The Devil's Library: The Windhaven Chronicles

by Watson Davis

  Gartan dove into an alleyway, putting the building between him and her. He threw his axe aside, tossing it further down the alley. He jumped up, grabbing the bottom of a window. His boots finding scant purchase on the wall, he prayed under his breath to Enahu, an old climbing prayer from his youth. His fingers clamped onto the depressions of the mortar between the bricks, his boots gaining a small bit of traction, and he climbed the wall to the top of the building. The female mage sprang around the corner, crackling with energy, her chanting faint and hard to hear.

  Gartan kicked off from the wall, aiming his knees at her head, and dropped down toward her back. With some manner of magical sense, she spun, staring up, eyes wide with surprise and fear. Gartan’s knees hit her on her chest, one knee breaking her collarbone, the other slamming against her near her throat.

  She crumpled beneath him, expelling her breath, but her energy, with no chant binding it, no mystical gestures guiding it, exploded, throwing Gartan up into the air, back up the alley, to bounce off one wall, to careen off another.

  He landed on some flower pots beside a door, the clay pots shattering beneath his weight, a rib grinding, broken by the impact. He staggered to his feet, his head ringing, lights exploding before his eyes, the edge of his vision gray. He stumbled to his axe and fell to his knees.

  The door swung open, releasing a torrent of spicy aromas and scents of kinds Gartan had never smelled before. A Shrian woman, a mother with her child behind her, threw herself upon him, both hands over her head, directing a long, thick cooking knife at him. Gartan lunged forward, swatting with his hand, the back of his right hand slapping her hands, knocking the knife from her grip. He caught her and flung her back into her home. The children shrieked, surrounding the woman, touching her, putting themselves between Gartan and their mother, protecting her. Gartan grinned at them.

  Ahead of him, someone yelled, “Ironcutters!”

  Gartan answered, “Skybears!”

  The children shrank back away from him. Gartan ran toward the sound of the Onei and the clashing of swords and axes.

  The Fall and News of It

  “Skybears!”

  “Skybears!” Tethan answered, raising his axes in the air, arms quivering and burning from fatigue. Panting for breath, he stood in the muck of battle, the grounds of the courtyard of the king’s keep soggy with blood. Makal lounged against the base of a pillar, with Nohel and Tayna sitting side by side on a wooden bench; a few others, of clans he didn’t recognize, milled about the keep’s yard with dazed looks on their faces. Three Onei had not been so lucky and sprawled on the ground dead beside the bodies of the Shrian soldiers.

  Two Onei stood by the door to one tower. It was locked, the only door remaining unopened, and the tower the only building in the keep unsearched.

  Tethan took a step toward Tayna, thinking to speak to her, to see if she was unhurt, but stopped when a hand slapped his back.

  “Well met, my son.”

  “Ha!” Tethan turned and, placing both axes in his right hand, hugged his father with his left arm. Tethan sniffed, the stink of singed hair and charred skin greeting his nose. He stepped back, looking his father up and down: the burned clothing and hair, the cuts and scrapes on his skin, the delicate way he held himself. “Are you badly injured?”

  Gartan laughed, waving his hand at his son, dismissing his concern. “I just got banged up a bit, but next time I will let you captain the boat.”

  “Really?” Tethan stepped back, grinning, ecstatic, but then his smile faded. He squinted, glaring at his father. “How badly did you wreck the Katydid?”

  Gartan grimaced and, shuddering, waved his hand again. “As you said, there are plenty more ships to choose—”

  The door to the tower burst open, the wood splintering, sending shards spraying across the yard.

  “Flee, Onei scum!” a voice bellowed in Shrian.

  Tethan whirled around, slivers of wood stinging his back, and he readied his axes for battle. The Onei who’d been banging on the door now lay sprawled and broken on the bloody ground.

  A man in shimmering plate mail, his face hidden by his helmet, posed before them, the largest sword Tethan had ever seen in his right hand, glowing tendrils of power undulating around the blade. “Flee before the rightful king of Shria!”

  The king plodded forward, stepping on bodies, bones snapping beneath his feet, and Tethan hurled himself at him, ducking beneath a cumbersome swing of that mighty sword, slicing up at the joint in the elbow of the plate mail with his axe. His axe bounced off, the shock of the blow reverberating up the axe, through the handle and into Tethan’s hand and arm, rendering both of them numb.

  More Onei stormed the king from the front, Tayna and Mitta Brightfox launching a hail of arrows, all of them aimed at the eyeholes in the helmet, all of them bouncing harmlessly away.

  Makal and Nohel rushed forward, dodging the king’s blade. Their axes did no damage to his armor and the king swept them away with a backhanded stroke of his forearm, flinging them across the yard and into the walls of the barracks.

  Tethan leapt onto his back, trying to hold on with his numb hand, smashing down with his left axe at the joint between the helmet and the neck, trying to find some weakness. The king struggled to reach up and grab him with his left hand, the movement of his arm hindered by his armor. The king stumbled around the yard, the other Onei striking at him, cutting at him with their axes, but doing no damage, until the king threw himself backward against the wall of a tower. Tethan jumped clear at the last moment, diving to the ground and rolling through the open door into the tower from which the king had appeared.

  Tethan shook his numb right hand and stepped toward the door.

  “Leave my lands, or I will gut the lot of you!” the king bellowed.

  But Tethan stopped. The king’s voice had come from two places: from out in the yard, and from upstairs, from somewhere up in the tower. Tethan ran up the stairs, bursting through a door into a large, windowless room with two occupants: a magician standing before his burning brazier, chanting with his eyes closed, and a man in plate-mail armor.

  Tethan charged the magician.

  The man in armor raised his left hand toward the mage, screaming, “Sogium, watch out!” His voice echoed out in the yard a fraction of a heartbeat later.

  The mage’s eyes opened, his chanting stopped, and Tethan split his skull.

  The man in the armor screamed, “No!” the echo outside fading faster than his scream inside.

  The mage toppled to the ground, the blade of Tethan’s axe wedged into his bones and stuck there. Tethan tugged at it, trying to free it, but the man in the armor charged at him, his swing wild.

  Tethan released the axe handle, allowing the mage’s body to slip the rest of the way to the ground, and he dodged the warrior’s wild blow.

  The man righted himself and whirled around, expecting an attack.

  Tethan walked away, flexing his fingers.

  The man chuckled. “Not so tough without your axe, then, huh?”

  “Were you telling the truth?” Tethan asked, crouching, sliding to the side away from the sword.

  “The truth?” the man said. “Yes, I was. I will gut you first, and then all of your stinking Onei friends.”

  With his last word, he lunged at Tethan, stabbing at him with the point of the blade, a move more fit for a different kind of sword in a different kind of style.

  Tethan slid to the side, out of the blade’s path, his right hand locking on the vambrace on the man’s forearm, his left hand striking up into the man’s armpit, the edge of the plate mail slicing Tethan’s hand. Tethan spun, sliding his hips toward the man, grunting with the strain. He flipped the man over and let him crash to the ground. His sword shot out of his hand and flew across the room.

  Tethan landed on the man’s chest, grabbing the helmet and ripping it from the man’s head. A middle-aged purelander face looked up at him, his eyes wide with shock and fear, his mouth open.

 
Tethan grabbed the brown hair on the man’s head and leaned down so their noses almost touched. “Are you the king of Shria?”

  # # #

  “Ouch,” Tethan said, his mouth full of grilled venison, seated on a cushioned chair at the feasting table in the king of Shria’s palace, yanking his injured left hand out of Davina’s grip. Angrid of the Brightfoxes lounged on the chair to his right, joking with Kilil Brightfox on her right, their laughter joining the hubbub of happy voices around them.

  “Give me your hand, you big baby,” Davina said, sitting beside him with her chair angled toward him, her voice nearly lost in the din of the celebrating Onei.

  Tethan gave her his hand, looking away as she worked her magic to clear the wound of infection, the magic stinging, uncomfortable, with spikes of pain. Tayna danced in a clearing across the room, holding a mug of ale over her head. Tethan leaned toward his mother and said, “How did you know Dad was the right man for you to marry?”

  “You assume your father was the right man for me to marry?”

  Tethan tore his gaze from Tayna and stared at his mother.

  She smiled. “Well, listen. You want someone who pushes you to get better, not worse, someone who wants you to grow without changing who you are, someone who works with you and not against you. You want someone who wants to be with you as much as you want to be with them and is someone you want to be with more than anyone or anything else in the universe.” She looked up from his wound, staring into his eyes. “But if I don’t like the person, you must send them away immediately.”

  Tethan laughed.

  “I am not joking,” Davina said, returning her attention to his wounds. “And to prove it, I will arrange your marriage as soon as I find someone acceptable.”

  Gartan danced before the feasting table, joining Tayna for a round, both laughing. Then he leapt to the top of a table and bellowed, “I found myself alone, cut off from my clan, when ten Shrian mages burst forth from around the corner of an alley, lightning shooting from their hands. But I ducked!”

  “I bet you ducked!” Mitta said, laughing, her mouth full of food. “And peed your pants, too!”

  “Oh no,” Davina whispered, smiling. “Your father always becomes larger than life with an audience.”

  Tethan chuckled.

  “I climbed up the wall to where they couldn’t see me,” Gartan said, a smile on his face, gesticulating with his hands, mimicking himself climbing up the wall, covering his eyes with his hands like a father telling a nighttime story to his children and acting invisible. “And when they came around the corner to search for me and turn me into charred Gartan, I fell among them, slaying them all with my bare fists.”

  “All ten of them?” Simthil called out.

  “Ten?” Gartan jerked back, a look of horror on his face. “Nay, not ten, but easily fifteen as more piled out from the doors of their houses! Fifteen of the greatest mages Shria had to offer. Note I use the word ‘had’ because now they are dead, and you are all safe.” Gartan touched his chest and bowed. “Thanks to me.”

  All the clansmen guffawed at that.

  Gartan jogged up the steps to where the king of Shria was sitting on his throne, his arms and legs bound to the arms and legs of the throne, his hands bent and bloody, his body slumping over; his head hung down, blood dripping from his nose and chin. Gartan grabbed the king by his hair, lifting his head up, and asked him, “Is that not exactly how it happened?”

  In Shrian, the king pleaded, “Please, let me go. I beg of you. I’ll give you the entire treasury. Anything you ask. Tribute. Anything.”

  Gartan released the king’s hair and turned to the Onei, raising his hands, saying, “He said that I am lying.”

  A hush fell over the feast.

  Gartan sighed, his shoulders slumping, shaking his head. He gestured toward the king with his hand and shrugged, saying, “The king says I killed at least twenty of those maggots if I killed two.”

  Tethan rose to his feet, raising his hands, yelling along with the rest of the Onei. Davina patted his back, shook her head, and walked away, going to the next injured Onei.

  Standing before the king, Gartan spread his hands and said, “But we are not here to celebrate me and my bravery. We are here to celebrate those who have journeyed on, their souls joining the armies of Heaven in the Greathouse. Cheers to you, Tordra, daughter of Neminya!”

  Simthil leapt to his feet, yelling, “To you, Pavur, son of Broran.”

  One by one the clan leaders and their lieutenants rose to their feet, speaking the names of the dead, raising their mugs and drinking their ale for each one.

  Gartan strolled back to the head of the table, taking his spot there. Tethan stood and walked around the table with his mug of beer in his hand, slapping Makal on the back as he passed. Tayna ran up to him and hugged his neck. He laughed and hugged her back, feeling her body press against his. She twisted out of his grip, grinning, wagging her finger at him, and pranced away, wrapping her arms around Simthil’s neck.

  Tethan watched her, his smile fading. He turned and strode to his father’s side, where he knelt. “Father? A word?”

  “Yes?” Gartan pushed his chair around, angling it toward his son, and leaned over, putting his ear next to his son’s mouth.

  “The king mentioned a treasury,” Tethan said. “Look at the splendor of this palace.”

  “Yes,” Gartan chuckled. “The purelanders do like to put on a show, I’ll say. Arrogant bastards.”

  “We can take all of this and go home now, and this will have been the richest raid in the history of the Onei,” Tethan said. “You will be remembered forever as the Onei who led that.”

  “What are you saying?” Gartan asked, slamming his mug down on the table to his side, grabbing his son’s shoulder, peering into his eyes.

  Tethan took a deep breath, his stomach fluttering. “Why don’t we leave here and go home, instead of chasing after a treasure we know nothing about except for some scribblings on a slip of human skin?”

  Gartan grabbed the hair on the back of Tethan’s head, pulling his head back to study his face. “For glory,” he said.

  Tethan blinked. “For glory?”

  Gartan let Tethan’s hair loose, and he rose to his feet, grabbing his mug and lifting it high. He shouted, “For glory!”

  And all the Onei jumped to their feet, raised their tankards high, and shouted, “For glory!”

  # # #

  The real Yaj Yath, a high-ranking priest of Shay-ol and the Eyes of Fire, tapped the knuckle of his index finger on a door, a light tap-tap-tap he hoped and feared would go unheard, a door with six silver stars sparkling against the door’s black lacquer surface, the door of the meditation room of Gal-nya Nubus, Elder of the Eternal Council, Queen of Basaliyasta, Mistress of Summoning.

  “Come in.” The voice hummed softly in his ear, a lover’s voice, the warm, sticky wetness of her tongue gliding up his neck.

  Yaj Yath jumped, glancing behind him though he knew she was not there, his hand wiping at his neck, finding it sticky and damp. Heart thumping, he eased the door open only wide enough to accept his thin, ascetic frame. He slipped in; the room was dark even though the afternoon’s light and the deep blue sky leaked in through a latticework window, the lattice forming clusters of six-pointed stars in groups of six.

  Wisps of smoke tickled at his nose and burned the edges of his eyes, an incense of licorice, the yellow embers appearing in the darkness as his eyes adjusted. The air of the room, heavy and damp, clung to him like a blanket.

  “You have news for me at this time?” Gal-nya’s voice echoed around the chamber, each word coming from a different place.

  The hair on the back of Yaj Yath’s neck rose. He bowed. “Yes, Your Excellency. Ambassador Chyilyu has sent his report on the Shrian capital’s sacking by some northern barbarians, Your Excellency.”

  “I see,” Gal-nya said. Silk slid over silk in the darkness. Her silhouette appeared before the window, her delicate curves, her lo
ng hair. “And some point in Chyilyu’s report concerned you to such a degree that you could not wait for an appointment?”

  Yaj Yath’s mouth dried up. He tried to swallow, nodding, licking his lips and coughing. He croaked, “Yes.”

  She inched toward Yaj Yath, her head tilting to the side. “And that would be?”

  “A merchant and her two mages came to request something from Chyilyu, but the Onei invasion interrupted Chyilyu before he could speak with them,” he said, rubbing his sweaty palms together.

  Gal-nya’s fangs glittered in the darkness in a mockery of a smile. “And I am interested in this merchant, why?”

  “I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.” Yaj Yath raised his hands and lowered his head. “But one of the mages with the merchant was Dyuh Mon.”

  The back of Yaj Yath’s head struck the door, cracking the wood. Stars flashed before his eyes. An ache started in the middle of his skull, and a sickness swept up from the lowest depth of his bowels, threatening to spew forth from his mouth.

  Gal-nya’s frigid hands clasped Yaj Yath’s head, her palms on his cheeks, her thumbnails pressing into the soft skin beneath his eyes. Her own black eyes glittered before him like a clear night’s sky, her lips stretched back to expose a mouth full of long, pointed, needle-like fangs dripping with venom.

  “The Librarian lives?” she whispered.

  Yaj Yath tried to move his head, tried to nod, but in failing, communicated his assent.

  “You swore to me that he was dead.” She licked at the blood running down his cheek.

  “The body was badly burned, Your Excellency.” Yaj Yath gulped. “He must have killed an acolyte of his size and disguised the body to fool us, to fool me.”

  She released him, letting him fall to the floor, hot blood dripping down the back of his neck from his impact with the door, hot blood dripping down his cheeks, off his chin, from the punctures below his eyes.

  “Prepare the summoning room,” she said, now without inflection, without emotion. “Inform the other councilors. We have a major summoning tonight and I require their power.”