Shadow's Blade, page 32
“Is that what happened?”
She continued to watch me, that maddening smile lingering.
I squatted beside Gracie. “Are your parents all right?”
“Yes,” she said, whispering the word. “They’re totally freaked out, but she didn’t hurt them.”
“Again, Justis Fearsson, you expect the worst of me, only to be disappointed when I prove myself something other than a creature of pure evil. Namid’skemu has twisted your mind.”
I stood once more. “All right, Saorla. You can prove Namid wrong right now. I have questions for you. Answer them honestly and allow me to see that you’re something other than the wicked hag I believe you to be.”
She narrowed her eyes, though whether out of curiosity at what I would ask, or anger at the “wicked hag” thing, I couldn’t say. “What would you ask?”
“Nothing terribly complicated. Why do you want the Sgian-Bán?”
Saorla stilled, like a wolf on the hunt.
“I’m sorry. Is that one too hard for you?”
“It is the knife that made my people,” she said. I could tell she was choosing her words with care. “As such it is a powerful weapon.”
“An honest answer, Saorla. Or does that lie beyond your meager talents?”
“Why are you trying to provoke me?”
“I’m trying to get you to own up to what you are. Why do you want the knife?”
“You already know, don’t you?” she said. “He has—”
She stopped herself.
“Warned me against you?” I said for her. “Yes, he has. And he’s right, isn’t he? You want the blade so that you can use it to kill Namid and the other runemystes.”
“This is a war!” she said. “And yes, I seek a weapon that will allow me to defeat my enemies. That doesn’t make me wicked or evil. Any warrior would do the same.”
“You’re right.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re right. It’s not your quest for the knife that makes you evil. But that leads to my next question: why do you want to destroy the runemystes?”
She recognized the trap, but only after I had sprung it. She wished to destroy the runemystes precisely because of all Namid and his kind did to protect our world against dark magic. She wanted to make slaves not only of weres and weremystes, but also of those who possessed no magic at all. If she succeeded, she would make herself the most powerful and brutal despot the world had ever known.
She couldn’t say this of course, not in front of those who served her cause. Fortunately for her, though, she was free to ignore my question and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I might have mastered enough magic to make myself a match for Fitzwater, but I wasn’t yet a threat to Saorla. At least I didn’t think I was.
“Enough of this foolishness,” she said. “Where is the Pale Knife?”
“I have no idea.”
I smiled, grateful to Gracie in that moment for having refused to answer my questions earlier in the day. Saorla would have known if I was lying; I could tell that she was listening for any hint of deception in my words. She appeared genuinely surprised to have heard none.
She waved a hand, indicating Gracie and Neil. “One of them knows. Perhaps they both do.”
“If so, they haven’t told me.”
“But perhaps they will. You still owe me a boon. You shall fulfill your obligation to me by extracting the information from them. You are free to choose how this might be done.”
“And if I refuse?”
She glared at me, light from the flames burning in her eyes. “It would be a meaningless gesture, and likely a fatal one.” She spread her hands wide. “You did not wish to hand over the woman to me, and despite your efforts she is mine anyway. All that you did to protect her, all that you endured, has been in vain. Have you learned nothing?”
“I kept the kids from you.”
“I have the mother and the father. Do you truly believe the children will elude me for much longer? Now, fulfill your oath.”
“And if I do?” I asked, stalling for time. I needed inspiration, some way to fight Saorla. I sensed that Gracie had nothing left, and I didn’t know how much I could expect from Neil.
“You seek to bargain with me over something I was already promised?” she asked, her tone silken and dangerous.
“I want to know what will happen to me, and to my friends. Say I do as you ask, and I find out where the Sgian-Bán is hidden. Once you have it, do you intend to kill me, to kill them?”
“You deserve to die. You have defied me, attacked me. Even now, I sense that you seek to deceive me. I would be justified in killing you, and I would feel no remorse at all after doing so. But I find you most interesting. You have courage, misplaced though it may be. I believe you could prove valuable in what is to come, if only I can cure you of your blind devotion to Namid’skemu. I wonder, though, if that is even possible.”
Before I could answer her, my phone buzzed.
“What was that?” Saorla asked.
It would have been ridiculous for me to interrupt such a perilous exchange with a centuries-old magical being who could kill me with a thought in order to respond to a text message. Yet, that’s exactly what I intended to do. Like I said, I was stalling. And the only two people who ever texted me were Kona and Billie. At that moment, I would have welcomed word from either of them.
“What was it?” she asked again.
“My phone.”
“You have received a communication from someone.”
“That’s right.”
“From whom?”
“To check, I have to reach into my pocket.”
She laughed. “There is nothing you could hold in your pocket that I might fear.”
I shrugged, pulled out the phone. The message was from Billie. Two words. “Make noise.”
She could have had in mind any number of sounds, but I thought I knew exactly what she was after.
“Who has contacted you? What do they say?”
“It’s from Billie,” I said.
“Your woman.”
“Yes. She has the kids and they’re far from here.”
“Tell me where!”
I smiled. “No.”
And I cast. My first R&B crafting: I pulled power from the earth and the fire, and I used them to enhance the wind. Magic surged through me. Gracie gave a small gasp, but I kept my eyes on Saorla. She watched me, clearly perplexed. At first, the effect of the spell was barely noticeable. What I was attempting was like trying to push a car. My magic needed to gather momentum. I maintained the spell, feeding it with more power. The breeze strengthened into a wind, which gathered into a gale, which began to howl like some wild beast summoned from the desert.
I directed the tempest at Saorla and her weremancers. Dust flew from behind me, clouding the night. Saorla’s hair whipped around her face, but she stood utterly still, otherwise unaffected.
“You are wasting your power, Justis Fearsson,” she shouted over the roar of the wind.
I didn’t answer. Let her think I intended this as an attack.
Fitzwater anchored his hat to his head with a rigid hand, and he leaned into the gale, refusing to give an inch. The man and woman standing with him did the same. That was also fine with me.
Old Lionel never saw Billie’s car as it flashed into view, its headlights off. More to the point, he never heard it.
The Honda slammed into him. He somersaulted into the windshield, flipped over the roof, and bounced onto the rear of the car, before crashing to the pavement and moving no more. I think he was dead before he hit the road.
Billie kept driving.
Saorla spun to see what had happened and upon spotting her pet vampire, let out a scream that spiraled into the night.
I released my spell, allowing the wind to die away.
“What did you do?” the necromancer demanded, whirling to face me once more. She looked back at the pair behind her. “What did he do? What just happened?”
They appeared to have no better idea than she. Billie’s car was still protected by the glamour, and of course, no one had heard it coming or going.
“Is Namid’skemu with you?” Saorla asked. “Is that how you have done this? Show yourself, Runemyste!” she called, raising her voice over the abating wind. “You are not to interfere! You know this!”
“It wasn’t Namid,” I said. “It was me. I’m not as weak as you think I am.”
“No, you are every bit as weak—”
She broke off, turning her head slightly, her ear tipped upward. I heard it, too, and I cursed under my breath. The crunch of gravel under a car’s tire, the whisper of an idling engine.
“Of course,” she said. Her spell rode the wind like smoke and a moment later she let out a cry of triumph.
Damn it!
“Find the car,” she said to the two remaining weremancers. “Bring them here. Do not harm the children.” Her eyes found mine. “I would prefer you did not harm the woman, either, but if she resists in any way, do what you must.”
“They know you’re there, Billie!” I called. “Don’t fight them!”
Saorla nodded. “That may be the most intelligent thing I have ever known you to do.”
I didn’t answer. My mind raced. I didn’t dare attack Saorla directly. I didn’t have the power to penetrate her wardings, and I expected her punishments for any such attempt to be extravagant. And now that she had the kids and Billie, the risks were too great. So often in my dealings with the necromancer, I had sensed that she and I were engaged in a magical game of chess. Right now, as pleased as I was that Fitzwater was dead, as proud as I was of what Billie had managed to do, I couldn’t help feeling that I had sacrificed my queen to take out a rook. The cost had been too great.
I could do nothing but stare into the darkness and wait. Gracie and Neil gazed in the same direction, tense and silent. Before long we heard footsteps, and then shouts of, “Mommy! Daddy!”
“Hey!” The man’s voice.
“It is all right,” Saorla said. “Let them come.”
Emmy and Zach flew to their parents, Emmy to Gracie, Zach to Neil. Like to like.
Billie followed, flanked by the two weremancers. She didn’t appear to be injured in any way, but I wondered how long that would last. With a glance at her escort, she hurried toward me. I took her in my arms and kissed her brow.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I thought I could . . . I wanted to do more.”
“You did great.”
“Yes, yes,” Saorla said, cutting across us. “This is all quite heartwarming. But my tolerance for these games has run out. Where is the Sgian-Bán?”
No one answered.
She eyed each of us, her gaze coming to rest on me. Of course. “There is still the matter of our arrangement. You have refused me again and again, and have managed to keep me from exacting a measure of revenge for your effrontery. No longer. You offered me a boon in exchange for the life of your woman. You have reneged, and so her life is mine.”
“No!” Gracie said it before I could. She climbed to her feet, her attempts to cradle her broken hand making the motion awkward. “I have the knife. This isn’t Jay’s fault, or Billie’s. Or anyone else’s for that matter. I have it, and I’ll give it to you if you let the rest of them go.”
“You will give it to me. It is mine, and this is not a negotiation.”
Gracie glared back at her.
“You would prefer I killed them one by one, until you acquiesce? The girl has value, and so do you. Perhaps Justis Fearsson does as well. I have yet to decide. But the boy? Your husband? The woman? I will kill each of them in turn, starting with the youngest. Is that what you wish?”
A tear slipped from Gracie’s eye. She shook her head. “No. Please.”
“Then give it to me!”
“I have to cast,” she said. “A transporting spell.”
“Have a care, my dear. I will know at the first touch of your magic if you attempt any other crafting, or if you try to send something from here rather than summon it to you. Your spell will fail, and their lives will be forfeit. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Her tears fell freely now. She glanced at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Live to fight another day,” I said.
She nodded. An instant later, I felt the frisson of a spell. And an object appeared in her hands.
My first impulse was to laugh. My first thought was that Gracie was either truly brilliant or completely nuts.
“Zeeber!” Zach cried. He released Neil and reached for the stuffed zebra.
“You’ll have him back in a minute, kiddo,” Gracie said. “I promise.”
She held it out to Saorla, but the necromancer didn’t move.
“What is that . . . thing?”
“It’s my son’s stuffed animal. A toy. The knife is inside it.”
“If this is a ruse—”
“It’s not. I swear.”
“Very well. You will give it to Justis Fearsson. He can deliver it into my hands, as he should have long ago.”
I had an instant to prepare. I knew what Saorla would do, what her kind always seemed to do. Once more I delved with my magic into the ground beneath me, the light and air all around me. And I cast a warding.
Saorla laughed, and her spell fell upon me with the weight of the full moon.
“You still believe you can ward yourself against me? You are a stubborn fool. You cannot resist my magic; you are mine to control.” She regarded Billie. “Do you see how weak he is, this man of yours? He is nothing. Take that thing from her,” she said to me.
I held out a hand. Gracie searched my eyes, hoping, I suppose, to see some spark of my spirit, of my independence. Seeing none, she placed Zeeber in my hand.
“Is it in there?”
I gave the animal a squeeze, from the sides first, but I felt nothing. I tried again, compressing it top to bottom. Still I felt nothing.
“Is it? Answer me!”
“I don’t know.”
“It is,” Gracie said. “I swear. It’s wrapped and protected. I had to make sure Zach wouldn’t hurt himself. But I swear on the lives of my children, it’s in there.”
This seemed to convince Saorla. She smiled, exultant. “Bring it here!”
I turned and carried Zeeber to her. She grabbed it from me—I made no effort to stop her—and felt it the way I had, her smile faltering. So close to her, I caught a whiff of decay, of putrescence and corruption: the essence of her, the cloying residue of her malign origins.
She pulled a knife from the belt at her waist and sliced into the toy. Zach cried out; I heard Gracie murmur something to him.
Saorla reached a hand into the toy. After a moment, that triumphant smile returned. “Yes! I can feel the magic of it. You tried to dampen it, didn’t you?” she said to Gracie. “To make it easier to hide. But a mere mortal, even one as skilled as you, cannot conceal such power entirely.”
She pulled something from within the animal—a small wrapped parcel—and allowed Zeeber to drop to the ground. The object she held was wrapped in cloth, which she cut through with her blade, then a layer of bubble wrap, and another of cloth. But at last, as these fell away, she pulled the Sgian-Bán free, the pale stone catching the moonlight.
It looked just as Namid had described. It was a warm, milky beige from hilt to tip, with runes carved in the honed edge and a dark red streak, the color of ancient blood, running through the blade. There was a crudeness to it, and yet it seemed to pulse with power. If I could have done so, I would have reached out and touched it.
“Glorious one,” Saorla whispered. She held it in her palm, gazing down at it like it was something beloved. With a finger that might have trembled, she caressed that dark red streak within the blade, and traced the runes. “I have sought you for centuries.”
After a moment, she appeared to remember the rest of us. She clasped the knife by the hilt and held it up over her head. “Behold!” She turned to look at the weremancers before facing Gracie and the others once more. “The Sgian-Bán. The Pale Knife.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
Her eyes snapped to mine. “You—”
Three elements. Her hand, the knife, my hand.
She had warded herself against attacks. She thought herself immune to any spell I might throw at her. She thought me firmly under her control. But my warding had worked. And it had never occurred to her to protect herself from a spell as simple as this one.
The blade vanished from her hand, and reappeared an instant later in mine. I didn’t hesitate. If the knife possessed the power she believed it did, no protective conjuring could shield her from its bite. Still, I knew I would have only the one chance to get this right.
My thrust caught her just below the sternum. Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened, though no sound escaped her. Searing heat shot through the blade and into my arm, tearing a roar from my throat. But, I gritted my teeth against the pain and pressed the blade in farther, feeling its edge grate against bone.
A luminous glow poured from the wound, bright—almost blinding in its intensity—as if the sun itself had burst from her chest, and yet dark, baleful, the color of ancient dried blood.
Saorla’s hands closed over mine, her fingers cold, but her grasp still powerful. She tried to peel my hand away from the hilt of the Sgian-Bán, but I held on. Heat still flowed like lava into my hand and arm, advancing toward my shoulder. My fingers felt as though they were soldered to the stone, and I feared what might happen if that radiating fire spread into my chest. But right now, I feared Saorla more.
She pulled back her hands, and with a wail of torment, of disbelief and outrage, of terror at the thought that she might actually be mortal, she shoved me. Magic surged through both of her hands, and I flew backward, hit the ground and rolled like a tumbleweed.
But though dazed and hurt, I managed to look back at her, fearing that even now she might find a way to cheat the death that should have been hers a thousand years ago.
She stared down at the jutting hilt of the knife, which I had left buried in her flesh. And then she gripped it with both hands, clearly intending to pull it free.
