The pain of dying is like that.
✧ ✧ ✧
I couldn’t get off my knees. Their cloaks lay empty on the ground, their weapons still skewered through my flesh at odd angles. Kara’s eyes met mine.
“How are you alive?”
I shook my head. “Just help me get the swords…out.”
She did. Slow, dark blood oozed out of the wounds before they knit back together. By the end, I lay on my back, looking up at the far-off roof of the Underhalls, at the witchlamps flickering against the gloom. Yellow lamps. The Guildsman’s District. Most times, that’s what I called myself. A guildsman. A baker, by trade. Not tonight.
“Are you going to survive this?” she asked, kneeling at my side.
Fair question. Every strike had been a killing blow. Six deaths. The pain faded, but not the touch of the dark realm, where I’d been just for a flickering moment. I turned my mind aside from what I’d seen over there, the fact that time is meaningless, and the sounds of screams go on forever.
“Looks like. Help me up. We have to get out of here.”
“What happened to them?” Her hair hung down around my face. Even in the shaky aftermath of death, the view of her seemed pretty perfect.
“That’s a complicated question. They’re suffering in the jaws of hell. Ain’t that enough?”
She took my hand and pulled me to standing. I slewed into her, pointing at my own door. Kara half-carried me into my place. With clumsy hands, I fumbled through my cupboards until I found a bottle. Breaking the seal, I upended and drank it all down. Maybe it was lion blood, rum, and powdered Tahash flower. Whatever it was, it got me moving again. We had minutes, at best. I drew a ward upon the door with the blood from my own wounds.
“They weren’t alone. More will be along soon, if they had a lookout. They can still smash down the door with enough effort.”
“Then we’re trapped.” A moment of defeat crossed her features, then her strength chased it away. “Why is there a human arm bone?”
I ignored the question. “Grab that. We might need it. Come on.”
Walking fast, I couldn’t do. I could walk, and I didn’t have far to go. I didn’t keep a big place. Just two rooms, the second being my bedchamber. I led her there.
Kara raised an eyebrow.
“No time. Help me move the bed.”
Her strength proved useful. Recovering from death, even with a draught to keep me going, left me weak and uncoordinated. The floor beneath the bed held a permanent portal. I took her hand and brought her into it, beginning the incantation I’d crafted in secret. Even if they had a mage of some kind, the best they could do was try and predict where it would take us. No one else could come through.
I looked around at my place, wondering if any of it would be left when this was over. Sebastian said it. More than a window. A hell of a lot more.
✧ ✧ ✧
Utter darkness and dead silence. Kara pushed closer to me, so I could feel the bone of her hip and the way her ribs rose with her sharp, indrawn breath. I led her to a torch stand and removed the hood from a witchlamp.
“Where are we?” She looked around at all the vague outlines of furniture covered with drop cloths against the dust.
“My secret lair, I guess you’d call it. We’re a long way below the city. No one’s ever been here but me.” I slumped down on a couch, glad for the drop cloth. My blood covered me to below the waist. I’d have to clean up, but I didn’t have the energy yet.
Kara watched me for a long moment, pain in her eyes, then folded her legs and sat on the ground in front of me. She leaned her back against my knees and gathered her arms around herself.
I ran the back of my knuckles through her hair, letting my eyes close for a moment. Just the feel of her there, the way she smelled, seemed like enough.
“I destroy everything I touch,” she said. “Everyone who tries to help me loses everything. I’m a walking curse, and I can’t seem to stop hurting people. Maybe I should just stop running. Let them kill me. I’m just so tired.”
What could I say to that? I put it aside. “Those guys were cultists. Tell me they weren’t.”
“No, you’re right,” she replied after a pause.
“So this cult of lunatics…that’s the people you got away from? Tell me something, so I can figure out what we can do from here.”
“You’re…going to keep helping me?”
“I’ve already killed ten of their goons. They murdered my neighbor. I’m in it now.”
She stood up, turning to face me. Kara pulled her tunic over her head. For a moment, I struggled to take in everything I saw. Perfection made flesh. An answer to prayers someone like me has no business uttering. But what she really meant to show me only arrived a distant second in the race.
A rune so complex that it deflected the eye had been drawn upon her belly. It covered much of her torso, stretching from the cleft of her ribcage to just above her belly button. I reached out and touched her hips, drawing her onto my lap. She didn’t resist, but I saw a flash of something cross her features.
So close, her hips against me and legs straddling my waist, her scent overwhelmed the blood, intoxicating. That hint of old fire, of hot metal beneath the jasmine. I never wanted to stop drawing that into my lungs. I put my palm against the rune, and it hummed with power. Invisible waves of energy washed out of the rune with every heartbeat. I didn’t know what they were, or what they meant.
“They caught me when I was a baby. My parents were dead, and so there was no one to look, no one to save me. They put this on me to contain my power, to harvest it for their own. The cult didn’t hurt me. I didn’t know to fear them for a long, long time. One day I learned, though. When I reached my full strength, they were going to use me in a ritual. Something about bringing the glory of the fire god out of the earth. They were going to kill me. I started to plan my escape that day.”
I swallowed. “That’s how they always find you. The rune. I’m not the right guy to understand all it does, but I bet the power coming off of it is unmistakable.”
“That means we’re not safe, even here.”
“Not forever, no. A day or two, that’s it. I have to…do something. I have to get moving again.”
Kara pulled my face against her chest. “You have to rest. They hurt you so much.” I realized that my glamour had slipped, that my hellish features had been there for her to see since the attack. Her hand curled around one of my horns, holding me against her, pushing the warmth of her life back into my half-dead frame.
✧ ✧ ✧
“Are those scars going to fade?”
She stood behind me, the chilling spray of the waterfall swirling across us. I stuck a cloth out into the falling flow and watched the darkness of my blood wash away. I’d let Kara go first to get cleaned up, and she had one of my cloaks wrapped around her. Outside of necro work, I don’t have that many spells, but I can summon up a fire, just like any helltouched. The one throwing heat and light across us had taken the last little dregs of my powers, but I counted it worthwhile.
I touched the raised seams on my flesh. “No. They’re forever.” I continued to scrub down as she looked on. I’d done the same, so fair play. She never made me feel self-conscious about what I was. Remarkable. Another helltouched couldn’t have made me feel more at ease.
“I’m so sorry, Orman.”
I turned around, letting the spray go against my back. A natural cold, not like the clinging tendrils of the grave. “You don’t have to be.”
Clean, we went along a narrow ledge to my lair, sealing a door shut behind us. I had some supplies dried and sealed. Not enough for anything special, but I managed a stew of rice, beans, and dried meat. Kara ate like she’d been starving. Seeing her in this one moment of calm, being able to do one normal thing, meant as much as any number of dead cultists and hired killers.
“You still need to rest,” she told me. Her own eyes looked heavy after the meal.
“Soon. Tell
me this, though: If you get away, what’s the plan?”
She pressed her lips together, finally coming to a decision. “I have to evade them, build a power base for myself, and grow stronger. When I do, I come back and kill them all. First thing, though, I must find a way to break this rune. I’ll never have a chance if they can steal my power and find me no matter how far I run.”
“About that,” I started, but she stopped the words with a kiss. Kara pushed me over onto my back, opening the cloak to let it fall over us like a blanket. Everything I wanted to know burned away like parchment before a blaze.
✧ ✧ ✧
Gwethieri and Qess looked us over. The two witches had been friends of mine for years, and if anyone could find out about Kara’s rune, they could. They were also librarians, so they had access to all kinds of scrolls and tomes. All the stuff warlocks don’t really need.
“You look bedraggled.” Gwethieri looked amused. I usually try to be dashing. “When you asked us to summon you, I figured you’d finally gotten yourself in over your head.”
“We wondered what you were into. Your shop is closed and your apartment building burned down last night. Hashem said you killed some guys. Doesn’t sound like the careful necro we all know and love.” Qess took Gwethieri’s hand and squeezed.
“No one gets out intact, not even warlocks.”
“You’ve been hanging around that Lex guy too much,” Qess said. “He’s a reckless madman.”
Kara peered around at the shelves of books, ill at ease. She flicked a questioning glance to me, but I tried to seem sure of myself. I introduced her to the witches. They looked between us, trying to figure out how I’d thought up whatever con game I was running. They whisked further into the library, chatting and hugging and laughing. I trailed along behind, now at their mercy.
“Of course we’ll do Orman a favor! We’ve been waiting years to get him into our debt, the scoundrel,” Gwethieri said.
Yeah. In debt to witches. That would hurt, but not as bad as replacing all the stuff I’d lost when the bastard cultists burned down my house.
Underneath the cloak, Kara wore one of my shirts. This fact didn’t get lost on the witches, who looked back and grinned at me, Qess even giving me a sign that meant something crude in Fey silent language. They removed Kara’s shirt and had a look at the rune for themselves. They studied the weave of magic, and other parts of the nearby terrain, for several minutes.
“So. There’s a lot going on. Whoever did this wasn’t kidding around,” Qess told us. “We’ll need a circle to learn more.”
“Can you disjoin it?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t even try,” Gwethieri said, no hint in her tone that we could change her mind. “But when we feel the flow of energy around it, maybe we can help you get to someone who could.”
The witches joined hands with each other, bringing Kara into the group. Between them, a tiger eye stone as big as an apple sat on the table. As they closed their eyes and chanted, it burned with golden light. The room pulsed and throbbed with earth energy. I walked to the front of the library. Not my kind of magic, and it made my teeth ache to be nearby.
I glanced outside.
Cultists.
Their hooded robes clashed with the normal foot traffic of the city. The lunatic bastards had found us again. Drawing away from the windows, I said a lot of unkind things under my breath. The other librarian came to chastise me about drawing a sigil on the floor. Something in my look caused her to think twice about it.
We just had to have a few more minutes of luck. Yeah. Like that would happen. A whole squad of hooded madmen rushed the entryway.
✧ ✧ ✧
They kicked the door in. The sigil went off, pulling all light and life and hope out of the room. The cultists sagged on their feet, some of them going to their knees.
“Lady, run to the back and don’t turn around!” I shouted at the librarian. “Tell ’em it’s about to get loud.”
She bolted. I began casting another spell, feeling all the meager energy I’d built up ebb away.
“By the long shadows of the endless twilight valley, let down your rope. By the chill, fast waters of the river where the black swans float, let down your rope. By your leave, I bring forth the mournful clamor of the doom bells, all ye Kings of Night!”
Next to me, out of the sudden gloom above, an old and roughened rope appeared. I leaped up, just as the whole squad of cultists gathered themselves and prepared to charge. I seized the rope and pulled with every ounce of my weight, every measure of my strength.
The tolling of the doom bell crashed across the library entrance, catching all the cultists and tossing them backward. Books flew from the shelves. The nearest cultists collapsed, every bone shattered. They were fortunate. The rear rank, their eyes and ears burst from the blast wave, would not go so quickly to their demise. No, they were doomed to atonal yells of agony, clawing at their own faces. They couldn’t stop the maddening reverberation of the otherworldly clang and rumble. Only death could.
The rope faded, and I ran to Kara. Everyone in the district would have heard that. Gawkers and guards would be along in a moment.
The witches looked shaken but unhurt. Kara shrugged into her oversized shirt ready to run. She lifted her hand toward me, but no time for anything but essentials remained.
“What did you do?” Qess shouted. I imagined everyone’s ears were ringing, even from this distance.
I shrugged. “Doom bell. Sorry about that. Did you learn anything?”
“We know who could help, but you’re not going to like it.” Gwithieri handed me a scrap of parchment with a name on it.
“Her? With them? These are scary people. Even for a guy like me.”
“She’s the only one who can help. Now get your asses moving. You owe us really big, Orman,” Gwithieri reminded.
Yeah. If there was anything left of me to pay.
✧ ✧ ✧
The deepest, darkest settled street in the Underhalls. Demons lived here long eons ago. The horror of their magic still echoed in the stone. It’s how people like me come to exist. Helltouched, the darkness of those ancient spells changing us before we’re ever born.
Most people didn’t think the place existed. To the world outside Remnar, the Humans of Leng were just a bad dream, a scary story for children. I knew better. Brutal, calculating outsiders from another world, they played by their own rules, and no one could trust them.
Four warriors stood before the gate, hands on the hilts of their swords. I’d seen those swords once before. They flashed and disappeared so fast your eye couldn’t track it. Something damn close to magic.
“These aren’t the humans you’ve always known, Kara. These guys are cruel and nasty,” I whispered.
“Many of the cultists were human, Orman. I have little faith in anyone, save those who prove themselves friends.” She squeezed my hand. I approached and made my plea.
“We have come to see the Blood Mother,” I said, feigning confidence I didn’t have.
The lead warrior scowled. “No. She sees no one. Leave, or be slain.”
“I can make it worth her while. Please, at least pass along a gift I’ve brought her.” Slowly, so they wouldn’t murder me, I drew out the arm bone from my place. On every surface, crimson runes spiraled across it, written as small as I’d been able to form them. It was all the blood I’d infused with the orc’s spirit-taint. I offered it to the lead guard, whose expression hardened even more.
“What nonsense is this?”
“It’s a powerful magic item. It holds the very agony of death in battle.”
The lead warrior sniffed, then motioned one of his subordinates to take it. The man left in haste, the gate closing behind him. I stepped back, not wanting to make the stone-faced warrior any more likely to kill us.
It took all my effort not to glance around like a fugitive. After what felt like forever, they ushered us through. Every door we passed was closed and had no marking. Not a single d
ecoration appeared on any wall of the hallway. We went down a long stairway, then another featureless hall, then through a green door.
The austerity of the hall gave way to such intricate decoration that it hurt my mind. I stood before a tall dais, looking up at a woman whose age I couldn’t guess. She looked neither young nor old. Her olive complexion had no flaws, and her black hair shimmered in the light of the lamps. True, burning lamps, a rarity down here.
She looked at us with a shrewd eye for a moment before speaking. “I am intrigued by this. Did you invent such magic?”
“I…yes, Mother.”
“Tell me how it is done. Every detail.” The way she spoke, I knew that argument would be fruitless. This was our way in, and our way out. The grandest practitioner of blood magic in the world got what she desired. Every time.
“Of course.” I told her everything I’d done and learned. A secret worth a kingdom, maybe, and I had to give it away.
The Blood Mother snapped her fingers and two scribes entered, each taking down every word I said. As much as I didn’t want to stand there discussing theoretical necromancy, explaining it to someone who understood did feel invigorating. Before I knew it, I’d spilled the whole thing.
A slow smile appeared on the Blood Mother’s face. She reached over, hitting a small gong next to her on the throne. They brought in a heavily built guy who struggled every step of the way. His eyes were blackened and he had healing wounds across his bare torso. A prisoner, and one I wouldn’t want to switch places with.
The Blood Mother walked down to the center of the room, nodding for her warriors to let the prisoner free. She gave him a false smile, then motioned to him. “If you can kill me, they will let you free.”
He needed no further enticement. He rushed at her, teeth bared. She touched him on the shoulder with the arm bone, sliding aside like a fencer. A scream broke from his lips, and he fell, curled into a ball of agony.
The Blood Mother nodded. The guards dragged his body away. She put the bone in her belt and retook the throne.
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