Cursed Bones sotsi-5

by David A. Wells

  “We have an agreement,” she cooed, “your coven is not welcome here.”

  “I was unaware of any such agreement,” Isabel said, a bit confused. She wondered what Magda might know about the Sin’Rath.

  “We should eats her,” a guttural voice barked.

  “Yes, we should eats her,” a mewling voice agreed.

  “No!” the raspy voice said. “She may prove useful.”

  “But I’m hungry,” the mewling voice said.

  A snarl from one side of the chamber followed by a menacing growl from the other silenced the mewling voice.

  “Why are you here?” the raspy voice asked.

  “I’ve come to kill Phane,” Isabel said.

  Again the balcony erupted into chaos-howling madness filling the air.

  “Silence!” shouted the raspy voice. The howling turned to mewling and then grudging silence.

  “We hates him,” the mewling voice whimpered.

  “What makes you think you can kill Phane?” the raspy voiced asked.

  “Yes, he is most powerful,” the cloying voice said.

  “He thinks he’s turned me into his puppet,” Isabel said, struggling to keep the trembling out of her voice.

  “Puppet?” the mewling voice asked with rising alarm. “What if she’s been sent to bait a trap for us?” her question trailed off into a petulant whine.

  The raspy voice ignored her. “Why would you be his puppet?”

  “He’s summoned Azugorath,” Isabel said. “Through her magic, he’s trying to subvert my free will.” She decided the truth was in order. From the sounds of things, she didn’t want to risk being caught in a lie.

  The chamber erupted again, but this time the majority of the noises were more whining and whimpering than barking and howling.

  “Mother’s sister is in the world?” the mewling voice whined.

  Several other voices growled at her viciously.

  “Silence, you fool,” the raspy voice said.

  “She can’t be trusted,” the cloying voice said.

  “No, not with Azugorath’s tendril in her,” the guttural voice said.

  “We should eats her,” the mewling voice said.

  “Not yet,” the raspy voice barked.

  Isabel didn’t like where this conversation was going. “We both have the same enemy … Phane,” she said.

  “We hates him,” the mewling voice said.

  “We should eats him,” the guttural voice barked.

  “We will,” the raspy voice said.

  “I can get close to him,” Isabel said.

  “Then what?” the guttural voice barked.

  “I drive my dagger into his heart.”

  “No!” the mewling voice wailed. She was immediately silenced by several snarls and growls.

  “What about the Goiri?” a very reasonable voice asked.

  “No!” the guttural voice barked.

  “Too dangerous,” the raspy voice said.

  “We could sends her,” the mewling voice said.

  “How much do you want to kill Phane?” the reasonable voice asked.

  “He’s driven a wedge between me and my husband and cut me off from everyone I love. I would rather die than become the thing he wants me to be.”

  “She sounds committed,” the reasonable voice said.

  “I am,” Isabel said.

  “The Goiri may be the only way,” the reasonable voice said.

  “No,” the cloying voice said, “there’s another way-a doppelganger spell.”

  “Yes,” the guttural voice said.

  “It could work,” the raspy voice said.

  “But who would go?” the mewling voice asked. “Not me.”

  “I will,” the cloying voice said.

  “If you fail, he will kill you,” the reasonable voice said.

  “If I succeed, then Mother will be free,” the cloying voice said.

  “You fool,” the guttural voice said.

  “You reveal too much,” the raspy voice said.

  “No matter,” the reasonable voice said, “we need only keep her alive until the task is complete.”

  “Then we can eats her,” the mewling voice said.

  “Yes, Sister,” the reasonable voice said.

  “We are agreed then?” the raspy voice said.

  A chorus of barks and snarls followed. As the Sin’Rath filed out of the balcony and left her alone in the room, Isabel stood stock-still, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  Nearly an hour passed before she heard the bar being lifted.

  The door opened and a creature that should not exist entered, smiling wickedly. She had dark grey skin … one eye a smoldering red, the other a sickening yellow, both with the irises of a cat … pointed teeth, the left canine extending past her lower lip, leaving a festering welt where it rubbed. Her long dark grey hair was patchy and stringy, coated in grime. Two-inch horns protruded from her forehead, curving toward one another. She was hunched over, her right shoulder and arm grotesquely larger than the left, both hands ending in long fingers tipped with razor-sharp black talons. She walked with a limp, each step revealing a barbed tail whipping back and forth behind her. Despite her contorted features, her face was perfectly formed, with high cheek bones and perfect bone structure. The contrast between the beauty of her facial structure and the grotesqueness of her body only served to heighten the sense of wrongness that radiated from her in undulating waves.

  As Isabel stared in revulsion at the creature that stood before her, the balcony filled up with the rest of the coven and the door was closed once again.

  “I’m called Clotus,” she said in a cloying voice. “They won’t believe you. They don’t see me as you do, and besides, they belong to us.”

  Isabel swallowed hard, facing the monster. “What do you intend to do?” she asked.

  “We will cast a spell to make me look like you,” Clotus said sweetly. “Then I will go to Phane and take his magic and his life.”

  The balcony erupted in a fit of barking madness.

  “It would be unwise to answer any more of her questions,” the reasonable voice said.

  “Yes, begin the spell,” the raspy voice said.

  The voices cloaked in shadow above began to chant-guttural, dark and animalistic noise reverberating around the cave. Isabel waited, wondering what to expect. She didn’t have to wait long. A blob of spinning darkness, illuminated by flecks of sparkling purple, began to form in the air between her and Clotus. It grew in size as it spun faster and faster until it split in two with only a thread of darkness between the two halves. Very quickly the thread elongated as it spun, until a blob of darkness engulfed Isabel and Clotus at the same time, surrounding each of them with dark magic.

  Isabel couldn’t breathe, coldness seeped into her very soul as the black magic worked within her. She watched in horror as Clotus transformed into a perfect likeness of her, right down to the color of her eyes and the shade of her chestnut-brown hair.

  The magic abruptly faded and Clotus smiled.

  “You see, I am now you,” she said in Isabel’s voice. “Phane will welcome me into his fortress and then he will fall to me.”

  Her smile widened and she looked up to the rest of the coven. “This one is special,” she said. “I can feel the darkness within her. With the proper preparation and motivation, I believe she could summon Mother.”

  Madness erupted from the shadows above.

  “How can this be?” asked the reasonable voice.

  “Yes, how?” said the raspy voice.

  “She has a connection to the darkness within her,” Clotus said. “I can feel it through the link.” Her eyes narrowed and fear ghosted across her face before she snarled, “She also has a connection to the light, though Azugorath has blocked it.”

  “She may be more valuable than we first thought,” the reasonable voice said.

  “Yes,” the raspy voice said. “We will think on how best to use her. For now, Severin
e will keep her prisoner here until we decide how she can serve us.”

  There was a barking agreement from the rest of the coven.

  Clotus knocked at the door and a guard opened it.

  “Yes, Mistress,” he said, seeming to know she was one of the witches, even though her appearance had changed.

  “Take this one back to your King. See to it that she remains here as our guest until we call for her again.”

  Chapter 7

  Lacy ignored the knock at the door of her cramped little stateroom. She’d been at sea for less than a day and she’d already spent most of the voyage leaning over the gunnel, vomiting into the ocean. The cold sea air had burned her face raw, so once she was certain her stomach was completely empty, she retreated from the harsh, late autumn day to her room where she was trying, unsuccessfully, to suppress her nausea.

  Drogan had followed her around the ship, silently watching over her, as he had since they had first met. She tried not to think about his master. Phane was still defined in her mind by the stories she’d read. It was difficult to believe that history had been so perverted, twisted, and distorted that the whole world believed Phane was a monster when he was really the true champion of the Old Law.

  She wanted to believe-desperately needed to believe-that he had come to save her people. Without help, the people of Fellenden would suffer immeasurably at the hands of Zuhl’s brutes. Reports of an army marching against the barbarian horde, flying the banner of the Reishi, gave her some measure of hope that help had arrived. Was it too little? Was it too late? The sad answer for far too many of her countrymen was yes.

  Tens of thousands had already perished, maybe more. The thought of it made her nausea threaten to send her into convulsions again, even though there was nothing left for her stomach to heave.

  The knock came again, this time more forcefully.

  Drogan looked at her, then at the door. When she ignored them both, he sighed quietly. The sea journey didn’t seem to faze him in the least.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I have a meal for you,” a strangely familiar voice said through the door.

  Lacy swallowed hard against a threatened convulsion.

  “I’m not hungry,” she managed.

  “I am,” Drogan said, getting up and going to the door.

  A grimy, weather-worn sailor stood at the threshold with a tray of food.

  Drogan nodded his thanks and took the tray, turning to put it on the little table bolted to the floor across from the bunk beds. In an instant, the sailor was through the door with a short, stout club in hand.

  Before Lacy could muster a warning, he brought it down hard on the back of Drogan’s skull. The big man went down with a thud, lying still, though still breathing. Lacy sat up on her bed and drew her dagger.

  Flashing her a wicked grin, the sailor closed the door and threw the bolt, then spun back toward her, pointing the stout little club in her direction. “Let’s you and I have a chat.”

  His voice sounded so familiar.

  “You have something I need,” he said. “Give it to me and I’ll let you live … for now.”

  Realization slammed into her-he sounded just like Wizard Saul did after the thing made of darkness entered him.

  “You’re a quick study, girl,” the sailor said, smiling at her expression. “Did you really think a little water would stand between me and my prize?”

  “You’re Rankosi,” Lacy said, the tip of her dagger shaking as she pointed it toward the creature that had been hunting her since the day she’d recovered the little black box.

  “Yes, I am … now give me the keystone.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Come now, Child. You’ve had it since the tomb. That box may be able to hide the keystone from others but not from me. Now hand it over.”

  Lacy stood, shaking her head slowly, keeping her dagger pointed at the sailor.

  “If you kill this body, I’ll just take another. Perhaps that one,” he said, motioning toward Drogan. “I doubt he could resist me, considering the master he serves.”

  “My father entrusted me with this. I won’t fail him.”

  “Oh, but you already have. You’re all alone on this ship, in the middle of the ocean … with me. There’s no one here who could ever hope to master me. Even if I fail to get my prize with this body, there are many others I can use.”

  “No,” Lacy said. In that moment she was sure of just one thing-in his moment of greatest need, her father had entrusted her with this one task and she would not fail him while she still drew breath.

  She lunged, driving her dagger toward his gut, but he was quick, too quick. He brought his club up, hitting her on the inside of the forearm, sending her dagger skittering under the table. She gasped at the sudden pain of the blow. Her arm didn’t feel broken, but she couldn’t make her fingers work.

  The sailor crashed into her, driving her into the lower bunk, pinning her into the corner. His breath was rank and he smelled of sweat and brandy. His face was just inches from hers as he stared her in the eye, darkness and hate dancing in his gaze.

  He seemed to master himself and then spun her around, shoving her awkwardly, face first into the corner so he could hastily bind her hands, tightly looping a piece of cord around her wrists, adding to the pain in her arm.

  With a heave, he dragged her from the bunk and tossed her roughly onto the floor. She fell hard, knocking the wind from her and adding a bruised hip to her injuries.

  “Let’s see, these must be your things, yes?”

  Lacy didn’t answer.

  He took up her pack and dumped it out on the table, carelessly tossing her possessions onto the floor until he found the little black box wrapped in a square of cloth. He set it on the table and carefully unwrapped it, taking pains to avoid actually touching the box itself.

  “Pity I don’t still have the wizard,” he muttered. “His talents might have been useful right about now.”

  After a few moments of looking at the seamless box from every angle, Rankosi hauled Lacy to her feet and roughly sat her down on the bench facing the table.

  “Open it.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Try.”

  “My hands are bound.”

  He unwound the cord from her wrists, setting her hands to tingling.

  “Open it!”

  She clenched her jaw and shook her head.

  He put her hand on the table and raised his club over it. She whimpered, clenching her eyes shut but still shaking her head.

  Bones shattered as he brought the club down on the back of her hand. She cried out, pain like nothing she’d ever felt coursing up her arm, filling her shoulder and chest, ripping through her flesh and threatening her very sanity. In the back of her mind, in a place she didn’t even know existed, she thought about all of the people on Fellenden who’d suffered similar torture, or worse. Before this moment, she didn’t know that anything could hurt so much. She gasped for breath, pain threatening to overpower her consciousness, but her resolve held firm.

  “Open it!” Rankosi demanded in a harsh whisper.

  “No!” she shouted through tears and torment.

  He grabbed her broken hand and squeezed.

  She gasped again, agony flooding into her as broken bones scraped together. Darkness closed in around her and she drifted off into peaceful oblivion.

  ***

  Pain returned before consciousness did. She was floating in that halfway place between sleep and wakefulness, pain surrounding her and engulfing her until she came fully awake with a start, gasping and whimpering at the sudden onslaught of torment from her broken hand.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” Rankosi said, “seems I might have hit your friend here a bit too hard. He’s still out cold. So where were we? Ah yes. Open the box!”

  “I can’t,” Lacy whimpered. “I don’t know how.”

  “Try.”

  “No.” />
  “You’re stronger than I would have thought,” Rankosi said. “Perhaps I’m going about this all wrong.”

  He drew a knife and carefully, slowly placed it at Drogan’s throat. “He’s nothing to me but a body. Open it or I’ll kill him.”

  Lacy swallowed and shook her head.

  Rankosi smiled wickedly and his arm started to tense.

  “Stop!” Lacy said.

  “Yes?”

  “He didn’t do anything to you.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “He doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “This is between you and me, leave him out of this. He can’t hurt you, he’s totally defenseless.”

  “Yes, he is. Now open the box or he dies.”

  Lacy struggled to regain her feet, wincing when she started to use her broken hand for leverage. She staggered to the bench and faced the little black box. Her father had entrusted her with this task, she couldn’t let him down, yet a man’s life hung in the balance. What would her father do? What would he expect of her?

  He’d always taught her to value life above all else. She closed her eyes tightly, tears slipping down both cheeks as her resolve faltered.

  Tentatively, cautiously, she reached for the box with her left hand. It felt cool to the touch. She tried to lift the top of the box as if it had a lid with hinges, but nothing happened. She picked it up and carefully looked it over for any sign or seam, but found nothing. She slammed it against the table-still nothing.

  “I don’t know how to open it,” she said, hanging her head.

  Rankosi stared at the box for several seconds.

  “Place your hand on it and think of it opening,” he said. “See it open in your mind.”

  Lacy did as he instructed.

  Nothing happened.

  Then it started to glow. She snatched her hand back, staring in wonder at the symbol that had become visible on all sides of the box.

  Rankosi smiled in triumph.

  “Place your hand on the box and say the word: Ruminoct.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.