by D. P. Prior
“Ilesa.”
“So, what happened with her?” Silas said, watching as she slunk back out of sight.
“Shogging left Nameless to drown, that’s what,” Nils said, his voice rising to a shout. “Coward! Backstabbing, double-crossing, shapeshifting whore!”
“Well, far be it from me to judge,”—Silas steepled his fingers—“but I could tell from the moment I met her.”
“Yeah,” Nils said. “Me too.”
ILESA
Ilesa followed the dwarves through the forest and then watched from high up in a tree as they descended into a gorge and trekked toward the setting suns.
Nameless was conscious, but his hands were bound, and one of his guards had slipped a noose around his neck, which he held like a leash. They pushed and thumped him as he stumbled along at the center of the party. Too many for her to do anything about, she reckoned. Must have been at least fifty.
She dropped down from the branch and continued to stare in the direction they were heading, even though she could no longer see them.
She was torn between following and giving it up as a lost cause. She took a step toward the edge of the gorge and then turned away.
It wasn’t what she did. Never had been, never would be. She was tougher than this. Colder. Harder.
She placed her hand against the bark of a trunk and shook her head. She was nothing to him. He knew what she was. He’d seen her fail him twice already, knew she’d planned to kill him for money.
But he’d carried her when she was too exhausted to flee, when she’d have just lain down and died. He’d stood against the wolf-men, knowing there was no way to survive, but refusing to abandon her, his companion. His… friend?
Ilesa tried to scoff at that, but she found her head pressed against the trunk, her lips trembling, eyes filling with moisture.
“Stop it, you stupid bitch,” she mumbled in a faltering voice. “You don’t have friends.”
A wave of weakness washed over her, and she lowered herself to her knees, sobbing.
She’d had no one; no one since she’d been forced to leave Davy in Portis; since her guild had been ripped apart in New Londdyr, and she’d lost Master Plaguewind. Yes, she’d eked out a living with Brau and his mob, but she was just an asset to them, a shapeshifting assassin with a hundred-percent track record. So long as she was useful, they tolerated her, but it was no more than that.
And then this dwarf had come into her life, this bawdy, melancholic, beer-drinking paradox with a past as black as the Abyss. How the shog had he gotten under her skin?
She pushed away from the tree and wiped her eyes. He hadn’t, she told herself. It was just the usual guilt. She knew herself well enough by now, knew it was all because she’d failed to keep Davy out of the bastard’s sleazy clutches; because she’d left him, even though it wasn’t really her fault. And now she’d done the same to Nameless. Twice in the space of a day.
No point beating around the bush then, she decided, narrowing her eyes and taking a strong grip on her sword hilt. Shit like this is what would get her killed. In her line of work, there was no place for weakness; no place for friends.
On the opposite side of the sky from the dying suns, Aethir’s moons cast their silvery light over the treetops—Raphoe an immense frosted face peeking above the horizon, Charos pitted like a sponge, and higher up, the tiny disk of Enoi, baby of the three. It may have been wishful thinking, may have been another ploy of this land of bad dreams, but she felt sure they were calling to her, offering her their counsel.
Two times in one day might not have been enough. Didn’t they say all good things came in threes?
Resisting the urge to glance back at the gorge, Ilesa cast her eyes about in the gloaming settling over the forest, hoping against hope for some glimpse of the distant Farfall Mountains, some landmark that would show her the way out of this cursed place.
Seeing nothing, she set off in the direction of Raphoe, and banished every last thought of the Nameless Dwarf from her mind.
PART FOUR
THE EBON STAFF
“Philosophy is odious and obscure;
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile.
'Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.”
(Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus)
THE PAX NANORUM
By the supernal father, she was lonely.
After all this time, she’d forgotten what it was like. When you’d been alone as long as she had, you eventually ceased to notice. The feeling sank, just as Arnoch had sunk, to a place deep within she was afraid to visit. She’d grown used to not dwelling upon it, pretended it wasn’t there.
One touch. That was all it had taken. Warm fingers curling about her haft, the comfort of his strength, the bliss of the two becoming one. He roused her from her slumber, hefted her into the giddy thrill of battle, restored her purpose.
And then he’d left; ditched her on the shores of a new-formed lake. It didn’t matter the reason: she couldn’t bear to be without him, her wielder, her companion, her Immortal.
Please, she pulsed out into the ether, knowing he couldn’t hear her, but hoping nevertheless. Please.
Don’t abandon me, she wanted to say, but the words would have brought a terrible admission, one she doubted she could endure. Don’t let me sink beneath the waters of the lake. Wasn’t Arnoch enough? Is it my fate to be forgotten?
Perhaps, if her power had been greater, the city would not have fallen. Perhaps if she’d been braver…
She’d failed every one of her Immortals when they had stood against the Destroyer. She’d failed the dwarves of Arnoch; failed King Arios. That’s why she’d never seen her entombment beneath the waves as anything but deserved punishment. The dwarves she was pledged to protect had all perished, so it was only right she shared their watery grave. But when the Nameless Dwarf had reached out to her in his need, when she’d sped to his grasp, all her past failings were incinerated in that burst of argent that ended the unstoppable nightmare.
Until this moment, she’d not asked herself why she’d been impotent against the Destroyer before, why all the other Immortals had fallen and Arnoch had plunged beneath the sea. But she asked now that she was alone once more, now that she felt the coldness of her crafting, the lifeless ebb of her tortured awareness. It was him, not her. All the power she offered him was as nothing compared with the gift of his touch, the throb of the blood pumping through his veins, the unconquerable heart of a champion. He was not just an Immortal—he was the best of the Immortals.
And he was hers.
A shudder passed through her blades, rippled its way down her haft. She felt both longing and despair in one tormented instant. She wished she had a mouth, like she had before in her life beyond the Void. The desire gave birth to one in her mind, and she made good use of it, wailing into the infinite spaces of the cosmos and begging for oblivion.
“Sister? Sister, is that you?”—a voice, far away. A voice broken with anguish. “I hear your cries and add them to my own.”
“Brother?” she asked with imaginary lips.
“Aye, the same,” came the quavering response. “Though I am ashamed to admit it. I could not find you, my sister. It was as though you were plucked from existence.”
She shifted upon the shore, spun in the mud, as if that would bring them closer. “Arnoch fell, my brother, and I fell with her.”
“The Perpetual City? But how? When?”
She dared not speak of it to him. The first word would undo her, destroy what self-control she still held onto. “A long time ago.” Longer than she cared to remember. “Are you still—”
“A hammer? Of sorts, I suppose, though I no longer have anyone to swing me. But you, my sister, surely you are still the hope of our charges, even with Arnoch’s passing.”
“I am no one’s hope, brother. I failed them. Failed them all.”
&
nbsp; His sigh was the distant rumble of thunder. “I know that bitter taste. I am the bedfellow of betrayal and failed redemption.”
“What has happened, my brother?”
Another peal of thunder, muffled this time and further away. She counted the seconds to his response and knew there was not long left.
“Death, my sister. The death of hope. Maldark, my wielder, perished, and the memory is still raw. The Demiurgos grows strong in the worlds of men, but I can no longer oppose him. It is now down to others to fight that battle, but without our aid, how can they prevail? Our brother has turned his back on the Supernal Father, and now you tell me you have failed. I see only despair. Our day is done.”
The voice echoed away into silence. She wanted to call out, beg him to return, but she feared the lack of an answer. It was as cruel as the fleeting touch of her Immortal, this ghost from her past.
And then she saw him, just a phantom, standing before the throne of glory in the Supernal Realm. She’d been on his right, her other brother on his left, as the terrible path they were to tread was laid out before them. Three lives for the sake of mortals; three to stand against the deceptions of the Demiurgos.
But now, two had failed. And the other… The other—
“Darling sister. I thought you didn’t care.”
She saw a vision of a forest of tar, its black trees oozing malice. At the center, wreathed in briars, stood a staff carved of deepest ebony.
No. Not now. I’m not strong enough. The illusion of voice broke like the gossamer strands of a web in a tempest. If she couldn’t speak, maybe he couldn’t hear her. Perhaps he’d grow tired and leave her be. Perhaps—
“Oh, I can hear you, sister.” He hissed the last word, left its lingering susurrus to infiltrate her every secret space. “I’ve missed you. Where have you been? Bottom of the sea, I hear. You don’t visit. You don’t write. I have so much to tell you. So much.”
She slid through the mud, seeking to defend herself from the Ebon Staff and knowing it was futile.
He’s not here, he’s not here, he’s not—
“Oh, yes, I am. You don’t get much closer than this.”
An icy tendril coursed its way through her panicked consciousness. She’d lifted into the air above the lake before she even thought about it.
“Go on, flee. Flee back to your stunted little boyfriend. See if he can save you. See if he can save the last of his insipid race.”
But we were once like them, she wanted to say. We were the pattern they were dreamed from.
But she’d be wasting her time. He knew what he was, knew where he’d come from. The only difference was, he’d grown to resent his past, resent the command that had melded them with steel, wood, and stone and sent them through the Void. And she knew that long ago, even before Arnoch had sunk beneath the ocean, he’d made some very unpleasant friends.
“Oh, you remember! How sweet. I’ll be sure to tell him when he gets back from the Void.”
The Void? You must be more insane than I thought.
During their passage through that empty space, the three siblings had been held in existence purely by the arcane wisdom of the Supernal Father, who had forged them into indestructible weapons of power. Besides them, only the Aeonic Triad had passed from the Supernal Realm through the Void, but even they could not return. The Great Deceiver, the Demiurgos himself, barely clung to existence on its brink through the obstinate refusal of his will. Her brother’s master, the Lich Lord of Verusia, might have grown strong on the perversion of all that was good and holy, but even his awesome power would be as nothing compared to the infinite hunger of the Void.
The Ebon Staff’s consciousness still lingered within her, but he didn’t say anything. The callous laughter that threatened to swamp her told her all she needed to know.
With a jolt of terror she’d prayed never to feel again, she sped toward the trees flanking the lake with one desperate thought wailing through her mind:
Nameless!
SILAS
Silas swore and looked up. The damp ground soaking into the seat of his britches hadn’t done it. Neither had Nils’s imbecilic humming, nor his ludicrous attempts to grunt out the sounds of the words he was trying to read. The gurgling slurps of the hungry bogs that spattered the moors scarcely raised an eyebrow. It was the rank stench invading his nostrils that finally tore Silas’s eyes from the page. His first instinct was to gag, but then he coughed into his fist. The coppery tang of blood coated his lips, and when he checked, his hand was speckled with crimson. Familiar dread insinuated its way into his bones. He didn’t have much longer, that was clear. It was the magic doing it, without any shadow of a doubt.
They’d warned him about it at the Academy. First day at the Ludus Arcana they’d spelled it out for the students as clear as day: Creatio ex nihilo—creation out of nothing—was as impossible for wizards as it was for the philosophers of science. “Give and take,” was how Magister Arecagen had described it. You give something of yourself—your essence—and you take from the eldritch well of the Cynocephalus’s dreams. The trick was in finding suitable conduits, so that the magical debt wasn’t paid by the wizard himself. Easy for him to say. He had enough conduits to pipe magic into every home, if he’d been the sharing kind. Wands, scrolls, a shaggy black cat. Silas suspected the master could even draw magic through an artichoke, given half a chance, but he’d steadfastly refused to share his secrets. “It’s a privilege,” he used to say. “Something each wizard needs to earn for himself.” Well, as far as Silas was concerned, he had earned it—by using the skills of his misspent youth to steal Blightey’s grimoire. Judging by his failing health, though, that might not have been what Arecagen meant.
What scared him more than anything was that the sickness showed no signs of abating, even when he laid off the magic. Apart from working on Nils’s shoulder wound, he’d barely cast a cantrip since leaving the lake, despite the lad sniveling about food and a fire. The rot had set in and was rapidly taking Silas where he had no desire to go. The only thing that stood before him and an early grave was the book and its promise of power without the downside. But even that had to be earned. Perhaps the illness was the spur he needed, for without the threat of wasting and death, nothing this side of the Abyss could have forced him to search out the black staff at the heart of its malignant forest.
Something was calling to him, or was it someone?
“Did you hear me?”
“What?” Silas said, and then saw Nils looking at him expectantly. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Res-urr-ect-io.” The imbecile was jabbing a finger at the open page of his Liber Via.
“Sorry?”
“Resurrectio,” Nils said again. “What the shog is that?”
“Ancient Urddynoorian, you dunce, like all the other words in that insipid book. I would have thought its meaning was just a tad obvious, even to a whiskerless youth with a brain the size of a rabbit turd.”
Nils screwed his face up, looking for all intents and purposes like he’d missed an appointment with the latrine and was now suffering an unscheduled bid for evacuation.
“Yeah, but that ain’t one of the words you taught me, is it, dog-breath?”
“Resurrection.” Silas tutted and sighed.
“Raised erection?” Nils said with a cheeky grin.
Silas guffawed, and immediately tried to reclaim his dignity.
“Well, if you read some of the myths…” Truth be told, he didn’t know the first thing about what the Liber Via said on the subject, or anything else for that matter. Nor did he care. From what he could make out from the passages he’d read to Nils, the book was a hodgepodge of obfuscating gobbledygook that looked like it had been accidentally thrown together by a monkey with a quill and way too much parchment. “It means to come back to life.”
Nils’s frown deepened, if that were possible. “From what?”
“Death, presumably.” You utter moron. “Though, with most religions, the meaning’s
not necessarily literal. Resurrection probably denotes change. Got it?”
“Uhm—”
“Good. Now shut up. I’m thinking.”
With an exaggerated huff, Nils turned his attention back to the page. Silas could almost hear his brain groaning with the effort. The lad rubbed at his shoulder. Didn’t seem to matter that Silas had gone to great efforts to heal the wound. No easy task when you had to eradicate every last trace of infection the goblin bite had left. Waste of bloody magic, if you asked him. Ungrateful wretch.
Mist was rolling in from the moors, curling between the swaying reeds. Over to the west, a mountain range snaked southward like the spine of a monstrous beast. For all he knew, it could have been. Perhaps even the backbone of the tortured god whose nightmares they now shared.
The parting glow of the twin suns lingered between two hazy peaks. To the east lay the sprawling pine forest they’d left mercifully behind. Nils had wanted to give chase to the dwarves who’d taken Nameless, despite the threat of their crossbows, but Silas persuaded him to skirt the edge of the trees, see if they could find another way to rescue their friend. He had no idea what that was, but the grimoire would provide an answer. It left him in no doubt about that whatsoever.
Something golden streaked across the sky toward the north. It was too low for a shooting star. He cocked his head and watched its passage above the distant forest. He was about to point it out to Nils, but the lad looked up, wrinkled his nose, and glared.
“You shat your pants?”
Silas drew in air between his teeth. “No,”—you fatuous buffoon—“it’s peat.”
The snot-nosed cretin took that as an excuse to close his book. Anything to avoid reading. Mind you, seeing as he had nothing better to study than religious hogwash, Silas couldn’t say he blamed him. What was Nameless thinking when he lent his book to Nils? More to the point, what was an axe-wielding, beer-swilling, former genocidal maniac doing with sacred scriptures, in the first place?