He flicked the shard of nail across the room, his eyes following its trajectory. “You can’t use the Onslaught the same way you use the magic field. It has different rules. It’s a bending of Natural Order, but it’s tricky. Every use increases Chaos, increases disorder.”
“So healing’s out,” Darien surmised.
Quin nodded. “By definition, healing is the restoration of order to a body that’s injured or out of balance. Directly in conflict with the nature of the Onslaught. And then there’s the issue of habituation.”
Darien glanced up at him. “What’s habituation?”
“The more you work with the Hellpower, the more you come to rely on it. Cyrus Krane’s a perfect example of someone who didn’t back off in time.” Quin shrugged dismissively. “Just be careful. Don’t ever let yourself get to the point where you feel like you have to use it. Don’t become enslaved by it.”
Darien nodded, fully appreciating the danger. Toward the end, he’d come to rely too much on the magic field. He had used it as a tourniquet to bind his pain. Thinking back, he realized what a mistake that had been. Immersing his mind in the field had distanced him too much from his feelings.
“Your best chance is to try to win the Tanisars over to your cause,” Quin said. “It may be possible. By now, they must surely have some inkling that Nashir isn’t the overlord that was promised. If you can appeal to the Zakai, their senior officers, you might be able to convince them to help you overthrow Nashir.”
Darien doubted that. “Why would the Tanisars follow me?”
Quin cast him a withering scowl. “Darien, your reputation precedes you; your notoriety is just as legendary as your arrogance. You’ve already proven yourself a formidable adversary. Now, you just need to prove yourself a worthy ally. The Zakai won’t just follow you out of the kindness of their hearts; you’ll need to persuade them. Offer them something Nashir can never give them.”
Darien spread his hands wide, shrugging hopelessly. “What could I possibly offer them that they don’t have already?”
There was a heartbeat’s moment of silence.
“Hope.”
“Hope?” Darien echoed dubiously.
“Yes. Hope.”
Quin lowered his chin until the brim of his hat overshadowed his eyes.
22
The Lion’s Maw
Quin tipped his hat down further on his head as he gazed out across a hellish scene. Overhead, dark clouds raced across the sky. Below, the black waters of a lake stretched silently away from the hillside where he stood. The ground was white with recent snow, save only for the serpentine line of the road that followed the edge of the shoreline, meandering toward a narrow bridge that spanned the calm waters.
In this very place, a thousand years ago, the Black Lands had arisen from the ashes of dying Caladorn. Right here, where the headwaters of the Nym had sprung from caves of ice. This vale, once overshadowed by the hallowed gates of ancient Vintgar, now covered by the still, black waters below.
The lake was as old as Malikar itself. Its obsidian-flat surface obscured more than just Vintgar’s fabled gates. The lake’s deep, dark waters obscured the past. They buried secrets. They drowned the truth in their quagmire depths. Somewhere deep inside, Vintgar’s Circle of Convergence yet slumbered. Quiescent, but aware. Lurking beneath. It was down there, somewhere.
Right where Quin had abandoned it a thousand years before.
He heard a crunching noise. He raised his head to note that Darien had come up to stand alongside him. The mage was still dressed in the indigo robes of the Lyceum, the same style Quin’s brother had once been so fond of. Quin frowned, not liking it. The robes didn’t suit Darien at all. They fit him well enough, but there was something about the look that seemed unsettling, even misleading. It took Quin a moment to put a finger on it.
Darien just wasn’t Braden. No matter how much he wanted him to be.
Quin sighed, returning his attention back to the lake below. “Are you certain you don’t want me coming with you?”
“I’m going alone.”
Quin licked his lips, considering. “Then I’ll wait for you back in Qul.”
A ball of lightning flared briefly across the sky.
“Don’t wait too long.”
Quin nodded slowly. He turned to consider Darien’s face. The man looked haggard. Drawn. Quin could hardly blame him.
“Are you ready, then?”
“Aye.”
Darien reached down, hiking up his robe. He drew the fabric up, exposing his chest, shrugging the garment off over his head. He held it in a ball at his side, clothed only in the trousers he’d had on underneath.
Quin let his eyes trail over Darien’s bare torso, observing every mark on him. The grotesque scars on his wrists, the etched white lines that striped his chest. Two small, V-shaped depressions where blades had pierced his skin. Quin considered the flesh before him critically, eventually deciding on a spot. The right arm; that would do best.
Darien was left-handed, just as Braden had been.
Decisively, Quin drew Zanikar from its scabbard. He raised the blade, setting the honed cutting edge against the meat of Darien’s upper arm and, without hesitation, drew the sword swiftly down.
Darien didn’t flinch. He stood with his eyes trained on the lake. Blood welled from the slice, running in thin red lines down his arm to his hand, thick droplets pitter-pattering to the ground. The warm blood made a random pattern in the snow at his feet.
Quin reached down and drew a rag from his warbelt, using the cloth to wipe Zanikar’s blade clean. He sheathed the sword, then turned to consider Darien’s new injury.
“I’ll bandage that,” he offered.
Darien stood still, allowing Quin to tie the cloth around his arm like a tourniquet. “Keep it clean,” Quin advised.
Darien reached up, groping at his brow with his fingers. He looked suddenly upset. “Are you certain it worked? Is there any way to tell?”
Quin shrugged. “It just needs a healthy taste of blood. The binding does the rest. You’ve been dampened before; you know how it works.”
“I suppose I’ll just have to trust it.” He grimaced as he drew the robes back on over his head.
Quin felt offended at the remark. Zanikar was his own creation, a masterwork exceeding every other artifact he’d ever fashioned. It was the only dampening sword in existence. To have its reliability questioned was downright insulting.
“You really do go to pieces in a vortex,” Quin grumbled. “Are you sure you can hold yourself together? I’d hate to think what would happen if you started coming apart in front of Nashir.”
“I’ll manage,” Darien muttered. He extended his hand across the space between them.
Quin considered the offered hand. He’d already forgiven Darien, but that forgiveness came at the price of other emotions. The plan they’d devised was by no means foolproof. Quin understood that this could very well be their last handshake.
He clasped Darien’s arm with both hands, pulling him in close. It was a brotherly gesture, one from a different time, a different place.
“Darius dreoch,” he whispered on impulse. The ancient, formal greeting of the clans. May you offer protection, was the loose translation. Quin used the phrase out of context on purpose; he did it to avoid saying goodbye.
He gazed with respect at the man before him with matted black hair and a hide full of scars. Darien had a wild, unkempt look about him, like the men of the horse clans Quin had been born to. Darien was not Braden; he never would be. But, then again, he didn’t have to be.
“All right, then,” Quin muttered.
Darien waited until he’d gained the road before turning back for one last glimpse of Quin. But the darkmage was already gone, obscured somewhere in the shadows of the desert. Darien wasn’t surprised. He wouldn’t have lingered either. Not if he had a choice.
He turned his stare back to the still waters of the lake, setting his feet down the muddy path. The lak
e was black, devoid of life. There was no algae encrusting the rocks along the shoreline, no rippling movement of fish beneath the quiet surface. The lake was cold and still as death. The water wasn’t murky, but crystalline-black.
He strode down the silent length of road, lost in troubled thought. His eyes stared with lazy focus at the sharp mountain peaks ahead and the looming fortress at their base. From this distance, Tokashi Palace seemed oppressive and sinister, like an upthrust shield made entirely of sharpened spikes. Dozens of conical turrets of varying heights were carved as if in bas-relief from the mountainside, like an enormous palisade. The tallest were quite spectacular, looming hundreds of feet above the valley and the lake. An enormous, gaping arch formed the river’s channel where it emerged from beneath the mountain, tall and broad enough to maneuver a ship through under full sail.
Darien reached the bridge that spanned a narrowing of the lake. The bridge itself was a testimony to the industry of the people who dwelt in this place. It was made from enormous blocks of hewn basalt, jigsawed together without mortar or gaps. Gods only knew how deep the bridge’s piers extended, deep down into the lake’s gloomy depths.
He glanced back at the fortifications above, feeling a stab of trepidation. He was surprised they’d let him come this far, alone on the road. He’d marked their sentries a long time ago. He knew they were watching. They were waiting, staying their hand. They wanted him to come to them, not the other way around.
A bank of fog rolled in from across the lake, encasing the bridge in a murky haze. A queer, eerie silence settled in with the fog.
And cold. A frigid chill stung his cheeks and clawed beneath the cloth layers of his robes. Darien didn’t like it. He didn’t trust the fog, any more than he trusted the cold.
And the silence; that was the most unnerving of all. It was as though, one by one, all his senses were being purposefully deprived.
A shiver of foreboding crept across his flesh, followed by an urgent stab of panic. Darien’s mind screamed for the comfort of the magic field. But there was nothing to reach for. That sense, too, had been stripped away.
Darien gained the other side of the bridge and stopped as his feet encountered soil.
Ahead, a line of soldiers barred his path. All wore uniforms of royal blue with long sashes of gold. One of the men stepped forward ahead of the others, striding toward him. Darien recognized the soldier; it was the same man who had brought him Meiran’s necklace. The same man he’d almost killed.
Darien held his ground as the officer stopped in front of him. This time, the soldier did not fall to the ground in a gesture of deference. Instead, his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. He stared at Darien for a long time without expression. At last, he remarked:
“He said you would come. I did not believe him. I told him no man would ever be so foolish.”
He made a sharp gesture with his hand. The men waiting behind him jogged forward, surrounding Darien with their bodies. He didn’t struggle as they restrained his hands behind his back, searching him roughly for weapons. Finding none, two men took Darien by the arms, the rest fanning out around him. The officer moved forward until his face was uncomfortably close.
Darien gazed into the soldier’s hardened stare, taking the man’s measure. This was an officer who was comfortable with his command, steady and well-disciplined. There was no trace of fear in his eyes.
Calmly, the man asked, “I must know. Why did you come?”
Darien allowed himself a slight, wistful grin. “Because of a woman,” he responded in all honesty.
The man in front of him raised his eyebrows. “Well, then. That does explain it.” With a troubled frown, he wondered, “You are Aerysius’ Last Sentinel. How is it that you are also nach’tier?”
“I’m no longer a Sentinel,” Darien corrected him.
“It has been said that the Prime Warden himself chose you to rule the Khazahar.”
“Aye. He did.”
The man gazed at him, eyes narrowing. “Then why is it you enter Tokashi Palace in chains?”
Darien shrugged. “Because chains have never defined me.”
He spoke figuratively, doubting the officer would be informed enough to take his meaning. To his surprise, the man nodded as if he understood the reference perfectly well.
“I am Sayeed son of Alborz, in case you’ve forgotten,” the soldier said. He motioned to another man who stood slightly behind him. “And this is Iskender, first son of my brother.”
Darien nodded a curt greeting. To Sayeed, he asked, “If you know Nashir is not the overlord that was promised, why do the Tanisars follow him?”
“Nashir Arman is the first Battlemage to ever walk the halls of Tokashi Palace. From birth until death, the Tanisars are sworn to follow whatever Battlemage is brought forth to lead us. It is our greatest honor, our most sacred duty.”
“Wouldn’t it be a greater honor to serve a commander who’s actually ever won a battle?”
Sayeed son of Alborz fixed Darien with a flat stare. In a voice as cold as the surrounding air, he stated, “Your achievements are well-known to us, Darien Nach’tier. It is unfortunate that you chose to champion the wrong cause.”
There was no disguising the resentment held barely in check beneath his disciplined composure. Darien sighed, realizing that Quin had been wrong about these men. There would be no winning over the Zakai. The officers that led the Tanisar corps had a very good idea of who he was. And they knew very well the enormity of atrocities he was capable of committing. They wanted nothing to do with him. Darien sighed, his hopes quietly shattering.
“I was a Sentinel of Aerysius before I ever swore allegiance to Xerys,” he informed Sayeed. “I served my duty to the Rhen. I served it as best I could, even unto death. Through the will of Xerys, my soul has been remade. I serve a higher purpose, now. Your duty and mine no longer conflict.”
Sayeed regarded him without a trace of compassion in his eyes. At last, he nodded curtly.
“Come. Let us enter your palace, Darien Nach’tier, last of the fallen Sentinels.”
The men to either side prodded Darien roughly forward. He stumbled, staggering in their embrace.
They guided him under the high archway where the lake was born from the mountainside, down into a warren of passageways lit by flickering torchlight. It was dark and frigid, every corridor unadorned and monotonous. What was most remarkable about the fortress, Darien discovered, was the startling absence of sound. Many soldiers strode the long passageways, lined the walls of the hallways and courtyards. Not one word was ever spoken. The posted sentries stood as immobile as chiseled stone. The deeper they walked into the gaping quiet, the more conspicuous the silence loomed.
His guards guided Darien down into the depths of the fortress, to levels far below, where the cold, moist air was even more oppressive. The silence followed them even there. They stopped outside an iron door and waited while one of the men flipped through a ring full of keys, finally finding the one to throw the lock. The door shivered open on its hinges.
Darien flinched at the wall of ice-chill air that gushed out at them from the other side of the doorway. Goosebumps rose instantly to prickle his flesh. His guards forced him forward, his feet slipping on ice. It took him a moment to realize that the entire corridor was carved from the body of an enormous glacier. Darien gaped at the sight even as he shivered from the intensity of the cold. He had never seen the like. The walls of the glacier were black and sleek and transparent. An odd blue light shimmered down through its crystalline depths. The air was appallingly crisp, sucking the warmth right out of him. Even the thick robes he wore did little to contain his body heat.
His guards stopped beside another iron door, this one recessed into the wall of ice. Another man came forward to unlock it, throwing the door open. Darien gazed with dread into the narrow opening that was revealed. All he could see on the other side was darkness.
They shoved him toward the doorway.
“Wait.”
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He was jerked roughly back.
Sayeed stepped forward and grabbed him by the hair. He glared into his face. Then he shoved him head-first into the wall with all his strength. Darien reeled, slumping to the floor even as the soldiers hauled him back to his feet. They held him there against the wall as other men accosted him, slapping his face, shredding the blue fabric of his robes.
When they had him mostly naked and bloodied, Sayeed at last relented. He gripped Darien by the throat, pressing him back against the wall. The strength of his grip made it impossible to breathe. Darien’s throat worked against the man’s rigid fingers, to no avail.
“Tell me one last thing,” Sayeed Zakai demanded in a patient voice. “If you did take rule of the Khazahar, what could you offer us that Nashir Arman cannot?”
Darien returned Sayeed’s stare with a glare of his own. The man released his grip enough to let him speak.
“If you follow me, I’ll give you back the sun,” Darien said roughly.
Sayeed scoffed. An amused smile spread on his lips. He released his hold on Darien’s neck and backed away. He turned, nodding in the direction of the doorway.
The men hauled Darien into the cell, throwing him to the floor. He scrambled, slipping on the ice. He managed to rise to his knees. A man came forward and doused him over the head with a bucket of frigid water.
Darien cried out and lurched back from the chill shock of it. The water soaked his hair, running down his naked torso.
He fell to the hard ice as his body shook in terrible spasms of chill. The soldiers took turns dousing him with more water, soaking his trousers and his legs. Another pail was upended directly over his face.
At last, the sounds of the guards finally retreated. The hinges of the door shrieked closed. But the door’s motion was interrupted. Into the darkness, Darien heard Sayeed’s voice echo calmly:
“I hope you find the sun, Darien Nach’tier. Before you freeze to death.”
Darklands Page 27