The Obsidian Tower

by Melissa Caruso

  No, I promised myself as I strode back toward my rooms through a dusty forgotten hallway in a section of the Great Lodge that had been sealed off by newer construction, anger at my aunt propelling me like the crest of a wave. Absolutely not, under any circumstances. By the Graces, there were some lines it should go without saying that you simply didn’t cross.

  Oh, I could see the logic. If it came down to it—if there were an army at the gates, and Gloamingard was about to fall—it would be hard to say no to whatever demon’s bargain the gate could offer. I wasn’t sure I could stand by and let Odan and Gaven and little Kip and everyone in the castle die if I had access to the power to protect them. We had to make sure it never came to that.

  “I did warn you,” came Whisper’s voice, liquid and deadly soft behind me.

  I turned to find a pair of yellow eyes glowing at me from a shadowed hollow between cobwebby antlers mounted over a doorway behind me. Luminescent flowers tucked in niches in the walls provided enough ghostly light to pick out the words carved down one side of the door frame in curling, elaborate letters: Keep your trust through wits or war—nothing must unseal the Door.

  I shook my head, unable to unravel the tangle of feelings roiling in my chest. “You should have told me what that cursed stone was in the beginning.”

  “Of course I didn’t tell you. I worked very hard to try to keep you from finding out.” He leaped down casually to the floor, a falling shadow, landing with a puff of dust. “But you wouldn’t leave it alone, and now you know. And what I need to know, Ryx, is what you plan to do about it.”

  The menace underlying his tone chilled me. I might consider Whisper my friend, but he’d made it clear enough that friendship had its limits.

  “I only wish I had a plan,” I said honestly. “I’m in shock.”

  He wove a slow circle around me in the dim corridor. “Because of what the bones told you?” he asked, too casually. “Or have other things occurred to you?”

  “What, is there something even worse?” We were in one of my hidden routes through the castle, but even so, I glanced around and dropped my voice. “The Door is a gate to the Nine Hells. Do I need something more to be shocked at?”

  “Not a gate,” Whisper corrected. “The gate. To the best of my knowledge, there’s only the one.”

  “Well, that’s a great consolation.” I slid down the log wall, dragging a clean swath through the dust, and came to rest on the age-smooth floorboards with my knees drawn up to my chest. “As for what I’m going to do about it, I don’t know. I have to do something, because my aunt’s plan is terrible. Soon every nation and domain in Eruvia will have designs on that gate, and Morgrain will drown in war. They’ll raze Gloamingard to the ground if we don’t stop them.”

  “I am disinclined to allow them to do that.” Whisper stretched, a long sinuous shadow, his claws flexing into view through his dark fur. “This place is my home, and I like it the way it is. I suspect your grandmother feels the same.”

  “But she’s not here.” Fear tied knots upon knots in my belly. “Do you know where she is?”

  He paused. “Not precisely.”

  “She’s not…” I swallowed. “She hasn’t gone through the gate, has she?”

  “Of course not.” He flicked a disdainful ear. “Passing through that gate would kill a human instantly, even one so powerful as your grandmother. She’s not so foolish.”

  “What is on the other side of the gate, exactly?” I tried to sound casual, and avoided meeting his eyes. There was no sense reminding him that he hadn’t wanted me to know about it.

  He was silent so long, I had to look. He was an animal-shaped piece of darkness cut from the faint pearly glow of the flowers. His bushy tail swished across the boards behind him, restless, thinking.

  “That,” he said at last, “is an odd question for you to ask a mere chimera.”

  “You know many things, remember?” I pointed out ironically, arching a brow.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  I almost asked, Why do you care? But we’d run circles around each other enough already. “Does this have to do with your promise?”

  He glanced away. “Maybe.”

  “I need to understand what I did when I touched that stone.” I shrugged uncomfortably. “We have to figure out a way to make sure that gate never opens again.” And to keep my aunt from giving in to the temptation to use it.

  Whisper seemed to consider this. “Knowing more about the Hells will help you find a way to make all the meddling humans leave the gate alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yourself included?”

  I shuddered. “I’d rather not have anything to do with that gate again. The sooner I can be done with it forever, the better.”

  “Good.” His eyes narrowed. “First you must understand that this world, the one we live in right now, consists mostly of matter, with magical energy running all through it like water. It pools in some places, flows in others, and is present in very nearly everything to at least some small degree.”

  What had blasted through that slim crack in the gate had been raw power, more pure and intense than anything I could ever remember experiencing. “So the far side is mostly magic,” I guessed.

  “All,” Whisper corrected. “What you call the Hells is a layer of our own reality, like a buried aquifer, in which there is no matter whatsoever—only pure and limitless magical energy.”

  “And demons,” I murmured.

  Whisper’s tail swished along the floor. “And nine demons, yes.”

  “What are they?” I asked, afraid of the answer. “If there’s no matter in the Hells…”

  Whisper strolled over to sniff a dead moth beneath the window, his back to me. “You humans are so full of questions.”

  “Whisper.” I restrained myself from reaching for him. “I have to know if I…”

  He batted the husk of the moth. “Yes?”

  I swallowed. “If I might have let one through.”

  “It’s not impossible,” he said, going still. “Demons are creatures of pure energy, with no forms of their own. A human would see no more than a flicker of heat shimmer, or perhaps feel a faint gust of breeze, if that.”

  My fists clenched in my lap. “Until it possessed someone.”

  “Until it possessed someone, yes.”

  “Hells have mercy,” I breathed.

  Whisper’s eyes gleamed at me in the shadows. “You’d best hope they do.”

  It was all I could do to try to focus on the conversation at my meetings with the Alevaran and Raverran delegations that evening. Thank the Graces Jannah was there to take notes, and my role at this point was mostly to nod and listen to their concerns. The terrible knowledge of what lay in the Black Tower burned in the back of my mind, and I had to avoid Aurelio’s concerned eyes for fear that somehow he’d read the truth in mine.

  It was hard to believe that any of this mattered now. That a petty conflict between nations over some barely inhabitable island was even relevant when I’d opened a portal to the Nine Hells in this very castle. But it had to matter. It would be difficult enough to maintain the peace on the strongest and most stable foundation once news of the gate got out. If Eruvia’s balance was already rocking when this blow hit home, we’d never stop the tumble into war.

  “A question, Exalted Ryxander.”

  It was Severin, leaning across the Round Room table with the hypnotic grace of a venomous snake.

  “Yes?” I asked warily, tearing my thoughts away from the Black Tower to bring my full attention to bear on him. I could commit no less, with Severin of Alevar.

  So much depended on whether he was playing some clever and convoluted game of his own—aimed at succeeding his brother, perhaps, or undermining him somehow—or if he was truly nothing more than the Shrike Lord’s tool. He was too fascinating, too easy to stare at—and his sharp cheekbones, dark fall of silky hair, and the occasional gleam of wicked humor in his eyes were all frankly unfair ingre
dients in his poisoned cocktail.

  But I didn’t have time to unravel the knot of him, curse it. I needed to get this treaty signed quickly, before anyone found out the truth about the obelisk.

  “You just came from the Black Tower, yes? How is the Rookery’s investigation progressing? No further fatalities, I hope?” Severin’s tone held its usual edge of irony, but there was nothing disinterested about the intensity in his half-hooded eyes.

  I struggled to keep my face completely blank and neutral. “It’s proceeding quickly, but I don’t want to get distracted. We’re here to discuss Windhome Island.”

  “I don’t care about Windhome Island,” he said. “My brother wanted it for Lamiel, since immortality is the best wedding gift. Now that you’ve removed that option, he has other priorities.”

  “So you have no objection to complying with the Serene Empire’s stipulations for withdrawing all physical and magical presence from the island?” I countered.

  Severin executed a languorous shrug that stirred the dark waterfall of his hair. “Only the objections anyone would have to paying up front for merchandise that hasn’t been delivered. Unless you’ve handed over Exalted Lamiel’s murderer and I missed it.”

  “We’re not discussing what you want from Morgrain right now,” I reminded him, an edge of frustration sharpening my voice. “These negotiations are with the Empire.”

  “We’re not discussing what I want at all.” His gaze held mine, then flicked sideways toward Voreth, who stood behind his shoulder, hands wrapped on his bone staff. “I assure you that our interest in these talks has everything to do with Morgrain.”

  That glance had been deliberate, heavy with meaning. Seasons, I was too rattled right now for more dancing.

  “Your brother might be well served to have a bit more concern about the imperial warships aimed at his coast,” I suggested.

  “You don’t know my brother.” Some shadow flickered through his eyes. “You’re assuming that Alevar wants to avoid a war. He’s spent his life preparing for it.”

  That probably wasn’t a bluff. Alevar was known for being a militant domain; they maintained a standing human army and were said to have impressive reserves of war chimeras as well. It made them a coveted military ally, which was a problem—too many domains had mutual defense agreements with the Shrike Lord.

  Still, there were limits.

  “Surely the Shrike Lord isn’t mad enough to take on the Serene Empire by himself,” I said. “As for Morgrain, it’s axiomatic that you can’t defeat a Witch Lord in their own domain.”

  “Oh?” Severin flashed his teeth; the fleeting vulnerability was gone, if I hadn’t imagined it in the first place. “One does wonder what might have happened to the Lady of Owls. It seems odd that she can’t be bothered to show up for the negotiations. Or the Rookery’s investigation of her magical secrets. Or the murder of one of her guests.”

  “Her business is her own.” I attempted a mysterious expression, but my cheeks began inexorably warming, curse them. “I assure you, she’s quite well.”

  “Oh, good.” The smile that stretched his lips held no trace of friendliness. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want your neighbors to get the impression that Morgrain is a failed domain, with no Witch Lord and no clear heir.”

  “Our neighbors wouldn’t make such a basic mistake,” I said. “Any more than you would make the mistake of sitting down at the negotiation table tomorrow with an experienced Raverran diplomat without having done any preparation.” I gestured pointedly at the map of Windhome Island on the table between us.

  Breath hissed through Voreth’s teeth. Severin, however, broke into a laugh.

  “Well then,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “I suppose we’d better get back to the matter at hand.”

  My shoulders remained rigid with tension through the rest of the meeting. I might have fended him away from the most dangerous topics for now, but there was bound to be a reckoning soon.

  If I couldn’t figure out what Severin wanted before then—not his brother, not Voreth who followed him like a watchdog, but Severin himself—I suspected that wouldn’t end well.

  “Hey, Ryx.”

  I froze. As the last of my diplomatic guests had disappeared from the Round Room, I’d let my mask drop, slumping in my chair and putting my face in my hands. But that was Ardith’s voice, coming from the doorway.

  I straightened, greeting them with a smile that I allowed to be tired, since it was better if they thought I’d been slouching with exhaustion rather than with despair.

  “Hello, Ardith. Having trouble finding your room?” I had no doubt that they knew exactly where their room was and were snooping around, but I might as well maintain the polite fiction.

  Ardith’s usual cheeky grin was conspicuously absent. They glanced around, then entered the room with only an echo of their customary swagger.

  “I wanted to find you after the reception, but you were busy with the Rookery, so I thought I’d wait in ambush here and maybe eavesdrop on your diplomatic talks a little.” They shrugged. “The diplomatic talks were boring, though.”

  I ran my conversations with Severin and Celia through my head, trying to recall if I’d said anything I wouldn’t want the Fox Lord to know. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “Karrigan. She was a complete ass to you at the reception.” A surprising amount of heat warmed Ardith’s words. “There’s nothing wrong with getting help from the Empire.”

  I’d almost forgotten my confrontation with Aunt Karrigan. The reception felt like a thousand years ago—a more innocent time, before I knew what lay in the Black Tower. “Thanks.”

  Ardith shrugged, a touch uncomfortably, as if sincerity were an ill-fitting garment. “I wouldn’t be here if a Raverran alchemist hadn’t helped my father and my da. There are some things the Empire does better than us, that’s all, just like there are some things we do better than them.”

  “You’ve been waiting around outside the Round Room for hours just to tell me this?” Gratitude unfolded crumpled petals in my heart, a welcome relief from dread.

  “Mostly, yes.” They hesitated a moment, then grimaced. “I’ve got my job to do here, you know. I’d rather just lounge around drinking your beer and eating your food and telling jokes, but my father and the others sent me here for a purpose. If it looks like you’re going to bungle the negotiations and get Vaskandar into a war with the Serene Empire, or if that artifact turns out to be a serious threat to the peace and the Rookery can’t deal with it, I may have to do or say some things on behalf of my father and his allies that are… let’s say less than completely friendly.” Ardith spread their hands helplessly. “I wanted to make sure you knew it wasn’t personal. That I like you, and I’m not going to get snooty at you about the jess, but I am here for a reason.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, struggling with a mix of disappointment and frustration and the ever-building sense of incredible pressure on every single thing I did or said. Ardith liked me; I supposed that was something, even if they ultimately had to bring the wrath of the Conclave down upon my domain and everything I cared about.

  “I understand,” I said wearily. “I have my duties, too. And I like you as well, Ardith.”

  They flashed a bright grin at that. “Of course you do. It’s because I’m so charming. See you at the negotiations tomorrow.”

  “You’re not invited to the negotiations.”

  “I am now. Semi-official observer.” Ardith shrugged an unapologetic apology. “I’ve cleared it with the envoys. It’ll be fine.”

  I had dwindling hope that it would be fine. At this point, I’d accept anything less than a disaster.

  The Bone Atrium had once been the main castle entrance, when the Mantis Lord ruled Morgrain; there was still no avoiding it, as it squarely straddled the center of many of the most heavily trafficked routes through the castle. The place was a soaring and impressive space worked with a complex filigree of magic-sculpted bone, punctuated b
y the jutting points of ribs, with the orderly regimented lines of vertebrae marking cornices and borders. As a child I’d loved its excessive ornamentation, and thought it was one of the most beautiful rooms in Gloamingard; then I’d learned it was built of thousands upon thousands of real bones, fused and shaped by the Mantis Lord’s power—including those of his human enemies.

  By now I was so used to it I didn’t think much about how visitors might react. It took me a few moments to realize why Bastian and Foxglove kept flicking wide-eyed glances around them as we discussed our strategy for the imminent negotiation session.

  “We won’t mention the artifact unless someone else brings it up,” I said, keeping my voice low, “and I’ll let you two deflect any direct questions with technical details if they do.”

  Bastian nodded, swallowing visibly, his gaze riveted on something behind my head. I glanced over my shoulder to where a grinning human skull formed the keystone of a window arch and belatedly realized that maybe this wasn’t an ideal place to gather before proceeding to the meeting room after all. Raverrans had a rather less cavalier attitude toward human remains than Vaskandrans did.

  “Oh, that’s… Well, the Mantis Lord had, ah, his own aesthetic.” I laughed awkwardly, which was probably the wrong thing to do.

  “So he did,” Foxglove agreed, with great restraint. “Will your aunt be joining us for the negotiations?”

  By the careful tone of his voice and the meaningful look he gave me, I suspected Foxglove shared my opinions about the sort of impact my aunt’s presence would have on delicate talks with Raverrans.

  “I didn’t mention this session to her,” I confessed. “She hasn’t been involved in the process, so I’m afraid it simply didn’t occur to me to see if she might like to be included.”

  Foxglove’s lips quirked in a knowing smile. Hopefully my aunt would be more easily fooled.

  “Have you made any progress on the obelisk?” I asked, dropping my voice to keep any odd echoes from carrying it beyond the three of us.