He darted up a pile of rubble to a gap in the wall. “Dev, come look!”
The amazement in his cry galvanized me out of shock. I vaulted up chunks of rubble and peered past Kiran to the city beyond.
I gaped, stunned all over again. Far below us, beyond Ninavel’s roofs and spires and the shining white curve of the outer sandstorm wall, a vast blue lake filled the Painted Valley from the Whitefire Mountains to the Boltholes, stretching northward into hazy distance.
“Khalmet’s bloodsoaked bony hand! You did that?”
Kiran said, “I needed to draw an unchecked flood of power to be sure of destroying both Ruslan and the labyrinth. But I thought, why not use that power to loosen Sechaveh’s stranglehold on Ninavel? The city’s mages should still live. Casting powerful spells won’t be possible without the confluence, but if water is readily available, the impact shouldn’t be so terrible for the untalented.”
“That lake won’t last forever.” I was no scholar to know how fast the water would turn brackish and dry up, but I did know it was doomed with no fresh streams coming in.
“No, but it’ll last quite a few years, I think. Long enough that people can safely leave the city, if they choose. Or build a new way of life.”
I struggled to comprehend the enormity of what Kiran had done. No more confluence meant no more tainted kids. No more Taint thieves…Red Dal and every other handler would be out of a job. Not exactly a paradise for the kids already living in the dens—they’d be in shock, their formerly happy lives shattered as their handlers scrambled to sell them off as useless. But no more kids would replace them.
A good thing in the end, but my heart hurt to think of all those Tainters out there with their talent ripped from them. Almost, I could hear their cries of despair…
I did hear a groan. Soft, but close. Someone was alive under the rubble. I strained to pinpoint the sound. “Did you hear that? If it’s Ruslan, I’ll cut his fucking heart out.”
“Not Ruslan,” the demon said, crouched at the base of the rubble. “The Alathian, perhaps, though his fire is hidden from me.”
“Marten!” Kiran leaped down from the gap. “Before I cast, I saw him move, and my amulet was right near him—he must have put it on and survived my casting as you did in Simon’s cave. We have to find him—”
“Quiet!” I crawled down rubble, listening. Another muffled moan. “He’s under here. Can you move these blocks?” The Taint was gone from me, the void inside as dark and dead as it had ever been. With the confluence reduced to a puddle, I was guessing that was a permanent state of affairs. But in the face of what had happened to Kiran, I wasn’t about to complain.
Kiran’s face screwed up in concentration. His body went all blurred again, his pain juddering into me. “I can’t…I’m sorry…”
“I warned you, cousin. Not enough fire.” The demon made no move to help us.
“Oh, for Khalmet’s sake.” I spotted a crevice wide enough to admit me and wriggled within. The stink of burned flesh was thick in the tight space. My questing fingers touched a limp, blood-slick hand. “Marten’s here, but he’s hurt bad.” I shoved at a chunk of stone. It didn’t move an inch. I’d have to try pulling Marten out, and hope he wasn’t pinned.
He wasn’t pinned, just wedged deep in the crevice. A few moments of cursing and hauling, and I managed to tug him free of the rubble.
Hurt bad was a kind description. Half his skin was charred, his right leg was bent at an angle that made me want to throw up, and white shards of skull showed through the black, bloody mess of his temple.
Kiran was still looking all wavery. He’d pulled back from our bond, but not before I’d felt just how badly it was hurting him to stay here.
He said, “We need—need a healer. The Council must’ve sent someone to replace Halassian as ambassador. I’ll go to—to the Alathian embassy and tell them Marten’s here.”
“One look at you, and the Alathians will be screaming and casting magefire. They’ll listen faster if I’m the one who begs their help.” I took Mikail’s knife and sliced free a swatch of Marten’s bloodied uniform. If that didn’t work to bring the mages at the embassy running, I’d offer to let them look in my head. “If they take me prisoner, I’m counting on you to come back and rescue my ass. Again.”
Kiran looked from Marten’s charred, broken body to Mikail, sprawled limp and gray on the workroom’s far side. “Will you get help for them both? Please?”
I wanted to leave Mikail to rot. But looking at Kiran’s white, pain-wracked face, remembering the force of his anguish, I couldn’t do it. Grudgingly, I nodded.
But I was glad Kiran had retreated from my mind and couldn’t hear what I was thinking. I’d bring the Alathians with the offer of reclaiming a fugitive Watch captain and capturing one of the blood mages who’d nearly destroyed their country. I knew the Alathians: they wouldn’t kill Mikail right off. They’d heal him enough so they could find out the truth, but once they finished interrogating him, they’d drag him back to the Council so they could execute him in style. That worked for me.
Kiran let out a breath that was half a sob. “Thank you.” He looked at the demon. “I’ll—I’ll go to the fire with you, if you will teach me the control I need to safely carry Dev to Alathia.”
“Done,” the demon said immediately. It straightened, beckoning. “Come, child.”
I wanted to take Kiran’s shoulders, force him to look at me. “Kiran. You come back as soon as you can, understand?”
He shut his eyes, and for an instant, I could pretend he was still fully human.
“I will,” he said, and vanished.
Chapter Thirty-Three
(Kiran)
Kiran led Dev through darkness—or what to Dev’s eyes was darkness. Massive tree boughs blocked the night sky so completely that no glint of starlight penetrated. The Alathian night was loud with chirring bugs and peeping frogs, but this late, no fireflies blinked like tiny magelights beneath the trees.
Once, Kiran would have seen the night forest as a vibrant spectrum of life, from the sturdy green strength of trees to the tiniest fluttering sparks of moths. Now, he moved through a strange, faded twilight. In comparison to the breathtaking glory of the demon realm, the human realm was a land of ghosts and shadows. If he concentrated, he could see more or less as he once had, with inanimate objects properly solid instead of gray, lifeless phantoms, and living creatures as physical shapes instead of collections of dim energies.
But he couldn’t smell the loamy fragrance of forest as Dev did, or feel the night breeze on his face, though he sensed wind rippling through the living leaves overhead. He’d learned to contain his altered ikilhia so he could touch flesh without harming it, but all he felt of Dev’s hand in his was a numb, solid resistance, as if his nerves had fallen asleep.
Metal, stone, skin, plants, all felt the same to his illusory fingers, and Kiran hated that. Yet he’d been astonished at the new acuity of his inner senses in the demon realm. The richness and depth of the tastes carried on the currents, the vivid beauty of the magic, the joy of freedom…maybe in time, that would make up for what he had lost.
Or maybe you’ll find a way to have a proper body again, Dev said, with the same stubborn hope he’d once had for Kiran’s freedom.
I’m not certain that’s possible. The scarred demon had scoffed at the very idea, saying that a child of fire could not return to flesh any more than a human child could crawl back inside its mother. It had warned Kiran that if he tried to inhabit a shell of flesh the way it had inhabited Dev, that body would soon sicken and die.
You shouldn’t trust what it tells you, Dev said. You’ve only been a demon for what, five days? That’s nowhere near enough time to know what’s possible and what’s not.
I’m not a demon, Kiran protested, unable to hide his twinge of hurt. I’m still me.
Sorry, Dev said hastily. I didn’t mean…look, I would rather you were anything than dead.
Me too, Kiran said. Another st
ep, and the muted energies of forest life leached from his sight, the gray world withering and darkening. This is as far as I can go from the earth-current. Any farther, and darkness would blot out his thoughts, his ikilhia instantly and instinctively retreating to where it could be sustained.
This is far enough, Dev assured him. If the scry-charm showed truth, the Watch’s camp isn’t more than a mile away. And nobody makes defensive charms stronger than Ruslan’s, right? He flashed Kiran an image of the myriad charms he wore, which they’d ransacked from Ruslan’s vaults. I’ll be fine. Just give me a good long while to sneak up to the camp before you draw the attention of the Watch. I won’t be moving fast without that handy mage-sight of yours.
I hate that I can’t protect you, Kiran said. The scarred demon—who had not so far rejoined its former kin, though Kiran was not sure if that was its choice or theirs—had taught him the rudiments of control. Kiran had spent every moment of the days since Ruslan’s death practicing that control, but he couldn’t yet exert a demon’s Tainted power in the human realm, or their ability to cast magic. It was so frustrating to have to relearn everything. When he tried to cast with the techniques Ruslan had so painstakingly instilled in him, it was as if he were a nathahlen trying to shape water with his hands. The demon laughed at him, saying such clumsy intermediaries as patterns and channels were meant for creatures of mud, not fire. It said that in time, he would learn to wield power by instinct, as a child learns to crawl and then walk.
But neither he nor Dev had wanted to wait to free Cara and Melly. Five days was long enough.
Exactly, Dev said. Sooner’s better. Before the Watch decides to drag them off to Tamanath by a route even farther from anywhere you can reach.
Kiran handed Dev his old kizhenvya amulet and shoved back fear in favor of faith. If anyone could succeed in this, it was Dev.
No, Dev said. If anyone can succeed, it’s us. Together. Doesn’t matter if you can’t cast; we still make a hell of a team. The Alathians don’t stand a chance.
In answer, Kiran pulled Dev into a hug, not caring that he couldn’t feel the contact as he once had. Dev could, and that was what mattered. Dev’s emotions rolled over him in a tangled rush: startled appreciation of the embrace, regret for Kiran’s transformation, worry for Cara and Melly, anticipation of reunion with them.
Go bring Cara and Melly home, Kiran said.
Dev took an unsteady breath and let go. He slipped on the amulet and vanished from Kiran’s mind, leaving Kiran with only a whisper on the night air.
“See you soon.”
* * *
Kiran stood tall within a dome of ghostly flame, waiting for the Watch. They were coming; the reek of blood magic from the charm fueling his fiery barrier was a beacon they could not ignore. The subtle ripples of the Alathians’ scrying spells still lingered in the shadowy aether of the forest. They’d seen him standing here, though the barrier charm’s shielding was powerful enough to conceal the altered nature of his ikilhia, just as the shimmer of its fire would obscure the inhuman blaze of his eyes. He must not let the Watch realize he couldn’t leave the earth-current.
Amid the gray traceries of trees, a dozen bright life-lights hastened toward him in tight formation. He was glad to see so many. The Alathians might suspect he had not come alone, but they clearly believed him the greatest threat, just as Kiran had hoped. The Watch would never leave their prisoners unguarded, but the more mages he could draw away from Cara and Melly, the better Dev’s chances of freeing them.
The life-lights slowed, approaching him. The Alathians, no fools, were wary.
Kiran shouted, “I’m here to talk, not fight! I could have struck every one of you down without ever leaving Ninavel, if I had wished.” In truth, all he could do was snatch them into the demon realm should they come close enough to grab, and that was a tactic he didn’t want to use. He had no wish to injure anyone as badly as he had Marten. “Instead, I’ve come to discuss the return of my friends.”
A lone mage stepped out of the trees. To Kiran’s surprise, it was Councilor Varellian herself who faced him. He would have thought a Council member too wary to risk herself in a fight with a blood mage. But then, Alathians were no cowards, and Varellian must be the strongest mage at the camp. Her physical form seemed but a mirage around her ikilhia, which was a rigidly controlled bonfire of gold.
“Kiran ai Ruslanov,” she said grimly. “You well know that we do not yield to the demands of blood mages.”
“Ruslan Khaveirin is dead,” Kiran said. “I am no longer mark-bound but free, and I have no wish to follow his style of magic. Nor do I hold you and the rest of the Council as enemies, if you’ll let my friends go. They saved your country from destruction at Ruslan’s hands—does this mean nothing to you?”
Varellian scrutinized him in silence. Amid the trees, her cohorts fanned out, slinking in a wide circle to surround Kiran. She was likely delaying as much as he was, hoping to give her subordinates time to analyze his barrier and prepare a strike.
Strange, to face so many hostile mages without the least fear for what they might cast at him.
This was the confidence Ruslan had always felt. The thought brought a cold shiver of dismay; while Kiran might pretend Ruslan’s arrogance, he never wanted to succumb to it.
Ruslan had never feared for nathahlen friends as Kiran did for Dev, Cara, and Melly. That was the difference Kiran must ensure he never lost. What was happening at the camp? Please be careful, Kiran willed Dev, even knowing Dev couldn’t hear him.
“Martennan always insisted that you were no liar,” Varellian said. “But if what I hear from our embassy in Ninavel is true, you have ruined him as thoroughly as you have our border wards.”
Real grief lay in her voice, though Kiran had the cold feeling she was referring to Marten’s future more than his lost magic. “Ruin was never my purpose. I fought to save lives. Just as I’ll fight to save my friends from you and the rest of the Council, if you force me to it.” That includes Marten, he wanted to say, but caution kept him silent. He didn’t want to provoke the Council into any attempts to move Marten out of Ninavel and beyond Kiran’s reach—or worse, pass sentence on him. “I hope you will instead see reason.”
“If you want your friends freed, you must surrender to our justice,” Varellian said.
She had no intention of freeing anyone. Just as he had no intention of surrendering. “I tried that once,” Kiran said, dryly sardonic. “It didn’t work out well for any of us.”
Distant yells and an actinic blaze of magic disturbed the Alathian night. Dev was making his move. Before Varellian could react, Kiran threw a flashfire charm through the barrier surrounding him. Undergrowth and trees alike exploded into flame.
Varellian, unhurt behind layers of protective wardings, shouted an order. The circle of mages acted with instant, coordinated efficiency. Power arrowed out of their ikilhias and braided into a lance that stabbed at the dome protecting him.
The barrier’s fire boiled hotter yet, resisting the attempt. Lightning crackled wild into the air. Kiran grinned; between the angry blaze of the barrier and the smoke from the burning undergrowth, the Alathians would no longer be able to see within the spell they were trying so hard to shatter.
When they succeeded, they wouldn’t find him waiting. He leaped into the demon realm. The wild glory of the currents was so vivid in comparison to the muddy shadows of the forest that it was like stepping from a dingy alley in Ninavel’s depths straight into the most beautiful of mountain cirques.
Kiran slid a careful distance along a current in the demon realm, and stepped into the human realm again. Now he stood in quiet darkness beside a giant cinnabar pine, a good half mile away from the inferno he’d just left.
The tree beside him stretched so high into the sky it seemed as large as one of Ninavel’s towers. If Dev had succeeded at the camp, then he, Cara, and Melly would be racing straight for this pine, guided by a find-me charm keyed with slivers of its bark. Kiran hurried to th
e very limit of the distance he could manage from the earth-current and strained to sift any hint of human ikilhia from the forest’s shadows.
Abruptly, his bond to Dev opened wide. Dev was running, vaulting bushes and fallen tree trunks dappled silver by moonlight, his breath tearing in his lungs. I gave the amulet to Cara—got her and Melly’s snapthroat charms off, but fuck, there’s a lot of mages stampeding around—
Hurry, Kiran begged him. In the distance, lightning still stabbed upward from a vicious red glow. Varellian’s company of mages hadn’t yet broken his barrier to discover him gone, but they would soon.
Dev shouted to Cara, “Go, I’ll lead them off! You—”
The sense of him cut off with horrible totality. Kiran bit back a shout of his own, straining along the bond. Nothing. He cursed the Alathians, cursed his own inability to properly cast, cursed everything that kept him from charging to Dev’s aid. The Alathians would be striking to capture, not kill. But nathahlen were so easily hurt—
New shouts broke the forest’s chorus of night noises, the yells getting closer. Someone was still on the run. Kiran willed the fugitive to run faster, hoping against hope…
A small shadow that contained a nathahlen’s dim fire crashed through the bushes. “Kiran! Kiran, where are you?”
“Melly!” Kiran reached for her. She yelped in surprise and leaped back, her ikilhia flaring with fear.
His eyes; he hadn’t yet learned to make them look human, and Dev must not have had time for explanations. “Melly, it’s Kiran. Not a demon—I promise you, it’s me. Where are Cara and Dev?”
Melly hung back, still wary. “Cara sent me ahead. She said to wait—”
Brilliant shafts of light speared between the trees. A trio of mages was fast approaching, their voices twining in determined song.
The Labyrinth of Flame Page 62