“What happened?” Meiran prodded softly.
Quin lowered his chin until his eyes were lost under the shadows of his hat. “The day Amani died was the first day I ever drank. I drank until I pissed myself, hoping that would stop her from reading me. I didn’t want her feeling my emotions. She had enough to deal with already.”
He turned away. With his hat in his hand, he gestured at the sleeping boy. “Somewhere that child has parents. Maybe we can talk them into giving us a meal and a place to sleep.”
“Wait. Let me heal you,” Meiran insisted.
“No, darling. I’ll be wearing these stripes for another day or two. At least until we’re out of this gods-forsaken town.” His face became stern. “But just so we’re clear on this: next time, Prime Warden, you can pay the price for your own decisions. I’ve already got enough on my tab.”
♦ ♦ ♦
They remained at the temple entrance until the boy’s father finally arrived, sprinting up the steps, confused and belligerent. Meiran couldn’t understand anything the man was shouting at Quin, only that he was fierce and hostile, the brunt of his anger directed at the darkmage. He scooped his son up in his arms, tossing the boy over his shoulder like a sack and, still shouting curses behind him, carried the flailing body of his child down and off the temple steps.
“Well, that’s gratitude if I ever saw it,” the darkmage seethed, watching the pair disappear into the streets. “Rub my nose in the sand, will you?” He turned his head to the side and spat.
Meiran could only shake her head. “These people are awful,” she muttered quietly. “They’re barbarians.”
“No, Prime Warden. They’re not barbarians. They’re just desperate,” Quin corrected her, staring off into the shadowed distance. “A brutal country makes for brutal people. They’ve endured so much for so very long.” He sighed, adjusting his hat. “Come on, let’s get going.”
“Going where?”
Quin gritted his teeth as he bent over to retrieve his clothing from off the ground. Then he turned and trudged away from her, his gait stiff as he wandered toward the entrance to the temple. “The priests offered us a place to stay for the night. Since that child’s father wasn’t inclined to shelter us, I figure we should take the clerics up on their offer of hospitality.”
Meiran tensed at the idea, not liking it one bit. She had no desire to spend an evening in a house of Quin’s dark god. “Is there another option?”
Quin shook his head. “Not if you want to eat.”
He strode back toward the temple, carrying his coat and tunic wadded against his side. A thin line of blood leaked from one of the welts raised on his back. Meiran followed him, a gust of wind fanning the strands of her long brown hair.
Within was a narrow corridor lit by blazing torches ensconced upon the walls. The passage angled sharply downward, curving. It was chill within, but not nearly as cold as the ground outside. The air was moist, thick with smoke and the stench of oil and decay. Meiran walked with her eyes on Quin’s wounds, silently counting his protruding ribs. In life, Quinlan Reis had not been a healthy man. In death, he hadn’t fared much better.
That last thought made her stop. For a moment, Meiran stood frozen between strides, her weight balanced over her feet. For some reason, it hit her. Just then. Quinlan Reis was not alive. Even though he stood there bleeding before her, he was not a living human being.
“Everything all right, darling?”
He had paused to turn back and stare at her, eyebrows raised expectantly.
Meiran gaped at him, appalled. “Are you truly dead, Quin?”
His face turned into a troubled mask of confusion. Slowly, understanding grew in his dark eyes. “Oh, I am very dead, I assure you.” he told her gently. “Reunited with my body, but only just temporarily. I’m afraid it’s not a permanent condition. But then again, life is never a permanent condition, now, is it?”
“No. It’s not,” Meiran whispered. She swallowed. “So, tell me, Quin. What is the difference?”
He stared at her flatly. “Are you asking me what it means to be a demon?”
Meiran nodded.
Quinlan reached up and scratched his chin. He moved toward her until he was gazing down into her face. His expression was very solemn and very tired. “It means that this is all there is,” he said softly. “This is all that’s left for me. No more.”
Meiran frowned up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, let’s take you, for example. You’ve got your life to live, Prime Warden. Maybe you’ll make a difference and maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll be happy. Maybe you won’t. It really doesn’t matter. Because when you die, no matter what, you get to move on to a better place. A place where you can be with the people you love and who love you. You will know happiness and peace.
“But for me, this is it. This is as good as it gets.” He spread his arms, turning slowly around, displaying the angry stripes that crossed his back. “I have nothing to look forward to. This is my moment of glory. My chance to prove myself. Either I make a difference now or my entire existence has been for absolutely nothing. Because if the Well of Tears is ever sealed again, I won’t be coming back. I’ll be trapped in Hell forever—and Hell is not a happy place to be. In truth, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Meiran found herself staring at the ground by the time he had finished speaking. She had drawn a link with him and had been reading his emotions the entire time. She knew that Quin Reis was telling the truth. She could feel the weight of his weary despair.
At last, she finally understood the price Darien had paid to bring her back. He had given up far more than just his life; he had sacrificed his every last hope of peace.
“There must be something you can do,” she protested, feeling a hot stab of grief tightening her chest. “There must be some way you can redeem yourself.”
Quin quirked his mouth, shrugging slightly. “There is. But I would have to accomplish something profound enough to tip the balance of my soul.”
Meiran considered his words. “You don’t seem so very evil,” she argued. “Such an act might be possible.”
“Oh, I’m evil enough, have no doubt,” the darkmage assured her.
Through her link with him, Meiran could sense the truth of his words. As unbelievable as it seemed, Quinlan Reis spoke nothing but fact.
“How can that be?” she asked. “I don’t sense that kind of evil in you.”
“There is nothing but evil left in me, darling. Don’t you understand?” He leaned forward until his face was only scant inches from her own. An angry desperation seethed in his eyes. “I betrayed the woman I loved. I betrayed my own brother. I betrayed the Lyceum, my clansmen, my entire nation. I even betrayed my own gods! There is literally no one alive in this world today whose life hasn’t been impacted by my choices. Don’t you get it? I caused the Desecration. Me! No one else. All of this horror that you see all around you: the darkness, the starvation, the suffering, the wars, the death — it’s all my own damn fault!”
Meiran stared up at him, too horrified to speak. For long seconds, all she could do was gape. “How can that be?” she demanded, face twisted in disgust. “You didn’t create the Well of Tears.”
Quin Reis pulled back from her and spun away. He reached up, settling the brim of his hat lower on his head, adjusting it down until his eyes were lost in shadow.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I didn’t create the Well of Tears. But I swear by all the gods, I’m going to be the one who destroys it.”
Chapter Twelve
The Black Lands
The Ghost Waste, The Black Lands
DARIEN STARED OUT across the bow of the vessel that carried them, smoking and sputtering, against the river’s swift current. The terrain on both sides of the watercourse was dark and undulating, blacker than the pit of Hell and twice as deadly. It was as if they were adrift in a tempestuous sea of shadowy dunes that rolled like the swells of an ocean, broken only by the o
ccasional rock that seemed to bob like flotsam in the rolling darkscape.
The boat they had boarded in Ibri was contrary to anything in Darien’s personal experience. Instead of sails, the barge was powered by steam. River water was heated in an iron boiler and then condensed, its energy directed through long, corkscrewing shafts that drove two paddle wheels on opposite sides of the vessel. The barge was flat and long, big enough to hold every person in Haleem’s caravan, along with the assortment of goods they carried. The craft was fitted with two large stacks that belched forth dense plumes of smoke into the air. The going was tedious, painfully slow.
“They call this the Ghost Waste.”
Darien nodded in silent acknowledgment. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to speak to Azár in two days. The anxiety provoked by the absence of the magic field taxed his patience; he didn’t trust himself to speak. Funny; ever since he had made a purposeful decision to ignore the woman, Azár seemed hell-bent on conversation.
“They call it the Ghost Waste because the Spirits of the Wild roam this desert,” Azár elaborated. She was leaning on her elbows over the rail beside him.
Darien didn’t reply. Instead, he focused his attention on the deck just under his feet and did his best to ignore her. The loss of the magic field made his skin crawl. Even after two days, he hadn’t been able to rid himself of the feeling of infestation, like a host of parasites burrowing just beneath the surface of his skin. For the twentieth time that hour, he scratched at the same red spot on the back of his arm. It didn’t help. No matter what he did, he couldn’t be rid of the feeling that there were insects crawling over him.
“It is said that the Spirits of the Wild are the shades of all the animals that once roamed these wastes,” Azár went on. “I cannot tell you if that is accurate. All I know is that they wander endlessly and hunger endlessly. They are very dangerous and must be avoided at all cost.”
Again, Darien could only bring himself to nod. She was speaking in answer to a question he’d never asked. He raked his nails over the back of his hand then brought his arm up to scrub the acrid sting of smoke out of his eyes.
The desert was cold and clear. Despite the darkness, it was just as parched as any desert he’d ever looked upon. Azár insisted that the Ghost Waste had once been a rich and fertile grassland. But that was before the Desecration. Now, with no plants to hold down the topsoil, wind had eroded the steppe into a denuded expanse of black sand drifts. The thin line of the River Nym followed a meandering course along the bases of the dunes, progressing ever westward.
Darien glanced up and blinked, frowning intensely.
“Is that magelight?”
Ahead, in the distance, the horizon was bathed in a diffuse warm glow, like a blanketing, ethereal haze.
“Those are the lightfields of Bryn Calazar,” Azár said, drawing herself up straight. “When we reach the lightfields, we will then be outside of the power vortex. There, you can feel safe again.”
Darien glared at her. His foul mood had as much to do with this woman’s contempt for him as it had with the vortex. He grimaced, regretting ever speaking to Azár at all. He lowered his hand back to his side, taking comfort in the thanacryst’s presence. He scratched the demon-hound on the back of the neck, running his hand up and over an ear. The beast leaned its head back, nuzzling Darien’s thigh in gratitude for the attention.
The boat glided onward, following the course of the river as it snaked its way around the gravelly base of an eroded drumlin. A breeze came up, pungent with the smell of coal soot. The glow on the horizon grew ever-brighter as they neared, like a golden aurora washing the sky in sparkling tides of light.
And then he saw the impossible: vibrant, living fields of green.
The black plains ahead miraculously yielded to sprawling acres of verdant farmland, extending outward away from them as far as the eye could see.
Darien moved forward, his hand fiercely gripping the steel rail of the barge. His mouth gaped in disbelief. Under the sinuous ribbons of magelight grew enough food to sustain all of Bryn Calazar. Perhaps all of Malikar.
“Lightfields,” he whispered. “You use magelight to grow your crops. How can that be? Plants require such a broad range of colors. How can you produce enough magelight to cover enough of the sun’s spectrum?”
Azár smiled with pride. “Many legacies were brought together long ago to produce the most effective blend of light.”
Darien regarded her in wonder. That explained the golden brilliance of the magelight that mirrored the light of the Rhen’s living sun. It was a mixture, the combination of many magical lineages. Because that’s how sunlight worked; it wasn’t like paint, where blending all of the colors together on a palette would only yield black. Sunlight was the result of mixing together every color of the rainbow at once.
Such an undertaking, though…such a tragedy. Blending enough magical legacies to produce this character of light must have required rivers of mage-blood.
“Gods’ mercy,” Darien whispered, voice gruff with horror. “How many deaths did that take?”
“Not as many as you would think,” Azár assured him, looking both proud and dreadful at the same time. “There were not many mages left after the Desecration; all those trapped within the Lyceum were killed. So, it took a lot of time. Many generations. Many years of starvation, until we could begin to approach the quality of light that was necessary.”
“You’re a Lightweaver,” Darien spat almost accusingly. “How many combined lineages are inside you? What tier do you rank?”
Azár shrugged. “The number of lineages doesn’t matter. There is no record of that. But I can tell you that I am second tier.”
“Second tier?”
“Yes. Second tier.”
Darien spread his hands, indicating the wide swath of magelight that rippled across the sky above them. “How can you come close to managing something as vast as all this if you are only second tier?”
Azár lifted her chin, her eyes hostile and seething. “Because this is what we are trained to do. It is all that we do. When we arrive back at my village, I will weave the light. That is all I will do, every day of my life, until my death. Then someone else will weave the light after me.”
At last, Darien finally understood. He understood completely.
He lowered his eyes, too appalled to gaze any longer at the verdant fields that lined the riverway. He understood the tremendous sacrifice it took to grow those fields, of the lives of the mages who sustained them.
He walked back toward the stern of the boat, leaving both Lightweaver and thanacryst behind. Soft golden rays streamed down from the sky, dappling his shoulders and warming the skin of his face. Even the cool breeze moving across the bow couldn’t suppress that glowing warmth. Darien closed his eyes. He spread his hands beneath the coruscating ribbons, savoring the warm texture of the magelight. For just a moment, he felt almost content.
♦ ♦ ♦
The Khazahar Desert, The Black Lands
They were a week out from Bryn Calazar’s lightfields. The sky had grown dark once again, the clouds stretching high overhead, hostile and angry, ever-brooding. A queer green light emanated from deep within their depths, fluttering spastically like a failing heartbeat.
Darien hadn’t spoken to Azár again. He stood now at the bow of the steam vessel, feet apart, cloak drawn out behind him on the wind. He gazed out across the still, black waters and dark expanse of terrain. The hardpan of the desert bristled with a forest of vertical pipes that were shoved hither and thither like great spikes driven fast into the ground. Every so often one would give a great, fat belch of flames. More pipes sprawled across the soil, twisting like iron snakes.
He didn’t know what manner of hell the pipes brought forth from the ground. He only knew that the sight and stench of such industry caused a thick lump of dread to catch in his throat like a ball of half-chewed food. He swallowed against that lump, forcing it down into his stomach. There, it sat like a br
ick, eating at his middle.
The sound of shouts came from behind them. Darien turned. Men were running toward the side of the craft, carrying thick coils of rope over their shoulders that they cast out over the railing of the steamer.
They were putting into shore.
“This is as far as the river will take us. After this, the water becomes too shallow. Get your pack. We walk from here.”
Darien flinched at the sound of Azár’s voice. It was the first time she had spoken since the lightfields. He complied without a word, striding over to where he had left his pack, picking it up and shrugging it on over his shoulders. He straightened his back under the weight of it, then looked expectantly at Azár.
Haleem’s people disembarked first, dragging their possessions along after them in a drawn-out, single-file train. Darien and Azár fell in toward the end of the line, the demon-hound trotting dutifully after.
A paved road led away from the way station, cutting through the black center of the desert. It was lined with rocks and human bones and all manner of debris. On either side of the road, the barren waste appeared exceptionally sinister and foreboding. The blackened sand shifted and shimmered with tiny flecks of mica that sparkled like stars in the brief flashes of cloud light.
Azár smiled and asked, “How long are you going to remain sulking?”
Darien ignored the woman. He concentrated on the path under his feet, on the clank of items that shifted in his pack at every stride. On the crunch of gravel just under his boots.
“There is much you need to learn. Like this. Do you even know what this means?”
She was gesturing at a formation of long, flat stones stacked purposefully one atop the other, arranged into a knee-high projection along the side of the path.
Darien shrugged. He didn’t know or care about the purpose of the rocks.
“It is a marker.” Azár fumed at him with turbulent eyes. “It says, ‘Water is this way.’ Another could say, ‘A village lies this way.’ Things like that.”
Darklands (The Rhenwars Saga Book 3) Page 14