He didn’t answer, but he did incline his head.
“The creature that attacked me,” I said. “What was it?”
“What do you think?” said Morvilind.
I frowned. “I would guess a creature from the Shadowlands that somehow found its way here. Either that or a human wizard that could change shape. Except…a human would have just shot me or put a bomb in my car. So, if I had to guess, I would say that Mr. Cane was something from the Shadowlands. Someone summoned him and sent him after me.”
That was a disturbing thought. The most obvious suspect was the Rebels. I had pissed off the Rebels several times now, and they would want revenge. Except that most of the Rebels who knew they should want revenge were dead. The anthrophages, then? No, the anthrophages would kill me themselves…and the cult of the Dark Ones had sent the anthrophages after me. Since the anthrophages had failed, maybe the cult of the Dark Ones had decided to try something else.
I watched Morvilind, waiting for him to respond.
“Venomhold,” he said at last.
“My lord?” I said.
“The timing is curious,” said Morvilind, “but, upon consideration, not surprising. The tablet you brought me from Armand Boccand had been in the Shadowlands, most probably in Venomhold.”
“My lord?” I said again.
“By now you have realized you are not the first agent I have recruited from among the humans,” said Morvilind.
“Yes, my lord,” I said. I almost pointed out that Riordan’s brother had been one of his agents, but self-preservation shut me up first.
“When I recruited you,” said Morvilind, “my hope was that you would have frostfever and that your brother would possess the spark of magical ability. Alas, the situation was precisely the reverse of what I had hoped, though your performance has been not entirely unsatisfactory.”
“Thank you, my lord,” I said, baffled. Morvilind never talked this much. Nor was he prone to reflecting upon the past, at least not aloud.
“But I preferred recruiting human males,” said Morvilind, “because the human female, on occasion, is capable of maintaining a degree of vengefulness that borders on psychosis. Human males usually take revenge in explosive bursts. The females can plot for decades.”
I would have been offended, but it was pointless. Morvilind already considered humans to be useful cattle.
We walked into Morvilind’s library. It occupied a large room at the rear of the house, high windows overlooking the bluffs and the frozen waters of Lake Michigan. The floor was white marble, polished and gleaming. Books written in both high Elven hieroglyphics and the common Elven alphabet covered the walls, along with countless volumes on ancient Earth’s history and peoples. An elaborate summoning circle had been carved into slabs of gleaming red marble before the high windows, a design so intricate that my eye could not follow it.
The room had changed in the last year, partly because of my actions. The two ritual tablets I had stolen for Morvilind sat on his work table next to the three huge computer monitors he used. The Cruciform Eye rested upon a pedestal beneath a glass case, a fire seeming to burn in its depths, and I shuddered as I looked at the damned thing.
It had killed a lot of people last year, and now Morvilind had it.
“In answer to your earlier question,” said Morvilind, crossing to his worktable. The computers woke up as he approached, the displays flickering to life. “The creature that attacked you is called a banehound.”
“A banehound, my lord?” I said, waiting a few feet from him. The monitors displayed pictures of aetherometer readings. “I have not heard of them.”
“They are creatures from the Shadowlands,” said Morvilind, tapping a few keys on the keyboard. “Specifically, from the outer regions of Earth’s umbra. They are therefore vulnerable to bullets and other weapons forged from the ores of Earth, but they can absorb a tremendous amount of physical damage and can heal from nearly anything. The only way to permanently kill one is to cut it into pieces and then burn the pieces.”
“Oh,” I said. At least I could shoot anthrophages through the head.
“Despite that, they are generally not hostile to humans,” said Morvilind, “and only rarely come to Earth.”
I frowned. “So why is this one after me?”
“Presumably,” said Morvilind, his cold eyes turning towards me, “a wizard summoned it, bound it, and sent it after you.”
“All right,” I said. “So how do I stop it?”
Morvilind shrugged. “That is not my concern.”
“What?” I said, fear loosening my tongue. “You’re just going to let it kill me? Why…”
He tapped one fingernail against my vial of blood. A jolt of pain went through me, and I jerked to silence in mid-sentence.
“If your own incompetence has set a banehound after you,” said Morvilind, “that is not my concern. I require you to carry out your tasks without detection. Nevertheless, you have been detected, and that has brought a banehound to my door, Nadia Moran. I am displeased with you. You may consider this a test. Survive the banehound and its summoner, and you are worthy to continue in my service. Fail, and I shall begin training your replacement.”
And Russell would die of frostfever once Morvilind stopped his cure spells.
A wave of searing hatred rolled through me. Morvilind had kept his word to me, but without his magic, Russell would die, and he had used that as a club to control me my entire life. Many Elven nobles owned slaves, and I wasn’t a slave, but I didn’t need to be. Morvilind could control me far more efficiently than any chains or magic.
God, but I hated that man.
Hated and respected him both, if I was honest with myself. I feared him for his power, but I could see he had acquired that power through centuries of toil. And the years of studying and working under him had imprinted some of his personality upon me, including a contempt for weakness and an unyielding work ethic. Riordan said that I worked like a bee on cocaine, and I saw that I had picked that up from Morvilind.
I wanted power, too. Had I gotten that from Morvilind, or had it always been within me?
“Am I understood?” said Morvilind.
“Perfectly,” I said.
He stared at me for a while.
“My lord,” I added.
“Good,” said Morvilind. “Let us instead turn our attention to a more useful task.”
“The reason you summoned me,” I said. “You want me to steal something, my lord.”
“One hopes that is obvious,” said Morvilind. “Tell me about your previous visit to Venomhold.”
I tried to collect my thoughts. I didn’t want to tell Morvilind about Venomhold because that might mean telling him about Armand Boccand and his girlfriend Cecilia, and I didn’t want to do that. I wouldn’t put it past Morvilind to hunt down Armand just because the thief had once annoyed him.
Still, Morvilind had told me to talk about Venomhold, not Armand Boccand. If he hadn’t asked me about Armand, I wouldn’t talk about Armand.
“It was an accident,” I said. “Some anthrophages and Rebels cornered me in Minneapolis. I opened a rift way to escape, and it dumped me into Venomhold. Fortunately, I had a house key in my pocket that linked back to Los Angeles, and I was able to open a rift way there and escape before anything ate me.”
“What portions of Venomhold did you see?” said Morvilind.
“Um,” I said. “I don’t know their names. There was the big terrace looking over the rest of the fortress and the mountains around it. A courtyard, big enough that you could play a football game inside it. And there was this cave.” The bloodrat had laired there, and while I had seen a lot of scary things in my life, that was one of the scariest.
And I was sure it was still alive and had a grudge against me. Hell, maybe the bloodrat had sent the banehound. I knew firsthand that the bloodrat could use magic.
“Did you interact with any of the denizens of Venomhold?” said Morvilind.
“Th
ere were a bunch of Rebels,” I said. I wondered if he knew that the Knight of Venomhold had allied with the Rebels, and decided that it was not my problem. “I bluffed my way past them. Some anthrophages. Oh, and an old bloodrat.”
A brief glimmer of surprise went over the ancient face. “A bloodrat? How did you survive?”
“I ran really fast,” I said. “I kind of pissed it off.”
“Unsurprising,” said Morvilind. “Very well. I believe you are ready. The task I have for you is exceptionally challenging.”
I swallowed. Morvilind usually didn’t describe the difficulty of the tasks he set for me. If he wanted me to do something that he considered challenging…
He tapped a key, and the same image appeared on all three of his monitors.
It was a ball of blue stone sitting upon a pillow of black velvet. At first sight, it looked like some kind of blue marble, but the stone had more crystals than it should have, which made me wonder if it was granite, but I didn’t know if granite could be blue. Hundreds of Elven hieroglyphs had been carved on the sphere’s surface in a tight, spiraling pattern, and some of them glowed with blue light. Morvilind kept tapping the keyboard, advancing through a series of images, and I realized that the different hieroglyphics on the stone sphere had been flickering and glowing with blue light.
“Do you recognize this object?” said Morvilind. “I know that by now you have had sources of magical schooling that you failed to disclose to me, so it is possible you have seen this object before.”
I didn’t answer for a moment, my mind racing. Did that mean Morvilind knew that the Knight of Grayhold had taught me a spell? Or that Riordan had taught me two different spells? If Mr. Cane had realized I cast a spell against leaving a psychic trail, surely Morvilind would.
But he hadn’t asked about that.
“I’ve never seen it before, my lord,” I said. “It looks a really damaged billiard ball.”
“I assure you the item is substantially more valuable than that,” said Morvilind. “The sphere is a device known as a Nihlus Stone. It is exceptionally valuable, and exceptionally rare, primarily because the skill for making them was rare among the Elven people, and the war between the Archons and the High Queen has killed everyone among the Elves who knows how to make them.”
“Then…you do not know how to make them, my lord?” I said.
“No,” said Morvilind. “Like shadowjumping, the art of crafting a Nihlus Stone is a talent that is inborn. One either possesses it, or one does not, and perhaps one in ten million do. In the three centuries since the Conquest, I have only encountered two humans who possessed the ability to craft a Nihlus Stone.”
“So,” I said, “this thing is really valuable.”
“Beyond price,” said Morvilind.
“Which is why I am going to steal it,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Where is it located?”
I expected him to name something like a high-security bank in Washington DC or London or Beijing, the sort of place both wealthy humans and Elven nobles would store their wealth. Or maybe he would say one of the cities built for Elven commoners across the globe, places where the only humans allowed were slaves. Or perhaps he would name the Skythrone itself, the floating citadel of the High Queen that wandered endlessly across the globe. I had always expected him to send me to the Skythrone one day to steal something.
Maybe he would send me there when he wanted me dead.
I did not expect the name that came out of his mouth, though maybe I should have.
“Venomhold,” said Morvilind.
A bolt of icy fear went through me.
“What?” I said.
“I am certain you are not deaf,” said Morvilind. “The Nihlus Stone currently is located within the citadel of Venomhold in the Shadowlands. You will go there, steal the Stone, and bring it to me.”
“I can’t,” I said.
Morvilind raised a thin white eyebrow. “You deny my request, Nadia Moran?”
“No!” I said, trying to push back the fear. “It’s just…I can’t go back to Venomhold.” I remembered that bloodrat ripping apart the anthrophages, remembering hearing Martin Corbisher scream of terror before I had escaped. “There’s no way I can do it and survive. If I do, they’ll kill me. I barely got away the last time.”
“If you deny my request,” said Morvilind, “then you are of no further use to me.”
I stared at him, rage and hate and terror freezing my brain. I knew what that meant. If I was no longer useful to him, he would kill me to hide his various illegalities, and then Russell would die of frostfever sometime this year.
But if I went to Venomhold again, I was going to die. That bloodrat was there. The Rebels were there. The anthrophages were there, and since I had realized that the cultists of the Dark Ones were working with the Rebels, that meant the Rebels could send the anthrophages after me if I showed up.
I still had nightmares about getting chased by the anthrophages through the Shadowlands.
And the Knight of Venomhold herself…I had never met her, only heard of her by reputation. But it was a terrifying reputation, and if she realized I had entered her demesne, she would kill me.
Hell, maybe getting killed was the best-case scenario.
I was in over my head. Refusing Morvilind would get me killed. Obeying him would get me killed.
Then I remembered those gray envelopes in my apartment.
I grabbed onto that thought the way a drowning woman grabbed a life jacket.
Morvilind was still staring at me.
I worked some moisture into my throat. “I…will do it. My lord. I’ll do it.”
“Good,” said Morvilind. “The Nihlus Stone is in the Tower of Regrets in Venomhold. The geography of the fortress of Venomhold is some mutable, dependent upon the whims of the Knight, so you must search it out.”
“Can you tell me anything else about it, my lord?” I said, trying to keep my breathing under control.
“Very little,” said Morvilind. “The Knight of Venomhold is most adept at keeping her secrets. You can find the Nihlus Stone in the upper chamber of the Tower of Regrets. You have three months to complete the task. Fail, and I shall no longer require your services.”
“If I fail at this,” I said, “I’m going to be dead.”
Morvilind gave an indifferent shrug. “That is an efficient way to terminate our arrangement. You have leave to go.”
He turned back to his monitors, and I stared at his back. I had the overwhelming urge to seize something heavy, maybe that damned Cruciform Eye, raise it high, and bash in the back of his head. Only the certain knowledge that it would do nothing useful stopped me. There was no way I could hurt him, and if I lifted my hand against him, he would kill me as easily as I could kill a fly.
Easier, even. I couldn’t always manage to hit the flies with the flyswatter.
And he knew I would do his will, damn him. He had designed my life to make me desperate, to make me labor harder and longer than I should have, and the worst part of it all was that it worked. I had survived when I shouldn’t have because I was desperate.
If I stayed in his library any longer, I was going to do something stupid and get myself killed.
I stalked out without looking back.
Rusk met me in the main hallway, motionless in his finery.“I shall see you out, Miss Moran,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said.
“And this,” he said, passing me an envelope. “The bill for the towing company. We have done business with them before, and they assured me the car will be destroyed.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll send them a check. Suppose you’re glad the eyesore is gone.”
Rusk didn’t say anything. He only looked tired. It occurred to me that I was probably never going to see him again. Morvilind had sent me on dangerous tasks before, but nothing like this.
I had a sinking feeling that this was the end.
“Who was it?” I heard myself say.
Rusk
raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, Miss Moran?”
“Who died during the Archon attack last year?” I said.
He stared at me. He tried to work up a glare, and then his expression crumpled.
“My wife,” he admitted. “She was at the Ducal Mall with my daughter.”
“Oh,” I said. I had been at the Ducal Mall. A lot of people had died there. Or been murdered, more precisely.
“My daughter survived,” said Rusk. “But she was shot…she has not awakened since. His lordship was kind enough to examine her but says that even his magic can do nothing. She will either wake on her own, or she will not.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Rusk tried to sneer but gave up with a sigh. “It was kind of his lordship to even look at her.”
A dozen barbed remarks came to my lips. I almost said that Morvilind liked to look after his favorite pets. Or that if Rusk killed himself in despair, then Morvilind would have to go to the trouble of training a new butler.
But, I didn’t.
I knew exactly how he felt. The pastor at the Marneys’ church liked to say that suffering was the common bond of all mankind, and I guess the man had a point.
“Yeah,” I said. “I suppose it was. Goodbye, Rusk. I hope your daughter wakes up.”
“Goodbye, Miss Moran,” said Rusk. “I…hope to see you again.”
I blinked. From Rusk that was a shocking admission.
With that, I nodded and stepped back into the cold.
My car was gone, as was all the broken glass. Rusk’s staff was efficient, and I suppose the local businesses jumped whenever the household of Lord Kaethran Morvilind called. For a moment, I stood on the steps, and then I started walking down the driveway. It was a long walk, and I was shivering a little by the time I reached the street and started down the sidewalk.
I drew my phone, slipped off my glove long enough to start a call, and raised the phone to my ear.
Riordan picked up on the third ring. “Nadia?”
“Hey,” I said. “Um. Look. I’m not sure how to say this, but…”
“You desperately want to see me?” he said. His tone was light, but I knew him well enough to hear the hint of his defenses coming back up. His previous relationships had ended badly, as had mine.
Cloak Games: Shatter Stone Page 6