by D. P. Prior
“I have hardly achieved more,” Tey said. “Even with a well. And how quickly the well runs dry.”
[For now,] the Shedim said. [But with each stolen essence it stretches. To maximize your growth in sorcery, you must push yourself to the limit each and every time; take more than you can currently hold; force your well to expand.]
“But how do I—” Tey stopped herself. She already knew the answer, but in case there was any uncertainty, the Shedim finished the thought for her.
[More passion, more fear, more cruelty. The donor’s final agony must be excruciating, if you are to magnify every last drop of their essence.]
“Why?” Tey asked.
[Why so much pain and suffering? Why so much passion? Or why do you need so much power?]
“Yes, that.”
[Isn’t that what you wanted?]
It was and it wasn’t. She couldn’t deny that she wanted the means to protect herself, to make sure no one could do to her what her father had done. That had always been her plan. But Tey was no fool. She knew this was all about what the Shedim wanted. What it needed her for.
The Witch Woman strained to be unleashed so she could commence her probing, so she could interrogate and cajole and threaten. But that might force the Shedim to retaliate or withdraw. Tey didn’t know enough about the creature yet. She needed to be patient.
“What about the bracelet I found on the skeleton?”
[It is nothing. A relic from an ancient time. It is of no worth.]
More reason to keep it, then. The Shedim was lying. She could tell somehow, whether from the subtle change in its voice or the nearly imperceptible shift in her marrow. But she knew.
[You should rest now.] The Shedim sounded benign. As though it had her best interests at heart. More than likely it was satisfied that the crisis had been averted, that she had ceased to cut herself in ways that were outside of its control.
Tey reclined her seat, clutching her satchel to her belly, and the room was once more pitched into darkness.
Eyes wide open, she lay there trying to think, wishing she could project her scars onto the blackness so she could study them, make comparisons with the markings on the vambrace and Slyndon Grun’s finger. Come to understand them. Learn how to make her own designs.
“Tey?”
It was Vrom’s whispered voice. She couldn’t see him in the darkness.
“Tey, are you awake?”
She lay still. Something about his tone made her feel uncomfortable. She heard the scuff of his boots on the floor.
“Tey, there’s something I want you to know.” He was breathless. Maybe afraid. “I thought… I feel… I mean…”
Afraid of being rejected.
“Go to sleep, Vrom.”
She rolled onto her side. Instinctively she reached for the knitting needle embedded in her injured leg, but it was no longer there. She’d left it in Slyndon Grun’s eye.
“Tey, please—”
“I mean it, Vrom.”
She heard him start to leave, hesitate, then move away. Her hands shook with the need to stab or cry or scream. She held her breath so long, her lungs began to burn. When she was certain he’d returned to his reclining chair, she exhaled, then began to suck in shallow gasps of air that made her dizzy.
She fumbled open her satchel and took out a potion. Raising herself on one elbow, she unstoppered the bottle and drained the contents, then lay back as the truth powder mixed with moonshine suffused her skin with heat and slowly began to drown her racing thoughts.
THE WAKEFUL ISLE
What Snaith had at first taken for a craggy shoreline was in fact the ruins of an enormous fortification shrouded in mist. Obsidian buttresses rose from the depths of the lake to the height of twenty men. Broken-toothed stonework, glistening and black, was all that remained of the curtain walls above. The end of the jetty the boat was moored alongside met a passageway through the base of the structure. Overhead, a portcullis was suspended within grooved jambs cut into the stone, an invitation to enter, a threat you might never leave. Snaith couldn’t imagine anything breaching those walls, and yet clearly something had, if this was all that was left.
Following his gaze, Theurig said, “The Citadel of the Wakeful once covered this entire island. Tall as a mountain, they say. Tiers upon tiers of ramparts, embrasured turrets, murder holes, and arched walkways crisscrossing the heights. All of it glistening black stone harder than diamond, impervious as steel.”
“Then how—”
Theurig jabbed a finger at the tattoo he had inked on Snaith’s chest. “The Wyvern of Necras, during the reign of the Shedim—they inherited the citadel at the heart of the Dark Isle from their sires, the Wakeful.”
“Whose spirits seeped into the earth, you say?” Snaith needed confirmation that the shadows that had assailed him during the night weren’t just the yearnings of his disquieted flesh for more of what Tey had done to him.
Theurig chuckled, eyes focused on the corridor through the buttresses, where a Lakeling waited for them. “Ghosts haunting the ruins and wastelands of Branikdür. Why do you think the Hélumites left?”
“The rain?”
“That too.” Theurig’s eyebrows shot up with amusement. “So, the Wyvern of Necras: it was the turning point in the war and ultimately led to the banishment of the Shedim from Nemus. Is it any wonder the Seven of Hélum worship it as their deliverer?”
Before Snaith could ask any further questions, Theurig was off beneath the portcullis, bag over his shoulder, staff in hand. The Lakeling’s feathered cloak was a swirl of shadows as he turned and took the lead.
Snaith followed at a wary pace, craning his neck to take in the sheer breadth of the buttresses he passed between, while automatically counting the steps it took till he was within the ruins of the citadel. Sixty-six paces wide, the stonework seamless, as if the buttresses were cast from one mountainous piece of rock.
He looked up into the overcast sky, wondering at the immensity of the structure this had once been and marveling that the Wyvern could have even scratched it, let alone brought it crashing down. Unconsciously, he traced the inking on his chest with a finger. And then a thought occurred to him:
“Where’s the rubble?”
Theurig turned back to face him, leaning on his staff.
The Lakeling drew up sharp, the tilt of his bird-mask giving Snaith the uncomfortable feeling he was being scrutinized, or perhaps threatened.
“Much of it was shipped to Hélum, if the Seven are to be believed. It was used to build their compound, keep them safe from those they govern.”
“Safe?”
Theurig gave a lazy wave of his hand. “Oh, you can never be too careful, no matter how powerful you are. No matter how ancient. Of course, it could all be propaganda; you know, a connection with the mythical past: ‘See, we reside in a building made from the ruins of the citadel we conquered.’ For all I know, the Seven’s compound could be black-painted dung-brick.”
The Lakeling led them deeper into the interior and away from the shadow of the walls. Clouds of mosquitoes followed them, zipping past Snaith’s ears with a whining buzz. He swiped at them with his good hand, but they still pricked his skin until it was an agony of itching, and he cursed Theurig for making him remove his tunic.
They climbed a gentle gradient, the ground rough and coal-like, as if it had been scorched a long time ago by flames impossibly hot. It was tufted with shrubs and thistles, most of which also grew on the mainland but some Snaith had never seen before. Skeletal trees dotted the escarpment, bark effusing a soft green radiance the same hue as the lanterns. He caught fleeting glimpses of Lakelings with bladed staffs gliding between the trunks.
They reached a plateau forested with cypress, maple, and sweet gum, and passed beneath the canopy of leaves. Squirrels leapt between branches, and skinks darted amid the roots.
The forest was awash with sound: the warbling cackle of some kind of bird, the chatter of unseen monkeys, the rat-tat-tat of a
woodpecker. A damp, peaty smell permeated the air, interspersed with whiffs of scented smoke whenever they headed into the wind.
After a mile or two Snaith’s blistered feet began to protest once more, and he lagged further behind. Theurig called a halt and waited for him to catch up. The sorcerer’s beard was matted with sweat, and his forehead sported a cluster of angry bites that he couldn’t refrain from scratching. The Lakeling crossed his arms over his chest, pulling his cloak of feathers tight. The amber eyes of his bird mask panned between Snaith and Theurig. It was hard to tell whether he was impatient or simply appraising his charges.
“If I ever become Archmage,” Theurig said, “I’ll abandon the Wakeful Isle for the northern hinterlands, where they say the hills are carpeted with snow and mosquitoes are only a traveler’s tale.”
Is that what you want? To be Archmage?
Snaith forced a smile. He looked around at the neverending forest, at the overhanging branches that added their weight to the oppression of the churlish skies. “How big is the isle?”
Theurig shrugged. “A few miles. Though walking in this heat makes it seem more.”
“And the citadel encompassed the whole isle?”
“Remarkable, isn’t it? I’d like to see people today construct something on that scale. Can you imagine Chief Crav Bellosh and the clan doing such a thing? I’d be surprised if they managed so much as a mountain of wattle and daub that collapsed under its own weight.”
“I still can’t picture it,” Snaith said, trying in his mind to reconstruct the curtain walls above the buttresses. He stalled when he considered where the turrets would have been, how big they were, the pitch of their roofs.
“There are sketches in Cawdor. You are planning on continuing with Cawdor, I assume?”
Snaith gave a noncommittal grunt. He was about ready to give up on The Four Invasions of Branikdür. Maybe he’d just flick through the rest, take in the pictures, read the odd line or two. If only. He knew himself better than that. No matter how tedious it was wading through Cawdor’s prose, no matter how badly he wanted to stop reading, Snaith knew he’d be poring over every last word again and again until he understood all that Cawdor was trying to relate. His mind wouldn’t stand for anything less.
The pictures were another matter entirely. One glance and he’d have them stored away. Give him a team of laborers and a glimpse of Cawdor’s sketches, and he’d be able to rebuild the Citadel of the Wakeful from memory. It was a heady thought. But what would he do with an island fortress? More to the point, how long would it take to build? Decades? Centuries? How long had it taken the Wakeful? He put the question to Theurig.
“Well, there’s the thing,” the sorcerer said. “According to the myths, the citadel wasn’t built, it was grown.”
“Magic?”
“So they say. Lore stolen from the Gardeners, who themselves inherited it from the Crafters, the creators of Nemus.”
The magic of creation? Snaith glanced at Theurig. If magic exists. He looked away, up at the heights, imagining, seething, remembering. Lies upon lies. The conniving bastard probably has no idea what the truth is anymore. If he ever did. But he’s going to know it soon. And then I’ll get my book back.
It was the curse of a mind like Snaith’s: one thought led to another; associations were heaped upon associations. Theurig had said there was no magic. People had died. Then he’d recanted. Or had he? Then what Tey had told Snaith about Vrom Mowry and the rot. Theurig taking his father’s book. It was a volatile chain of sparks that raced toward an explosion. But it was a sorcerer’s game Snaith was playing now, not a warrior’s. The tactics were different. It was all about observation and timing.
With an effort of will, he unclenched his fist and shook his head at the immensity of the ruins. That was what people did in the face of awe-inspiring spectacle, wasn’t it? It was what was expected.
Theurig’s eyes sparkled, and he gave Snaith a nod that said he understood, that it was the same for him the first time he’d seen what was left of the Citadel of the Wakeful.
Twat.
They pressed on through the forest, following the Lakeling, until they reached a vast circular glade. Standing at the center of the clearing was the gigantic effigy of a man woven from branches, vines, and creepers. Fresh flowers had been arranged at its feet. Its legs were filled with straw, the torso an empty cage of wood bound together by vegetation. Its arms were raised to the sky, and its oval head was covered with skins, one side black, the other white. The painted face bore an expression that might have been ecstatic, might have been agonized. Snaith couldn’t tell. In all, the figure must have been over fifty feet tall.
“I wouldn’t be High King for all the books in Slyndon Grun’s library,” Theurig said. “Ten years of glory, and then this. Imprisoned within the chest as they set the legs alight. The last High King melted before the flames reached him. Like wax it was, the way his skin dripped. I’ll never forget how the bones of his feet clattered as they fell—a hail of metatarsals and phalanges. What does he have left, Drulk Skanfok? Two years? Three?”
“Four,” Snaith said. Poor bastard.
On the far side of the glade they passed through another stretch of forest, but here they followed a well-used track rife with cattle dung and hoofprints in the mud. Gradually, the trees gave way to fields, and the Lakeling led them in among wheat crops and corn until they reached the outskirts of a village.
Smoke from dozens of bonfires plumed into the air, carrying with it the scent Snaith had first detected back in the forest: sweet and pungent, reminiscent of weedstick smoke but with something else mixed in.
The Lakeling stood aside and gestured for them to go on without him, then turned and headed back the way they had come.
Theurig approached the village with the assuredness of someone who had been there many times before, and Snaith kept close to his side.
There was little design to the settlement. It struck Snaith as a random cluster of domed huts made out of mud, bark, and leaves. As Theurig led them down the central thoroughfare, Lakelings began to emerge from canvas-covered doorways—men, women, and children, all of them masked and cloaked, birdlike beings better fitted to the Nethers than the world above. They watched in silence as Snaith and Theurig passed by.
The sorcerer stopped beside a well at the village center and drew up water to freshen his face and wash the worst of the dirt from his boots. Snaith followed suit, only wishing he could unwrap his feet and soak them. Any other place he would have done, but not here. Not with the sense of foreboding that had been creeping up his spine since they’d arrived at the Wakeful Isle.
After they had washed, a solitary Lakeling—a woman, and elderly, judging by her stoop—brought them a basket of warm bread and spiced meats, along with a goblet each of wine sweetened with honey. The drink left Snaith feeling refreshed, and more relaxed than he’d been in a long time.
While they were finishing up the food, an ox-drawn cart clattered from between the huts toward them, the Lakeling driver goading the beast on with lazy lashes of a birch cane.
They traveled in the cart, seated on bales of hay, downwind of the village and its scented fires. The forest grew more sparse, until there were just isolated trees scattered about the charred and rocky ground. Shrubs gave way to cacti, and coal-black termite mounds stood in clusters, some of them as tall as a man. In the hazy distance Snaith could make out the outline of a mesa, and this time he shook his head in genuine awe. A tabletop mountain within the walls of a citadel. The idea was staggering.
Snaith was bounced around on his seat as the cart bumped along a rough road. In places, deep grooves had been gouged into the rocky surface, and he wondered just how many carts had come this way, and over how many centuries.
Theurig pointed out a distant shape along the side of the road up ahead, the mesa looming sullenly in the background. At first it was too small for Snaith to see any details, but as the cart took them nearer, he could make out wings and a viciou
s-looking head atop a sinuous body.
“Is that—”
“Yes,” Theurig said. “The Wyvern of Necras.”
HIRSIGA
Tey started awake and sat upright, the backrest of the chair she’d been reclining on coming up with her. Red light limned the eight walls of the chamber. That was odd; it had been lavender before, and it had been dark when she’d fallen asleep.
A vibration passed through the black band on her wrist. She glanced at its crystal oval. It was glowing. Sorcerous specks of green light chased each other across its face, forming shapes that instantly dissolved, too fast for her to keep up. A second vibration, and the crystal’s light died. It was a dead thing once more, inert. All its magic apparently spent.
She scanned the room for sign of her companions, but they were gone. Had they abandoned her down here? She didn’t know about Pheklus or Hirsiga, but Vrom? Surely not. Unless he’d been angered by her rejection and had persuaded the others to leave her behind.
A fist of ice enclosed her heart. What if she couldn’t find the way out on her own? Remembering the Shedim, she tried to call to it, but her lips were paralyzed, her jaw rigid. Was it an effect of the moonshine potion? Or had Pheklus done something to her while she slept?
Dust motes swirled in the stale air coming down from the vents in the ceiling. They formed a vortex above the pit in the floor. It tugged at Tey’s dress, sucked her hair out in front of her face. She grew entranced by it. Somehow she knew that if she stood and went to it, she would be lost. Part of her would have responded, but she couldn’t rise from her chair. Her maimed leg refused to move. She examined it with both hands. It felt cold: coarse and granulated, textured like stone. She tried getting her hands beneath it, but it was too heavy to shift.
The chill from her leg seeped into her groin, then up to her belly. Her hands followed the sensation, feeling the hardness of rock spreading beneath her dress. Her breath clogged in her throat as she tried to scream and could not. The coldness reached her chest, solidified around her heart.