When all the men were down or dead, Utik’cah came padding up behind him, aghast.
‘How did you do that, Lord Samuel? What magic is this that can make you move like the wind?’
‘My will is stronger than these decrepit stones,’ was Samuel’s reply, for even his current trickle of magic was enough to enhance his movements for a short time.
‘You are wounded!’ Utik’cah then said, for a steel blade was stuck in Samuel’s belly, pinning his robes to his skin.
Samuel grasped it with his hand and threw the curved knife to the floor. Blood like treacle slapped onto the stones, but he felt nothing.
‘Are you somehow now a god?’ the desert-man asked in awe.
‘I doubt it, but I am stronger than before. Something has happened to me that I do not yet understand. However, I do need to get out of this mountain quickly. It still draws at me and my body needs to be properly healed. To do that, I need my full strength.’
They hurried along, darting through more twisting and turning passages, and soon the great opening became visible ahead: a bright, white slash against the darkness of the caverns. Again, the pair was forced to stop, for a host of sword-bearing guards blocked the way, twenty deep and shoulder to shoulder across the stone hall. Wizards stood with them, silhouetted by brilliant cowls of magic.
‘What do we do now, Lord Samuel? Can you fight them all? We are not out of the mountain yet,’ Utik’cah said.
‘Near enough,’ was Samuel’s response for the exit was in sight and the stone had already lost much of its potency here. He called to the ether and a howling wind came rushing into the cavern, shunting the guards to their knees and blowing Samuel’s tattered hair behind him. Utik’cah sheltered behind himto avoid the furious gale.
Feeling the cool wind in his face, Samuel felt invigorated and he took a long, savouring breath of fresh air. Magic stirred inside him and he felt it fizzing in his blood, filling him with vitality.
As the Paatin guards and wizards climbed to their feet, a wave of fire burst out from the Order magician and they disappeared within it, dropping their weapons and covering their faces. The flames, squealing with white-hot fury, enveloped them and churned their flesh to ash.
‘This mountain can hold me no longer,’ Samuel spoke, revelling in the sweet taste of his magic.
As the fire and heat dissipated, Samuel strode between the smoking carcasses and out into the night air. Free from the mountain, he could feel the world around him and he delighted in its beauty, wallowing in the joy of his magic as it came filling his every pore, unrestricted by the accursed weight of stone. His muscles filled with energy, and his blood surged with vigour. From the air and the ether, he gathered his power and felt reborn. He took a great breath and marvelled at the joy of such freedom.
Free to do as he wished, he set his magic to work. The wound in his torso sealed itself closed. The grime and grit fell from his skin and he could feel moisture in his cracked throat once again. Still, his muscles had wasted away during his time in exile and, between that and his missing eyes and arm, he must have appeared something of a ghoul in his black robes.
‘I will need more time to recover, but time is what I do not have. I will leave you here, while I hurry ahead,’ he told his Paatin saviour and, before the man could make an utterance, Samuel had bounded up, leaping through the sky and onto the palace roof. It only took several quick skips and he was vaulting in through the Koian woman’s window.
The midwives and healers were gathered around her, dabbing her head with towels. They gasped and took a step back as he landed amongst them. Then they screamed and ran, leaving only old Shara by the bed, holding the Koian woman’s hand defiantly.
Guards had been assembled in the hall and they strove to make their way in as the women hurried out, but Samuel sent some drawers flying in the direction of the door and wedged it shut tight. The men immediately began banging their fists against the wood, but they could not break the door down easily.
‘What do you want here, Demon!’ Shara asked, trembling with fear upon sight of him.
The Koian woman looked to be in feverish pain. Her cheeks were red and her skin was wet with sweat. The bulge of her stomach was hidden beneath the sheets, for she had her knees up, readied for the birth. Only now, seeing her in the midst of childbirth, did Samuel truly realise he was about to be a father. He wanted to grab her and hold onto her as hard as he could, for throughout every torturous moment of his dreams all he had wanted was to touch her, but he could not. He kept the old woman between them, for if the Koian woman opened her eyes, she would surely be horrified by his horrendous state.
The thought then occurred to him that they may have been dreams after all. It was possible that all his moments with the woman had been only fantasy and that she felt nothing for him at all. He put the thoughts from his mind, berating himself for entertaining such selfish notions at such a time.
‘What are you doing to her, old woman?’ he asked.
‘Helping her bear her child, of course!’ Shara returned, and Samuel was surprised by her tenacity and impressed by her desire to protect the girl. ‘The mother is nearly ready, but the babe will only be born in nature’s own good time.’
‘It’s you!’ the Koian god-woman gasped, straining to see him, and the old woman had to restrain her from her attempts to sit up. ‘I knew you were not dead. That witch told me over and over that she had killed you. My dreams were always of you, but then you left me and I couldn’t find you. Where have you been?’
He kept his back to her and held his stump by his chest, so as to keep it from view.
‘I have been under the mountain,’ he said.
‘This is your child inside me,’ she said. ‘We shall have a son together.’
‘I know.’ He kept his gaze to the window. ‘How is this possible?’ he asked her. ‘I am a magician, and you told me yourself that you could not have children.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head upon her pillow. Then she yelped and her hands went to the sheets over her belly.
‘The pains are more frequent,’ the old woman said, ‘but there is still some way to go. I suspect this will not be easy.’
‘Then promise me, woman, that you will not abandon her.’
‘I will not,’ Shara responded, ‘but no birth is simple. You have frightened off everyone who could assist with the birth. I am not a healer or a midwife. I have only ever helped with such things before.’
‘They cannot come in,’ he told her. ‘Your Queen has evil plans. She will kill the mother and trade the child for a victory in her war. When she can be moved, I will take them away from here.’
At that, the midwife’s eyes opened in sudden comprehension, and he knew that she believed him. ‘Something terrible has happened to our beloved Queen, to put our city beneath such a cloud of fear. Very well, I will do my best.’
‘What are you saying?’ the Koian asked, for she did not understand their Paatin talk.
He kept his back to her and huddled within his robes. ‘Why did you not tell me you are a witch?’ he asked her.
‘I am not a witch!’ she said, pained by his accusation.
‘Yes. I know it now, but you are something. I don’t know any other word for it.’
‘Then don’t call me anything.’
‘And you can see magic,’ he said. ‘That’s how you managed to navigate your way around the catacombs.’
Again, she nodded. ‘That was a long time ago.’
‘Not for me. Time passes strangely under the mountain. Hours and moments are interchangeable and the fevers I suffered made it all the worse. There, bound in my prison, I had a dream. I had returned to the fortress of Ghant and I was injured and dying upon the floor. I saw Grand Master Tudor struggling against the Paatin. Something happened to me and then I stole the life of everyone there. It saved my life, but I consumed theirs. Tudor died, and only you remained. Somehow, I know it was not a dream at all. You saw it all, but you didn’
t say anything.’
The Koian woman took a breath. ‘I saw you and I was afraid—not because of what you could do, but because of what it meant. It frightened me because, for once, something that Canyon had told me had been true. He said that we were the same in nature, and we were supposed to have a child that would save our nation. I thought he was lying but, when I saw you consume those people, I knew he was telling the truth. It is not an evil power Samuel but, as with any power, it can be used in many ways.’
‘I will kill them for this,’ he said darkly. ‘We are not pawns to be pushed together and used for their whims.’
‘Do not say such things. There can be no good to be had from these feelings. Let them do as they wish and let us do the same.’
‘I cannot help it. At times like this, my anger comes boiling up into my heart and I feel there is a dark and terrible thing lurking inside me. It makes me want to kill and rend and tear my opponents to pieces. It takes control of me and it uses me like a puppet—and I let it. Sometimes, I think I will become that thing altogether, and the man called Samuel will cease to exist. Perhaps it has happened already? Perhaps that is what happened to me in Ghant.’
‘Don’t speak like that. I have never seen anything in you but a good and true man. If anything, you are too honest and too pure, and a little more suspicion may have kept you out of this trouble. It is others who have taken advantage of you. Do not doubt yourself, for I will never doubt you. I hope that means something to you. Please...look at me. Why do you keep yourself turned away?’
A flare of magic caught his attention. It was Anthem, far above, rallying his magic and readying himself for battle. With a flick of his wrist and a loud crack, Samuel sent a spell that sealed the door for good, cracking and twisting the stone around it. The lintel warped, seizing the door in place. It would never open again.
‘My teacher is calling me. I must go to him and teach him something in return.’
The Koian woman was puffing quickly, holding onto her belly, but she held one hand out to Samuel as he stepped away. ‘Don’t leave me!’
He could not even turn back to look at her, lest she see his hideous face. Instead, he ignored her and went to the window, where he drew his magic and leapt.
Anthem’s location was as obvious as if a flaming beacon had been set above him. Samuel bounded along the terraces and rooftops, leaping like a human flea towards the blaze of gathering magic. The Star of Osirah still burned far above them in the night sky, and the people of the city continued to celebrate beneath it, ignorant of what was unfolding in the palace.
Grand Master Anthem was waiting in the hall of the Desert Queen, where Samuel had witnessed their treachery. He was wearing his Order blacks and stood defiantly, straight-backed, in the middle of the room, surrounded by power. Alahativa was waiting to the side, with the Emperor draped in chains beside her. The man looked infuriated, but it seemed he was helpless against her magic. No servants or guards lined the walls. All had fled or been told to leave lest they be consumed in the coming conflict.
‘Samuel,’ Anthem said in greeting, granting a welcoming smile. ‘We have much to discuss.’
‘I want nothing to do with you any more, old man,’ he replied and Anthem scowled back.
‘I see you’ve grown a bitter tongue, but it would pay you to hold it until you have learnt everything there is to tell. Would you not hear how Gallivan and I fared in Garteny?’
‘I have already heard all I need to hear and I am in no mood to listen to more lies and stories. And what would you expect? Look what she’s done to me—my hand, my eyes!’ and he pulled his sleeve up over his stump, to reveal the mottled, pink skin that bulged around his elbow. He raised his chin to let the light fall onto his ravaged face and even the Desert Queen looked disgusted.
But Anthem was resolute and went on. ‘Yet, even blind, you have learnt to compensate for such injuries. You are truly gifted, Samuel.’
Alahativa also spoke up. ‘I applaud you for surviving my dungeon, Samuel. It is a feat that no one has ever accomplished.’
‘Your dungeon is much overrated, witch. First, Balten escaped, and now, so have I. Your Empire is decaying from within. Even your own people have turned against you. You have lost your Empire with your madness.’
She looked enraged by this, despite her best efforts to maintain self-control. After a moment of tussling with herself, she snapped back into her perfect, beguiling smile. ‘Please, give up this foolishness. We all know that without the ring on your finger, you are helpless. You are blind and crippled. This is foolishness.’
‘You are wrong. Without the ring, I am more than I was. I have thrown away that crutch and learned to walk on my own. Without my eyes, I have learnt to see more than ever before. My body is just a vessel. It can be broken, but it can be mended and made new again. With every moment free from your mountain, my strength returns. I wanted to show you, old man, what I have become. There is nothing you can teach me any more. Behold.’
With that, he opened himself up like never before and his own fresh, untainted magic surged into him. Wonderful power rippled within him and boiled around his form. It was boundless power, and it was his to control. He willed it to be concentrated in his withered eyes and shattered stump, and it glittered there like the sun glimmering on still waters. Anthem and the Desert Queen held their arms up to shield their eyes, for the light blazing from Samuel’s wounds was blinding. The magic swelled inside his skull, grasping and mending the flesh, creating and stitching matter where there had been none. He called from his memory all the sensations that he knew should exist, and filled his spell with his intent that he should be made whole, and his magic went to work. The orbs of his eyes grew into place, like tiny buds blooming into maturity, and, when he felt the spell was complete—when he could feel his eyeballs pressing and sliding against the backs of his eyelids—he let the magic subside and he opened his eyes.
The world appeared before him as it had before, cast in shades of colour and light, marked by depth and dimension, yet enhanced by his superior magician’s sight. But he did not rest there. He steered his magic towards the stump of his arm and watched as the veins and flesh rippled forth from around the shattered bone, knitting themselves anew. Meat and tendons stretched themselves across the bone that grew out from the wound. A layer of skin spread about to envelope the flesh, pale and soft, before it browned to match the skin around it, and soft hairs and freckles grew in place, exactly as he remembered each of them. His forearm grew voraciously up to the wrist, and then spread out as his hand came into being. The hand divided and five fingers sprouted into place. Pink nails slid out from beneath the cuticles as the digits rounded themselves off and sealed themselves closed.
When he was done, Samuel let his magic dissipate and the blinding light he had cast about himself flickered from existence. He turned his hand over before him and flexed his fingers, forming a fist and relaxing it, marvelling at the muscles bunching under his skin.
‘I was but a shell of flesh,’ he said into the room, ‘but now I am something greater. The tree has become the fire.’
His new flesh felt and looked exactly as it had done before—before it had been so suddenly hacked from his body. His senses all throughout his being felt heightened and he could feel the tiny, individual pieces of himself at work, all doing their tasks and assisting each other: minuscule motes that toiled individually yet together, forming the flesh and matter that comprised his whole. He was not a creature of flesh, playing with magic—he was the magic, riding upon a vessel of bone and meat that it had crafted, and the more power he summoned, the greater he became.
He would have continued examining the marvel of himself, but Alahativa began wailing and she disturbed him from his task. ‘What kind of man are you? What demon has taken you? Anthem, what have you created?’
‘This is not my doing, woman!’ he told her gruffly. ‘I have never seen anything like this before.’
Samuel gathered his words and pass
ed them from his throat, echoes riding the air. ‘No. I have made myself. I would like to rejoice at these discoveries, but that must wait. What I have learnt from your own mouths has deeply upset me. It seems, Grand Master, that you have kept secrets from me all this time. You have been tending to me all this while, hoping only to harvest my son. I am bitterly disappointed.’
‘It is not as simple as you make it seem, my boy. My goal has only ever been for peace for Amandia. We killed the Emperor and I believed our work to be done, but it seems that was only the start. The world is in peril, not by gods or demons as Celios had raved, but from man himself. We need to stop these infernal wars before civilisation itself is destroyed. This madness has spread like a plague, leaving only death and suffering in its wake.’
‘Yet you have surrendered Cintar to the witch. She will not spare its occupants. She will kill every last soul within its walls. How does that end this madness you speak of?’
‘But millions more will be saved. I know the cost is high but, in return, she has given us your child—a babe that will grow into a king—a magician beyond all others, even beyond what you are now, who can quell armies with his will. No nation will dare affront another and magic will finally bring peace to everyone. Such a prize is beyond value! It is immeasurable! I had no intention to harm you, Samuel. I had no part in the kidnapping. I only sought to pair you together and see what would result. When I arrived here, I thought you were dead. I only wanted to make most of the situation. The arrival of the Koian woman seemed too good to be true. The answer to all our problems had been delivered to our very door!’
‘How can I believe anything you have to say? You forsook her without a second thought. You did not hesitate at the mention of this wretch’s axe.’
She Who Has No Name (The Legacy Trilogy) Page 51