by Alec Hutson
“She said the warlock betrayed her, and so she kept it.”
Alyanna tapped her lip with her finger, deep in thought. “But it must truly be capable of ending the Chosen. And that was why the Oracle sent you to find her.” She focused on Keilan again, her eyes intense. “You have it, then? This dagger?”
He hesitated for the briefest of moments, then nodded. What was done was done – he hoped he had been right to tell her.
She clapped her hands together, smiling broadly. “Excellent. This must be the stream the Oracle was hoping would come about by sending you to Niara’s island. You returned with this dagger and have brought it to me.”
“We were bringing it to the queen,” Keilan said quickly.
“The queen has power, I’ll grant you,” replied Alyanna, “but she is still a child. I have wielded artifacts the likes of which she has never imagined. I want to see this dagger, Keilan.” She reached out again and touched his arm. “This is what concerns me now, though. Something of their essence has infected you. Have you felt different since you were cut?”
“I’ve been . . . quick to anger,” Keilan admitted. “Sometimes I feel lightheaded, though I thought I was getting better. And my dreams have been troubled, but I don’t remember them.”
Alyanna chewed her lip. “You are almost certainly in danger. We don’t have time now, but when we reach the queen I want to examine you more thoroughly and see if I can draw out this poison.”
“You think we should leave soon?”
The sorceress nodded. “As I said, we have no time to waste.”
“But what about—”
“Keilan!”
They turned to find Nel hurrying towards them.
“Keilan, it’s Senacus! He’s awake.”
The paladin’s eyes had opened, flooding the room with Ama’s radiance. He turned his head weakly as Keilan came through the entrance, and from his expression he looked to still be in considerable pain.
“Thank the Father,” he whispered, struggling to sit up.
“Please, my lord,” cried Marialle, hurrying to his side. “Rest. You’ll tear open your wounds again.”
Grimacing, Senacus sank back onto the pallet. His silver hair was plastered to his head, as if he was suffering from a terrible fever, and his skin was sallow. He looked like a corpse.
“How did we live?” he asked softly.
“We were saved by—” Keilan glanced at Marialle, who was watching with wide eyes “—someone very strong.”
Senacus’s eyes flickered to the farmer’s wife. He had caught that look. “Goodwoman,” he said, addressing her. She stepped forward, gaze downcast, her hands kneading her dress like it was a piece of dough. “Thank you for your hospitality. But I must make a request. I need to speak with this boy and woman in private. Will you leave us for a moment?”
Marialle gave a jerky nod and then scurried away, back towards the kitchen. Senacus waited a heartbeat longer, then gestured for Keilan and Nel to come closer.
“What happened?” asked the paladin.
“A sorceress,” Nel replied. “She rescued us from the shapechanger. We fled on a flying circle and found refuge on this farm.”
Keilan noticed how Senacus was licking his lips and hurried to fill a cup from a pitcher Marialle had left behind.
“A sorceress,” the paladin repeated as he accepted the cup and drank deeply.
“Not just any sorceress,” Keilan said slowly. “She was the one who orchestrated the attack on Saltstone.”
Senacus froze, then slowly lowered the cup. “I knew I had been a puppet when I saw my companion use sorcery that night.”
“The shadowblade,” Nel said, her voice twisted by hate.
Senacus nodded slightly. “Yes. And if what you say is true, then this sorceress is the puppeteer. She must be the one who influenced the High Mendicant to send me west to find you, Keilan. She wanted you.”
“I did.”
Alyanna stepped into the room, her head held high. Even dressed in a simple robe and shawl, Keilan realized, she radiated the same presence as the queen of Dymoria and the prince of Vis.
The Pure’s face had gone utterly still. Keilan suspected that if his body was willing, Senacus would have lunged towards where his white-metal sword leaned against the wall. “You hide your sorcery from me.”
“A simple enough trick,” she said. Her tone was confident, but Keilan noticed that she did not approach the paladin.
“Show me,” Senacus said through gritted teeth.
Alyanna cocked an eyebrow. Nothing seemed to change for Keilan, but Senacus suddenly sucked in his breath.
“By the Radiant Father,” he breathed hoarsely, then blinked, as if a bright light that only he could see had suddenly been extinguished. “What are you?”
“Something more brilliant than your blessed light,” she retorted. “Ama has no power over me, paladin.”
Senacus fell silent for a moment. Invisible lightning seemed to crackle in the air between the Pure and the sorceress.
“She is helping us,” Keilan ventured. “She knows the threat those children represent.”
Senacus glanced at him. The paladin’s face glistened with sweat, as if the conversation was straining him greatly. “She sent me to bring you back to her,” he said.
“Keilan is a prize,” Alyanna said. “The harbinger of a new age. Every Talent covets him, for with his power added to their own, great things become possible. It is true I wanted him by my side.”
“To do what?” Senacus pressed.
“Great. Things.” Alyanna delivered these words slowly and clearly.
“Don’t trust her, Keilan,” the paladin continued, his desperation clear. “She schemes. She—” His burning eyes widened. “The Weaver. Demian was speaking about you. You are the Weaver.”
“Do not say his name!”
Keilan jumped at Alyanna’s outburst. The skin on his arms prickled as he felt her swell with sorcery. Her sudden rage was jarring.
“Where is he?” Senacus continued, clearly unafraid of the sorceress and sensing weakness. “Does he live?”
Alyanna whirled to face Keilan. He could almost see the sorcery brimming in her dark eyes. “Say your goodbyes to the Pure,” she spat. “We leave soon.” Then she turned on her heel and strode from the room, the crackling power dissipating in her wake.
Keilan shivered, unnerved by this sudden glimpse of Alyanna’s unbound strength. She could draw at least as much sorcery into herself as the queen or his grandmother.
“You are remarkably good at making friends,” Nel said dryly.
“That is one I don’t want to be friends with.” Senacus stared at Keilan pointedly as he said this. “And neither do you.”
Keilan grimaced. “We need to go with her.”
“You don’t,” said the Pure.
“We do,” rejoined Keilan. “We are somewhere in the middle of the Kingdoms with no horses. Do we have days to find our way to a town where we can buy mounts? Weeks to travel to the Frostlands?”
“The Frostlands?” Nel’s face crinkled in confusion. “We need to go to Dymoria.”
Keilan shook his head. “I spoke with Alyanna. She’s also traveling to the queen, but she knows the queen will be in the Frostlands. Cein d’Kara has declared war on the Skein.”
Nel blinked in bewilderment. “How does the sorceress know this?”
“She has communicated with the queen somehow. They are allied now against the demon children.”
“Do not believe anything she says,” Senacus hissed, wincing. He was panting, struggling to sit up.
“I won’t,” Keilan said, crouching beside the paladin. He found Senacus’s hand and gripped it fiercely. “I promise. But she has a way for us to reach the queen. We need her. And she needs us to stop the Betrayers.”
The Pure sank back onto his pallet, clearly exhausted. “I can’t travel yet,” he said, his voice hollow.
“I know,” Keilan replied. “Rest here and get strong again.”
The paladin nodded slightly, staring at the wall. He looked utterly defeated.
Keilan leaned in closer to the Pure. “I forgive you.”
Senacus glanced at him sharply, his surprise evident.
“I’ve learned things about my grandmother,” Keilan explained. “Terrible things. She . . . she was a monster. Whatever she planned on the island, whatever she wanted me to help her with . . . it’s for the best that she failed.” He paused, struggling to pull up the last words he had to say. “You were right. She had to be stopped.” With some effort he quashed the last of his resentment towards the paladin. Niara had sacrificed millions to gain everlasting life, and murdered her own daughters if they were born without great sorcery. She had been evil. Keilan repeated this thought, trying to bludgeon himself into believing it totally. She had been evil.
Senacus squeezed his hand, and a prickling heat crept up Keilan’s arm. “I will pray for you, Keilan,” the paladin promised. “The Radiant Father knows you fight to save us all.”
The next morning, Cho Lin would have believed it had all been a strange and vivid dream, except that the broken shard of her father’s sword was still there, gleaming in the light trickling through the gaps in the ceiling.
She climbed to her feet, amazed by how good she felt. The aching cold that had settled in her bones ever since she’d entered the Frostlands was gone. Cho Lin pulled aside her furs, examining the faded red lines where the demon had slashed her. She almost couldn’t tell them apart from other wounds she’d received years ago. A great sorcery had been done to her, and while the thought did give her a little trickle of unease, she also knew that she would otherwise have died.
It must have been the tears of this statue. She’d drunk nearly half of the small basin’s contents, and from the look of it many days would pass before the beads of moisture running down the stone cheeks refilled the container. Cho Lin circled the statue, looking for some hint as to its provenance. Her fingers brushed the stone folds of its robes and lingered on the outstretched arms that had held the remnant of the Sword of Cho. The detail was remarkable.
“Thank you,” she whispered in Shan.
The statue did not answer, of course.
Could it be a representation of the Pale Lady, the spirit that had led her here? Cho Lin thought not. The statue’s robes were concealing, but also plain, and her soft features suggested compassion. She looked like one of the itinerant nuns who wandered the Empire of Swords and Flowers spreading Sagewa Tain’s vision of the Enlightenment, sworn to poverty and dedicated to aiding those in need. The ghost, on the other hand, had been dressed in rich vestments and wearing a diadem on its brow. Its sharp cheekbones and the way it glided with its back straight and head held high suggested it had once been a noble. Jan had told her once that Nes Vaneth had been ruled by sorceress queens, and that he had been the lover of the last who ruled here, before the ice swallowed the holdfasts. Could this be her unquiet spirit? And if so, why was she helping her?
Cho Lin’s stomach growled, interrupting her musings. She was ravenous – her last meal had been days ago, a handful of rotten vegetables and bone scraps. Her body felt whole and strong, but that would fade quickly if she did not find something to eat.
She would have to leave the safety of the ruins. There was food in the Bhalavan – every morning, the remnants of the previous night’s feast littered the tables. Most of the Skein would be sleeping, this early in the day, their heads still sodden with drink. Perhaps if she pulled up the cowl of her furs, she could sneak inside pretending to be a thrall. The thought of eating cold, greasy chunks of meat made her stomach gurgle again in hunger.
But then what? Return to the ruins and wait for the Betrayers to come searching for her? And the demons would seek her out when they returned, of this she was certain. They hated her – no, they hated her family. Cho Xin had bound them a thousand years ago by slaying their corporeal bodies with the Sword of Cho.
Her eyes drifted to the shard of metal at the statue’s feet. The Betrayers had feared this weapon, but it was no more.
Or was it?
She knelt beside the rippling steel, pressing her fingers to the cold metal. Was the soul that had infused the sword with power truly gone? Could it be enticed back if the sword was whole once more?
Cho Lin’s heart beat faster, her excitement rising. Something – the spirit? – had brought this piece of the sword to her. And there must be a reason why.
The warlocks of Shan had made this weapon long ago. If she returned to the bone-shard towers with all the pieces of the sword, perhaps they could reforge what had been broken. The despair that had been hovering at the edge of her mind ever since the shapechanger had snapped the sword lifted a little. She had a purpose again.
Cho Lin breathed out slowly, reaching for the Nothing. She grasped it immediately, and the emptiness flooded her limbs with strength. It was as if a wound in her soul had been filled, and she was whole once more. But where were the other pieces of the sword? The last place she had seen them was in her cell in the Bhalavan, the fragments spinning into the gloom as the blade shattered. Could they still be there?
Cho Lin’s fingers brushed the ivory handles of her butterfly swords.
She was going to find out.
Fat snowflakes were slowly drifting down among the ruins. Evidently it had been snowing for a while, as a layer of unblemished white covered everything. A great stroke of luck, probably, as otherwise the Skein may have been able to track her to the sanctuary where the Pale Lady had led her. Nevertheless, Cho Lin kept herself alert as she moved through the shattered remnants of Nes Vaneth.
She saw nothing living, nor any evidence that hunters had come looking for her. Did the Skein truly fear the ghosts of Nes Vaneth enough that they would refuse to pursue her? Or did they assume the city had swallowed her, and that she was already dead? Certainly her wounds must have looked fatal to those watching in the arena.
Rather than approach the Bhalavan from the great avenue, she circled around the mighty structure until she came to the great empty space where the Skein from the north had been encamped. There had been over a hundred great tents here, at least, when last she’d gazed upon the field; the tribesmen of the Crow and Stag and White Worm that could not fit inside the Bhalavan’s great sleeping hall. Now, though, there were only a few dozen tents scattered about, though the snowy ground was pockmarked by the blackened remnants of countless campfires, still visible despite the recent snowfall. Cho Lin thought back to how empty the Bhalavan and the city had seemed as the priest of the Skin Thief had marched her to the arena where the creature had waited. Such a spectacle should have attracted enough Skein to fill the benches to bursting, but the watching crowd had been sparse. The king of the White Worm, Hroi, and the thanes of the Stag and Raven had been absent as well.
Where had the Skein gone?
Cho Lin followed the curve of the Bhalavan’s wall until she came to the great bronze doors that were forever cracked open. Pulling up her cowl and tucking away a few stray strands of her black hair, she slipped inside the hall.
The cook pits were empty, the great braziers cold. A handful of Skein sprawled at the long tables, sleeping off the night’s excesses. Thralls, the women brought back from raids as slaves, moved as silent as shadows among the benches, cleaning up the remnants of the previous night’s feast. Some among them might have recognized her, but they did not say anything or even appear to glance in her direction as she approached one of the tables and began gathering food. Her belly grumbled, imploring her to fall upon the scraps there and then, but Cho Lin ignored it and instead wrapped a few untouched chicken legs in a piece of cloth and stuffed that into her furs.
A tremor of fear went throu
gh her as her gaze was drawn to the far recesses of the great hall and the entrances to the shadow-choked passageways. She hoped she could remember the way back to her cell, but it had been a tangle of narrow corridors, and she hadn’t been very aware of her surroundings on either of the occasions she’d moved through them. Somewhere in that gloomy labyrinth was also the tunnel that led to the throne room of the old Min-Ceruthan queens. The memory of the sorcery clotting that chamber made her skin prickle. Dancing blue flames within a wall of ice, the high nobles of the old holdfast encased in stone, forever cowering before the sorcery their queen had used to preserve her child.
Jan’s child. As she drifted towards the back of the great hall, careful not to disturb the sleeping Skein, Cho Lin’s thoughts turned to her old companion. Did he live, or had he finally succumbed to his terrible injuries? Had he suffered an even worse fate? She shuddered, remembering the shaman of the White Worm placing Jan’s desiccated eye in his mouth and chewing slowly. Cho Lin dispatched a quick prayer to the Four Winds that if he was dead, at least her worst imaginings had not come to pass.
She lingered for a moment when she came to the statues guarding the largest of the passages. They were clad in archaic armor, greaves and cuirasses incised with swirling patterns, the heads of both hidden by crested helmets. A falcon perched on the shoulder of one, a snake coiled around the arm of another. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the head of a small animal – maybe a ferret – was poking out from under a gorget. Once more she was impressed with the startling detail of the stone warriors . . . but now she had her suspicions that these statues had been flesh and blood before the coming of the ice, just like the courtiers and nobles in the throne room below.
After a quick glance to make sure none of the Skein or thralls in the hall had taken an interest in her, Cho Lin slipped beneath the arched entrance. A fierce cold filled these passages, and the only illumination came from where wan daylight trickled through chinks in the walls. As she pressed deeper, the light disappeared entirely, until she was moving through near-total darkness. Her heart thundered as she imagined what ancient horrors might still inhabit this cursed ruin, and it was only through tremendous effort that she kept herself from turning and fleeing back to the great hall.