The Daemon Prism, page 35
Resolute, I shoved aside doubt and rode out with my friends on the Way of the Dead.
Dante
CHAPTER 27
25 DUON MANCIBAR
“Burn this house?” Surely I was only dreaming that Xanthe had dragged me out of my hole, dressed me in black leather and a purple cape, and taken me down into the city. “Whatever for? Surely there are people inside.” Criers had long called middle-night.
Neighbors had begun to gather in front of the fine house, gaping at our guards and torches. And at my collar that shone like a lighthouse beacon. Unlike me, Xanthe was anonymous, hooded and masked, her Seeing Stones tucked under her mantle.
“After sharing my bed this very morning, Lastegiere dared turn his back on me as he pranced through the market with his wife. I want everything he owns in ashes. Show me how to do it.” Her voice brooked no quarreling.
“Certainly, Mistress, yes. But having wreaked a deal of unpleasantness on the people of Merona, may I suggest”—I grappled for the right words, the right tone—“that burning the man in his bed teaches no lesson. Whereas if he watches beside that proud wife and his neighbors, to whom he’s bragged of his conquest … Think of his helplessness. His shame. Make it sudden, so he comes from bed naked….”
She liked that very much. Indeed, the wine merchant burst from his house bare as a shorn sheep, trailing wife, near-grown son, five smaller children, and servants, as Xanthe’s green flames devoured the House of Lastegiere.
Vengeance and humiliation became Xanthe’s new passion, the price of my bargain with her.
My life had changed since the day I ripped apart Jacard’s illusion. Most definitely better, but most definitely riskier. I had to yield her more complete magics, some dangerous, some cruel. But in return for my forthcoming, Xanthe no longer stoppered my ears; I was now allowed to feed myself; and I spent far less time on my knees.
Nights in the palace yet meant confinement in the sorcerer’s hole, and I was now locked away before the sun descended behind the red cliffs. Jacard would not hear of me being loose after dark, now my mistress gave me more freedoms. But in daylight hours, when I was not working with Xanthe on the Stones, I was allowed to enjoy a limited array of other amusements: a walk in the gardens, a game of stratagems, or a run down the palace road and back with Captain Hosten. By my reckoning it had been almost two months since I had last breathed the air of the world outside Jacard’s house. I began to feel alive again, and not the strange ghost I had become. But then she learned the pleasures of ruin.
In the space of five days, we burnt another manse and flooded the shop of a dressmaker who had failed to sew enough pearls on Xanthe’s newest gown. I snarled and let fire belch from my staff to keep the onlookers at bay. She giggled at the spectacles beneath her enveloping cloak. Easy to guess her strategy. The evils would be laid at my feet, not hers.
Indeed, as we walked up to Jacard’s house, whispers of daemon followed. I stirred up wind to blow sand in their eyes. My own, too, perhaps. Smothering conscience was easy.
Patience, I told myself. Great gods, patience. Unraveling the Gautier plot had taken me years, and I’d come very near failure at least once every month. Even such limited freedom as Xanthe allowed meant information, the thing I had lacked most sorely. My participation was necessary. Xanthe did not trust easily.
New activities and better prospects were not enough to banish the wild imaginings that plagued me in the sorcerer’s hole. I would have given much for the chance to talk with Portier about why in this godforsaken world he could believe he had stolen fire from Heaven. And why he had named me the Souleater’s champion.
But, bathed in Mancibarran sunlight, I recited my own litany. I am a free man. I choose my own course. I do not believe in fate or destiny or saints or souleaters. Clearly there were depths of magic I had not plumbed. Someone else beyond the owners of the Seeing Stones could speak in dreams and insinuate prophecies into the mind. I just had to watch, listen, and find out who it was.
The first day Xanthe took me to morning market had me as foolishly excited as Ilario with a new coat. I relished the sights and sounds of commerce, the smells of teas and spices, frying meat and baking bread. I listened to news and gossip, and, whenever it was safe, asked questions.
Both market and city were dismal places, quivering with unspoken anxieties. Sellers snapped at customers. The tables where one might expect people to linger drinking mezhalin, the thick bitter tea favored by the Arothi, were deserted and layered with dirt. Passersby kept eyes averted, not just from the Regent’s lady and the daemon mage, but from each other.
Even the goods seemed poor quality and cheap, despite the city’s fine houses. The faces haggling over rotted fruit and coarse linen were pinched and gray. Save for Xanthe’s. Her complexion shone like polished moonlight over shiny beads and bracelets of lead and copper that no Sabrian lady would so much as give her servant. She lavished praises on the sellers and complimented their work and, having no idea what things were worth, was profligate with the coins Jacard had given her.
“A plea, beauteous lady!” A gaunt woman in ragged silk darted from an alley and threw herself at Xanthe’s feet. “My son’s gone missing last Blood Night, but I’ve none more of family to feed me, nor to earn me through Ixtador’s gates. He was never a cheat. Nor was his dead father. I beg—”
Xanthe laid a gentle hand on her head and whispered in her best imitation of Nessia’s sweetness. “Forgive me, sonjeura, but I am only a guest in the Regent’s house, scarce more than a prisoner myself. You see my fearsome guardians.”
Xanthe’s hand masked her giggling as Hosten’s men threw the woman back into the alley. Casting sidewise glances at Hosten and me, she brushed off her skirts and continued her mission to a shoemaker’s stall.
By our third trip to the market, it didn’t surprise me in the least to hear the whispering that the beauteous lady was but a gentle dupe.
“I’ve a question, Mistress,” I said to Xanthe as she pawed through her myriad purchases on our return to her apartments one midday. “I’ve heard that Mancibar was a great banking center under Prince Damek. Caravan money, ship money, all was exchanged and held safe here. And yet you told me it had only a few soldiers and was an easy place for Regent Iaccar to conquer. If a city thrives on money exchanges, that makes no sense. And its location out here at the edge of the wastes, far from the seaports and well off the caravan routes, is wholly illogical.”
Xanthe drained a wine cup and draped a deep blue veil around her pale hair. Her cheeks glowed from the wine and the excursion. “Well, of course it is because Mancibar was built upon Sirpuhi of the Red Cliffs. None would dare steal or cheat at Sirpuhi.”
“But half the shops are closed. The exchanges deserted. What happened?”
“Iaccar had Nessia speak dream words about a Spider God and his sticky webs, and about trapped children, sucked dry of blood and entrails. Spiders and scorpions appeared everywhere about the town, especially at dusk. Then he spread rumors that Prince Damek and his family and his cronies cheated on their accounts, and that their crimes drew the Spider God to feed on their bloated evils. The caravan dougas and ship captains lost faith and took their business elsewhere …”
“… and so the people killed their prince and his allies.” I finished her thought and carried it further. “But the nightmares didn’t stop, nor the spiders, I’ll vow. Men say it’s because the prince yet haunts the city—a sign that this mysterious Spider God is not yet appeased.”
“I cannot speak of that. Iaccar made me promise.” Xanthe’s lips pursed, teasing.
Ghost rites. And people went missing on nights they called Blood Night. Even strong young nobles like her suitor Ageric were terrified to offend the Regent of Mancibar, who perhaps claimed he could appease the Spider God, who perhaps could direct this Spider God’s wrath upon those guilty of conspiring with the dead prince.
I stood at Xanthe’s expansive windows, relishing the dry air and devouring the sunlit prospect of the gardens and lower town, and the vast fields and plains beyond.
All of this foolery about haunts and spiders masked Jacard’s true purpose. He had come south to find the Seeing Stones, a source of magic his uncle had hoped to use to upend nature. I could not believe my gloryhungry adept would use such power solely to create himself a little fiefdom at the edge of the wastes. And this elaboration of dreams and murder to lure Portier and me here for naught but petty vengeance seemed excessive, even for a petty mind like Jacard’s.
I could accept his desire to conquer Sabria—the kingdom that had proved beyond his uncle’s reach. But why here? He could have chosen the teeming cities deeper in Aroth where the warlike people yearned for past glory and vengeance on Sabria. And I didn’t yet understand what made Mancibar’s history so powerful that it could protect fortunes, yet keep its legion so small.
Sirpuhi. An Arothi word. In Castelivre, Adept Denys had read it….
“Holy,” I blurted, whirling on the lady. “Sirpuhi—Mancibar—is deemed a holy place. This is where Altheus, Maldivea’s Holy Imperator, was born.”
“And where he came to die.” Xanthe looped a string of copper disks about her veiled hair and examined the result in a gilt-framed mirror, a gift from Jacard. “The wizard said his master was yet a vigorous man after more than seventy summers. But one day he lay down in a coffin in the navel of the world, closed his eyes, and stopped breathing.”
Burial places, holy places, battlefields, ancient vineyards … no matter what one believed about gods or heavens, angels or saints, power dwelt in the land. As I had taught Anne, history and rumor and belief were as powerful as sensory truth or mineral deposits when it came to determining the essence of a stream … or a place. No wonder my first impression of the city, on a night I was in the throes of exhaustion, had nearly flattened me. The keirna of Sirpuhi must be tremendous.
And Portier believed he was Altheus reborn. Jacard’s uncle had believed it, too, and Jacard had secured Portier early on.
Jacard could not possibly think to duplicate the Voilline rite. No matter the innate power of the land and of the Seeing Stones, he was one man alone. And I certainly wasn’t going to help him this time. Even Orythmus could not force me to work magic, for spells were bound by the will of the practitioner. And before all, he would have to open the Veil to draw the dead soul.
Dread writhed in my gut. I had been so sure I’d repaired the rip in the Veil at Mont Voilline. Yet, both Anne and I had been exhausted beyond life that night on Mont Voilline, and my ruined eyes had felt like molten iron….
I closed my eyes and pressed a fist against their incessant ache. Creeping doubt opened terrible possibilities. Did Jacard know that Portier had regained his ability to work magic? And if this was a reborn saint’s birthplace and deathplace … Gods, what would that mean?
“Altheus’s enemies feared him,” I said softly. “When Maldivea fell, they reduced it to dust and poisoned the land so that the Holy Imperator wouldn’t rise from it again.”
Xanthe twined a string of coral beads about her fingers. “I don’t know about his enemies, but Maldeon certainly feared his rising. His brothers came to Sirpuhi every year hoping to speak to their father, but Maldeon always made excuses. He said those who were dead should stay dead. Now he is dead!”
Xanthe beamed as she played with her treasures. She, of course, lived. There was something admirable about the way she so relished every morsel of her renewed life. She reminded me of a kitten. With very sharp claws.
Cultists believed saints could not die unless the work that had brought them back to humankind was done. But even for a Saint Reborn, was the work always successful? Answers, for better or worse, lay so near I could almost taste them.
“I must know what is this great making Iaccar attempts,” I blurted. “He’s worked elaborate schemes to lure the librarian, a man who is magically interesting, and me, a man who is magically capable, to this particular place. Clearly, Tychemus alone does not yield him the power he needs, and your strength and wit have foiled his attempts to woo the other two Stones from you. Why do the townspeople fear the dark of the moon? What happens on Blood Night?”
The whispers of missing sons and bleeding had struck my ears like poison-tipped arrows, raising festered guilts I did my best to bury. Surely owning Tychemus, Jacard found no need to bleed living victims to feed his power.
“Stop this fretting!” Xanthe wagged her bead-woven finger at me. “Iaccar’s games are none of your concern. I’ll not let him have you or my jewels. Now, teach me something new.”
I knelt to her and bowed my head to the carpet, masking the dread that weighed on my back like a cape of cold lead. “As always, Mistress, I am grateful for your mercy, your favor, and your protection. What shall I look for today?”
“Iaccar told me the Stones can detect enchantments. That’s what I want.”
Of all things I didn’t want her to notice when I worked magic. But she was adamant.
Thus I did as she wished. And I dared not exclude my own enchantments. As expected, she tested the thing on me repeatedly through the next few hours. She promised me a fine reward for the skill.
“And one more thing,” she said, dandling a sweet Jacard had sent her. “I know the Stones protect me from Iaccar’s knife and the knives of his hirelings, but…”
“… you would feel more comfortable with some additional protections against people like that woman at the market this morning?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
Rightly so. Jacard was straining to the breaking point. Anxious sorcerers are dangerous, especially with so much power and so little control as he had shown with Tychemus.
I worked her a few small charmed potions that would enhance her ability to fight off sepsis, insects, snakes, and poisons. With more time, I could have provided her a Gautier spell to warn her of many kinds of threats. Anne’s sister had worked such a marvel, but it would take days to reconstruct the spell. Xanthe hated me spending time on magic other than the Seeing Stones. She was young and inexperienced and believed her treasures would make her invincible, if I only taught her enough.
Nothing in the world made one invincible. For two-and-thirty years, I had tried.
27 DUON
Two evenings later, we burnt another house. Xanthe gave no reason but that she wished it. No argument of mine could change her mind.
The air was turgid, the falling darkness charged with dread, the voices of the aether disturbed as I had not perceived since Castelivre. Few townspeople even came out to watch as we dismounted and called out the lordling and his family. I could not tell if it was fear of our presence or something else that had the city and its residents awash in panic.
Xanthe’s expression was lustful as always, yet furtive, too. She used Orythmus to command the lordling’s own wife to pour oil through every room of their townhouse and set it afire. The lordling tried to stop his wife, not understanding it was impossible, and the maddened woman bit a hole in his cheek. Afterward, as city magistrates dragged her away, she wept and screamed that she loved her husband and why did the Regent not banish these daemons.
As before, I provided the public face for the unpleasantness. Cruel deeds were the necessities of a double life. Experience had made me expert at twisting my conscience into submission. Only … not this time. I despised myself.
Xanthe didn’t giggle that night. As we walked away, she hugged her cloak tight and murmured that she might have gone too far. Once back in her apartments, she rang for Hosten straightaway.
“Damoselle Xanthe!” A snarling Jacard, draped in purple and crowned with a modestly imperial diadem of gold leaves, shouldered his way past the captain into her salon.
“You and your daemon burnt out Rodrigo de Cerne.” Fury twisted and darkened his flesh. “How dare you attack my steward? And how dare you have this skulking wretch out of his hole on this of all nights? You and I made an agreement!”
The devil in her rose to full height. “Do you fear he’ll laugh at your ghouls, Regent? Or do you think he might point out what you do wrong that makes your ghost rites so dreadfully bloody?”
Jacard’s pointing finger shook with rage. “You will stop these burnings, damoselle. And if this daemon is not locked away in a quarter of an hour, he will be dead. I don’t need him. I never needed him.”
Xanthe curled her lip. “You’ve not power enough—”
“Good Mistress,” I interrupted. Jacard meant what he said. No doubt at all. “The heat and smoke have left me ill, and I’d not like to foul your apartments. Perhaps it would serve you best if I retired, unless you’ve chosen such public humiliation as fit punishment for my faults.”
Left with the prospect of challenging Jacard before she was ready and my vomiting on her beloved carpets, the lady retreated, motioning Hosten to take me. She had, indeed, gone too far.
For once I was pleased to leave the tumultuous aether behind. I lay on my pallet in the dark and the lingering heat, unable to sleep, worrying at Xanthe’s increasing wildness. I ought to have an escape plan. The spells attached to the Seeing Stone would make it easy.
Tyregious had been a master of spellcraft and had left a wealth of spells attached to the Seeing Stones. I ought to be able to replicate them for myself. Unfortunately, Tyregious’s work was very different from my own.
When I created a spell, its structure—the bones of logic that gave it the shape of my desire—contained the keirna, the intrinsic power, of the natural objects I used in its creation—the muscle and flesh. When I infused it with what power that lived in my blood and bound it with my will, the spell took on life.
Tyregious had created incredibly intricate structures, connections and logic I had never conceived of. But his spell threads were merely the bones. I could detect no intrinsic power bound into them at all—no keirna from any object. The Stones lacked keirna of their own. Without keirna to provide muscle and flesh, even my own considerable gift was not enough to make the spells work. They seemed to depend entirely upon the fonts of magical energies that flowed not from, but through the Seeing Stones, empowering magic far beyond my skills. Impossible, I would have said. Most definitely humbling.
