“The power we raised was substantial, more than we could sustain for long under battle conditions,” Rikard said. “There will be more mages on the battlefield, but our side will work to blunt the enemies’ strikes, so unlike this test, all that power will not come to bear on you.”
“If we’re lucky,” Blaine said.
“Do you still want to try it without the amulet?” Rikard asked.
Blaine fingered the agate circle, and shook his head. “No. You’ve made your point. I could sense the power that the amulet was holding back. I know that feeling; I’ve felt it before in the thick of things. And I know I would have collapsed a lot sooner—and felt much worse—without the amulet.” He managed to get to his feet without help.
“What if I wore a null amulet?” Kestel asked. “It wouldn’t block Blaine from using his own magic unless we were very close together, but if he has a deflecting charm, and I have a null charm, it might give us one more advantage in battle.”
Rikard nodded. “I can arrange that.”
“Thank you,” Blaine said.
Rikard gave a wan smile. “The greatest thanks would be your safe return, and an end to the fragile magic.”
“I’ll do my best to make that happen,” Blaine said, tucking the amulet under his shirt. He was happy to accept the hot cup of fet Kestel pressed into his hands from a pot on the hearth. Blaine sank gratefully into a chair, feeling as if his legs had become jelly, trembling all over from the exertion of the test.
“That decides it,” Kestel said. “I’m riding with you.”
Blaine moved to protest, but to his surprise, Niklas nodded. “Sorry, Blaine. I’ve got to agree. Kestel’s got a big stake in making sure you live through this, and from what we’ve seen, even with the amulet, you’ve got a weak point the enemy can exploit.” He paid no attention to Blaine’s annoyance. “And I’m also going to make sure you’ve got at least three bodyguards whose sole job is to make sure you come back alive.”
Blaine wanted to argue, but he sighed and nodded. There’s more at stake here than my pride. Niklas is right. It’s not enough to win the battle. If I die, the magic could still be lost for good.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
THESE ARE THE ARTIFACTS POLLARD’S TROOPS found with the Arkalas,” Torinth Rostivan said, and a soldier dumped out a bag of objects onto a table in the mages’ workroom. “I want to know what they do, and how we can use them as weapons.”
Carensa looked at the motley collection of items and wondered what had given Rostivan the idea that any of them were magical. From where she stood, near the back of the room, it looked like a pile of junk.
Vigus Quintrel stood near the table, and he eyed the objects, then nodded. “I’ll need a place we can work that won’t damage the building if something goes wrong,” he said. “One of the outbuildings.”
Someplace that won’t matter if we blow it up, Carensa thought.
“I can have the men clear out one of the storage buildings,” Rostivan said. “What else?”
“Where are the mages Pollard’s people captured?” Quintrel asked.
“Sedated, chained, and under watch with talishte guards,” Rostivan replied.
Quintrel nodded. “Bring them to me, once night falls. The guards as well. They’ll help us figure out the use of these items.”
Rostivan raised an eyebrow. “You expect them to cooperate?”
The smile on Quintrel’s face was unpleasant. “They won’t have a choice.”
By dusk, the work space was ready. It was a small stone-walled building with heavy wooden rafters and a slate roof, as fireproof as anything could be built. The building was windowless, and no more than thirty paces by thirty paces, meaning that any magic worked here would be close and personal. Torches hung in sconces around the walls of the room, enough to give light but not heat. Smoke collected up at the peak of the building’s ceiling, and hung heavy in the air below.
Carensa was dressed warmly beneath her cloak, but the damp cold of the outbuilding still seemed to get into her bones. Her fingerless gloves helped, but she still shivered, both from cold and from anger.
Four hapless mages sat bound, blindfolded, and gagged against the wall of the stone room. They were all male, and they looked as if they had fought their capture. Several of the captured mages bore bruises on their faces, split lips, or blackened eyes. Their robes were stained and dirty, bloodied in places. One of the men slumped, defeated. Two of the men seemed resigned to their fate, leaning back against the wall, waiting for whatever befell them. The other mage strained against his bonds and chewed at his gag, still fighting.
Carensa could not look too long at their prisoners without feeling her anger rise at Quintrel, so she studied the talishte guards instead. Before the Cataclysm, she had only rarely glimpsed individual talishte at a distance, usually among the guests at a noble’s party, since they had been unwelcome in King Merrill’s court.
“Remove his blindfold,” Quintrel said, pointing to the angry mage. It was like Vigus to choose the hardest one first, Carensa thought. Quintrel—or the divi who now controlled him—would want to break the rebel, as a lesson to the others. She cast a wary glance toward the specially made brass-bound chest Quintrel had personally carried into the workroom. Its top was open and the front of the chest folded down, revealing the large divi orb on a velvet cushion, like a god seated on a throne.
One of the talishte guards walked over and unwrapped the rag that blindfolded the mage. Now that she could see his face, Carensa saw that he was perhaps a few years older than she was, a tall, lanky man with angular features and dark eyes. He stared at Quintrel balefully, and Carensa guessed that only the magic worked in with his bonds and gag kept him from making a suicide attack on them all. She couldn’t blame him.
“Did you make the warding full strength?” Quintrel asked with a sharp glance to Guran.
“It’ll hold,” Guran said. “I’ve got no desire to go up in flames,” he added. In the center of the workroom, Guran and Gunvar had drawn a warded circle with chalk and charcoal, then reinforced it with a braided mage cord. Candles were set at intervals around the outside of the circle, and between the candles lay bloody pieces of a freshly slaughtered rabbit, torn apart to feed the working. The divi liked blood.
“Put him under compulsion,” Quintrel ordered. “Take away his will.”
The talishte guards regarded Quintrel with a look that told Carensa they were following orders from Pollard, not responding to please Quintrel. She dared not meet their gazes, but it was clear in their expression that they did little to hide their disdain.
One of the talishte guards reached out, his hand moving faster than sight could follow, and grabbed the rebel mage by the chin, forcing the man to meet his gaze. Reflexively, the captive shut his eyes.
“Open your eyes or I’ll cut away your eyelids,” the talishte said quietly.
The captive mage opened his eyes, and the position in which the talishte held his head gave no choice except to meet his gaze. “You will comply with what Mage Quintrel orders you to do,” the talishte said. “You will follow his orders exactly. You will make no move to disobey, either by action or inaction. Do you understand?”
The rebel mage nodded. His body, tight with anger only moments before, had relaxed, and his face, which had been twisted with rage, was slack and vacant.
“He’ll do as you order,” the talishte said, stepping back. Carensa could see a bruise starting where the guard had gripped the man’s chin.
“Cut his bonds and have him walk into the center of the warding, stepping over the circle,” Quintrel said to the same talishte guard.
The talishte regarded Quintrel for a moment, as if to remind the mage that he obeyed by choice, and walked over to the angry prisoner. He grabbed the man by his bound hands and jerked him to his feet, where he swayed for a moment before getting his balance. The divi orb glowed at the neckline of Quintrel’s tunic, and Carensa thought sickly that the spirit was e
njoying itself at the captives’ expense.
The prisoner did not move as the talishte unlocked the chains around his hands and feet. His stare was blank, and Carensa wondered if deep inside himself, he knew he was being compelled, or whether all sense of self had been sublimated to the talishte’s will. She doubted the latter. It would have been too merciful.
The talishte gave the mage his orders, and the man walked into the center of the warding, careful not to smudge the protective markings. Quintrel walked over to a table that had been placed near the large divi orb, where the captured artifacts lay. He selected a steel torque. It was a flat semicircle of dull-gray metal, large enough to fit around a man’s neck and lie over the collarbones, half a hand’s-width wide. Quintrel lifted the item with wooden tongs, and in the firelight, Carensa could see etchings of runes and sigils covering its surface. Even at a distance, the collar felt wrong, tainted—and powerful.
“Order him to invoke it,” Quintrel said. The talishte complied. Something flickered behind the captive mage’s eyes, fear that was stronger than compulsion, but against his will, his body moved. The mage’s lips formed words of power, and the runes on the collar glowed with an inner fire.
The collar flared, and the captive mage screamed. His body began to shake, trembling from head to toe. His skin writhed as if it had a life of its own, bubbling and heaving as it wrenched itself free.
“Call a shape to his mind,” Quintrel ordered.
The talishte closed his eyes, and his features grew taut with concentration. Once again, the tortured mage’s skin heaved and quivered, and as Carensa watched in horror, flesh took new form as the bones and muscles remade themselves.
Through it all, the skull had remained intact, enabling the mage to shriek in agony. His cries echoed off the stone walls, deafeningly loud. Guran blanched, and Carensa thought she might pass out. Gunvar, whose magic enhanced the power of others, slumped to the floor, unconscious. Carensa knelt beside him, long enough to assure herself that he was still breathing.
When she stood and looked into the circle once more, a nightmare creature hunched where the doomed mage had stood. It was the same bulk as the man had been, but the body had been remade. The creature sat on thick, powerful haunches with long-fingered forefeet and hind feet that ended in black, curling claws. The overall form was shortened and thickened, as if what had been height had been forcibly remade into muscle. The skull no longer resembled that of a man. Its jaws protruded, overfilled with the sharp teeth of a predator. Yet the eyes remained the same, eyes that met Carensa’s gaze and begged for death.
“It still possesses magic,” Quintrel said. “Force it to embed the collar.”
The talishte’s expression was neutral. Perhaps, Carensa thought, his master had willed him to do worse. Once again, the talishte concentrated, and the mage in the circle screamed. Beneath the collar, the skin tore apart, until the steel rested on blood and muscle. Just as quickly, the skin re-formed, sealing the collar beneath it so that it bulged like a deformity around the creature’s neck.
“Keep him under compulsion, and have him leave the warded space—carefully, don’t smudge the marks,” Quintrel ordered.
Given no choice by the talishte that held him in thrall, the creature limped out of the warding, as if uncertain how to make its newly formed legs work. The muscles looked capable of great power, but at the moment, the beast shuffled awkwardly, trying to adapt to walking on all fours, as if the brain had not changed as fast or as radically as the rest of the body.
One glimpse at the eyes had been enough to assure Carensa that despite the changes worked on the body, the unlucky rebel mage had been left sentient, aware of what he had been and of what was done to him. She shivered, holding herself tightly, willing herself to partition off a cold place in her mind for the hatred that coursed through her, the anger and disgust she felt at the sight of what Quintrel had become. She and Guran avoided looking at each other, or at their fellow mages.
It could just have easily been us he decided to try out his new ‘toys’ on, she thought. It might have been us if the captives hadn’t been convenient. I don’t think there’s any sentiment left in him.
Quintrel stood next to the large divi orb with its withered hand encased in the sphere of glass. In the center of the orb, Carensa caught flashes of light like flying embers, but even unwillingly, at a distance, she could feel the orb’s greed for blood.
At Quintrel’s direction, the talishte forced the creature to squat in front of the divi orb. The orb flared, snaring the transformed mage in a burst of green light that lit up the ruined face, snaring the mage-thing’s gaze. Fresh screams tore from the creature’s throat, hoarse howls of pain unbearable to hear. From where Carensa stood, it looked as if the last resistance drained from the creature’s body, and when the green light faded, nothing of the human it once had been remained in its gaze.
“The mage’s consciousness, and his ability to do magic, have been extinguished,” Quintrel said. “Present your master with a beast of war, my gift to him to use as he sees fit.” He bent down to pick up the chains that had bound the tall mage’s wrists and looped them around the beast’s neck like a leash.
“I’d cage it soon, if I were you,” Quintrel cautioned, holding out the leash to the talishte. “Once the shock wears off, you’ll find it to be as fierce as the gryps, and smarter than the wolves.”
The talishte guard took the chain and gave it a tug, and the beast shambled forward, more agile now that no vestige of humanity struggled with how to move its transformed body. Carensa and the rest of Quintrel’s mages stared at their master in horror, and only now did Carensa realize that her face was stained with tears.
The captive mages had been spared the sight of their comrade’s transmogrification by their blindfolds, but their blindness made the horror even worse with imaginings, and they shrank back against the wall. The smell of urine and shit told Carensa that at least one of the men had soiled himself in fear.
“Well,” Quintrel said calmly, dusting off his hands, “we know what that artifact does.”
Carensa stole a look at Guran. His expression was schooled to be neutral, but she glimpsed fury in his eyes as his color returned. She knelt next to Gunvar, and wondered if Quintrel had used the mage’s power to magnify the magic of the artifact without seeking permission. Gunvar’s breathing was shallow and his skin was pale, as if he had lost blood.
“If you use him again like that, you’ll kill him,” Carensa snapped. “And if he dies here, we won’t have his magic to draw on in battle.” She had no desire to ever go out with the army again, but she bet that Quintrel would be more likely to preserve a valuable fighting asset than to save Gunvar out of sheer compassion.
“As you wish,” Quintrel said with a shrug. “I don’t think I’ll require his help with the next piece.”
“You’re not going to continue, are you?” Guran said, staring at Quintrel in horror.
But Quintrel was already using the wooden tongs to select a new artifact from among the pile. “Of course I am,” he replied as if the question was irrelevant. “Who knows what we might discover?”
That was entirely the point, but Carensa knew it was useless to argue, and she had no desire to draw Quintrel’s ire. Sickened as she was to be a spectator, she forced herself to feel nothing, allowing cold rage to settle into her bones, closing off her heart, deadening her feelings. I must remember, she thought. I must record what happens here, as a witness to these deaths, so that someone knows what took place.
This time, Quintrel removed a steel-and-silver gauntlet and vambrace from the pile. It was a fearsome piece of armor in itself, with a vambrace to encircle the forearm and hinged plates in the gauntlet that covered the individual fingers, ending in short, sharp knives.
“That one,” Quintrel said to another of the talishte, pointing to one of the captives who was huddled, weeping. “Take him.”
Once again, a talishte guard removed the blindfold of his victim, compelle
d him to rise against his will, and loosed his bonds. “Fit this on his right arm,” Quintrel directed, and the talishte complied, as the mage captive looked on in terror but unable to resist.
When the captive was again within the warded space, Quintrel nodded to the talishte, who ordered the prisoner to speak the artifact into action. For a moment, the mage’s terrified gaze locked onto Carensa’s, and she saw that he knew he was going to die.
The vambrace and gauntlet took on a silver glow, and the mage stiffened, then moaned in pain. As Carensa watched in fascinated horror, the vambrace melded with the man’s arm, encasing the skin in steel, molding itself to the hand, wrist, and fingers. The mage relaxed, and flexed his hand, twisting his wrist and moving his forearm to see just how maneuverable the artifact was. The steel fit like skin itself, and the knife-edged fingertips had grown longer into talons. For a moment, all was well.
Carensa felt the magic around them fluctuate. That was not unusual since the magic had been restored, but imperfectly. It was part of the brittleness that made the ‘new’ magic so unstable and dangerous, something mages like Carensa and her fellow scholars feared. Magic interrupted was often deadly to the mage who cast it.
The vambrace’s silvery glow reddened, and the mage in the warded circle shouted in alarm, trying to tear the vambrace and gauntlet free. It clung to his skin, warming to a dull red, and the mage tore at it, leaving bloody tracks down his upper arm as he tried and failed to get his fingers under the armor to rip it away.
Quintrel made no move to end the test. The smell of roasting flesh was unmistakable as the vambrace burned into the mage’s arm and the man began to scream. Inside the warded circle, the desperate mage cast one spell after another, chanting words of power, all in vain.
A few moments later, the vambrace slid off, leaving behind charred bone, and the mage collapsed, sobbing and trembling. His hand and forearm were blackened like that of a corpse on a pyre, and the wound was cauterized below the elbow. Yet the gauntlet and vambrace still glowed, brighter now than before. Carensa could hear the man’s sobbing pleas for death, even from inside the circle’s wardings.
War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga Page 42