Silverkin, page 26
Xenon threw himself against the handle to stop it, but it shoved him back, twisting and grinding as the flooring of the well rose up the well’s throat.
Blackness deepened within the park, a presence as ancient as the world. A reddish light shone through the dark, its color like blood.
The Sorian known as Mage stood illuminated in its garish light.
“Thank you, my dear, for leading them here.”
Four Crimson Wolfsmen blades rang from their scabbards.
Chapter XXVII
The smells from the bread ovens struck Exeres with a raving hunger as soldiers shoved him down the hall past the kitchens. He glanced into the cook area and saw one of the bakers bringing out two loaves on a single paddle. A little butter teased with garlic—it was enough to drive someone mad just thinking about it.
The lead soldier, a lanky man with spiky sideburns, opened the doorway leading down and waved the group through.
The smells from the cells below overpowered the pleasant kitchen aromas and Exeres’ stomach soured. Another stay in the dungeons—this time as a prisoner instead of a healer. What a mess his life had become since leaving the Isherwood.
Mage stood at the bottom of steps, partly concealed by the shadows cast by wavering wall torches.
The lanky soldier stopped in his tracks. “Sir?”
“Give him to me.”
A musty smell intruded on the stench of urine and rot—a smell like charcoal and woodshed smoke. Exeres stared down at the Sorian and saw the old man’s eyes penetrating his. He waited for the sickening tendril of intrusion to creep into the back of his neck. He readied himself for the fight. It didn’t come.
“You may go,” Mage said, dismissing them with a wave. “Enjoy the kitchens.”
The soldiers peeled away from Exeres and disappeared back through the upper doors, leaving the two alone at the stairwell. The chains binding Exeres’ wrists were heavy, thick iron clasps with a heavy chain binding them close.
“Come, boy.”
Exeres staggered down the rest of the steps and followed Mage into the tunnels, heading away from the prison cells. Then turning down a side corridor marked with Shae lettering, Mage beckoned Exeres to follow him to a non-descript wooden door bound with ordinary iron brackets and hinges.
He took a deep breath and entered.
The room was not what he was expecting.
Miestri’s chambers were heavily scented and laden with trinkets—twisted sculptures dangling from lengths of leather rope, sashes and velvets and softness. But Mage’s chambers were sparse, simple—a crooked table against one wall, a stuffed wicker chair dangling from a cord hung from a rung riveted in the ceiling stones. A small obelisk stood in the center of the room and perched on it was a polished sphere the size of an egg. Its color was so deep it was almost black but a twirling spiral of green and blue flame lifted up from it and danced into a tight circle on the ceiling.
The door closed and Mage stretched his hand, spreading his fingers, and the irons uncoiled at Exeres’ feet.
“What are the terms?” the old man asked. His voice had a raspy quality, a strain to it that he had not noticed before.
“But I thought…Tsyrke said there would be no truce…he told me…”
“Boy, I don’t have much time to waste on you right now. I’m not going to burrow into your mind and shake loose the information I need. I could crush your memories like a fist full of grapes and you’d be as mute as a lizard the rest of your days.” He turned, the cowl shifting to reveal his wrinkled skin. Older—he was getting older. “You presumed that the soldiers at the gate were privy to our plans. They are not. Tsyrke did what he did because your lips spun too many webs. So I ask you again—what are the terms?”
Relief.
Exeres folded his arms, drawing into himself, still not daring to fully trust the old man. “The Shae will parlay with you on their terms. I don’t…I’m not sure they will approach once they’ve felt the warding surrounding the city. I’m not sure why I came all the way myself.”
Mage smirked. “Go on.”
“They think that you’re waiting to kill them. But they’re willing to discuss a truce with Tsyrke. Not you. If he agrees, he must hobble the south portcullis and open the gates. That is the sign they will be watching for.”
“A clever decoy,” Mage said, nodding, his lips pursing. “One that I’ve used myself.”
Exeres was baffled. “I don’t under...”
“Of course not, Exeres. I wouldn’t expect you to. Your thinking still isn’t subtle enough. But the Sleepwalker’s is. They have the girl with them, hmm? She is well? Good. They will bring her with them for safekeeping. Before the night is through, I imagine.”
“You imagine what? If you want me to carry a message, I’ll need to leave quickly.”
Mage stooped and lifted the dark glass sphere and stared into it. “You were duped, my young friend. The message they gave you is a diversion. Even now, they approach from a different direction and will seek to infiltrate the city. Your message was intended to lead our attention to the south gates. It’s an old trick. I’ve been expecting it.”
A pit of dread opened up in Exeres’ stomach. “What will you do to them?”
Mage turned the sphere in his hand, eyeing the surface of it and then glanced up at Exeres. “Nothing too harsh. I’ll have the Wolfsmen’s weapons taken and locked in chests in a cell in the dungeons. I will give you the key to free them all and to release the warding over the city.” He twisted the sphere with a quick thrust of his wrist. “This is not the orb you have seen Miestri carry. It is a different power altogether—a tame power. One that even the Shae do not mind. It’s called a Bloodstone.”
Exeres had heard the name before. He looked at it with interest. “Only the most powerful Druid priests have them.”
“Naturally. Achrolese was fond of their powers. He only made seven.”
Exeres stepped away from the tangle of manacles at his feet and approached Mage. “Why do you want me to let them go? Why capture them if you only want me to release them? Is it another trick?”
A wizened smile lit the old man’s face. “It’s all part of the game we play, Exeres. When the moment is right, Tsyrke and I will leave Landmoor. We will let Ballinaire take it back. Miestri will be forced to come with him. Then you will release the Shae lad so that he might claim the prize he seeks. Ballinaire will fall and Miestri with him.”
“Leaving you to rule the valley? With Tsyrke as your hoppit doll?”
Had he gone too far with the old man? The green eyes revealed nothing—not mirth or amusement or even anger. Expressionless.
“Tsyrke is no more my hoppit doll than you are. Do you feel any strings choking you, boy? Up on the table then. Dance! No?” He smiled, neither warmly nor coldly. “I have been at this game a long, long while. I have played it for centuries…for millennia. The last time I chose to rest, after Sol-don-Orai, I shared my secret. Which is what I am doing with you right now.”
Exeres took a step backwards.
“I’ll not make you drink from a cup,” Mage said, his voice straining. “Only words. Only memories.” He set the sphere back down on the pedestal and went over to the wicker chair and sat down on the cushions, easing his bones into wide-berth of it.
It is tiring holding up the warding, Exeres realized. He’s fatigued.
Mage rubbed his cheekbones, the chair creaking as he slowly rocked.
“Before the fall of Sol-don-Orai, I chose a shipbuilder. The wars had raged for years and nearly everyone in the empire was dragged into the morass. Hateful times. I chose this fellow because he was bright, young, and full of ambition. I warned him that he must go, to take as many family and friends as he could convince and leave Sol-don-Orai. Not by sea, for I had cursed the shores to prevent the devastation from leaving. I explained to him who I was, what I was. I told him to tell only his children my secret. To guard it as he would his greatest treasure. His name was Kibram Phollen.”
Exeres stared at him. “You’ve been with that family for…for that many years?”
Mage shook his head. “No, but the secret has. The secret is this, Exeres. I grow weary of these games. I have built up kingdoms and empires, and I have toppled them like sticks. How many rounds of Bones must one play before you’ve seen all the hands? Matched all the pairs?”
The groan of the chair swinging went down Exeres’ spine. “So you decide when a kingdom falls? What of ours? What of this kingdom?”
“It stays. Dos-Aralon stays the way it was. Boring. Ineffectual. Complacent. It remains insignificant. Tsyrke no longer desires to be its king.”
“Have you failed then, Mage?”
A tired smile played across the old man’s mouth. “Some might call it that. Miestri would, but she has been skulking in the shadows too long to understand the true depths of that word. No, boy. Not in the way you are thinking. The Shae have failed. That I exist is a testament of their failure. And I know that the end will mirror the beginning, for I was there at the beginning. I was here when the Shae came to this world.”
The silence in the room thundered in Exeres’ chest. “But the Shae did not come to this world. They have always been a part of this world…a different part but…”
“Please don’t quote me any of that pathetic Druid doctrine, those inane verses Achrolese droned about. I could barely suffer the man when he was alive and still his words yammer across the ages.” He shook his head and grunted, his expression lost in the swim of memories. “It is the Shae’s fault that we exist. They taught us too much. Now they have lost their own magic, and we are left to rule in their place. So sad, boy. How so very wrong they were about us.” His next words were a mumble. “That we were worth saving.”
His gaze focused and he looked up at Exeres sharply. “Your friends are coming sooner than I expected. Good for them.” The creaking of the chair stopped as Mage came to his feet, the sphere on the pedestal lifting up and landing in his outstretched hand.
“Remember, boy. I give you the key to open the locks. But not until it is time. Until then, you will stay here.” He motioned to the chair. “It really is quite comfortable, despite its looks. Be ready, Zerite. Remember to tell your children about me. Some day I will come to one of them and I expect they will remember me.”
“I will be sure to tell them about you,” Exeres said.
And how I destroyed all of your kind.
* * *
Ravin Kil-Silversheir walked the twisting road to the outer gates of the city of Landmoor. The fog cloaked him in mist but he knew the upper sentries would see him soon enough. A fierce wind blew from the north, gusting the fog into swirling eddies and driving it south towards the shore. By morning it would all be gone—a clear bright dawn that would soak the fields in blood and ashes. For Miestri willed it, and the winds obeyed her.
He lifted his gaze and stared at the upper bastions, at the jagged teeth-like rows, the squat short towers bulging beneath graceful tall ones. Stone and vine and shrubs seeped into the cracks and seams of the mortar but unable to budge the impassive boundaries. The shuddering thrill of the magic burned in his body. He had never felt so alive, so healthy. Why was this magic Forbidden? It made no sense at all! To summon and the earth obey. To think and knees bend. To stare and watch the world crumble.
He paused before the turrets at the main gate and saw the flicker of torches held by the men on guard. They watched him impassively, training the sights of their crossbows on his solitary presence.
“Who goes there?” one of them challenged.
He recognized the language now. The power gave him communion with all life, to divine thoughts and intentions. He knew the soldiers would kill him rather than risk opening the gates to apprehend him. Even from the distance, he could hear the fear knocking at their ribcages. They thought him a Sleepwalker. That had happened to him before.
“Lower your hood! Be quick about it!”
They had orders not to shoot the Sleepwalker. To parlay with him instead.
“I have a message for your Commander,” Ravin said, his voice ringing with mockery. The words felt strange on his lips—the human tongue was so barbaric. “Lord Ballinaire’s army has arrived.”
He raised his hands to the sky and drew up the curtain of the warding with it. The weight of the magic throbbed on his temples, crushing his heels into the earth. He trembled beneath the weight but it gave way, ripping apart as eddies of Earth magic flooded back to their natural course. The weight broke off of him and started to unravel around the city, like popping threads on a seam. He stared at the portcullis made of wood and nails and iron. Reaching a gloved hand into one of the pouches at his waist, he drew a fistful of brittle shards, crunched like eggshell pieces in his hand. Thrusting his hand out with a shriek of magic, he tossed the shards into the air and let the winds he summoned blast them into the portcullis.
The lockbars and hinges and nails and rivets dissolved with a hiss of steam and a pungent scent, followed by a blast of blue lightning from his outstretched hands. The outer doors buckled and charred and exploded inwards, sending a boom into the night that should have awoken every soul in the city.
Crossbow bolts fell around him like hail, their tips wrapped in the same shards, but he walked through the rains protected and entered the city alone.
Soldiers rushed from the inner barracks, the officers screaming madly that the city was breached. Hauberks jangled, swords and spears snatched from the wall stands. There were hundreds there by the doors, expecting an attack—expecting a siege that would not come.
Ravin reached into a separate pouch for a small hunk of Deathbane the size of an almond. With the magic, he sent it winging into the midst of the charging soldiers and let it explode outwards in a gust. Part of him was horrified as the soldiers dissolved into ashes, their armor smoking in ruin as the magic consumed them, snuffing out their lives. The thrill of it rose in his heart. This was power. True power.
He glanced to the left and saw another crowd of soldiers reacting to the carnage. Scooping up another chip of Deathbane, he sent it whirling into their midst, popping up and mushrooming out—killing them all. Clouds of Life magic scented the air, and he breathed it in then choked on the richness of it.
“Breached! The walls are breached! The walls are…”
Ravin raised his hand and let out a blast of reddish flame, slicing through the screaming soldier. He tossed more pellets of Deathbane around the bulwark walls and near the barracks doors, warding them to explode when breached by humans.
The sound of hooves shuddered from the valley floor, a sleeping dragon rearing up in the night. Ranks of the Kiran Thall would storm the gates behind him, followed at dawn by the rest of the foot soldiers. The wooden doors would be prepared again before Dos-Aralon’s army arrived. And their siege would end quite differently than the traitor’s would.
Ravin started down the main street, building up his grip on the magic, hoisting new loads of it on his shoulders. He sensed Mage’s presence in the western quarters, waiting for him.
“Be patient, old man. I’m coming.”
Chapter XXVIII
Thealos’ voice thickened. “Don’t fight him.” He gripped Xenon’s shoulder and dug his fingers into the muscle.
Xenon shrugged him off, his gaze intent on the black-robed Sorian. A chorus of Silvan magic sang against the feelings of blackness. Two Wolfsmen began circling on each side of the old man.
“Xenon! Listen to me! Lower your weapon—you can’t…”
The Wolfsman Lor grabbed for Ticastasy’s arm, but Thealos was quicker, the Oath magic sensing the intent an instant before. Slipping between them, he was jerked forward as Xenon snatched him instead. He pried Xenon’s fingers from his shirt as a howl of battle cries split the quiet of the air.
Two Wolfsmen rushed the Sorian.
A throb of foulness thickened and both men went down, as if clubbed in the head by an unseen staff. Mage advanced, holding the burning sphere in front of him, spreading its cloak of horrible blackness across the park, replacing the crisp smell of grass with an overwhelming stench.
“I didn’t, Quickfellow. I swear I didn’t!” Stasy grabbed his shirt from behind, and he turned to look at her. Her brown eyes swam with fear and panic.
“Run you fools!” Xenon shouted. He raised his leaf-blade and twirled in the air, scything the blade like a whirlwind, aiming for the Sorian’s neck.
Xenon’s body hit something solid mid-air and he rolled off it, landing crookedly. He tried to lift himself up as the Sorian approached and the orb flared. His body skidded across the grass and slammed into the rim of the well. The last of the quaere struck from behind, his blade sparking as it struck some unseen barrier. Mage cocked his head and the Wolfsman hurtled into the air like a child’s kite, higher and higher, before arcing and slamming onto the ground.
A shock and boom erupted in the skies, followed by popping thunder. The smell of dead things permeated the air and Mage straightened, his eyes narrowing as he stared distantly.
“I swear, Quickfellow,” Stasy whispered, clutching his arm, tears in her eyes. “I swear it! I didn’t betray you.”
Mage turned to them both.
Something heavy and black struck Thealos like a pallet and he went down in a heap. It smothered him like a wall of churning waves, pressing him into the grass as if it would crush him into the tunnels below. His ears rang, his vision blackened, but he could still sense. The Oath magic kept part of him awake, though he realized he should not be.
He sensed the presence of soldiers enter the park from the manor house. The Deathbane they carried invaded his senses, shrieking at him to flee. His arms and legs were too weighed down to move, his lungs screamed for air.
“Collect their weapons and take them below to the dungeons. Except the girl. Bring her to Tsyrke right away. There are more intruders in the city tonight. Warn him.”
