The fifth hole did not burn through the wall. Whatever magick had caused it had flown through the window and smashed the gibberer square in the back, lifting the creature from the floor. Erlestoke ducked as the gibberkin flew forward, one of its feet catching his left shoulder. The gibberer spun in the air, then its chest exploded, filling the air with a vapor of viscera, blood, and bone.
As his head came up, gibberer blood still running down his skin, Erlestoke caught sight of the white creature. From beneath the cloak it had produced a wand. The creature’s gaze locked with his for a moment, then the wand came up and, his sword abandoned, Erlestoke dove low for his quadnel.
The prince scooped the weapon up and quickly worked the lever that rotated the barrels, seating a loaded one against the firing mechanism. Above the metallic clicks and clanks of the gears, the report of another draconette rang out, then a terrific explosion shook the building. What little wall there had been a dozen feet away had vanished, carrying away the stairs, the landing, and splashing the wounded gibberer into a red stain over the debris.
With the automatic motions that had been trained into him through hours of drilling, Erlestoke primed the new barrel and rolled to his knees at the window. He drew a bead on the slender figure, noting already that its left shoulder was matted with blood, and that more ran in rivulets down its useless left arm.
Its right arm came up, however, and a fiery blue dart shot from the wand. It hit the snowy street three feet in front of Castleton, who had dropped into a crouch and was priming his quadnel. The explosion lifted the soldier and whirled him loose-limbed into the air. He crashed down into the snow twenty feet away, disappearing in a cloud of drifting powder snow.
Erlestoke shot and hit the creature high in the chest. A sharp jet of arterial blood squirted into the cold air, then the thing flopped back into the snow. It shook heavily and its limbs twitched violently. Then Ryswin reached it and beheaded it with a short stroke of a gibberer longknife.
The prince leaped from the window and landed in the snow with a crouch. “Ryswin, bring that thing with you!”
“Yes, sir.”
Erlestoke ran to where Castleton lay and turned him over. The blast had torn the Oriosan’s mask off and had taken with it most of his face. The man’s lipless mouth worked for a second, but produced only bloody froth, not words. His back bowed, then he slackened.
The prince reached down and closed the one remaining eye, then searched for the man’s quadnel. He slung the draconette over his shoulder, then returned to his fallen comrade and dragged his body off. Ryswin joined him quickly, and the two of them descended through hidden passages that opened before them and closed after, to reach their haven.
Erlestoke gave the two quadnels to their weapons-master, Verum. A couple of other people had taken Castleton’s body from him and, off in a corner, were busy washing him and sewing him into a shroud. Across the room, on a table that had seen many a use in their campaign, the raven-haired Harquelf Jilandessa and the meckanshii colonel from Murosa, Jancis Ironside, had stretched out the creature. Even without its head, it was tall enough that its feet hung off the edge.
The prince crossed to them. “What is it?”
The elf shook her head. “I’ve not seen its like before, nor have I heard of anything similar. I could make guesses, but I like them not at all.”
Erlestoke rested a hand on her shoulder. “It wields magick more capably than a vylaen. It took two quadnel shots and still did not cease moving until beheaded. It gave orders to gibberers and they obeyed instantly. It’s bad enough as it is. Your guessing can’t make it worse.”
The elf healer nodded, then ran her hand over the creature’s belly, rucking up its fur. Beneath the white fur she exposed pink flesh and then a dark tattoo of some arcane symbol. “Do you recognize that?”
“Not really, though I’ve seen similar on Vorquelves.”
“Exactly.” She pointed to the creature’s head. “I worked magick on the body, just a simple diagnostic spell to get a sense of it. There is vylaen there, clearly, but also elf. Elves don’t really differentiate in sense depending upon their homeland, but if one is talented, you can pick up slight variations. This creature has a Vorquellyn taint to it.”
The prince nodded. “I noticed the eyes.”
Jancis Ironside reached over with her left hand and pried one of the thing’s eyes open. Being a meckanshii—one of the warriors whose useless limbs had been replaced with mechanical parts—her left hand only had two fingers and a thumb, yet moved with a singular delicacy. “Very hard to miss, these eyes. The look of them sends a shiver through even my metal limbs.”
The creature’s eyes had begun to cloud in death, but Erlestoke could still imagine something lurking in their depths. He looked at the elf again. “You think these things come from Vorquellyn?”
She nodded. “You know that Yrulph Kirûn, centuries ago, forcefully crossbred araftii with elves to create the Gyrkyme. I fear that Chytrine honors her master once more in creating these things. They feel as if they are a cross between vylaens and Vorquelves, born on Vorquellyn. She took the homeland, now she uses it to breed a population of warmages to lead her gibberers against us.”
That idea sent a chill down the prince’s spine. “Is there any way we can tell for certain?”
“I will make measurements, map the tattoos, look for other clues. If we had more of them, it might help.”
Erlestoke nodded. “I’ll see what we can do.”
Jancis hugged her flesh-and-blood hand to her mechanical shoulder. “Highness, we know Chytrine left a week ago, maybe twelve days, and we assumed she had found and carried away all the pieces of the DragonCrown.”
“Yes, that’s what we concluded. And we decided she kept troops here to prevent anyone from reoccupying the fortress and threatening her lines of supply.”
“Both logical assumptions. But why, then, would she bring creatures so adept at magick here?”
The prince adjusted his mask. “I see your point. If she has a reason for bringing them, it must be an important one. Perhaps she’s missing a piece of the Crown, or there is something else of value here. So, just as vital as learning what they are will be learning why they are here. Good thinking, Colonel Ironside; I would have missed that.”
Ryswin walked over and nodded to the prince. “Highness, Castleton is in his shroud. Nygal and I shall carry him deep into the tunnels and find a spot to wall him up.”
“Ryswin, come quick!” Nygal Tymtas, the young soldier from Savarre, shouted from the corner where Castleton had been laid. “Something very strange is going on.”
The elf and the prince dashed toward the corner, then stopped. The stones in the floor upon which Castleton’s body rested had begun to glow; heat pulsed out from them. Nygal leaped back and the tips of his boots smoked, though oddly the white canvas of the shroud showed not a scorch or wisp of vapor. The rock became fluid and a thin crust crumbled, revealing a red-gold puddle of stone. The body floated there for a moment, then began to sink, starting at the head and shoulders, then gradually settling in at the feet. His toes were the last to go and when they disappeared, a small golden wave of rock lapped over them, then the stone darkened and cooled.
Erlestoke stared at the flat stone where his comrade’s body had lain. “No one here did anything? Said anything? Somehow invoked magick?”
A chorus of negative answers echoed through the chamber.
“Okay, I believe that, which means I don’t know what just happened. Inside the hour we’re vacating this place. Pack up everything we can. We’re going deeper.” He turned and studied all of their faces. “I don’t know if what just happened was for good or ill, but until we know, it’s reason enough for us to keep moving.”
CHAPTER 12
I t didn’t occur to Kerrigan that trying to catch a snowflake on his tongue might not be dignified until he heard someone behind him clearing his throat, and a hissed whisper accompanying it.
Until that point, K
errigan had been out, knee deep in snow, not far from the inn in which he was being housed, marveling at how the snow softened the city of Meredo. It muted the gay colors splashed on houses and hid the red of the tiled roofs. Thick garlands of it covered the skeletal branches of the trees and little drifts had collected in corners. The thick flakes fell slowly, then swirled and eddied, sometimes dancing down the street, other times falling from branches and eaves in a puff of snow.
Kerrigan had seen snow before on Vilwan. Still, the warmth of the ocean tended to ensure that any snow that fell did not last very long. He’d certainly never seen the quantity that had fallen in Meredo, nor had he been allowed to go out in it.
Just raising his face to the sky and feeling flakes melt against his cheeks had made him laugh. His delight mirrored that of children playing in the snow, launching snowballs at each other, building forts, shrieking as they closed and threw, then ran as a volley from playmates chased them back. Other children lay on their backs, flapping their arms, making snow-Gyrkyme, while yet others crawled into barrels and careened wildly down hills, screaming all the way.
Yet Kerrigan’s smile had not been for the snow alone. His previous experience in cities had been something less than positive. In Yslin he’d gotten waylaid by a gang of street urchins and beaten up. And Fortress Draconis had been a city of war. There were few children and less laughter.
The thing that made the difference here was the attitude displayed. As he wandered into the snow-choked street, he had impulsively hand-packed a snowball and thrown it at a hitching post—missing horribly—a man gathering wood smiled at his effort. Some kids threw at the same post from further away, and they cheered and laughed as one hit it. A woman brushing snow from the steps looked at him and nodded, smiling as frosty breath wreathed her face.
None of them knew him, since he had arrived in Meredo with no fanfare. He was just a person and even in a city where those who wore masks considered themselves superior to others, everyone still smiled and was polite. There was a cheerful civility to the interaction of strangers that he’d never really known before, and he liked it.
The voice and the whisper, however, had none of the same friendliness. Kerrigan turned slowly and saw a trio of figures, two male and one female. He did not recognize any of them, but the cadaverous man in the lead wore the grey robes of a Magister, despite his seeming youth. The man’s shaved head, beaked nose, and prominent larynx conspired with the grey pallor of his flesh to reinforce the impression that he was dead or close to it. The woman and the other man, who made up in bulk what their leader lacked, both wore the blood-scarlet robes of Adepts, though without any other decorations that might cue him as to their areas of expertise.
The Magister nodded solemnly and drew his hands to the small of his back. “You are Kerrigan Reese.”
Kerrigan felt a shiver run up his spine. Orla had admonished him to stay away from Vilwan, and this trio represented his old home. Part of him wished running were an option, but even if there were no snow, he could not have moved fast enough to escape a spell.
And running would be thinking like prey.
Kerrigan nodded slowly. “I am.”
“I am Magister Syrett Kar. I am here to take you home.”
“Take me home?”
“To Vilwan.”
Kerrigan shook his head. “Vilwan is not my home.”
The woman leaned in to whisper something to Kar, but the Magister raised his left hand to silence her. “Adept Reese, you have been through a great deal. The Grand Magister is pleased with all you have accomplished. You are now required to return to Vilwan with us to complete your training.”
“There is nothing more for me to learn at Vilwan, Magister.” Kerrigan tugged on the sleeves of the sheepskin coat he wore, then stripped off his mittens. “I have things that need to be done here, and I will do them.”
“You are mistaken, Adept Reese.”
The man snaked menace into his voice and it found an ally inside Kerrigan. My whole entire life has been spent being mistaken, learning, training, trying to do things no one else could do, being told I was wrong, and being made to do it over and over again until I got it right and got another task. None of his teachers had ever told him why he was being asked to do the things he was, why he was getting the training he was. All they told him was that he was wrong or stupid or too slow or too sloppy. They had used the same tone of voice over and over, and part of him bent to respond to it.
Another part, however, rebelled. It was the part of him that had been reinforced by countless little things. Since leaving Vilwan he had done many things right. Perhaps not everything, but he had done enough things right, and those successes drained Kar’s voice of some potency.
Kerrigan brought his chin up. “By what authority do you command me?”
The Magister’s composure broke for a heartbeat, but he narrowed the surprise out of his brown eyes quickly enough. “How dare you question me?”
“How dare I not, Magister? I know that I am engaged in the struggle to defeat Chytrine. I know she will stop at nothing to stop me. How do I know you are not students of her academy masquerading as officials from Vilwan? In fact, I do not believe you are from Vilwan, but instead serve at the consulate here.”
While Syrett Kar kept his face impassive, the chunky Adept at his right did not. That man looked surprised. His female compatriot’s blue eyes darkened as she stared hard at Kerrigan. She took a couple steps to the left and removed her gloves.
Kar glanced in her direction and frowned. “Adept Tetther, no melodramatics. Adept Reese will not be attacking us.” Kar’s gaze returned to Kerrigan. “Your questions are well asked. We should go to the consulate to get the answers. I do know you’ve not visited there yet. That should prove I am genuine.”
“Chytrine surely has agents watching our consulate.” Kerrigan fought to keep his nervousness out of his voice. “You may return to the consulate, and when you have sufficient authorization to compel my return, then send me a message and I shall come. Not before.”
The woman snarled. “We do have ‘sufficient authorization.’ ”
Kerrigan turned his head, slowly and fluidly, imitating the look of contempt he’d seen Resolute use. “Sufficient for you, perhaps, but my concerns dwell in spheres far above your petty interests.”
He knew he’d been pushing it with that last, and she reacted hotly. Power began to course through her as her fingers clawed. Kar turned toward her, snapping a command, but her eyes had tightened into angry slits. The other Adept began to withdraw, a look of horror widening on his face.
Time began to move oddly for Kerrigan. Part of him—the scared child that wanted to comply with Kar’s commands—recognized the danger. Just from the traces of the magick radiating out from Tetther, Kerrigan deduced she was a combat specialist and had been ready to deal harshly with him. Part of him wanted to drop to his knees and beg for mercy, but the fear remained muted and controllable.
Another part of him, that which had studied magick, likewise recognized the threat. He analyzed it in an instant, knew the spell, and had a choice of a half-dozen spells that would counter it. A couple he could have cast quickly enough to stop her spell from even being cast. Her effort would have been bottled up in her body, and would have savaged her. As an exercise in magery, he viewed his counter and the consequences in a completely clinical matter—the human cost merely a minor abstraction.
A third part of him, the part tempered by all he had seen and done since leaving Vilwan, won out. He ignored the fear. He acknowledged the cost. Then he gestured with his right hand, simply and easily, triggering a spell he knew so well that using it was hardly an effort.
It was the telekinetic spell he’d used to pluck books from a library shelf and, just as easily, had used to pluck a ship from the ocean. In this case he used it to tickle snow from a roof and brought it sliding down upon her in a small avalanche. The snowfall slammed heavily into her back, pitching her forward and burying her. It kn
ocked the wind from her and shattered the concentration she needed to cast her spell.
Kar leaped back a step. He looked at her, then carefully brushed a dusting of snow from his chest and arms before turning toward Kerrigan. “You took a chance dealing with her that way.”
Kerrigan shook his head. “No chance at all.” He looked up at the roofline and Kar turned to follow his gaze. Up there, at the peak of the red tile wedge, squatted Lombo. “If I hadn’t done something, he would have. Please tell Vilwan I am well protected.”
The Magister blinked, then glanced at Tetther struggling to free herself from the mound of snow. “You are not what I was led to believe you would be.”
“And what was that?”
Kar started to answer, then snapped his mouth shut. “It doesn’t matter. I shall get the authorization. But I suppose I should ask what you will consider sufficient.”
Kerrigan shrugged. “I suppose that is a point I can discuss with the Grand Magister when he arrives.”
“You can’t honestly believe . . .”
Kerrigan held a hand up. “My last mentor was slain by Chytrine, but she was your senior by decades. You know enough about me to know I am assigned to no one school of magick, so I have no Magister over me. With Orla dead, the Grand Magister is the only one to whom I should answer. That is the way of Vilwan. It is the system from which you derive your authority.”
Kar frowned. “Now you have me puzzled, Adept.”
“About what?”
“You have concluded that I am not sufficiently versed in combat magicks to apprehend you. If I were, I’d not have brought Adept Tetther along, and had I had any inkling of this outcome, I would have brought more people. You are powerful enough to ignore me, but you provide me this reasonable request to give me a way to preserve my dignity and avoid having to explain how I failed to bring you in.”
Kerrigan fought mightily to keep any expression off his face. Will had recently confessed to Kerrigan that he didn’t really know what Kerrigan had been carrying until Kerrigan himself had confirmed his guess. Will called it a bluff. Just as Kerrigan had assumed Will had known something he did not, Kar was assuming Kerrigan had drawn certain conclusions and Kerrigan clearly saw it was in his best interest to let the Magister go right on believing them.
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