. Smothering silence weighted the air as the Dark Lord considered this new information. His silver gaze raked the assembly. “Is this true?”
“No! No, it is not, on my honor, and the honor of House Vadonis.”
Kebonsat struggled out of the supportive hands of the guard to fall to one knee, his raw, blistered forehead bent low. He spoke with a slurred voice, his lips swollen and bleeding.
“The wizard speaks lies. The Guild sought to prevent the treaty, and thus they worked with rebel ahaladkaaslane to kidnap and torture my sister, hoping to provoke an attack. They would see the war continue, and with it, their growing domination of Patverseme.” His voice broke off into a thick, rasping cough.
“Rebel ahalad-kaaslane?” The Dark Lord’s voice was both dubious and menacing as he eyed the group of ahalad-kaaslane.
Sodur stepped forward, bowing low, though not with the deference he might give the Lady. Lume crouched at his side. The cat kept his shining green eyes fixed on the shadow figure, his lips curled in a snarl. “It is true, great Lord. At least one ahalad-kaaslane aided in this treachery. He was . . . mistaken . . . in his conclusions concerning the matter of this treaty. The Blessed Lady has punished him.” The finality of his tone brooked no doubt of Upsakes’s death. “We have come here by the Lady’s wish, to seek peace between Kodu Riik and Patverseme, to heal the wounds of war. The wizard speaks lies.”
The silver eyes contemplated Sodur for a long moment, then skipped to the two monarchs lying facedown, then to Kvepi Mastone. The air in the pavilion grew searingly cold. Reisil’s lungs hurt with every shallow breath—all she could manage, as the cold cut like razors.
The Demonlord reared up and up, a massive black shape blotting out the sparkling stars. They stared up at him as he billowed and swelled, hovering above them like a malignant wraith, his insubstantial body churning like a sandstorm to sweep them all away. Kvepi Mastone spoke, arguing, pleading, but Reisil couldn’t hear his words over the rush of her blood and the crackle of the lightning within. She tensed, feeling the hot, white power flickering in her hand.
“Someone speaks lies. To Me.” The contempt in his voice hummed through the pavilion like a deep-struck note, setting teeth on edge, making the cracked and buckled floorboards shudder. “The ahalad-kaaslane are not to be touched. . . .” The silver eyes darted to Reisil. “Foolish is the one who ignores the mark of Amiya.”
A thick smoke hand like a horsesized spider on a boneless, writhing arm stretched out and Reisil shrank from its touch. But it only skimmed the air above her.
“But I shall have the truth, and I shall have it now.” For a moment, in the shifting maw of the Dark Lord’s mouth, Reisil thought she saw the whiplike shape of a serpent’s tongue rolling between great, curving tusks of teeth.
Then the Dark Lord stretched out two hands, now fingerless, like snakes. So quickly Reisil could hardly see them, they darted out to Kvepi Mastone and Kebonsat. The fingerless hands split their lips apart and drove down their throats. The two men rose up on tiptoe, arching over backward at impossible angles, blood trickling from the corners of their mouths as the Dark Lord wriggled deeper inside. Reisil’s stomach turned and she turned aside, retching.
When she turned back, she cried out. Agony and terror masked Kebonsat’s features, his eyes bugging from his burned face. The lightning danced eagerly in her hand.
The silver eyes flashed at her. “Do not think to interfere, ahalad-kaaslane. What is mine is mine and I will suffer no interference.”
Reisil pulled the power back unwillingly. He was right. It was not her place, and the Blessed Lady would not protect her from him if she took it upon herself to challenge him. She’d thought Kvepi Mastone arrogant! What would she be if she interfered with the Demonlord’s own justice?
She held herself rigid and unmoving. The two men hung from their mouths in painful, twisted gracelessness and unrelenting silence. Kebonsat’s arms were flung wide, fingers spread and curled like talons as he clawed at the air. His throat was bloated and stretched, screams battling the thrust of the Dark Lord’s probe. Reisil’s heart ached for him and all he’d been through. He had been tortured by Ceriba’s kidnapping, by both Kvepi Buris and Kvepi Mastone, and now again by the Dark Lord. She bit her lips to keep from crying out protest while tears coursed down her cheeks.
Then Kvepi Mastone convulsed, flailing his arms and feet in the air. He grabbed at the impaling arm of the Dark Lord, but his hands passed through the limb as if through smoke. He convulsed again and Reisil gasped as a finger of black smoke screwed its way out his chest. Another sprouted from his back.
Like roots from a tree, the tendrils twisted and curled through his skin as he bucked and jerked in silent agony. More tendrils thrust through, eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Soon there was nothing but a sliding, writhing knot of black snakes, coiling and weaving together in voracious hunger. When there was nothing left, they withdrew, retracting back into the shadowy shape of the Dark Lord.
The tattered rags of the wizard’s silver and black robe dropped to the floor and Reisil found herself holding Saljane against her chest, a protective arm around her ahalad-kaaslane’s feathered body, panting as if she’d been running.
The Dark Lord set Kebonsat back down on his feet, retracting the probing tentacle of his hand. As he let go, Kebonsat collapsed to his hands and knees and retched over and over with a wrenching, raw sound.
Reisil twitched, wanting to go to him, heal him, but the Dark Lord stopped her with a searing silver glance.
“Mine, ahalad-kaaslane,” he said softly, like a gust of hot, desert air, buzzing with the razor-edged teeth of driven sand. Reisil recoiled. “Mine.”
He turned back to contemplate Kebonsat’s battered form, coughing and retching with convulsive force, chest heaving as he sought for cleansing breath. The Demonlord stretched out his hand again.
Kebonsat saw it coming and clenched his fists, digging his nails into the splintered wood floor. He neither flinched from nor evaded the Dark Lord’s touch, but gritted his teeth and held himself still, every muscle rigid with effort. Reisil felt a rush of fury for the Demonlord, and pride in Kebonsat’s pride. The hand brushed across Kebonsat’s tense face, and beneath his touch, the blistered, bruised and burned skin turned whole and unbroken, ruddy with health.
“Mine,” the Dark Lord repeated. “Of this one I have great pride. A warrior true, brave, devoted and strong. In this one I have found the truth.” He turned to Karalis Vasalis and Karaliene Pavadone.
“Rise and answer.” The two monarchs stood with alacrity, facing the Dark Lord without reserve. “You are my hands in Patverseme. You have the power of my name, and it is no small matter. Yet you permitted these wiza
rds to summon me when you could take my name from their lips, smooth it from their minds forever.”
Karalis Vasalis answered with the same swiftness with which he had obeyed the Dark Lord’s command to rise. “Yes, Greatest Lord. It is so. We allowed the wizards to make their summons and knew that our own lives would be forfeit—for we pay the blood price for calling your name and no other.”
A knife was suddenly in the Karalis’s hand. He set its point against the bare pulse at the base of his neck. A tendril of smoke reached out and leisurely coiled around his wrist, squeezing so that the blood drained from the Karalis’s face. Reisil heard bones cracking. The knife clattered to the floor.
“There will be time enough for blood later. Explain. Did you not know I would be angered?”
“We did, Greatest Lord.” The Karaliene’s voice rang out, unsubdued. She took the Karalis’s free hand in her own and held it, for his comfort, not hers, Reisil realized, admiring her strength and courage. “In the last century, the Guild has become evil, corrupted by its love of power alone, with no sense of its proper purpose—serving Patverseme. In recent years, they have excluded altogether the order of the Whieche, the bright sun of the waning year.”
She paused, choosing her words. “For many years they have selected only those who would blindly follow, murdering those who would stand apart or follow the path of the Whieche. But long has the Guild claimed independence from us, following your secret teachings. We did not know what tasks you had set them and feared to meddle in your concerns.”
She paused again, a crease between her black brows. She took a slow, careful breath and continued. “Still we worried they had managed to hide their corruption from you, for your trust is vast in those who have pledged themselves to you. So we chose to allow them to summon you, that you might say what must be done. We did so, knowing the price. For the safety of Patverseme, we will gladly pay it.”
Her words revealed no fear, no reticence, no accusation or challenge. They rang with the serenity of truth. The Dark Lord did not respond for long moments and Reisil felt the hair on her arms rise. Karalis Vasalis’s breath wheezed between his lips as his hand withered and curled into a shrunken, white claw.
“It is true that the Guild has stepped from the path. It may be that I have granted too much power to those chosen souls. Even Amiya has been betrayed by her own.”
He glanced at the ahalad-kaaslane, still standing in a loose chain before Iisand Samir and a pale, shaking Mesilasema Tanis.
“Yet she still has faith, to bring forth one as powerful as you, to invest you with so much of her own essence. Such cannot be withdrawn again. The damage you could do . . .” he mused aloud, skewering Reisil on the blade of his silver gaze. Her mouth was dry, her tongue felt thick and unwieldy, but she felt compelled to answer, as indeed he seemed to be waiting for one, something to prove her worth.
Reisil reached up and set Saljane on her shoulder, dropping her hands to her side. Closing her eyes, she let the lightning go, pushing it down and away until it drained from her. When she opened her eyes again, she knew they were clear, jade green.
“If you are asking me why the Blessed Lady trusts me, I cannot answer. If you are asking whether I can be trusted, I can only say that the Lady gifted me with a friend I did not want, a power I did not seek, and a responsibility that weighs heavily. I have come to cherish Saljane, as I do the Lady’s faith in me. I have always loved Kodu Riik, and I love life. But I am a healer, and I know that when disease takes a tree, it must be cut down, and when limbs become twisted and dangerous to the rest of the tree, those limbs must be pruned, if the tree is to live and thrive.” She paused, thinking of Kaval’s betrayal. “It is true that we sometimes trust those who are unworthy of it.” Her eyes slipped to Kebonsat and her heart contracted. She swallowed the sadness that rose in her, remembering his chill withdrawal and his courage in withstanding the Demonlord’s trial. “It is also true that sometimes we trust those who are worthy and deserving.”
The Dark Lord continued to watch her as if expecting more, and Reisil suffered his scrutiny, her cheeks stained red, her eyes still and level. Then he turned away, heaving again that gusty sigh of chill, bleak nights on the high ice. Reisil shivered as the frost crystallized on her hands, cheeks and eyelashes.
“Greatest Lord,” came a thin, ancient voice. The white-robed cleric had returned, leaning heavily on the shoulder of the boy, accompanied by a young wizard in black robes, marked at the wrists, collar and hem with patterns in white. The twisted wire triangle that Kvepi Mastone and Kvepi Buris had worn was not in evidence on his collar. The young wizard stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the white-robed cleric, his handsome young face pale, but resolute. “I greet you with gratitude and joy.” The old man bowed, held steady by the wiry strength of his chela.
“Priest of Whieche, it pleases me to see you, though I wonder, what is your part in this?”
“Greatest Lord, it sorrows me to say that you look now upon almost the whole of the Order of Whieche. Myself, my chela who is not yet pledged, and a handful of others who continue to follow the Bright Path in hiding, are all that remain. The rest have been drawn down the Dark Path or killed. Ah, it has been a wasting time for the order. But at last there will be a reckoning, a return to balance. We come before you: I, high priest of Whieche, and Kvepi Chollai, wizard of Nethieche, two halves of a whole, the Bright and Dark Paths circling endlessly in the sacred wheel of life and death, birth and withering. We stand before you at the will of Karalis Vasalis and Karaliene Pavadone, their marriage itself a pairing of the Bright and Dark Paths, as they each trained in one of our orders, so as better to serve you, Greatest One.”
Reisil started, her eyes flickering back and forth between the two monarchs of Patverseme, her mind racing at this revelation. Wizards? The both of them?
“Greatest One,” the young Kvepi Chollai said, kneeling to the floor. “I have come here not only at the behest of Karalis Vasalis and his Lady. I come here also for my brothers, who have long felt the taint of corruption within the Guild, but had no means to act, no means to know if doing so violated your trust. I come to you to beg guidance, to say that there are many of us yet who serve you faithfully and wish to see balance again between the Orders of Nethieche and Whieche.”
The Dark Lord stared down at the two men, his thick form shifting and pulsing like billowing smoke from a funeral pyre. At last he spoke into the waiting silence.
“I am pleased by your words. For gifts given cannot be withdrawn, and I should not like to destroy the Guild. But be assured, a cleansing will be done.” Reisil licked dry lips, remembering Kvepi Mastone’s death. “In the future, the gift shall be sown with more care. I, unlike Amiya, neither care to involve myself in human cares, nor do I find it so easy to give trust where it has been broken. But I warn you now, and let there be no mistake. My eyes will travel unblinking along the path of the sun and I will destroy the weeds that grow in my garden.”
His silver gaze flashed to Reisil and sharpened a moment, then passed to Karalis Vasalis and Karaliene Pavadone. “What you have done or not done has been answered, and the punishment stands as given. Let it serve as a reminder.” He turned to the priest of Whieche and his companion wizard. “See that the Guild is cleansed, for I will not be patient if I find you unequal to your words. Do not take overlong.”
With that, the shadow form lost cohesion, erupting upward like a gout of ash and smoke from a volcano. It rose higher and higher, then turned and plunged downward like a sea serpent diving into the ocean depths. Into the great hole in the center of the wizard’s summoning triangle he dove down into the earth until he disappeared, and with him, the bodies of the three wizards.
All that was left was Kvepi Mastone’s shredded robe and a glowing hole that sank deep into the nether depths, and from which a glowing heat pulsed, parching skin and eyes, charring the edges of the wood around the hole until they burst into flame.
For a long moment no one spoke, staring into the dis
torting waves of heat rising from the hole. In the soles of her feet Reisil felt a vibration and almost beyond the reach of her ears she heard a faint, faint grumble. Karalis Vasalis glanced about, seeing the frozen nobility beginning to move, faces tight with fright and confusion. He called guards and instructed them to escort the nobility safely away.
“We had best depart at once,” he suggested to his companions as the boards around the whole began to burn in earnest. “This place is no longer safe.”
He led them down from the pavilion, cradling his white, withered hand in the crook of his left arm. “Let us adjourn to camp farther up the river. We will speak and decide what must be done next. And sign that treaty.” He gave a grim smile to the Iisand. “I will have men prepare tents and food for us. There is a carriage for your lady.”
He turned away without waiting for an answer and snapped an order to Chamberlain Dekot, who had materialized beside him. The gaunt courtier nodded and then hurried away without a word.
Reisil took a breath, her gaze snagging on Karalis Vasalis’s ruined hand. “I might be able to—”
“No.” He gave a slight smile to soften his abrupt reply. “You are kind to offer, but it is a little enough price to pay. And one that I am meant to pay. Better to look to Mesilasema Tanis, who appears to have need of you.”
But when Reisil stepped to her side, the Mesilasema shrank away, moaning inarticulately and clutching at her husband. Reisil bit her tongue and stayed behind when the carriage came and Iisand Samir lifted his lady inside. Fehra clambered up on the driver’s seat, accompanied by Reikon. Juhrnus and Bethorn mounted horses and followed after the carriage.
“There will be peace.” It was not quite a question, mumbled through stiff lips as Reisil watched the carriage disappear into the night.
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