D’Jenn nodded. “He had Kitamin Jurillic rescued—that I know for a fact. I met with Nyra Jurillic. She assumed I was working for Victus. She said that she could sense his hand at work in the Council meetings of late, and that she suspected he would try to have her killed. He has at least two Warlocks doing his dirty work, but there must be more.”
“Why?” Dormael asked. The notion that so many of his friends were complicit in all of this offended him.
“Because you’re all loyal to him, that’s why,” Lacelle said. “Say what you will about Victus Tiranan, but his Warlocks love him, one and all.”
Dormael wanted to argue, but he knew she was right.
“There have been a number of deaths recently,” the Mekai said. “I hadn’t thought they were much more than accidents, the natural result of the dangerous work you all do, but now I wonder if there was some sort of purge happening right under my nose. I’ve always allowed Deacon Victus a free hand with his people. Now I wonder at the wisdom of such a thing.”
“Deaths?” Dormael asked. “You can’t mean…he wouldn’t. Not that.”
“Ragnam and Sierra,” D’Jenn said. “Killed by raiders in the southern seas, apparently. Yista and Illiriam, disappeared on the Dannon Steppe. Vera, Taglion, Kirael and Jastom—all drowned on the Sea of Storms. I asked around about that, too.” D’Jenn’s eyes blazed brighter with each name, and Dormael felt a ball of ice starting to form in his stomach.
“You think he killed them? All of them?” Dormael asked, the question hollowing his chest.
“I’m sorry, boys,” the Mekai said. “I blame myself for this.”
“I blame Victus,” D’Jenn said, a darkness entering his tone that Dormael recognized. He felt the same way. If there really had been a purge, if Victus had commanded such a thing, then nothing would satisfy him other than the man’s head. Those had been his friends, his family. He’d grown up with most of them, and looked up to some of them.
Still, part of him rebelled against the idea that Victus would do such a thing.
“Are we sure about this?” Dormael asked.
“I can see the way he’s moving,” D’Jenn said. “He’s influenced the Council to set aside a large sum of money, and sewed rumors about death camps overseas. He’s purged anyone who might have the power to stand against him, and bought up influence where it’s needed. Those who have served their purposes are pulled down by those below them—at which point he’ll have them killed, severing any ties for good. If he plans to depose you, Honored One, he’s gone about it in a methodical way.”
“It appears so,” the Mekai nodded. “He’s challenged me publicly on a number of issues, and engendered support within the Conclave. I should have seen this coming.”
“What he didn’t count on was Bethany,” D’Jenn said. “He could have used her in order to secure our loyalty, or draw us out in order to assassinate us if he felt we would turn against him. She defeated the ambush, though, and now everything is up in the air.”
“Indeed,” the Mekai said. “His hand has been revealed, and he’ll have to move soon if he wants his plan to succeed, whatever his goals are. We don’t have much time.”
“We are ready to do our duty,” D’Jenn said, rising to his feet. Dormael nodded, but still felt overwhelmed. He could see the logic behind it all, and he trusted his cousin. Part of him, though, balked at the idea of Victus having done all this.
Garner support, maybe—but kill our friends? Not that. Would he?
A cold, logical voice inside told him that it was true, though. Victus had trained him, and Dormael knew the lengths to which the man would go if he deemed it necessary. If he had decided to go down the path to power, he wouldn’t stop at anything to achieve his goal. Dormael caught eyes with D’Jenn, and saw the certainty in his cousin’s face.
Nodding to D’Jenn, Dormael stood with him.
“If Victus is responsible for the deaths of all our friends, then we need to move now,” Dormael said.
“Victus has to die,” D’Jenn nodded. “We kill him tonight. If we give him a chance to make the first move, we will fail. I know the way his mind works, the way he plans an operation. We have to do it now, or we risk yielding the initiative.”
“Do you think we can take him?” Dormael asked. “What if the others are near him, guarding him? Do you think they’ll fight us?”
“They’ve killed eight of us already,” D’Jenn said. “What makes you think they’ll hesitate for you and I? If we don’t do this tonight, Honored One, I fear we will lose our chance. I urge you to grant us his Death Coin.”
As he heard the words come out of D’Jenn’s mouth, Dormael gave an involuntary shudder. Death Coins were issued only against rogue wizards—dangerous Blessed who had used their powers for subjugation, or harm. Once a Warlock took up a Death Coin, they couldn’t return to Ishamael without having made good on its promise. Dormael once again hesitated, but looked to the intensity in D’Jenn’s eyes.
It’s Vera, he realized. D’Jenn had been in love with her since they were youths.
“I cannot,” the Mekai said.
The room sat for a moment in stunned silence. Even Lacelle looked at the Mekai as if he had lost his mind. It took Dormael a moment to gather his thoughts back into a coherent stream.
“Honored One, if we don’t act soon, Victus will put his plans into motion. We’ll be blindsided, and ultimately defeated. I must insist that we end him tonight,” D’Jenn said.
“I cannot—and not because I fear to act,” the Mekai said. “There are greater forces at work, here.”
“Greater forces than the integrity of the Conclave?” Dormael asked before he could stop himself. “What could be more important that that?”
“Do not forget to whom you speak,” the Mekai said, his tone going flat. The room went silent, and Dormael felt his cheeks color. He’d let his anger get the best of him.
“Apologies, Honored One,” Dormael said.
“No need for all of that—and yes, greater forces than the integrity of the Conclave. Lacelle, did you bring that research I asked of you?” the Mekai said.
“I did,” Lacelle said. She rose from the table and walked to the edge of the room, where a leather scroll case had been left on a bookshelf. She snatched it and brought it over to the table, popped the end, and pulled a sheaf of documents out of the cylinder. The Mekai reached over and leafed through them, finally settling on a copy of something in Old Vendon.
“You see, we’ve been looking through old records since you boys brought back the Baroness Llewan’s armlet. We believe we have discovered what it is.”
**
Maarkov gnawed on a piece of dried beef as he stared off into the darkness. They’d come down the mountain into Runeme, and as soon as Maaz had instructed his strega to set up camp, Maarkov had taken his bedroll as far from the stinking things as possible. He sat under the sheltering boughs of an evergreen, listening to the water drip from the leaves in the wake of the day’s storm. Ishamael sat in the distance, a scattering of lights along the river’s path.
Maarkov felt uneasy being this close to it. Growing up, he had heard horror stories of Ishamael. It had been said that their altars reached hundreds of links to the sky, and every day infants were tossed from the edge to splatter on the stones below, offerings to Eindor, the Father of Magic. Now, of course, he knew such things were ridiculous.
His brother, after all, was the real horror.
The Conclave of Wizards was down in the city. It had been the great monster of Maaz and Maarkov’s life. Even in the early days, when Maaz had been little more than a lanky, awkward youth, they’d had to hide from the wizards. Now, here they stood, half a day’s walk from the Conclave itself.
Maarkov wondered how they would kill his brother. What did they do to necromancers, anyway? What did they do to someone who had killed so many, and with such disturbing efficiency? He could almost hear his brother’s voice.
It’s artistry.
Maark
ov wondered for the thousandth time what his brother’s plan might be. Were they to sit here until sunrise? Were they to skip through the gates of the city?
Don’t mind us, just a traveling band of rotting corpses and dead-eyed killers.
Maarkov finished his dinner and packed a pipe bowl, leaning back against the tree to relax for a spell. His fingernails did not grow, nor did his hair, most wounds couldn’t kill him, and he didn’t need to breathe—but he still felt a release of pleasure from tobacco. The gods truly built man as a mystery.
A bird dropped from the night sky, fluttering its wings as it came in for a landing not two hands from his foot. It was a crow, or maybe a raven—Maarkov had never given two shits about the difference. He almost raised his leg to kick the damned thing. He didn’t want it pecking at his flesh when he went to sleep.
In the instants while he was still trying to decide, the bird rippled and changed, sliding into the form of a diminutive young woman. She rose from the crouch and brushed her tattered dress straight, then blinked her eyes at him.
“Where is your brother?” she asked.
“And a mighty fine evening to you too, Inera,” Maarkov said. “He’s by the fire. Where do you think?”
Inera looked in the direction of the orange light, dread painting her features. In the low echo of the firelight, her face was outlined by the shadow. She looked as if she was staring at her own death.
“I suppose things didn’t work out in Ishamael,” Maarkov said. “Not that he’d go down there himself—you can tell him I said that, too.”
“You know I will not.”
“I know,” he sighed. “You may as well get out of my fucking sight, and go meet your doom. He already knows you’re here—you know that.” Maarkov tried to keep his distance from his brother’s apprentices. They had a nasty habit of dying when they’d outlived their usefulness. Maarkov didn’t want to see Inera go, though. Not that he liked her—he didn’t think he was capable of that—but her company was the only pleasant thing about his existence, and she was easy on the eyes. He wanted to bed her, but the woman eluded his every advance. He had long ago stopped trying.
Another odd thing his body did—lusting.
“I do, in fact, already know,” Maaz hissed, coming out of the darkness. Maarkov almost jumped out of his skin. He wanted to throw something at him, but the only thing in his hand was his tobacco pipe, and he didn’t want to part with it.
Inera bowed her head, keeping her eyes on the grass at Maaz’s feet. Maarkov always watched these little exchanges with a wry sense of humor. He could remember when his brother had been a pleading little shit, and now he made all those who served him cower at his very gaze. It all seemed so useless and petty to Maarkov, but what did his opinion matter?
“Master,” she said. “I have failed.”
“A fact that I have deduced, given that you have neither the girl, nor the artifact in your possession, as I instructed you. What shattering explosion of idiocy resulted in your failure, Inera?” he asked. The space between master and apprentice was loaded with tension.
“Dormael’s cousin proved to be more resourceful than I’d expected,” she said. “He found my hiding place before the Taker could do its work. Somehow Dormael was able to break the Circle I had constructed—it makes no sense. It held him in check right up until the end. He shouldn’t have been able to break it.”
Maarkov could tell that the girl was struggling not to cower. He could respect her resolve.
“If your former lover was able to break your Circle, then you must have constructed it incorrectly,” Maaz said. “And if his cousin found your hiding place, it was your own stupidity that led him to you. You failed, and failed yet again. Why am I not surprised, Inera?”
“Because I’m a failure, Master.”
Maarkov wanted to puke.
“Because you’re a failure,” Maaz said. He reached out his hand, fingers curling into a claw. Inera collapsed to her knees, making only the smallest noise at the pain. Maaz left the pressure on her, until Inera could be heard whimpering just under her breath.
Maarkov reached to his side, looking for the dagger he kept at his belt.
“Explain to me why I should not just kill you now,” Maaz said. “If all that lies between us in the future is failure, Inera, you would better serve as a corpse.”
Inera made a coughing noise, and reached a hand to her side. She cried out in pain as the movement nearly doubled her over, but then raised her hand into the air. Clutched in her fist was a piece of cloth.
Maaz let the pressure recede, and she gasped in relief. He walked forward and snatched the piece of cloth from her, then ran it under his nose, sniffing at it like a lady’s undergarments.
Maarkov gagged.
“At least you have finally done something of value, Inera. You have earned your life tonight,” Maaz said. He turned his gaze on Maarkov. “Perhaps others could learn from your example.”
“I’ve no interest in pleasing you, brother,” Maarkov sighed. “Fuck yourself.”
Maaz just turned from him, walking a short distance away to clear a space on the ground. Inera gave Maarkov a guarded look, then turned to follow her master. Maarkov leaned back against the tree again and puffed on his pipe. He watched his brother simply because there was nothing else to look at.
Maaz gestured to the space he’d cleared, and flames burst to life. They rushed across the grass in a circle, burning shapes and sinuous lines into the ground. Maaz directed the flames, drawing his spell on the ground like a man with a paintbrush.
Maaz then turned toward the camp, and hissed something into the darkness. Two of the strega came out of the shadows, silent figures wrapped in ratty scarves and deep Sevenlander cloaks. Maarkov wondered why his brother even bothered making them shroud themselves so—it did nothing for the stink.
They each stepped over the circle of low flame, and laid side-by-side in the center, their dead eyes staring at the sky. One of them was the boy they’d captured days ago, the one who had watched Maarkov eat a piece of his mother. Maarkov couldn’t keep the shudder out of his body as he looked at the thing. Maaz slashed his arm open with a knife, and slung his blood around the circle, whispering in that strange, guttural language.
Each spatter of blood became a cloud of mist as it touched the spell, and each cloud of mist began to crawl through the air, congealing in smoky tendrils. Maaz continued chanting, and tossed more of his black, putrid blood into the circle. Two forms began to coalesce out of the crackling mist.
Their bodies were translucent, like shadows pierced by moonlight. It was hard to make out much about them, but Maarkov thought their features were distended, like a strange mockery of the human body. Their arms were too long, fingers too thin, and legs too short. They had a hunched stance, and looked around the circle in quick, jerky movements. The only thing Maarkov could see clearly about them were their eyes, which were glowing motes of red light.
Something about the look those things turned on him chilled Maarkov to the bone.
Maaz hissed something to them in that same language, and the things gazed down at the two strega beneath them. One of them looked up and made a sweeping gesture with one of its ghostly arms. Maaz hissed something angry at them, and raised a fist toward the one that had replied to him. Darkness gathered around it, and it cringed in what appeared to be pain, though Maarkov could hear no sound. It went on for a few seconds before the thing flashed its eyes at Maaz in surrender.
These things are intelligent, Maarkov realized. They’re communicating with him.
The two shadows looked once again to the strega, and one of them reached its misty arm down into the mouth of one of the corpses. It crawled down into the strega, twisting the corpse’s shape as it wriggled down its throat. The second shadow crawled into the boy’s body, and Maarkov turned his eyes away. The sound of the flesh stretching and spasming was enough to disgust him even without the sight of it.
Maarkov turned back as the sound ab
ated, and watched the things rise from the ground. Though their skin was still the pallid gray of a corpse, there was something charged about it, something hard. The bodies no longer resembled anything close to human. The legs were shorter, hips somehow shifted to give the thing a more predatory stance. The arms were longer, and claws now decorated fingers at the ends of distended hands. The eyes burned with a red, fell light.
They rose from the ground and adjusted their clothing, wrapping scarves around their faces until nothing showed through but the light from their eyes. The cloaks hugged their bodies in odd ways, but if they crouched, Maarkov supposed they might be able to pass for a man. He shivered at the thought. The things moved with a canine grace.
Maaz took the blood-covered cloth that Inera had given him, and ripped it in two. He said a few words to the things, then tossed each one a piece of the cloth. Maarkov gagged a second time as the things swallowed the pieces, gulping them down like a pair of snakes.
As one, their heads turned toward the city of Ishamael. They spared one last look for Maaz, then bounded into the night, loping away like a pair of ghostly wolves. A howl rose up in their wake, echoing into the night.
They’re hunters, he realized. Like gods-damned bloodhounds.
Like bloodhounds that could squeeze your head off, perhaps.
Strega tore after them, running through the night at full speed in complete silence. Maarkov tried to count them before they disappeared into the shadows, but the bastards were too quick. Maaz had made many new servants from the caravan in the mountains, and only a few remained in camp. They stood motionless, milky eyes looking at nothing. Maaz liked to keep a few of the rotten things around for menial labor.
“Perhaps now we shall see some results,” Maaz said, brushing his hands off. “By morning the artifact and the girl will be in my possession. We’ll move tomorrow.”
“What is my next task, Master?” Inera asked.
“Travel to Thardin, inflict yourself upon the emperor. Ensure everything is going according to my plan. Prepare the way for our culling,” Maaz said. “And Inera—I shouldn’t have to tell you that this is your last chance. Fail me again, and you will end on my table.”
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