Witch King, page 22
Ziede’s expression went tight with worry again. “There were two, at least. We’re sure of that. But the other one must have been late to the ceremony.”
When Kai had first woken in Enna’s body and shared her last thoughts with her grieving family, her memories had faded quickly into dreamlike images, barely to be grasped. He had retained a few things, like being able to speak Saredi. The faces of her family had been familiar, though he didn’t know their names. He had recognized her horse, been able to find her bed in the Kentdessa tent. But that was all. He and Adeni and Varra and Iludi had made a game of it, trying to see what Kai could guess or remember.
Kai knew a lot more than that about this expositor. “His name is—was Talamines. He was from Irekan.” Kai didn’t know where that was. Somewhere to the far south, in the path of the Hierarchs’ progress across the world; even Talamines wasn’t certain exactly. “He was taken from there as a child, he barely remembered anything about it. I know what his rooms here in the palace look like. I know how to get there. I know … so much I can’t…” He shook his head. He knew too much, it was all a confusing jumble.
Ziede looked increasingly worried. “I thought demons didn’t retain the memories of their hosts.”
“Saredi call us to take the bodies of their recent dead. This Talamines was alive. It’s all still here.” Kai handed Ziede back her mirror, and turned his hand palm up. There was so much knowledge it was overwhelming, but some things were more vivid than others. Like the first use of power Talamines had been taught.
Kai knew better than to touch the Hierarchs’ Well. Even still shaking with shock and wearing a stolen body, he knew that would be a terrible idea and would probably tell the missing Hierarch and every expositor within range where he was, right before the Well flooded his body and possessed him. But Talamines had known a lot about how to source power.
Pain was the most readily available; pain of other mortals, their life force, their deaths. The obvious solution was to use the legionaries but it wasn’t the solution Kai wanted. Grandmother’s body had been burned, trapping her in the underearth never to walk the mortal world again, and Captain Kentdessa and all the others were dead, killed by the Hierarchs’ Great Working or cut down in battle afterward, but Kai could picture their expressions if they knew he was even contemplating it.
But Bashasa and Ziede could have left him to recover or not on his own, or be killed as an expositor by someone who didn’t understand what he had done, or be killed as a demon by someone who understood it all too well. He had to figure out a way to help them.
The horrific emotional consequences of the worst mistake of his life aside, Kai had an idea. I could use my own pain, he thought. The power structures his new brain remembered didn’t seem to care what the source was, as long as it existed. There’s no reason why not. And Talamines had parted with his body in a lot of pain, it was all still there, stored in a hot mass under Kai’s stolen breastbone. And there was Kai’s pain. He looked at Enna again, shrouded under the black mantle, and wanted to climb under there with her. She was his last connection to Kentdessa and all that it had been, all that was gone now. The ache of that thought sparked power and he used it to form an intention on Talamines’—his—palm.
A flame, yellow and wavering, heatless but bright, appeared above his hand.
Ziede’s brows lifted in astonishment. “Kai—What the—You’re not drawing from the Hierarchs’ Well, are you?”
“No, Ziede, I’m not an idiot.” Kai’s exasperation extinguished the flame. With another effort, he brought it back. Concentrating to keep the shape of the design, he told her, “I’m using my own pain.”
Ziede’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not nearly as likely to destroy your consciousness and enslave you to the Hierarchs’ Well, but it’s hardly an inexhaustible source.”
Kai huffed a laugh, though it wasn’t funny. “Isn’t it?”
Ziede bit her lip and he could see she knew he was right. “You’re taking all the fun out of killing a Hierarch’s High Expositor and stealing his power, Kai.”
It wasn’t much fun at all, as more of this body’s memories drifted to the surface. “Did you know some of them were enslaved? Cantenios wasn’t, but this one was.”
“I’d heard rumors,” Ziede admitted. “It may be only the High Expositors who are controlled that way.” She made a gesture and a breath of air brushed across his palm. He kept the flame stable, managed to make it a little bigger. She added, “So you’re an expositor, now. I might be able to teach you witchwork, too.”
Witches were supposed to be born of the mix of demon and mortal blood during the long-ago war with the underearth, at least in the borderlands. But maybe there were other kinds of Witches. Were expositors just Witches who had been twisted out of shape? Not all of them, not Cantenios, but Kai thought Talamines might have been. But he had a more urgent question to answer first. Was he even still a demon?
Kai wet his lips, still maintaining the flame, and drew the fingers of his free hand through the patch of wet blood staining the ivory tile. He brushed his thumb through the blood, and drew the life out of it. In the next breath it was black dust, flaking away like ash.
Ziede’s surprise was turning into something very like awe. And calculation. “If we survive this day, this could be very, very helpful.” Her brows lifted as another idea occurred to her. “Did this expositor know anything immediately useful? Like where our missing Hierarch might hide?”
“I’m not sure.” This body’s memories were too much and not enough at the same time. Grimacing in frustration, Kai closed his hand to halt the intention and dispel the flame. “The demons—Did they go with Bashasa?”
Ziede looked like she was coming to a decision. Abruptly she pushed to her feet, reaching out to grab his arm and tug him upright with her. He almost fell down again. He was taller now, only a little shorter than Ziede, and for a heartbeat it felt like he was balancing on unsteady stilts. Determined, Ziede said, “Let’s see.”
Kai struggled into Bashasa’s coat and tucked the veil into his belt, then hesitated. He crossed the room and crouched to gently tug the shroud away from Enna’s face. Her body was already starting to decay, her cheeks and the skin around her eyes sinking. He had been happy when he was Enna, before the war. That part of his life had been gone since the Hierarchs’ first decision to invade the grasslands; this was just the final separation, the chasm that would never be crossed.
But he turned her head and gently unthreaded the leather band with the Kentdessa antelope sigil from her hair. Then he pulled the shroud back over her and stood.
Wrapping the band around his wrist and tucking it under the tight tunic sleeve, he followed Ziede out onto the platform in the Temple Halls. The Hierarch’s body lay on the gray-white marble, its white robes drenched with blood. The severed head had been placed on the chest.
The Temple Hall was scattered with fallen bodies, mostly legionaries. But there were bright heaps of blood-stained fabric that marked other mortals, though there was nothing now to show what side they had fought for. A haze drifted in the shafts of light from the glass roof, mingled incense and smoke from a smoldering fire somewhere. The wounded had been brought to one side of the hall, where mortals, some in court dress and some in plainer servants’ clothes, moved among them, bringing water or bandaging injuries.
In contrast to that useful activity, the demons sat on the steps of the platform, staring at Kai. Their gazes were dull or angry or just bored. Some had been in the Cageling Court too long; he recognized those expressions of disinterest, of a demon barely attached to their own body anymore. It was a wonder so many had reached the Temple Halls at all; he was certain some must have dropped away from the group in the corridors along the way. Arn-Nefa and the Raneldi demon stood with them, just watching him.
This inaction was maddening. Kai hissed out a breath. “What are you doing? There’s still a Hierarch in this place, why aren’t you helping look for him?”
Arn-Nefa’s opaque expression didn’t change. Another demon said, “Why did you violate every covenant by taking a living mortal body?” She had a wooden heron sigil on her torn coat, from the tent of Soliasar.
Sick shame hardened like a rock in Kai’s stomach. The unfairness of it was grating but he knew saying I didn’t mean to do it, it was an accident, wasn’t going to help. He said, “This was an enemy. How many expositors have you killed?”
A few stirred, and their black depthless gazes watched him with more interest. But then Arn-Nefa said, “You broke your oath to the Saredi.”
It stung, worse than if she had slapped him. He fumbled for a heartbeat, unable to answer that. He deserved that contempt. He had done something that the Saredi would have thought obscene, a rejection of every covenant between grasslands and underearth. But if he hadn’t none of them would be standing here now. “The Saredi fell. We’re all that’s left. Are you giving up?”
“These mortals aren’t fighting for us,” the Raneldi demon said.
Kai was incredulous. “Why should they? You’re going back to the underearth as soon as the passage opens again. Do you want revenge first or not?”
“The passage won’t open again,” the Soliasar demon said. “No one will defeat the Hierarchs. We’re trapped here.”
Kai looked helplessly at Arn-Nefa. She just stared at him, her expression now edged with contempt. “You fought the legionaries in this room! What changed?”
The Soliasar demon’s mouth moved in a not-smile. “You changed.”
He wasn’t their leader, he was just the one picked to free them from the Cageling Court. He didn’t want them to fight for him, he wanted them to fight for themselves. “Then pick someone else to lead!” He knew he sounded desperate. He was desperate. “Arn-Nefa, you do it!”
“No.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head regretfully. For a moment, her expression almost looked sympathetic. “We did what we could. These mortals are dead, even if they don’t know that yet. There’s no point.”
“They know that.” Kai lifted his hands, exasperated. He wished that Bashasa was here; he had convinced Kai, he could surely convince the other demons. He pointed to the Hierarch’s corpse, stinking in its pool of blood on the sacred platform. “Bashasa—these mortals—killed a Hierarch. No one’s ever done that before!”
“Isn’t that enough?” The Raneldi demon sounded weary, as if she wanted nothing more than to lie down and die. “We can’t kill them all.”
Would they fight, if more legionaries poured into this room? Probably, until the surviving Hierarch arrived to overpower them with the Great Working and drag whatever survived back to the Cageling Court. Kai had to convince them. Maybe he could get them to go to Bashasa, to listen to him. He stepped closer to Arn-Nefa, lowering his voice. “Arn-Nefa, please, come with me and speak to—”
She grabbed his throat. Kai froze, too startled to react. And she was an older demon, in an older Saredi body, two things that gave her authority over him.
Then he felt a weird pull at his heart, at the store of stolen life under it. He didn’t understand. Her expression was grim, determined. Suddenly he knew. She was trying to kill him, to decay his body like he was a mortal.
Kai grabbed her hand and bent it backward. Arn-Nefa jerked free and stepped back, a snarl on her lips.
Kai didn’t feel anything except a deep chill in his bones. He said, “Not friends anymore, then.”
Arn-Nefa tensed for an attack. Uncertainty crept into her expression when Kai just stood there.
He turned away and crossed the platform, past the dead Hierarch, to where Ziede waited.
The scatter of Arike soldiers around her, wounded and not, looked away hurriedly. Kai and the demons had been speaking Saredi so no one had likely understood the argument, or known what they were watching. Except for Ziede, whose brow was furrowed in dismay. Her voice low, she said, “Are you all right?”
Kai folded his arms, glad for Bashasa’s coat. The cold still clung to him and he wanted to shiver. He said, “We’re on our own. They won’t help.”
An Arike soldier, her face vaguely familiar from Bashasa’s court, approached. She gave them both an Arike bow, touching her forehead. In accented Imperial, she said, “Excuse the interruption, Sister Witch. But can you make this person speak?” She pointed back to where a small group of Arike stood on the lower floor below the platforms. They surrounded a kneeling prisoner, a legionary with an officer’s tail. It hung from his head down past his shoulder, a hank of hair braided with jeweled chains and bright-colored threads.
“I can try,” Ziede said grimly. Witches manipulated elements and spirits, not mortal minds; Kai thought that if the Arike hadn’t been able to force the officer to answer their questions, then Ziede couldn’t either. Then Ziede glanced at Kai. “You might be able to.”
The Arike focused on him, wary but managing not to look disgusted or terrified. “Will you try, ah…”
“Kaiisteron,” Ziede supplied. “Call him Fourth Prince.”
It was another sharp jab to Kai’s heart. He wasn’t Kai-Enna anymore. And he had never used his underearth title with the Saredi, it would have been laughable. “Just call me—” Kai started, but Ziede kicked him in the foot. “Ziede, don’t,” he grumbled, hopping out of range. The ankle he had used to transfer into Talamines was still sore.
“Will you try, Fourth Prince?” the Arike asked.
Kai rubbed his face, trying to shake off the numbing cold. At least the Arike thought he might be useful. “Sure. What are you called?”
She touched her shoulder where her sash was tied. “Salatel, Second Shield Bearer to Prince-heir Bashasa. Please come.”
As they followed Salatel, Ziede demanded, “Where is Bashasa?” in a tone that suggested she had considered saying where is that idiot Bashasa. Kai didn’t expect an answer.
But Salatel stopped, as if the question had come from her captain, and pulled a folded cloth map out of her coat. She motioned a subordinate over and spread the map out on the woman’s back. Kai recognized Bashasa’s handiwork in the awkward drawing and almost smiled. “He’s here.” Salatel indicated a spot with her finger. “This court. To hold it, to keep the legionary auxiliaries back. They think the Hierarch is somewhere in this area, but they aren’t sure where.”
Kai stepped closer to see, and Salatel only shifted a little nervously. Talamines’ memory was turning patchy; Kai could visualize the interiors of rooms and halls Talamines had known well but couldn’t tell where they were on the map. He spotted what might be the Cageling Court and pointed to the large open space near it. “And we’re here?” To save Salatel’s nerves, he didn’t touch the map on the soldier’s back, though she had to know he couldn’t drain someone’s life through cloth and leather. Or maybe she didn’t know. “And the auxiliaries are coming through here?”
“Yes, Fourth Prince.”
Kai stared at her. “That’s not good.” They could be overrun at any moment. The Hierarch was probably waiting for the legionaries to break through and corner the majority of the rebels in this part of the Halls before drawing on the Well. They were still all going to die, even though they had won themselves some extra time.
“No, Fourth Prince, not good,” Salatel acknowledged grimly.
She folded the map again and they followed her to the lower floor below the platform, where several Arike soldiers waited, looking down at the legionary officer on his knees. He had been stripped of his weapons, helmet, and plate-armored tunic, but his expression was sardonic and amused. The memory of Kai’s new body told him that the braided tail meant the officer’s rank was high, that he was a Right Hand of Wrath.
Salatel motioned to the Arike soldiers and they eased out of the way. She said, “His name is Vilgies, a high officer of the legion, part of a Hierarch’s own guard.”
As Kai stepped in front of him, Vilgies frowned, his gaze moving up to Kai’s face. His jaw dropped a little. Vilgies breathed, “What … what is this? It’s impossible.”
Kai had been poking Talamines’ reluctant memories for some detail about the man, or better yet some way expositors had of reading minds, but nothing was coming to him. But Vilgies recognized Talamines so he decided to wing it.
Kai dropped to a crouch so they were eye level. He let his movements be sinuous, borrowing from his lost body in the underearth. He banished the stray thought: Even if the passage reopens, how will you ever see Grandmother again. He said, “Are you telling us a Right Hand of Wrath has never faced demons before?”
“Demons are nothing but spear-fodder for the barbarians,” Vilgies said. His jaw set, all contempt and disdain. “They can’t follow orders.”
Couldn’t they? Kai had been very obedient, for all the good it had done. He knew the Hierarchs’ legions didn’t understand how the Saredi were organized, but the Saredi had still been destroyed, so maybe it didn’t matter. “I’m following orders now.” He reached out and brushed his fingers across Vilgies’ face.
The man jerked backward, his breath coming hard, but he said, “I won’t tell you—”
“Oh, I know, I know,” Kai assured him. “You won’t tell me where the Hierarch might be hiding, and besides, we both know there’s no point. Everyone here’s going to die. You just won’t live to see it.”
Vilgies schooled his face to contempt again. “I’m not afraid of death.”
That’s not a lie, Kai thought. Vilgies would die without telling them anything, or at least anything true, no matter how slow and painful Kai made it. The Hierarchs’ dogs were loyal, though Kai didn’t understand it. After the first attacks on Erathi and the borderlands, the Saredi and their allies had thought the legionaries were intentioned to obedience somehow, their minds entrapped. Why else would they die for no reason except for the greed and aggrandizement of the Hierarchs? But when the Witches had tried to find the intention on legionary prisoners, there had been nothing, no trace of any kind of compulsion.
