The Daemon Prism, page 49
It had taken us almost two hours to get to the palace, avoiding crowds trying to quench the raging fires and gangs of rioters tearing into homes and shops. But de Ferrau had gathered his own followers as he proceeded up the palace road, announcing that he had caught the Regent’s missing prisoner and was planning to trade him for the fiendish necromancer, who would burn at dawn in the heart of Mancibar. Trust came very hard amid such rhetoric—and the cheers that followed.
The tetrarch’s most arrogant manner, plus a great deal of persuasion and perhaps some gold coins, had been required to gain us entry. And once we were ensconced in the palace waiting room, the understeward warned of a long wait.
The moonless, starless heavens boiled. The aether was a wordless tumult. My nerves quivered like plucked lute strings.
I tapped twice on the back of Rhea’s hand—the signal that Ilario and I were off to retrieve the Stones. Holding hands so as not to get separated, the two of us slipped out of the room and up the stair. Rhea and Andero would bring Portier to the cavern, Rhea invisible, Andero posing as a guard taking a prisoner down. I’d sketched them a map of the way.
Lamp boys and sweepers hurried through the corridors, eyes to the floor. Footmen stood at the bottom of the stair and at the intersection of the larger passages, looking as if they’d take off running if someone blinked at them.
The Regent of Mancibar was not in his chambers. The polished wood box in the base of the man-goat statue was empty. Gods save us…. Paralyzed, I stared at the evidence of our ruin. Wherever Jacard was, he had Tychemus with him.
Ilario tugged at my sleeve. “So we try for the woman’s.”
Despair predicted what we would find. A lamp burnt in the lady’s sitting room, but, indeed, no one was there or in the bed, bath, or wardrobe chambers. No green Stones lay in the velvet box.
“So we hunt,” said Ilario, turning down the passage, back the way we’d come.
But I dragged him the opposite direction. “No, we have to see—”
He gathered me close and whispered in my ear. “Ani, Dante is not part of this plan. I’ll come back with you after. I swear it.”
“We have to know if he’s destroying the city.” Dante had warned us to beware of him.
No guard stood outside the doorway. No lamps burnt. My hands bade Ilario wait, and I crept across the room toward the balcony. My knee whacked an obstacle—a straight-backed chair on its side. The balcony was deserted.
“Over here,” whispered Ilario. “There’s been quite a row, and not so long ago. Careful where you step. Everything’s upended. There’s glass….”
The rug was cold and wet under my bare feet. The armchair where Dante had been sitting when I spoke to him was overturned. The mahogany cabinet with its carafes and glasses lay in splinters. And the night breeze wafted through a dark section of wall where no openings had existed the previous day, stirring the scents of char and ash. Andero’s images of Castelivre were ever vivid.
Something hard gouged my foot. Not glass. Metal …
I retrieved a thin chain—a neck chain, broken, as the clasp was still hooked.
My breath caught. I patted the damp rug. No mistaking the enchantment that prickled my fingers when I found the gleaming oval. A few centimetres away lay a torn scrap of paper and a ring, also bristling with familiar enchantment. Portier’s ring.
“This isn’t Dante’s doing,” I said. “Someone’s torn my pendant from his neck. We may already be too late!”
Lightning split the oppressive sky outside the windows. Not two instants later, thunder trembled the palace foundations. A wind gust banged the balcony doors open. I slapped my hands to my ears to shut out a growing polyphony of terror. It did no good. The storm was inside me.
We streaked from the room and down the passage. As we reached Xanthe’s door, I pulled up. “Wait.”
Dante’s staff stood inside the door, exactly where I’d seen it last. I wrapped my cloak about its middle, which seemed enough to make it unseeable. And in the lamplight I examined the scrap of paper. Two short sentences in Dante’s left-handed script.
Wear it always.
Fight.
A message to himself, perhaps, scattered in the wreckage as it was. Stuffing the scraps in my pocket with the other things, I returned to Ilario. “Now we go.”
Hands clasped tight, we ran. We reached the waiting room just as Jacard barged in, a green prism gleaming at his breast.
I drew Ilario back around the corner. “I’m going on down,” I said. “We’re going to have very little time.”
“Godspeed, Ani.” Ilario kissed the top of my head. “We’ll be there with Stones and saint as soon as may be.”
I hated to leave them. But Portier could wield enchantment, Ilario and Andero could fight, and Rhea was strong, intelligent, and invisible. I had to trust them. Only I could prepare the spell.
Gripping the staff and canvas bag that held the elements for the spellwork, I raced down the stairs and passages I’d followed the previous night. Dante’s magic had guided my steps to find Portier. I was sure of it now. An unlikely animal fervor rose from my toes. We partner well, my friend of the mind and heart. And our friends are exceptional. We’ll win this night yet.
CHAPTER 38
Smoke, yellow light, and the eye-watering scent of incense pouring through the brick arch from Sirpuhi’s heart had warned me the cavern was not deserted. A man’s thready wail but confirmed it. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the sight awaiting.
The air trembled with candlelight; the blood-painted words on floor and walls shivered. Across the cavern, beyond Altheus’s bier and the four angels, two naked men were suspended by their wrists from pegs fixed in the stone wall. The one moaning in terror was a sturdy, healthy young man, very like the prisoner I’d set free. The other was Dante.
Did Jacard think to use Dante instead of Portier? It made no sense. Dante could not provide rebirth.
He was so still…. Only after a moment did a violent shudder declare him living. I breathed again.
The woman, his mistress, this Xanthe who teased Jacard so unmercifully, paced the length and breadth of the rectangular pit bounded by the wall and the towering angels. She fondled the green Stones at her breast.
“… no notion what to do,” she said. “You’ve ever advised me not to trust Iaccar. But I won’t run away, either. I waited seven centurias to wield the Maldeona. This could all be your trick to steal them. You detest Iaccar. You think us both stupid.”
Dante lifted his head. His eyes were sunk into his gaunt face, his lips bloody. Rivulets of sweat coursed down his flanks, pain stretching his skin across his bones. Though he, like the other man, was strapped tight to the wall at ankles, chest, and neck, I could see no mark on him. He jerked again, his every corded sinew twisting and knotting.
“Kill me,” he said, harsh and low. “Please, lady—must fight—” He clamped his mouth shut as he spasmed yet again. Harder.
“No,” she said, half angry, half grieving. “Tell her to save you, whoever she is.”
Her? Saints, did they know I was here?
She climbed to the low step beneath his feet. “I don’t want you dead. But you’re no good to me like this. The market burns. The roads and riding paths crack. What pleasure in being queen of ruin? The ghoul says it’s your doing.”
“Need to die—” He slammed the back of his head against the wall.
The stone beneath my feet quivered. Great gods, what was happening to him?
“You told me that none can command a magus to work magic.” The woman’s rising desperation made her shrill. “Or was that just another lie?”
Dante snarled as he shuddered yet again.
Thick gray smoke hung in the vastness above the shallow pit. Cloudy tendrils brushed the flesh of the bound men, drawing wordless whimpers from the prisoner. Dante didn’t seem to notice.
A gray finger of smoke twisted through the tremulous air exactly in my direction. I retreated, slamming my back to the wall of the prison passage, heart hammering, the taste of vomit in my mouth.
I’d thought Portier’s absence would halt this business. Yet Jacard had clearly been interrupted. However hateful it was to leave Dante as he was, our plans were already askew. If the others brought Portier, and if we could somehow snatch the Seeing Stones, we’d have very little time to destroy the Stones. By Dante’s own judgment, that came before all. I had to be ready.
The cells in the dark little passage were empty. The blue-limned light of the potion enchantment guided my eyes, but Dante’s teaching guided my hands. Using his staff, I traced the boundaries of one cell for my spell enclosure, giving me the largest possible field. Circularity was unimportant, but closure was critical. I used the order of the symbols in the cave drawing to lay out the objects from the canvas bag: representations of the four seasons and the four elements, the sacred tessila, the anchor … Ah, I now possessed something belonging to Portier. I returned Lianelle’s pendant to my neck and pulled out the ring I’d found in Dante’s chambers. Leaving an empty place for the weapon, I placed the vial of Ilario’s stomach medicine—our representation of the healing snake.
The arrangement felt awkward. Selection of the objects is primary, Dante had instructed, but never underestimate the importance of balance and positioning. The piled branches, flasks, fan, and candle for the seasons and elements weighed heavy against Portier’s ring and the small chunk of rosy marble that was the tessila. So I placed the four elemental objects at the corners, the four reminders of the seasons halfway down each boundary of the rectangular space. The weapon, the medicine vial, the tessila, and the ring would define a second rectangle inside the first. Better.
Assuming we somehow managed to wrest the Stones from Jacard and Xanthe, I must draw together the keirna of these objects and shape them into a spell structure as Dante had taught me. Portier would lie in the center, holding the Stones. And then we would kill him, and I would bind my spellwork.
How in the name of sense would I have time? How in the name of the holy could we murder our friend?
Slumped in the passage outside the cell, I worked to refine the spell structure I had devised earlier. I had envisioned a vessel woven of enchantment that could contain Portier’s soul and the solid Stones, keeping them together as his soul left his body to pass the Veil. The objects specified in the painting lent themselves to the idea. The warp would be strung with the keirna of the four seasons, the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and the ring that anchored Portier’s passing soul specifically to the physical world. The weft would be the keirna of those things that touched the world of the spirit: the sanctified tessila, the intangible mystery of life and healing, and the weapon that brought release from mortal life.
A fierce concussion set the iron doors swinging, disrupting my concentration. The rubble at the end of the passage clattered as it settled. Not long after, the woman let loose a siren scream. I raced back to the cavern.
Xanthe was backed up to the catafalque. Tongues of smoke … licked her. Her pale hair floated outward from her contorted face as she stared into the cloud above her, where a half-formed phantom the size of a house bulged and shrunk amid the turbulent fog.
“Sshall you, too, writhe for my pleasure thisss night, girl?” The throaty whisper hissed with malevolence as Xanthe sank to the floor. “You belong beneath my feet. Ignorant, crude. My nephew tells me you value tin over silver and cannot distinguish coal from ebony. Of course he is a beetle like you, too weak to bend a woman and a cripple to his will.”
Nephew! I peered into the fog. The spectral features were unmistakably Kajetan’s. Would that I could murder the fiend again.
Xanthe squealed as smoky fingers twined her hair. “You dare trespass holy ground wearing the objects of my desire, little trollop. Give them over.”
“Leave her be!” Dante clamped his lips and groaned. Candles flickered. Implements on the bloodstained table rattled.
The spectre’s attention snapped to Dante. “Does mindless vermin think to command me? Does not our sovereign master teach you your place even now?”
Our master. I didn’t think he meant Jacard.
With Kajetan’s focus elsewhere, Xanthe scuttled toward the stair to the upper gallery. I could not allow her to escape with her Stones. As the revenant heaped scorn and malice on Dante, I raced ahead and blocked the stair. I picked at her gown and blew on her face, making sure she couldn’t touch me and discover a living human.
“Oh, no,” I whispered, forcing my voice harsh and sexless. “You’ll not leave until you drop your useless trinkets on Altheus’s coffin. Perhaps we shall strip you and add you to yon display of flesh.”
Wide-eyed, she backed away, gripping the green crystals at her breast. Hurrying footsteps clattered on the gallery above our heads. Her eyes flicked upward.
“Back upstairs, Hosten,” Jacard screamed. “Find that god-cursed librarian, so I can cut out his heart atop his own tomb. We’ll see if he recovers from that. Gherok is going to nip the fingers off those Temple bastards one by one until one spills who’s put them up to this.”
Breathing a prayer for de Ferrau, his men, Andero, and Rhea, I quickly got out of Jacard’s way.
“Your ghoul torments me, Iaccar,” said Xanthe, hurrying her steps to keep up with Jacard as he crossed to the pit.
“We must work together, dear lady.” Jacard presented her a rictus of a smile. “My uncle is jealous of our life and the grand vision we share. Any blood will satisfy him. But I’ll not allow him yours.”
“Get this done before Dante brings the palace down,” growled the spectre. “You’ve dallied long enough. The rite will grant you all the power you deserve, and this daemon bound to him will make you a true immortal.”
“I’ll not rush the rite, uncle. This shall be my body, my power. Dante is a mindless husk who can’t speak his own name.”
“Tell me why your city is collapsing, fool. His daemon grows stronger by the hour.”
“Accept that you are dead, uncle! In this world we have more than whining spectres to deal with. This is but a spring storm and a plague of earthshakings as happens frequently in Mancibar. All will be well when my beloved and I are joined in power, body, and mind. The Stones shall control both the slave and his daemon master.”
Jacard stroked Xanthe’s hair, drawing his hand downward to bare her shoulder. He kissed the curve of her neck, the swell of her breast, and then moved to her lips. She clung to him like an infant, more terrified than enamored. “Dante never recognized the beauty and cleverness right in front of him,” he said, softly. “It drove me wild. We shall make a magnificent partnership.”
Kajetan’s black glare might have shriveled Dimios himself. “You are a cretin, nephew. There are forces of magic in this house—”
His diatribe halted abruptly when Jacard held a plate of rock over a small brazier—the source ofthe incense-laden smoke. “Manners, uncle, or I shall silence you. Your guidance is valuable, but not imperative.”
The phantom snarled and retreated into the boiling cloud. Deception … double-dealing. Kajetan had to be present if he was to take Jacard’s place. Did the dead sorcerer imagine Dimios would allow him to share this prisoner’s body?
Jacard laid the slate aside and took Xanthe’s arm. “Now, my sweet, we need some fresh blood. Fortunately our great magic no longer requires the librarian’s carcass or his blood to bring us an everlasting empire. I’ve a hearty lad occupying his bleeding chair. Will you join me? The refinement of the torment should please you.”
The two vanished into Portier’s old cell.
I stepped up quickly to stand beside Dante. Rills of flame cascaded from his hands bound above his head, dissipating in bursts of freezing air.
“I am your memory,” I whispered. “You are stronger than they know. The one who scourges you underestimates you in all ways. Neither he nor this bombastic spectre nor his thick-skulled minion have any idea of your gifts.”
“Please … whatever you are … kill me.” Agonized gasps punctuated his words. “I’ve lost the light … fighting blind … Need to see. Need to die. Need to fight.”
Tears stung my cheeks. “Memories cannot kill, but they speak truth. The light is inside you—the fire of your gift. Of your heart. Of your passion for right. I see it, and I will help you. You’ve many things to do before you die.”
“There is no help.” He bared his teeth, snarling. “I am his Hand.”
“Not yet. Not ever. Hold, Dante de Raghinne. Fight. Do not yield.”
It twisted my heart to abandon him. But I dared not let Kajetan suspect my presence.
I slipped across the cavern to the prisoner’s passage. “Ani?”
Never had I been so happy to hear a voice. I ran to meet Ilario and Portier as they climbed through the rubble blocking the drain tunnel. “What of Rhea? Andero?”
“On our heels,” said Ilario, helping Portier to sit. “As is Jacard. The switch worked like a clockwork, but there were no negotiations. When Jacard’s men surrounded the tetrarch, we were scarce along to the first stair. Rhea stayed to make sure Andero got away, but alas, I’d no chance to touch the emeralds and saw no sign of the lady.”
“Both Jacard and Xanthe are here,” I said. “And she’s near giving up the Stones. And we’ve worse trouble. They’ve got Dante strung up out there. It’s Dimios’s torments and Dante’s resistance causing this destruction. He begs to die. I … I could do it.”
Portier’s hand near crushed mine. “Don’t, Ani. Dante chose this path deliberately, and then destroyed the memory of his reasons. We must have faith that he did what he believed necessary. The tetrarch would say I picked the person who could do what was needed, yes?”
I couldn’t answer. Not when I felt the earth continue to spasm. But I did recall Dante’s scribbled message. Do not yield.
