Nurien slammed his hands together, and Ian dropped onto the rock. It punched through his back and out his stomach. Blood sprayed up and drizzled down the spindle, black rivulets against dark stone. Ian twitched a few times and stilled, impaled a foot or so from the top of the rock spear.
“Now, then.” Nurien faced me with a cold smile. “How would you like to die?”
Chapter 38
A thin membrane held the rope together. One more pass with the blade should do it. But once I got loose, I’d have to move fast. Think, Donatti. What are you going to do?
I opened up and let the heat flow into me. Might as well be prepared. And I would’ve told him exactly how I wanted to die if this damned rope wasn’t in my mouth. Of old age, in my bed.
“I could have you slit your own throat. That always amuses me.” Nurien folded his arms and gave me a speculative look. “I can’t decide whether to handle you as common or rare. It isn’t every day I have the pleasure of destroying the last of a clan. Perhaps I should make it special.”
Christ, this asshole loved the sound of his own voice. He probably slept with a mirror.
“Fire is both clean and painful. Maybe … no, it’s not spectacular enough.”
What did I have to work with? A single blade. The tether—no way in hell I’d use that. And the earth. The cave floor was stone, not dirt, but it was the same stuff. Only harder. I could probably work with it. I’d just have to make sure I stopped him from talking and moving. He’d already demonstrated that he could cast spells without words.
“I’ve got it!” Nurien let his arms down. “You’ll share your master’s fate. It will be poetic. How long do you think it will take you to bleed to death, pup?”
Time to move.
I sliced through the rest of the rope. It uncoiled, and fell away. I dropped the blade, fell to one knee, and smacked both palms on the ground. No time for a smart-ass remark. I shoved magic into the stone and pictured Nurien encased in the stuff, trapped, immobile, gagged.
The cave floor trembled. Rock buckled and cracked under Nurien’s feet, and he sank in to the top of his shoulders like the floor was water. Slack-jawed shock prevented him from casting a spell. The ruptured stone around his head sprouted a circle of thick, jagged slabs that extended up, ran together and curved in to form a dome. Not even a whisper escaped.
Damn. I wanted to seal him in just enough to shut his mouth so I could still get to his tether. But this’d have to work for now. I’d have to practice being more precise sometime when I wasn’t about to die.
I had no idea if it would hold, and didn’t want to wait there to find out. I ran across the cavern toward Ian. He hadn’t moved since he’d been impaled, and I doubted it was because he was comfortable right where he was.
He was stuck just above my head. I could probably float up and pull him off, but that’d take too long. I grabbed the spindle, both hands squelching through half-congealed blood, and urged the rock to break.
It snapped apart, and Ian thumped to the ground.
“Sorry about that,” I said in case he could hear me. If he did, he offered no acknowledgment.
He’d landed on his side, and the shard still ran all the way through him. I gripped the end protruding from his back and pulled. It didn’t move. I considered trying to crumble the thing, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to leave pieces of stone inside him. So I sat on the ground, braced my feet against him on either side of the shard, and yanked hard.
It broke loose with a wet pop. Ian screamed.
“Don’t move, okay?” Before he could argue, I scooted back and pulled the thing out the rest of the way. He grunted through clenched teeth, but he didn’t move. “I’ll heal you,” I said. “Hold on.”
Ian coughed out foamy blood and spit. “Nurien.”
“He’s … um, stuck. Just be quiet a minute.”
He did. I worked to heal him, and my body temperature spiked through the red zone. The cave might as well’ve been a sauna. I pushed on, watched the hole through him knit itself closed. I wasn’t sure if he’d broken any bones, but that would have to be enough.
Ian jackknifed upright. “Where is he?”
“Over there.” I waved a hand in the general direction of the dome. “Trust me, he can’t do anything right now. But I don’t know how long it’s gonna hold.”
“Can we get his tether?”
I grimaced. “Not at the moment.”
“We must—”
“I know!” Damn, it was hot in here. I swiped a gallon of sweat from the back of my neck. “I can keep him busy for a while. You need to find Akila. He couldn’t have taken her far.”
“Yes.” Ian scanned the cavern. It was a big cavern. “That may take some time.”
I nodded and tried not to play the guess-how-long-before-Nurien-kills-me game. “You’d better start looking, then. Maybe … wait a second. The crevice.”
He frowned, and then understanding dawned. “From the scrying spell,” he said.
“Yeah. It was up toward the outside entrance.” I looked that way and spotted the jagged rock garden the vision had passed over. “Should be right around there,” I said, and pointed at the wall beyond it. “And listen. You can cut through that rope stuff with a knife. That’s how I got out of it.”
Ian stood. I followed suit. “Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it.” I flashed a crooked smile. “You can grovel at my feet later.”
“Do not press your luck, thief.”
“What luck?”
He laughed a little. “May the gods protect you.”
“If they don’t, you’ll die too,” I said. “So get back there and—damn. Is it hot in here?”
Something glowed at the corner of my vision. I glanced over and did a double take. The rock dome I’d trapped Nurien under blazed molten red. Like he was melting the stone.
“Oh shit,” I said. “Make it fast, Ian.”
He whirled and sprinted for the crevice.
I made an instinctive attempt to disappear. Nothing happened. Calvin must’ve laid down a damned wide snare. I threw up a shield so at least Nurien wouldn’t be able to lock me down, and waited.
The glowing rock oozed in concentric ripples down the sides of the dome. A hole opened in the top and widened. When the hole reached a foot across, a jet of green flame spurted from it and shot to the ceiling, breaking into showers of sparks against the jagged rock formations above.
Inspiration struck. I tamped down my hatred of letting my feet leave the ground, tapped into my djinn magic, and thought about light, fluffy things. Feathers and clouds and whipped cream. That last one probably didn’t help—but I started to rise.
A brief, clumsy flight brought me to a massive cone of rock almost directly over the fiery spout. The dome had melted completely, and the hole was almost three feet wide. It spread a few more inches. The flames died down, and Nurien came up. Aside from a few black streaks and smudges, he looked completely uninjured.
I grabbed the cone and surged magic through it. Break, baby.
The rock obliged. I gave it a nudge in Nurien’s direction. Unfortunately, it didn’t skewer the bastard, but the thick part slammed into him with a satisfying crack and knocked him to the ground.
I hovered over to the next good-size cone. Pain from expending djinn magic already packed my chest and zapped through my limbs. I wouldn’t be able to stay up here much longer. But this one was positioned perfectly. If I broke it loose, it’d pin him in place.
I laid my hands on it—or tried to. They stopped just short of touching. And no matter how I strained, my arms wouldn’t move.
Below me, Nurien stood and brushed rock dust from his ridiculous outfit. At least I’d hurt him this time. Blood glistened on the front of his shirt where the stone had struck him. He tilted his head back, held a hand out, and crooked a finger.
My body obeyed without my consent. He’d used the puppet spell, right through my shield, as if it weren’t even there.
Damn. I hated smart thugs.
“Let me help you contact the earth again.” With a frigid smile, Nurien swept an arm aside.
I flung due left and smashed into the nearest wall, at about a zillion miles an hour. Bones splintered in my arm. Just before I hit the ground, I was jerked up and dragged back to my previous position.
“Did that help?” He leered at me. “What did you do with the dog, little mage? Tell me, or I’ll break the other one. And then your legs.”
I shuffled through my short list of spoken djinn spells. Paralysis, shield, mirror bridge, tether exploding. None of them would help. So I decided to go with a time-honored spoken human spell—sarcastic insults. “Gee, Nurien,” I said. “Why do you need me to find him? I mean, you’re supposed to be some all-powerful noble.”
True to his word, Nurien repeated the wall-slamming bit on my other side. I screamed this time. He hauled me back, and I gritted my teeth against the pain. Both arms felt like they’d been stuffed with broken glass and set on fire. “Ian’s right. You’re pathetic,” I said. “What, you couldn’t get your own wife, so you had to buy somebody else’s? That’s kinda sad.”
“You disgusting little … no. I won’t destroy you yet.” He pointed two fingers down and spread them in an upside-down V.
My busted arms rose. Bone fragments jarred and ground against each other. It hurt too much to scream. I squeezed my eyes shut—and saw Akila.
Ian had freed her. She was streaked with filth, and her eyes were sunken and haunted, but she was alive. The vision moved down. Ian’s fingers rubbed the last of the blood from her tether.
Good thinking, Ian. Now get your ass back here and help me.
“Wake up, Doma.”
My eyes wrenched open against my will. I was still seeing through Ian, but as a faded image laid across Nurien’s smug features. Ian was moving across the cavern, headed this way. I’d have to keep distracting the asshole. “What?” I said. “Are you going to make me do jumping jacks now?”
Nurien’s momentary astonishment gave way to a sneer. “You must be too stupid to fear me,” he said. “It’s almost a shame you won’t be able to appreciate what I’m going to do.”
I laughed, though it sounded like rusted nails rattling in a tin can. “I bet it’s something really clever. Like you’re going to keep talking and bore me to death.”
“I believe I can do better than that.”
“Oh, I’m quivering with anticipation. Seriously.”
“You would be, if you had anything resembling a brain.”
For an instant, everything blurred and doubled. I saw Nurien’s front and back at the same time. Ian was twenty feet away and closing in, utterly silent.
Nurien flexed one hand, then the other. “Good-bye, little mage.”
Five feet. Keep him talking. “Are we going to Disney World?”
“You are going—”
Ian clamped a hand on his shoulder. Nurien’s mouth opened, but he didn’t even get a single syllable out before Ian spun him around and drove a sledgehammer fist into his jaw. The crack of the blow echoed through the cavern. Nurien folded like a used tissue.
And I went tumbling after.
The ground felt a lot farther away than it looked. Especially when I landed on my side and transformed my right arm from splintered to pulverized.
“Tether,” I gasped after I finished screaming. Like Ian wouldn’t think of that himself.
In fact, he’d already grabbed the crown, and Akila was headed toward our little gathering. “You are hurt,” Ian said. “Perhaps I should—”
“Finish him. Don’t worry about me.” I planted my feet on the ground, then pushed and slid on my back to a safe distance away from the imminent explosion, and started healing myself.
Ian took a few steps back. Akila stopped just behind him. Without a word, he handed the crown to her. He was still too drained to perform the spell. I was getting there myself; I managed to fix my shattered bones, but my body protested using the power. A few more spells and I’d be done.
As though he’d heard my thoughts and sensed weakness, Nurien opened his eyes.
Before I could shout a warning, he launched into the air, pointed at Akila and said, “Ela na’ar.”
Fire immediately engulfed her arms, white-hot flames a foot high, and spread quickly to her dress.
Ian cried her name. He stripped his vest off and beat at the flames, brought her to the ground and tried to roll them out. The fire caught his pants. And the crown tumbled away from them.
I scrambled up and headed for it. Unfortunately, Nurien noticed it too. He threw a lockdown at me, then gestured at the crown. It floated up and across the cave to settle on the now-flattened top of the rock spire he’d impaled Ian on earlier. He cast another fire spell.
Flames circled the base of the spire and swirled up, all the way up, forming a floor-to-ceiling column of fire.
Nurien touched down. Ian and Akila still struggled to put out the flames. I’d almost freed myself from the paralysis spell, but I was out of ideas. This guy was too strong. He was older than Ian, had a bunch of scions running around boosting him, and he’d drained four of them and drunk a few gallons of blood.
Just as I broke free, Nurien threw his head back and lifted his arms like a preacher beseeching the heavens. “Ela rey’ahn!”
A wall of wind slammed into me and sent me tumbling through the air. I caught glimpses of Ian and Akila rocketing in the opposite direction. When I collided with something solid, at least it wasn’t with enough force to break bones. But the back of my head cracked stone, and I collapsed in a woozy heap.
“I’ll take your tether now, Gahiji-an. And my prize.”
Nurien sounded a hundred miles away. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to clear the black spots that wobbled through my vision, and made myself stand. Ian and Akila, considerably scorched but no longer burning, had hit the far wall near the tunnel. And Nurien stood halfway between me and them, silent and motionless. Scrying.
At once, he pivoted to face me. “Little mage,” he said. “Give it to me, or I’ll tear you to pieces and feed them to your master.”
I threw up a shield spell. And ran.
The terrain wasn’t exactly suited for speed. Uneven ground and random rock formations conspired against progress. I kept the bigger rocks between me and him as much as possible. Nurien threw a lockdown, then a fire spell, but either my shield held or he missed completely. I dove behind a boulder and tried to catch my breath. The flame column was on the far side of the cavern, and I’d gotten about a third of the way there. If I could reach it, I’d just go into the fire and destroy his tether right there.
I could heal burns. I couldn’t heal dead.
Nurien had stopped casting spells. The silence unnerved me. I suspected he was coming my way, ready to launch some horrible magic that would make my teeth explode or boil all my blood, or otherwise plunge me into excruciating pain.
“Ela rey’ahn!”
Panic seized me. I tried to brace myself, anticipating another bone-shattering collision—and then my brain caught up with the sound and I realized the voice had been female. Akila had cast the spell.
I peered around the boulder, just in time to catch Nurien thud to the ground. He sat up almost immediately, his features a mask of fury.
Ian tackled him back down. Fists flew.
Akila approached them, stopped a few feet back, and looked in my direction. She nodded. I took that to mean they’d keep Nurien occupied while I got the tether.
With a backdrop of blows and thumps and flying spells, I moved toward the fiery vortex. Halfway there. Assorted shouts echoed through the cavern, but I didn’t look back. Every second c
ounted. Nothing short of destroying Nurien would stop him.
Fifty feet. I splashed through the shallow pool Ian had scried, tripped over a jutting rock below the surface, and went sprawling. Damn. I got myself back up and slowed down a fraction until I cleared the water.
Ian shouted a warning. I looked back—and saw Nurien casting a spell at me.
He managed to finish whatever it was, then took to the air and flew toward me. Fast. I could still move under my own power, and I wasn’t on fire or in pain. What the hell did he do?
I faced forward again, and my gut oozed into my feet. Now there were multiple flame columns, fifteen or twenty of them, all exactly alike. And I had no idea which one concealed the tether.
Nurien had gained a lot of ground, and I was out of hiding places. I searched the immediate area for loose rocks. I’d have to try throwing stones at him, and hope I could knock him out. I’d never be able to find the right tower of fire in time.
A piercing whistle filled the air and a dark shape streaked toward Nurien. A hawk. Akila’s bird form was slightly smaller than Tory’s, with paler feathers—and twice as pissed off as Ian’s wolf. She fluttered around Nurien’s head, shrieking and beating powerful wings. Talons clawed at his face. She snapped at him once, twice. The third time, her beak caught his ear. And ripped it off.
Nurien fell screaming to the ground.
While Akila circled and landed, Ian came charging across the cave. The hawk glowed and became Akila, kneeling, gasping, streaked with Nurien’s blood.
Ian caught up and grabbed the writhing Nurien. The blade I’d given him was clutched in one hand. He slammed Nurien on his back, straddled him with knees pinning his shoulders, and drove the knife under his chin and straight up through his jaw, tacking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
A weak gurgling sound bubbled from Nurien’s throat. One hand twitched, tried to move. Ian grabbed his wrists and pushed them against the ground. “Find his tether!” he shouted.
“How?” I yelled back.
Akila rose to one knee. “They are illusions,” she said in halting tones. “Powerful ones, and they will burn like fire. I can scry the false flames, but … it will take time …”
Master and Apprentice Page 33