The Book of Shadow, page 33
part #1 of The Curse of the Unnamed Series
They pounced together, Hinter darting in and slashing at the woman while Llyris dove to pluck the Unnamed from where she lay. Her fingers brushed against Flayre’s wrinkled hide, shifting her amongst the blades of grass, but she bobbled her. She continued two more steps, struggling to keep from overbalancing as she reversed course. The sound of a body hitting the earth reached her ears, and she glanced away long enough to see Hinter rolling aside. The witch’s attention came to bear on Llyris, and she felt death in her gaze. Goosebumps crept along her flesh, feeling like scarabs and snakes crawling over her. She shrieked, swept at the invisible creatures, and the witch laughed.
The handler got her senses and grabbed her Unnamed, curling her fingers around the wasted cylinder, desperate to notice the slightest pulse of energy from her. She did—faint, but there. The woman’s gaze stayed upon her, freezing her in place, and she forgot Flayre in her hand. Visions of dying men in chains filled her head, and of blood flowing. The taste of it clogged her mouth, making her gag, choking her, yet revitalizing her at the same time.
“This could be yours, shadow-scarred,” the witch said, the sibilance drawing out her words. “Take my sister’s place.”
An image of the yellow python slithered into her mind. In it, the thing wrapped itself around her, though it didn’t squeeze. Instead, it held her gently, caressing her, its forked tongue flicking out to touch her ear and neck. The thought repulsed her, and she cried out, broke from the crone’s hold and scrambled away, Flayre gripped tight in her fist.
The woman’s mouth opened, revealing long fangs protruding from her upper jaw. She advanced toward Llyris, hissing with no intent of forming language, venom dripping from her sharp teeth. The handler clambered to get away, but her hand skidded in the bloody grass. She fell, raised an arm to ward off the coming attack.
A shadow slipped across Llyris as Viden Misk rushed past her. Words spilled from his lips, but she understood none of them, though the witch appeared to comprehend them; her face went slack first, then became enraged. Her bottom jaw unhinged, spreading her mouth open into an implausible yawning cavern, the sight threatening to turn Llyris’ stomach. She tensed, waiting for the woman to tear her rescuer to bits. What chance had an old man in a fight with a demon?
As if to answer, Misk raised his staff, whirled it once around his head. The witch jumped toward him, talons at the ends of her fingers slashing for him, but the walking stick came down before she got within arm’s reach.
The stave’s end touched her forehead between the eyes and exploded into infinite tiny slivers. To Llyris’ notice, it did little more than tap her, though it yielded a much greater effect. The contact stopped her in her tracks. The rage drained from her expression, replaced by surprise, then pain. Her bottom jaw flopped, and a scream escaped her throat. Her arms drooped limp at her sides, and a sound like the ripping of fabric filled the air.
The witch tore in half, from the top of her head to her crotch.
Her two halves fell away in opposite directions, hitting the ground and bouncing, steam or smoke rising from her exposed insides. The heart continued to beat, pumping blood out of the gaping holes. The lungs expanded and contracted three more times, drawing breath through a throat split asunder. Her intestines writhed and coiled, a nest of baby pythons breathing air for the first time. A few wiggled their way out of her, spilling onto the grass, and Misk stepped forward, stomping the sole of his sandal on them, grinding them into the earth.
Llyris turned aside and vomited.
She got to her hands and knees, head hung, a string of saliva flowing from her lips to the ground. She spat to clear it, wiped herself clean on one sleeve, and wondered if she’d retch again. A moment later, a touch on her shoulder startled her. She flipped over, arms raised in front of her face, nausea forgotten, and found Viden Misk gazing at her. Concern painted his expression, and she opened her mouth intending to tell him she’d be okay, just needed a minute to recover, but he spoke first.
“Your Unnamed?”
Llyris gasped. How had she neglected Flayre yet again, worrying more about herself than the creature she cared for? She lifted her hand, holding it out between them, and uncurled her fingers. The purple cylinder resembled a charred piece of wood, its surface rough and speckled with gray. Her eyes widened and her heart leapt to a gallop.
“She’s alive. I can sense her.” She stared at the creature, concentrating, hoping, willing her to be okay. “It’s faint, but she lives.”
“We must hurry if she is to survive.” Misk held his hand out to her. “Come with me.”
Llyris closed her fist around the delicate being and let him help her up. A second later, they hurried across the yard toward Carpera’s estate, leaving the others to fend for themselves. She glanced back, saw them watching them go, then returned her attention to the magical creature dying in her hand.
Chapter 28
T he recovery of the tome had made Caedric Carpera more gracious in his offerings.
Viden Misk sat at the desk by the window, sun streaming in, the glare off the blank pages open in front of him nearly blinding. Several hours had passed since Llyris and the others returned from their expedition with the book, and he’d taken time to ensure the Unnamed’s survival before sitting down with the tome. At least half an hour, and maybe more, had passed while he stared at the clean white sheets.
But what am I waiting for?
The floorboards behind him creaked under the merchant’s weight as he shifted impatiently from foot to foot, reminding him of the reason for his hesitation. Carpera’s presence left the old man unnerved, but at least he’d shown the good sense to send his attendants away. If only he’d take his leave and allow Misk the privacy to converse with the Book of Shadow.
“Is it the wrong tome?”
He perceived the merchant stepping closer behind him, peeking over his shoulder. His proximity brought tension to his forehead, the all-too-familiar ache starting behind his eyes. He curled his hands into fists but didn’t take his gaze from the grimoire.
“No. I assure you, it is not.”
“But it’s empty. You told me it held the secret to curing Cassemir. How can it help my boy when it contains nothing?”
Misk heaved a sigh, hoping for his employer to comprehend his annoyance. “This is not a normal book, Master Carpera. Not like any tome you possess in your library, or any you’ve encountered in your life. This is a very special grimoire.”
The merchant gasped and stepped away. “You speak of magic?”
The old man closed his eyes and concentrated on releasing the tautness from his brow, hoping for it to ease the growing pain in his head. He uncurled his fingers and leaned back in the solid chair, confident of its continued durability under his weight. With another breath, he turned in his seat, propping one elbow on the desk and fixing Carpera with his gaze.
“Not magic, sir. Not exactly. The contents of the tome will instruct me what to do next; there is no sorcery to it.” Lies pass our lips so easily these days. “But it won’t reveal its secrets until it is ready. I fear your level of stress prevents it from doing so.”
The merchant’s face hardened and, for a moment, Misk expected him to lose his temper, perhaps banish him to the cellar and give the volume to someone else to decipher. What a mistake that would be. One person possessed the ability to coax secrets from the Book of Shadow, and he currently sat at a desk in front of a window trying to convince the headstrong master of the estate to take his leave.
The muscles in Carpera’s jaw flexed and released, his lips pressed into a thin slash, and lines formed on his forehead. Misk held his breath, waiting. After centuries of hunting, he’d never come as close as this; he wouldn’t let a man stupid enough to employ a powerful Unnamed to run his fountain stand between him and his success. He ran the tip of his tongue across his teeth, searching his memory for an incantation to use should the merchant make the wrong choice. To the man’s credit, common sense prevailed.
“Fine, I’ll leave you to your reading of blank pages.” He stepped closer and bent at the waist, bringing his face to the same level as Misk’s, a hand’s breadth separating them. “But you best have what you need shortly. If my son isn’t healed by sunset, someone will pay.”
He straightened and spun on his heel, heading out of the chamber without waiting for a response. Misk watched him go, made note of the guard posted outside his room. It wasn’t Mikol this time, but another man he didn’t recognize—armed and armored, his face all but hidden by the helm on his head. The door closed, leaving him alone with the grimoire, and he returned to his task.
“ It’s finally in our hands.”
“I thought without a mirror, I might rid myself of you.” His gaze flickered to the window, where two faded red dots stared at him.
“ You know better.”
“I should,” he mumbled, looking away to run the tip of one finger along the edge of the page.
His heart beat fast. This was no mere book lying open before him, no tome to be read for pleasure or education, no volume to excite or delight or titillate. This encyclopedia contained the answers to everything for those who understood the questions in need of asking. Millennia of knowledge—most written by hands dead long before he entered the world—lay within its pages. Keys to locks forgotten, solutions to problems unknown, images of creatures and beings who never existed. The past, the present, the future spilled across its smooth parchment, describing everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will ever be. Now the merchant had left and he sat alone with the grimoire, its immensity pressed against his chest, pinning him in the armchair and making it difficult to breathe.
“The end of our search,” he whispered.
“ Yes,” the voice said. “Get on with it, old man.”
Misk licked his lips and shuffled forward, perching on the edge of his chair like a child eager for a piece of cake. He flexed both hands, stretching his fingers, curling them into his palm, then flexing them again. Knuckles popped and cracked, tendons creaked. One more shuddering breath entered his lungs through his mouth, then he reached toward the book.
The page under his fingertips held the crispness of paper recently made, though he knew this wasn’t the case. No parchment existed in the entire world older than this he now touched. Both smooth and textured, he sensed its wisdom, its antiquity, its energy. He took a second to center himself, to savor its power and prepare for what it told him.
Viden Misk leaned forward and breathed over the open page.
Black swirls sprang to life, curling into being on the blank parchment as though written by some unseen quill. He waited without reading, watching as the letters became words, the words phrases. The sentences stretched from one edge of the tome’s pages to the other, filling both in a script he didn’t write. Its delicate lines danced across the vellum with not a single spot of errant ink or deviation in any character. The language the author wrote it in was old and forgotten before Misk’s birth, but he’d found other volumes recorded in the same dialect, taught himself to read and understand it as he’d done with so many others.
When the two pages open in front of him completed filling, he leafed to the next, spilled warm air from his mouth across it. This time, nothing happened.
“Hmm.”
“ It has shown us all it wants to reveal,” the voice said.
“Yes.”
Misk flipped to the previous page, stared at the scrollwork, briefly wondering whose hand created such art with the ability to mesmerize and communicate in such a succinct fashion. Was it Agis? Falkon? Perhaps before them and written by Cystenn, the first of them all? The pressure on his chest gave him pause again. When did nerves last stop him from doing anything?
When last I held the Book of Shadow, he thought.
He extended a gnarled finger, swollen knuckles aching, and touched the line at the bottom corner of the second page, reading the script from right to left, bottom to top, snaking back and forth—the proper way to interpret this language.
It briefly described the death of the unicorn and the resultant uprising of the magiks. Misk skimmed this, for he knew the story too well, then skipped the next lines detailing the enslavement of magical beings and the day the dragons disappeared. These things visited him every night in his dreams, and in waking memories, and he harbored no desire to relive them.
Halfway up the page, he found reference to the concealment. Somehow, men had deciphered how to use Amnayel Prisma’s own instruments against him, sending the grimoire and his stave to far-flung corners of the world, preventing the great mage from undoing the curse they’d tricked him into casting. Over a thousand years had passed since—more than a millennium of servitude and torture perpetrated on a hundred generations of the Unnamed.
Misk paused again. This time, the tome, or its power, or anything else but his own grief, remorse, and regret did not cause the tightness in his chest. For a minute, he stared at the black ink on cream parchment without seeing it, as the anguish and fear of thousands threatened to crush him. He sagged and his chin dropped forward.
“ This is no time for self-pity,” the voice said, its tone firm with admonishment. “We are so close.”
He rolled his shoulders, tilted his head side to side to flex his neck. It cracked, as always, but doing so relieved some of the pressure. He returned his attention to the pages, ignoring the twitch fluttering his right eyelid, and his heart jumped at what he saw.
The writing started to fade.
The first few lines at the bottom of the page were barely shadows, the ones above them light gray. He stretched out his finger, lips moving as he perused the words, searching for the place where he’d left off. After a second, he found it and began reading again, the dark inked letters diminishing behind his fingertip.
The last paragraph at the top of the page spoke of the stave’s location. Misk skimmed it, taking in the important parts before the calligraphy faded to nothing. A minute later, he sat staring at freshly blank pages. Blood drained from his face and he felt as though someone had scooped out his insides.
“ It didn’t provide the answers we sought,” the voice said, its tone reflecting Misk’s own emptiness.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“ We have more to do.”
He nodded, raised his eyes to gaze at the glimmering red orbs watching him from his reflection in the window. They flickered dimly, like candle flames on the verge of extinguishing.
“We must retrieve the stave.”
“ Are you sure?”
Misk returned his attention to the Book of Shadow. He breathed across the parchment a second time without result, then did the same on the next blank sheet, and the next, exhaling on page after page until lightheadedness forced him to stop. Gripping the edge of the desk to steady himself, he gazed at the reflection again.
“The tome offers nothing else today.”
“ Then we must do as it says.”
“Yes.” Misk closed the tome’s cover, hiding the clean, empty parchment from his sight, and leaned back in his chair. “We have to bring it what it requires to get the answers we seek. But how? If I don’t remove the taint from Carpera’s son, he’ll have me drawn and quartered.”
“ Worse things have happened to you.”
“Yes, but then I could save myself. Not so this time, as you so enjoy reminding me.”
“ You’ll think of something,” the voice said.
“I have no choice, do I?”
Chair legs squealed against the stone floor as he pushed away from the desk. He paused, glancing around the room to find where he’d left his walking stick, and spied it leaning against the wall beside the window. He rose stiffly and crossed the chamber, sandals dragging with his shuffling gait. When he arrived, he hesitated before plucking it from where it rested, wishing it to be a different staff. He raised his hand to knock on the door, but the voice interrupted him.
“ Where must we search next?”
Misk lowered his eyes, staring at the floor as he leaned on the walking stick. His shoulders rose and fell with a resigned sigh.
“The tome showed me one place,” he said without turning toward the window; he knew the other would hear him, even if he chose not to speak aloud.
“ And what location is that?”
“The Obsidian Fields.”
Chapter 29
T he door opened with a creak of hinges and a sob floated out. Llyris glimpsed Caedric Carpera and his wife perched on the edge of the boy’s mattress, embracing their child, then the old man’s body blocked her view. He stepped out of the chamber, watched the family reunion until Cassemir frowned at him over his mother’s shoulder, then shut it behind him. A few seconds passed as he stood, shoulders slumped, the picture of a defeated man. She waited patiently, finally shifting the silver box from under one arm to the other, the rustle of the fabric of her chemise catching his attention.
“Oh, Llyris,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”
“What’s wrong? Did it work? It appeared the boy has returned to health.”
Viden Misk sighed and stepped away from the threshold, starting along the hall and expecting her to follow. She did, because they still needed to attend to Flayre, among other things.
“It did. Cassemir will make a full recovery.”
“That’s good news,” she said, though the old man’s demeanor suggested he might not consider it the best outcome. “It’s why we’re here, right?”
For herself, she was unsure how to feel about it. The boy’s health pleased her, but what came next for her? Her task for Carpera—and Baron Sylleth—appeared complete. Likely they’d recall her to the guildhall to await an assignment. She didn’t relish the idea of languishing there while she waited; as much as the last few weeks had tested her, and she’d seen things better not experienced, she’d found a taste for adventure she’d never realized she nurtured.
