by Gail Dayton
Obed approached, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He wore only those long, loose white trousers of his, exposing all of his tattoos. Kallista couldn’t help staring.
“Did you order this?” She jerked her gaze from Obed back to the rising piles on the once-empty floor.
He shook his head. “I told them to wait for instructions. I suppose they got tired of waiting.”
“What is all of this?” Kallista had never seen so much…stuff all in one place.
“It is yours.” Obed stepped forward and threw open a hinged crate, revealing racked swords with the distinctive black scabbards of the Heldring forge. The best swords in existence, birthed of folded steel and blue-hot North magic, taking a year or more to complete each one—and the crate held ten of them.
“Khralsh—” Stone breathed the word. He moved toward the swords as if drawn by chains and reached into the crate.
“Not that one.” Kallista spoke before she realized she had.
Stone jerked his hand back, stepped away, eyeing Torchay as if he feared punishment. Kallista paid little attention. He would learn. These swords had magic hammered into every folded layer of steel. The sword must be carefully matched to its bearer before that person touched it. A poor match could be disastrous.
She wrapped a length of silk spilled from one of the bundles around her hand—she didn’t want to go back for her gloves—and studied the swords in the crate. Kallista didn’t have to call magic. She knew Stone. He echoed through her now, without need for a touch.
“This one.” Kallista picked the sword up by the scabbard, the black surface chased with an ornate red geometric design, both hands wrapped in the blue silk. “You should have this one.”
Kallista turned, held the sword out hilt first to Stone. He stared at it, hunger in his eyes, then looked up at her. “Me?”
She could sense his confusion through that echo inside her. “You have already fought for me, with me. You’re not Tibran anymore, Stone. You’re ilias.”
With a swift glance back at Torchay, Stone stretched out his hand and grasped the hilt of the sword. Kallista felt no magic stirring, but Stone smiled. He drew the sword from its scabbard and tested the balance, moving away from the others to make a few experimental swings. It was double-edged, straight and long, a mountain sword, suited for thrusting as well as cutting.
Kallista turned back to the rough crate. There. That sword was meant for Obed. A sabre, slightly curved, edged only along the outer curve with a black-on-black scabbard. And there—twin short swords in a double sheath chased with twining green coils—they belonged to Torchay. There was a sword for Kallista, its scabbard slashed with jagged blue streaks, and one for Aisse, subtly striped with bronze, smaller than the others to suit her smaller build, but equally fine.
“How did you know?” Kallista gave Obed his sword.
He drew it without taking his eyes from her. “You are sword master as well?”
“How did you know which swords to bring?” She offered Torchay the blades made for him. He drew them both in a smooth cross-hand motion.
“I did not. I bought all they were willing to sell me, hoping you might find use for them.” Obed slid his sabre back into its sheath. As close as he stood to her, she could feel his desire for her mixed with awe and a sense of…worship? Why?
She stepped away from him to give Aisse her sword, then took up the one that called to her, finally shedding the silk coverings on her hands. Kallista drew it from the scabbard, a rapier, narrow and sharp, lightweight, perfect for the training Torchay had given her. It felt good in her hand, secure, confident. Was it her own confidence, or the sword’s?
“There are four left,” Torchay said. “Does that mean we wait for four marked companions—four more iliasti yet to come?”
Four more? She couldn’t deal with the four she had now. “You heard Obed. He bought as many as they would sell him.”
“But there was a blade to match each of us. Folk are turned away from Heldring every day because no sword will match them.”
“And it took ten blades to find one—or two—to match each of us.” She didn’t have time to wait for any more iliasti to turn up. They had to move quickly. It was time to tell them.
Kallista took breath to call her ilian together and choked on it. At the opposite end of the long parlor, Stone parried a thrust, fighting invisible enemies with his new sword. Far beyond the ten paces he had been confined to for so long.
“Stone.” She returned her blade to its home, backing a few steps farther.
He whipped the sword in an intricate pattern, spinning to a halt facing her. His eyes widened as he saw the distance between them. “I am—”
“Still upright, yes.” Kallista took another step back, and another, until she bumped against the wall.
Obed collapsed, but Torchay caught him before he hit the floor. Kallista took several quick steps forward until the dark man began to recover.
So Stone backed away. Was it real? Had he been released from his magical confinement? He had counted on the dizziness that hit just before he passed the boundary to tell him when he’d moved too far from Kallista, as he had these last weeks. But there had been no dizziness.
Again, he measured the distance between them. At least twice what he’d been allowed before. He laughed out loud in sheer joy. Could he go farther? Did he still have limits? Stone opened the door to the suite and stepped outside.
Nothing. Not even dizziness. He moved farther, past the guards’ quarters to the top of the stairs. Still nothing. He headed down the stairs. Lieutenant Suteny followed, but Stone paid him no attention. Joh followed everywhere he went.
Stone picked up speed as he descended, clattering faster and faster down the stairs until he was taking them two at a time. People scattered when he burst into the wide gallery at the end of the stairwell. Stone laughed again, spreading his arms wide and spinning in a circle. He was free.
He could go anywhere he wanted. Do anything he pleased. And he wouldn’t fall down in a faint. He grinned at the courtiers eyeing him warily and swept into a low bow. And Kallista’s touch shimmered through him.
Even here, as far from her as he stood, they were linked. She touched things inside him never meant to be touched, spearing him through with delight. Could he go far enough away to escape that? Did he want to? And if he did, where could he go? What place out there was better than where he was?
“Warrior. Stone.” Joh was talking to him.
“What?” Stone couldn’t prevent the irritation in his voice. He shouldn’t want to go back to Kallista. He didn’t want to want it. And again, her touch stroked sweetly along his soul.
“Put away the blade, warrior.” The steel in Joh’s voice brought Stone back to his surroundings.
The lieutenant and his guards encircled Stone, separating him from the few frightened-looking courtiers who still lingered in the gallery, and he suddenly realized how this looked. A wild-eyed Tibran dashing through the Adaran palace with a naked sword in his hand, laughing like a madman—it would alarm anyone.
Stone rotated the sword’s hilt in his hand, preparing to hand it over, and the sword…protested? Accepting it as yet one more magical improbability to deal with, Stone considered his alternatives. He’d left the scabbard above in the parlor, so he couldn’t put it away. “Move out of my way so I can go home.”
He started for the stairwell as if he expected the guards to move out of his way, and they did. Home, he’d said. Was it? Not the suite. But the people inside were as close as he was likely to get, now Fox was gone. He belonged with them. It would never be like it was with Fox. He didn’t want it to be. But they were all he had. He would be stupid to throw them away.
Halfway up the stairs, Stone paused and looked over his shoulder at the guards herding him back. Torchay wasn’t among them. Nor was he waiting at the top of the stairs. Then again, Stone had been running, sword in hand, away from Torchay’s charge. The bodyguard probably hoped Stone wouldn’t return. Despite
the fight with the prinsipella and her gang of rowdies, Stone knew Torchay still didn’t quite trust him.
But they were all of them sitting around breakfast, listening to Kallista as they ate. She looked up and smiled. “I’m glad to see you return on your own feet. Did you find the limit?”
Stone picked up the red-chased scabbard and slid his new sword inside. “I’m not sure there is one.” Her smile made him feel strange and he didn’t like it. She was just a woman, despite her magic. “Why didn’t you come after me?”
“Should I have?” She watched him approach. They all did, but her eyes touched him. “Would you have felt as free?”
The truth hit him and he would have staggered save for his grip on the chair. She had known every step he took. He pulled it out and sat, watching her as she did him. The others might have been shadows for all the attention he gave them. “But I’m not free, am I?”
“No more than I.” She held his gaze, her eyes as blue and bright as the lightning she threw. “You at least are bound only to me. I’m bound twice over.”
He didn’t want to think about that. His own troubles were burden enough. He wanted to blame her for them, and didn’t like feeling it might not be fair to do so.
“I’ll give you all the freedom I can.” She handed him a plate filled with sausages and sweet buns, all the things he particularly liked. “You returned just in time. I was about to tell everyone what I believe the One has destined for us.”
“And what is that?” Torchay entered the conversation, already sounding as if he disapproved.
“We must travel to Tibre and rid their king of the demon that rides him.”
“What? No.” Stone slammed his eating knife down on the table. He wouldn’t go back to Tibre. He couldn’t. His life as a Tibran warrior was no more, but his heart was still Tibran. How could they expect him to fight and kill his own people?
“Stone, we must.”
“I will not take part in any plot to kill my king.”
“He’s no’ your king any longer.” Torchay watched him, obviously ready for any threatening move.
“With any luck, we won’t have to kill him.” Kallista laid a hand on his arm and Stone resisted the urge to throw it off. “There is a demon riding his shoulders. That is our enemy. I’ve seen it in visions. It whispers in his ear. ‘What does it matter how many warriors you lose? Breed more. Who will mourn them when they die? Their mothers forgot them. Their fathers don’t know them. Take the land. Take the cities. Take their wealth for your own.’ I’ve heard it, Stone.”
Her words turned his blood to ice. “Do you tell me this…demon is the cause of the wars?”
“I believe it, yes. I have seen it. Who knows how long it has ridden Tibre’s kings?”
Stone opened his mouth to deny the existence of demons and found that he could not. He had seen, had felt too many impossible things since he woke up in that breach in the walls of Ukiny. How could he not accept the possibility of a demon? If this demon were stripped from the king…might not some of the warriors have a chance to know those things Fox had longed for on the night before he died? Perhaps they would be able to go home and soak in the baths, sleep in a bed and dally with a woman who had all her teeth.
He cut his eyes toward Aisse as if she could hear what he was thinking. He’d learned to be wary of her sharp tongue cutting up his peace. Not warrior’s behavior, but she had him thinking things that weren’t warrior’s thoughts. Like—what if the woman didn’t want to be dallied with?
“When do we go?” Obed’s question called Stone back from his errant thoughts.
“As soon as we can be ready.” Kallista pushed back her plate, half the food still remaining on it. “We’ll need supplies, horses, that sort of thing. Aisse, you go through all of this—” She waved her hand at the goods half filling the long parlor. “See if any of it might be useful, then find somewhere to store the rest of it. Or send it to my sisters and let them take care of it. Torchay, help her. You’ll know what we need.”
“What about us?” Obed asked.
“We will be practicing magic, you and I and Stone.” She sighed. “If we are to face a demon, I had better know what I am doing with what you two carry.”
Joh stalked through palace halls seething with emotion. Anger, disgust and loathing roiled in his stomach, made worse by generous dollops of guilt and shame, though he had done nothing worthy of either one. If he could just leave this place, get out of this damn poisonous atmosphere. He hated sneaking about. He wasn’t a spy, he was a soldier.
He pushed his fist hard against the pain in his gut, shooting a glance over his shoulder. Goddess, he hated it all. He hated the way the captain looked at him at the times when she would have once offered her hand but didn’t any longer, as if he had disappointed her somehow. He hated the fear that crawled through him then, wondering just what dark magics she held in her ungloved hands, whether she could read his thoughts, his fear. He wanted out.
Joh pressed his lips together, quelling the need to vent his frustrations in a more physical way. He could go to the training yard later and take them out on some hapless sparring partner. His request for transfer to a forward unit had been turned down. Again. Maybe they were hoping after four requests, he would give up and resign himself to his useless post. He wouldn’t. But he’d wait a bit before presenting the next request. Just now, he’d been summoned back to the little Briar Chapel in the bowels of Winterhold Palace.
Joh strode down the aisle, finding the expected hooded figure in the shadows.
The Master Barb glided forward. “The Barinirab Order requires your service.”
The jab of pain through Joh’s burning gut was scarcely noticeable past the dread. “What is it?” He dipped his head slightly, Renunciate to Rejuvenate, unable to keep all the resentment from his voice.
“West magic is an abomination before the One.” The master’s voice deepened, crackled with fervor. “It is death and destruction, permeated with darkness. It is a perversion of everything that is good.”
Joh listened, though he’d heard it before. No one was comfortable with West magic or its dark connections. He least of all.
“This naitan has disrupted the government. She has set the court on end with her wild magic and her evil intent.”
“Well—” Joh wouldn’t go so far as to call her evil, exactly. She made him uneasy—truthfully, she frightened him. Because he didn’t know what she could do. Or would do. But evil?
“West magic is insidious,” the rasping voice went on. “It steals away a person’s will, tempting them with knowledge, with dark powers never meant for mere humanity. It twists the one it possesses, changing them, leading them deep into its dark web.”
That made sense. “What service does the order ask of its Renunciate?”
“We must stop them.”
Joh recoiled. “How?” He wanted to stop the magic, but certain things he would not do. Murder was one of them. He killed, yes, but the enemy in the battlefield, face-to-face, not his soldier sedili with a knife in the back.
“You reported that the naitan goes daily to practice her magic.”
“Yes, that’s right. With her ilian. They all go together. What do you plan to do?”
The Master Barb moved out of his corner, revealing a small keg in the deeper dark. “We have a naitan, an East magic healer, who can block the West magic with the help of this medicinal powder.”
“You want me to mix it in their drinks? Sprinkle it in their food?” There was a tremendous amount of powder in the keg for that, but Joh couldn’t think how else it could be used.
The master’s laugh sounded like stone scraping on stone. “It must be burned, so it becomes a vapor to be breathed. But not in their suite. In the yard where they practice, so the vapors can dissipate when the healer’s spell is finished. You must burn it without the captain naitan knowing it. The West magic grips her hard, it will not want to let her go.”
“There may be a drain where I can pour
it.”
“No. It must remain inside the cask. Will the whole of it fit inside the drain?”
Joh frowned, taking a visual measurement of the container. “I don’t know. I’ll have to look. How am I to start it burning without the naitan seeing me?”
“Simply pour a small trail from where you hide the cask to where you hide yourself. The spark will travel along the line of powder.”
“Won’t the naitan see the spark burning?”
“You will have to ensure that she doesn’t.” The master’s voice crackled with anger. “And if you take the cask directly to this practice yard when you leave here, no one will see you transport it.”
It was late, the ilian closed tight in their suite, and Winterhold Palace abandoned for the summer months. “This spell will free the naitan from the West magic?” Joh asked for verification.
The Master Barb inclined his head. “It is the only way.”
Joh lifted the keg to his shoulder. “I hope this works.”
“As do I, Renunciate.” The cowled figure bowed again and disappeared into the shadows. “The healer will be at the courtyard at ten strikes of the clock tomorrow morning.”
By the light of a silver moon, Joh scoured the practice yard for a place to hide the keg. It had to be close by, so the vapors would permeate the entire courtyard as well as the windowless chamber adjoining. He contemplated sinking it into the central drain. It was large enough to hold it, but he feared a powder trail leading to it would be both too noticeable and too easily scuffed away, whether by accident or purpose.
He finally settled for concealing the keg partially inside the broken-off gargoyle lying in a corner near the adjoining chamber. He wrestled the keg back out and poured a generous trail of powder along the edge of the wall, into the empty chamber, down a corridor and around a corner. He studied the harmless-looking stuff. Would a spark truly burn along all that distance?
Joh set the keg down and pulled out his flint and steel. The powder caught at the first spark, flashing into a spitting flame that sped back along the trail so fast he had to run to keep up with it. The acrid black smoke it gave off smelled foul enough to work some sort of magic. He only hoped the naitan or one of her iliasti did not notice the scorch marks on the parquet floor. They would likely notice the spark, but as swiftly as it flashed down the powder line, they would not have time to act before it reached its goal.