Bast froze. “What is it?”
“I heard something.” Anjita shoved back a bush to reveal a small, trembling delj, gem-like tears spilling from its beady eyes.
“Oh,” Bast gasped. “Where’s your mama, little one?”
He put his hand out towards the spirit and it jumped into his arms, hiding its face in his chest. As he looked at it with softened eyes, Munayair wondered if he had a child of his own somewhere. She looked away.
Anjita looked at Munayair. “I bet there are others. Go find the prince. We’ll meet back at the boat before Bader sets.”
Munayair bent her head and continued. Her uncertain steps slowed as she neared the center of the grove, where the Great Cypress blacked out the stars. No fiery imp, no giggling water spirits or tembu brushing against her cheek like a cool breeze. She was alone, again, as she was always meant to be. Adept Ajhai’s clear voice rang through her mind. “The deathbringer and the golden son. Death and life, good and evil. He who is his own shadow. You cannot succeed without him.”
Golden eyes met hers, blinding in their rage. “Are you ever going to speak the truth?”
He’s better off gone, she reflected bitterly. Sooner or later, I would have destroyed him, too. I should have begged him to kill me before he left.
“What if you asked the wrong person, Adept Ajhai?” she wondered aloud to the silent forest. Her hand clamped around the aching mark. “What if I can’t succeed at all? Or did you send me away just like my father, to save yourself from my curse?”
She was almost shouting by now, but there was no answer. The woods were silent. After a while she continued on, head bowed. She reached the cave. As dark, icy water closed over her head, she hoped that the river spirit’s magic had ended and she would sink into oblivion. But instead she emerged, gasping, in the cave. The watery doors opened before her as ever, leading deeper and deeper into the spring. Wearily, she walked through the darkness, letting the spring lead her where it would.
As she walked, she felt eyes on her, heard soft scratching sounds coming from behind. But whenever she looked around, there was nothing to see but darkness. She turned her face forward and continued. As she trudged up a steep stairway, she wondered if this was all an elaborate nightmare and she would wake up in her own cot in the Marble Hall. The water parted in front of her, and she stepped into the confluence.
The inside had changed little. The walls flashed continuously, bell-like alarms loud enough to rouse the dead. Firebugs buzzed in their braziers; black water churned under the branches of the tree. Torch-bearing mercenaries converged on her, weapons bared.
Shivne-Mage knelt in the water, eyes closed. Curled around him with its head resting on his shoulder was the huge snake. Its unblinking eyes focused on Munayair as she entered the room. “So, you are here at last,” it hissed.
Book Six: Destroyer
Chapter 52: Ennai's Warning
The snake adjusted its coils in the roiling water, content as a lizard in the sun. Sludge dissolved from its body and drifted through the channels into the caves. Its eyes shone poisonous green. Never look in his eyes. Hastily, Munayair looked away, but its presence remained, like a cloud passing over the sun. Legions of tachoul faced the spring, silent mouths moving. Ronyl stood on the surface of the water with head bowed. A bubble floated near Shivne’s shoulder, holding a tiny figure curled around itself.
Dashjin.
In the darkness beyond the torchlight, eyes glittered. Munayair dropped her gaze and clasped her hands, trying not to let her emotions show on her face. Onol. The lizard spirit had followed Munayair into the spring.
Gods and spirits, she thought in despair, what have I done?
“Where’s the Night Watcher, witch?” One of the mercenaries grabbed her arm and shook her roughly. “I have a score to settle with him.”
“Bring her to me,” the snake hissed, brilliant green eyes glittering. “As long as the girl is here, he will soon follow.”
Munayair kept her gaze on the ground as Adept Ajhai’s crisp voice cut anew through her mind. “The deathbringer and the golden son ... you cannot succeed without him.” And she had lost him, and failed. She tried to keep her mind blank as rough hands seized her, but the spirits of the lake clamored in her mind.
“Firebringer. Earthshaker. Accursed.”
“True Heir of Geshuu.”
“You will never be an Adept of the Order of Words.”
The mercenaries shoved Munayair past the braziers. Eyes looked back at her from among the flames and she jerked her gaze away. Luckily, the mercenaries had little attention to spare for her. They avoided the glyphs on the floor, flinched from buzzing firebugs, and gaped at the tree overseeing all. Tachoul surrounded them, kept at bay only by torchlight.
“Pity your defiance served no purpose, Milady Gokhai,” the snake taunted.
Ronyl might have been carved from ice. “I have not resisted, demon. I will offer no help, either.”
A sneer curled Shivne’s lip, and he jerked his head at the cypress. “Leave her there and prepare yourselves to finally catch the one who has tormented us for so long.”
A cheer rose. The guards shoved Munayair to her knees and arranged themselves around the spring. The rest gathered around the four entrances, weapons and torches at the ready. As the atmosphere of anticipation thickened, the tachoul also moved more purposefully. Circling vultures, waiting for the scent of blood.
Munayair scrutinized the small stones lining the spring while her mind whirled. It all made sense now. This spirit, bonded to Shivne through some ancient ritual. The source of his impossible power and also of the rotten stench pervading his magic. Because this spirit was corrupted.
Water sloshed nearby. Munayair forced herself not to look at the coils sliding through black water. Foul-smelling magic pressed suffocatingly. “Look at me,” the snake whispered.
The compulsion nearly overwhelmed her control. She stiffened her neck and closed her eyes, praying desperately.
“Why do you tremble, child?” A forked tongue flickered out to touch Munayair’s face. Her head jerked back, eyes still squeezed shut. “No honest being has cause to fear me.”
Munayair wet her lips. “Then you’ve answered your own question.”
In the darkness overhead, something rustled. Startled, Munayair risked a glance at the shadowy boughs of the cypress overhead. But she saw only a few stars twinkling through the canopy. No more clouds to veil the sky, since Hadad’s death. The snake had not heard, and Shivne’s eyes remained closed, so Munayair forced herself to look away.
“Who are you?” She took pride in the fact that her voice only trembled slightly.
The snake’s enormous head rose to regard her from above. “I am Naasiha, spirit of truthtelling. Ages ago, my birth coincided with the first lie falling like rotten fruit from the lips of a mortal.” She swayed hypnotically, and Munayair dropped her eyes to avoid the green gaze. “My trickster sister finds joy in lies, but to me they are a blight. I care only for truth and justice.”
In desperation Munayair looked to Ronyl, standing silent and unmoving on the surface of the spring. Murk bubbled through the water spirit’s clear form. The cypress’s lower leaves shriveled, green fading to splotchy brown and black. Munayair’s heart sank. The corruption was spreading. Soon it would be too late. Dashjin hunched inside his prison, wings almost dark. He could not see beyond the walls of the bubble, face empty and devoid of hope. Tears glittered like diamonds on his cheeks. At the sight, anger bubbled into Munayair’s chest.
“How can you speak of justice when you’ve brought so much misery on these innocent spirits?” She looked at Shivne, unmoving in the black waters of the spring. “If you’re so concerned with truth, why hide behind a human form? Why kidnap villagers and blame it on an innocent boatman? What about Mehan and Anjita and everyone else you’ve enthralled by bending the truth?”
“The truth is what I say it is!” The hiss snapped like a whip.
More rustling from abov
e, and Munayair steeled herself not to look. It sounded like fluttering wings, but the night was too dark for birds to be awake.
Naasiha gathered herself into a coil before she spoke again, softer. “No great enterprise can proceed without casualties, child. A typhoon stirs the atmosphere and brings vitality to the earth. It cannot regret every ripple it causes in the sea.”
High-pitched squeaks and beating wings echoed in the darkness above the cave. Munayair squeezed her eyes shut, running her fingers along the pebbly shore. Her hand closed around a rock. She would get only one shot at this—she could not afford to hesitate.
An explosion burst through the ceiling, a dizzying whirlwind of beating wings. Mercenaries screamed and dove to the ground, covering their heads. Bats, thousands of them, frantic movements cloaking the human dropping through the roof. He struck the ground and rolled, a glitter of gold in the firelight. Munayair’s heart thudded.
Shivne’s eyes flew open and he surged to his feet, sending a wave of black, foam-capped water over the edge of the spring. “He’s here,” he cried, and the mercenaries rushed forward, swinging swords and torches. “He won’t escape this time.”
“Do not kill him.” Naasiha turned away from Munayair, tail lashing and eyes glowing. “He must be caught alive. Cut off his legs and put out his eyes if you must.” A commotion rose above the thunder of the bats, shouting and the distinctive clash of swords.
A shout, raised by many voices, echoed. Tachoul fell back as spirits flooded into the cavern, led by the brilliant ulger warriors. Goblin guards fell on the tachoul, driving them back with swords and fire. Hair streaming in the breezes of tembu, Bast and Anjita wielded torches and determined expressions. Dozens of ulgeroi perched on their shoulders, delj peeked from their pockets, firebugs and tembu swarmed around them.
“For the gokhai!” The goblin captain shouted. Her regiment took up the cry against darkness.
Munayair sat tensely, not daring to look around. Both snake and mage watched the spectacle behind her. She drew in a deep breath. Let it out. Sprang to her feet and hurled the stone along with a desperate prayer. Dashjin’s cage popped, spraying her with cold water.
“Lady Moon!” he cried.
Cursing, Shivne snatched at her, cold fingers grazing her burning mark. She sidestepped him and gazed at Dashjin. “Your father sent me.”
Dashjin’s wings flared blindingly. “Father’s alive?”
“Fly!” she cried.
Fingers snarled in her hair and Shivne jerked her back onto her knees. Pain lanced down her spine and she screamed, clawing at him. In a blink Dashjin was gone, a bright afterimage streaking across her vision. Roughly, Shivne forced her facedown against the wet rocks. Through watering eyes, she watched Shivne and Naasiha glare at the sky. Identical pairs of eyes shone cold, poisonous green.
“Too long, these spirits have skirted their fate.” Naasiha coiled into a knot. “They have never known the cold, the dark ...”
“We will teach them,” Shivne murmured with cold satisfaction. “It is already begun.”
The battle raged on, spirit against tachoul and mercenary. As cold rocks dug into her cheek, Munayair searched the darkness at the edge of the glyphs. Glittering eyes edged closer, attached to a body with a restless, whip-like tail. Onol. The final end of the confluence, Unaraq had called her.
The mark itched.
A mercenary stepped over the glyphs, eyes wide, wheezing. He collapsed face first, a dagger quivering in his back. Khuson, not even winded, stepped over him. His blade dripped crimson and a torch blazed in his hand. “Apologies. I thought I had them all.” He grinned.
Relief surged through Munayair’s veins, headier than oxygen. She failed to fight back an enormous smile, and Khuson’s grin widened in response.
“He came again for you.” Naasiha’s purr echoed in her ear. “I tell you, the more I think the more curious I become. Perhaps I should try a little test.”
Growling, Shivne hauled her upright by the hair, holding her in front of him like a shield. For several long moments she could see nothing through the pain, but when she could she looked around. As fast as they had appeared, the bats had disappeared. Every mercenary she could see was dead or incapacitated, and she winced away from the carnage. Anjita and Bast hadn’t seen her yet, too occupied in swinging torches and weapons to keep enemies at bay.
Khuson shook his head. “I leave for a bell or four and everything hits the skids? I’m actually impressed.”
Munayair raised one eyebrow. “Bats?”
“They’re obliging little creatures.” He jerked his chin in her direction. “Something far nastier is already tangled in your hair.”
“Enough!” Shivne shook her until she yelped. Khuson’s eyes flashed. “I have waited too long to be daunted by theatrics, Night Watcher. I will kill her, and you won’t be able to stop me.”
“Peace, Shivne.” Naasiha’s coils rubbed with a sandpaper sound, tongue flickering from a diamond-shaped gap in her jaws. “Violence is for lesser beings.”
Khuson’s sword hand twitched, and his eyes glowed under lowered brows. “I’ll consider peace when she’s safe, not before.”
“Foolish mortal,” Naasiha murmured, “the first children cannot be slain with mere iron.”
“And mortals can’t be killed with words,” Khuson said. “So, we are both using the wrong weapon.”
Fangs gleamed in Naasiha’s mouth as the snake shifted backwards, rearing to look Khuson in the eyes. Munayair’s stomach lurched and she opened her mouth to cry a warning, but Shivne clapped his hand over her mouth.
“Do you even know who it is you’re protecting?” Naasiha said. “What she’s done?”
Khuson gestured around the ruins of the cavern. “You aren’t in a position to criticize anyone.”
“I see how you hide.” Naasiha swayed, holding his gaze with her poisonous green eyes. “The fear beating in your heart. The answers you long to seek, but fear to find.”
“If you’re trying to tell my future, I’ve had enough of that for a while.” Perspiration beaded on his forehead, and his lips trembled. Munayair thrashed against Shivne’s grip until he clamped tight enough she had to fight for air.
“Peering into the distance is my brother’s gift,” Naasiha said. “My care is for now.”
“A quality we share.” Khuson spoke through his teeth, and the sword shook in his hand.
She laughed her scritching laugh. “You claim to embrace the present when you flee the past and avoid the future?”
Khuson stood motionless, eyes locked with the snake, white-knuckled around his sword. Slowly, Shivne’s grip in Munayair eased, and she stepped away from him with a gasp of relief. Tears dripped down her cheeks as her scalp ached. She ran to Khuson and grabbed his hand, tugging on it. “Please, let’s go,” she pleaded.
“Good girl,” Naasiha said. “I told you I wanted to test something.”
Munayair backed away. Khuson’s eyes stared blankly at nothing. Stomach lurching, she started to run until his hand clamped around her arm. Hard. With a cry, she pulled uselessly against his grip.
A heavy weight slid up her back and over her shoulder, and Naasiha’s head peered at the tumult around the confluence. “Why else would he fear to appear before me, little one?” Satisfaction filled her sibilant voice. “Not even an uneg can escape my grasp.”
Munayair whispered, “Khuson, please.”
“You believe this thing cares for you? Soon we will know the truth.” Naasiha’s tongue flickered against Khuson’s cheek. “First, you can watch together as these spirits are corrupted one by one.” She slithered away and immersed herself again in the spring, blackness oozing out of her into the confluence.
Munayair swallowed against rising nausea. A pulse throbbed in her fingertips under Khuson’s tight grip. She turned her gaze to watch the battle filling the cavern. Tachoul pressed closer, reaching gently to the spirits. Already several of the goblins had slowed, eyes blackening. The ulgeroi bunched close to
Anjita and Bast, blazing to keep back the dark, but they couldn’t last much longer. They were losing. Soon it would all be over.
And then she felt it again. The cool hand touching her hair, stroking it. She recalled childhood days spent in the hot sun, the relief of diving into a pool of water. Turning, she found Ronyl watching serenely from the center of the roiling spring.
Munayair’s gaze fell to the darkness beyond the glyph barrier. Onol cocked its head, eyes like black pebbles. It lifted a claw towards the glyphs and hesitated again. Waiting for an invitation. She thought of Hadad and Engge and the other souls lost to wildfire greed, consuming everything in its path. Naasiha could not be allowed to control the power of the confluence. A tingle ran along the mark.
“Have you gone demented, bringing Onol here?”
Munayair jerked at the piping voice and looked up. Ennai crept along a branch, eyes fixed on the snake.
“I didn’t bring it on purpose,” Munayair whispered back. “It followed me.”
“Typical mortal.” Ennai sniffed. “Thousands of years we’ve kept the gokhai’s doom at bay, and all you have are excuses.”
“No one can escape their doom.” Munayair rubbed the mark and turned her head slightly to look at Onol’s glittering black eyes.
Ennai’s eyes widened. “Don’t, Lady Moon,” she pleaded. “It’s a wicked thing, and can bring only evil!”
Slowly, Munayair held out a hand, and Onol took a step closer. As it approached, Munayair saw it clearly for the first time. As long as her outstretched arms, bronze scales and diamond claws. It halted at the line of glyphs, tongue flickering.
“Don’t let it in!” Ennai gasped. “It stinks of tree blight and leaf rot!” Then she turned and fled back up the branch and vanished among the leaves.
Munayair looked up to meet Ronyl’s eyes. Ice crystallized along the river spirit’s flowing hair, but in silence, she smiled. Shoving down her own fear, Munayair held out a hand, beckoning. “It’s all right,” she said. “Come in.”
The lizard stepped across the line of wards, tongue tasting the air. The glyphs flickered and went dark. All night breezes went dead, and the flames in the braziers died to coals.
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