Feast of Souls (11 page)

She screamed. It was a horrifying, empty sound, even in her own ears. Maybe Andovan moved in response, or maybe he just stared at her in amazement. She could no longer control her own senses enough to observe him. Something had gotten hold of her soul and was drawing it out of her body, leaving the flesh behind like an empty carcass. She struggled against it, but to no avail; her soul was as a fish caught in a net, spasming helplessly as it was drawn up into the suffocating air. Black stars danced before her inner vision; she tried to scream again but the breath would not come.

“Rakhel?” She heard the voice as if from a great distance, and could not respond. Was it Andovan talking to her, or her friends from the market? Her screaming must have brought many. “Rakhel, what is it?”

The world was growing dark now, her struggles less intense. The fire within her that would fuel greater ef-forts was weakening, its substance drawn out of her flesh by that terrible alien power. It was hungry, terribly hungry, and it tore at her essence the way a starving animal tears at raw meat. She could feel herself bleeding out into the night, into the cold, eternal darkness of Death that beckoned to her.

Desperate with dying, she tried to reach out to the source of the assault. To go forward with strength, instead of struggling to hold back.

And then she saw.

And she knew.

“She’s killing you!” she whispered hoarsely. The words echoed strangely, as if from a great distance. Was she speaking them aloud? The picture came to her of a slender young woman with hair like a corona of fire about her pale face. She tried to send the image to An-dovan, but her power was weak and she had no way to know if she succeeded.

A roaring filled her ears then as the last of her athra left her, drawn out by that same merciless hunger that was devouring Andovan. She no longer had the strength to resist it, or even to try. Slowly her eyes shut, closing out the last of the worldly light. Slowly her inner senses waned, as the flame of her soul banked low, shivered weakly, and then began to dim.

I’m sorry
, she whispered. Soundless words, lost in the dying.
I’m sorry
. As if somehow the act of dying was her fault. As if somehow it should merit apology.

And then the last of her athra was gone, and there was only darkness.

She is
killing him
.” Ramirus said it slowly, then stressed the first word anew. “
SHE
.”

The pronoun hung heavy in the Magister’s conference chamber, surrounded by knife-edged silence.

Finally Del spoke. “It could be a witch that’s responsible for this, somehow. Maybe that’s what the seer meant.”

Fadir nodded. “It is not impossible to imagine that some quirk of the power might exist that would allow a mere witch—”

“To what? To draw upon the soulfire of another?” Lazaroth’s expression was dark. “If that were the case she would be a Magister, plain and simple. Is that not the very definition of our kind?”

“Perhaps this illness isn’t truly a Wasting,” Fadir persisted. “Perhaps it’s something that appears similar, but stems from another cause.”

Ramirus’ gaze was narrow and dark. “Andovan suffers from the Wasting. There is no doubting that.”

“No.” Colivar’s tone for once was brooding and thoughtful rather than derisive. “It was the Wasting, without question. I examined him myself.”

“So that means there is a Magister involved, yes? And we are back to the same problem.”

“Perhaps some woman was the initiating factor…”

Severil snorted. “In what sense? Do you suggest someone convinced a Magister to take Andovan as consort? If so she’s more adept than any of us, since I myself have never heard of any Magister able to dictate who his consort would be… or even to discover its identity after the fact.”

“So what are you suggesting—a female Magister?” Lazaroth’s tone was harsh and derisive. “I for one find the idea quite insane.”

“Agreed!” another responded, and a third muttered, “Impossible!”

Fadir nodded curtly. “If such a thing could exist we’d have learned of it long ago.”

“There are many possibilities here,” Ramirus said evenly. “Including, of course, that the witch who spoke to Andovan may simply have been wrong. Or perhaps another female intends to do the prince harm, and she picked up traces of that intent instead of the true cause of his illness. An equal threat, having nothing to do with his current… condition.” He sighed, and for a moment weariness flickered across his white brow. “Of course, even if that were the case, the damage has already been done. Danton knows of the interview, which means that probably half the gossips in the castle do as well, so it will soon get out beyond that. Andovan has the Wasting and a witch caused it… that is a bad connection for people to be making, even if the exact details are in error.”

“Someone tried to bring a woman through Transition once, didn’t they?” Kellam asked. “I seem to remember hearing something about that.”

“Someone always tries,” Colivar responded. “When they think they find the right candidate, or the right method of training… or else they just get bored. It never works.” He chuckled coldly, a sound utterly without humor. “Women apparently don’t have what it takes to devour human souls.”

“What about that one down in the Free Lands?” Se-viral asked. “That… what do they call her… the Witch-Queen?”

“In Sankara,” Ramirus supplied. Colivar noticed Ramirus’ eyes turn to him, suspicion suddenly dark in their depths. Had he only just realized that Sankara bordered on Auremir, and that in keeping the latter city-state out of Danton’s hands, Colivar was effectively protecting Sankara itself? If so, the black-haired Magis-ter observed, the stress of the situation with Andovan was clearly making him sloppy. The old Ramirus would never have missed that.

Colivar shrugged. “She’s a witch. Powerful, ambitious, dangerous as all the hells combined… but still just a witch.”

“You know her.” Ramirus’ tone was an accusation.

Again he shrugged. “She has a standing invitation to any of our kind who pass through her domain to partake of her hospitality. Have you never been down there yourself, Ramirus?” Colivar shook his head in mock disapproval. “You really should get out more often.”

“I’ve been down there,” Kellam said with a dry smile. “She tried to bed me.”

“And you said no?”

“I hear that’s not so easy to do,” Thelas offered. “I hear she has potions that can turn a man’s mind to whatever she desires.”

“
I
hear she collects the balls of Magisters as keepsakes.”

And she likely has taken all of you for lovers, at one time or another
, Colivar thought,
though none will admit that fact to all the others
. Of all the Magisters in this part of the world, he suspected that only Ramirus had no concourse with Sankara’s ruler. Did the Magister Royal recognize their banter as the misdirection it was, or did he genuinely not know how many of his brothers had ties to Sankara? The latter seemed unlikely. But then, these were unlikely times.

“Brothers.” Lazaroth’s voice was firm. “We are forgetting the real issue here, are we not?”

“Are we?” Ramirus said softly. His eyes were fixed on Colivar. “I am not so certain of that.”

Colivar shrugged again; his face was pointedly devoid of any expression another man might read. “Investigate her if you like. I tell you now I don’t see anything she would stand to gain from the illness of Danton’s third son… he is unlikely to inherit much of anything with Rurick strutting around, but by all means, seek the truth.”

“Would you care if I did?” Ramirus said softly. “Would you care if that truth were… not favorable to her?”

Colivar’s eyes were hard and cold, the gaze behind them as black as a moonless night. “Siderea Amines-tas is morati,” he said shortly. “Her lifetime is no more than the blink of an eye compared to ours. The shifting of a vagrant breeze that greater winds will swallow. It matters little when that breeze expires, in the face of greater storms. We who mold the storms know that.”

“And we don’t yet know she is the one responsible for this,” Kellam pointed out. “Or have any more evidence than the simple fact she is powerful enough among morati to draw our notice.”

“And she is also a suitable target for Danton’s ambitions,” Fadir reminded them. “Let us not forget that, shall we?” He turned to face Ramirus. “Those of us outside Danton’s domain have taken note of his political ambitions. Sankara would be a jewel in any conqueror’s crown. I for one would take it poorly to be dragged into an investigation whose true purpose was discrediting a morati rival to your wretched royal house.”

The snowy brows drew together in fury. “Do you accuse me of manipulating this brotherhood for morati politics?”

“Please!” Lazaroth raised up a hand sharply between them. “We’re not children here, nor are we fools. There’s not a Magister on the face of the earth who has not manipulated his fellow Magisters for the sake of some morati prize at one time or another. Let’s not waste time pretending it is otherwise.”

“Indeed,” Severil noted. “If the morati didn’t amuse us, if their political games didn’t keep us occupied, why then we would have nothing to concern ourselves with but each other… and I for one would go stark raving mad.”

A dark amusement glittered in Colivar’s eyes. “Yes, we are piss-poor company for one another, are we not?”

From a shadowy corner of the room, Suhr-Halim said quietly, “What attempts have been made to seek more information on this mystery woman?”

“You mean using sorcery?”

He nodded.

“Too much danger in that,” Kellam said. “If Andovan suffers from the Wasting, as our host claims, any attempt to trace the cause by sorcery would be a fatal enterprise. As it appears to have been for this witch he consulted.”

“Witches die,” Colivar pointed out. “Usually in the midst of some magical enterprise, since that is ultimately what kills them. Has anyone confirmed exactly why this one expired? Or are we all just making assumptions?”

Silence fell over the table.

“Well then.” He leaned back in his chair. “I think that should be the first order of business.”

“Are you offering your services?” Ramirus asked him.

The black eyes glittered in the lamplight. “I would not presume to step forward in a matter you are obviously well qualified to handle. Some Magisters might deem that an insult, yes?” He chuckled softly. “Far be it from me to insult anyone.”

“There are means that can be applied without undue risk,” Suhr-Halim pointed out. His accent was more noticeable than most, with a lilting rhythm that hinted at vast expanses of desert sands beneath golden sunsets. “To examine the prince’s fate in a general sense, to seek knowledge of his past associations… if this woman is significant to him she could surely be found there. It would not be a dangerous undertaking so long as one did not seek to trace the consort’s bond directly.”

Lazaroth looked pointedly at their host. “Ramirus, this is your affair, I assume you would be willing to attempt this?”

The challenge hung thickly in the room’s still air for a moment. Colivar resisted the urge to either bait Ramirus or come to his rescue. The first would have been excessive at this point and the second simply out of character. Instead he waited, which was a kind of challenge all by itself.

Finally the white-haired mage said quietly, “I will attempt it.” His voice was low and even but the look he shot Lazaroth was murderous. Colivar repressed a smile of amusement. Yes, there were ways to seek out such information without running the risk of getting sucked into a consort’s bond, but Ramirus had never been the innovative type and it was doubtful he would come up with anything truly creative. Perhaps when enough nights had passed that the Magister Royal be-came embarrassed over his lack of progress, Colivar might suggest a few. For a price, of course.

My, the game just gets better and better.

“Then it is decided.” Lazaroth pushed his chair back, scraping its wooden legs noisily against the stone floor. “With no offense to this company, I see no reason to continue with this discussion until our host has completed his investigation. When he has done so, hopefully we will have some real facts to deal with, not just sorcer-ous fairy tales about hypothetical creatures.” He looked around at the other Magisters, his lips quirking slightly in what could only be distaste. “Frankly, the company here… wears thin.”

He bowed slightly to Ramirus as he left, a formal gesture not one inch deeper or more sincere than strict protocol required, and left the room. After a moment, with similar leavetaking, Fadir followed. Then Thelas. Then Kellam.

At last there were only Colivar and Ramirus in the room. Colivar was still comfortably ensconced in his chair, and remained in that position as the Magister Royal’s cold, steely gaze fixed upon him.

“If I ever find out you were part of this,” Ramirus warned, “or that this Witch-Queen of yours was behind it somehow and you knew about it—or even suspected it—so help me gods, Law or no Law, I will have your head. Do you understand me, Colivar?”

“I am as much in the dark as you are,” the black-haired Magister responded. “And equally anxious to find out the answers. This matter threatens us all, does it not?”