Feast of Souls (46 page)

She thought with a sudden chill:
Hadrian is in the Western Reaches
.

She needed counsel, badly. And the kind of counsel she needed was not currently available within her domain. Silently she cursed her reliance upon foreign powers, but that of course had been her choice; the price of independent power was simply not acceptable.

“Can you bring him around?” she asked the physician. “Will he be able to speak?”

He hesitated. “In time, Majesty. But he is on the edge of physical collapse, as you see. You may get a clearer report from him if you allow him a few hours of sleep first.”

“So be it, then.” She nodded to two of the servants who were clustered around the bed. “See him cleaned up, so that any wounds may be found.” To another she directed, “Bring him food and water; the doctor will tell you what is best.” To the physician she said, “Treat the wounds that require immediate treatment, and if you find nothing more urgent on him, let him sleep. I will hear his tale when his mind is restored to him.”

“As you command, Majesty.”

It was hard to sound calm when she was anything but that. But she could not allow her attendants to see just how badly she wanted the news this man carried, for then they would wonder why she, a renowned witch, did not simply use her power to take his knowledge from him. Or else heal him with her power, so that he might speak sooner.

Oh, there were a thousand things she wanted to know, was desperate to know, but the men who might gather that information for her were not present, and so that meant a holding game, a mask of calm applied over fevered concern, and patience reigned with royal perfection. Certainly it was a game she was accustomed to. The Witch-Queen of Sankara was nothing if not a consummate actress.

“Call me if there is any change,” she commanded. “In the meantime I must see to my guests. They must catch no hint of this disturbance.”

They are all dead. Take care, Lady! It will come to this place too.

She shuddered inwardly as she left the chamber.

Power. Coiled within her; untapped, unfocused. She could feel it inside like she could feel her own heartbeat, the pounding of blood in her veins, the passage of air in her lungs.

Not for the first time, she hungered to set the power free. She hungered to know sorcery as the Magisters knew it, that glorious moment when will became magic, when a single thought might set the very heavens to trembling. Sometimes at night, when she lay very still, she thought she could sense the soulfire yearning within her, as if it, too, hungered for freedom.

But the price of that kind of power was death, and she had decided long ago she was not willing to pay it.

Her guests were leaving now. She could hear the palace growing quiet, and it was as if the walls themselves were breathing a sigh of relief. The final hour had been interminable. One could not bring guests into the house only to order them suddenly from it, or rumors of all sorts would follow. One must court them into leaving—seduce them into exit—so that each man thought he had chosen the single most perfect moment to take his leave. Anything else was politically unthinkable.

It was a game she excelled at, but it was a tiring one, and she was glad it was finally over.

Now, secure in her private chamber, within that secret closet which no servant was ever allowed to enter, she bound enough power to open the lock of the chest that had no key. It only required a whisper of power; hardly a second’s worth of life, surely. It was her one concession to witchhood, to guard her secrets thus… or perhaps, her one concession to the Magisters. For if ever their secrets were lost to another merely because she valued her own life more than theirs, they would be quick to let her know the cost of her error. She had no illusion about that. Even as they lay beside her on silken coverlets, even as they breathed their sweet lovers’ lies into her ear, she never forgot the difference between them, and she was sure they did not, either.

Inside the small chest were her most precious tokens, things entrusted to her by the kind of men who generally trusted no one… or else in some cases, things they had left behind unknowing. A fallen eyelash, abandoned on a pillow. The scent of sweat on a linen towel. They were each packaged neatly, wrapped in silk—for it was said that silk could insulate such things against spiritual pollution—and stored without names on them, so that only she would know which token belonged to which Magister.

In a small silk bag at one side of the chest were the tokens they had given her knowingly. Not permanent items, these things, that could be turned against their makers, but a mere kiss of each Magister’s personal essence upon fine paper, folded like a lover’s note. As with all her other tokens, there were no names upon them. She kept these in the order that she had first met their owners, which no other witch could guess at. Thus did she safeguard an arsenal which was, in raw potential, more dangerous than any mundane armory.

Slowly, thoughtfully, she rifled through the notes, at last selecting three that were connected to the more sociable of her lovers. It was a compromise between contacting only one, who might not be able to respond in a timely manner, and calling them all, which was guaranteed to make for a uniquely hostile meeting, and would only be an option in the direst of emergencies. She chose three Magisters that were unlikely to take offense if others were also summoned; not an easy task at the best of times. Some of the black-robed sorcerers could not share space with their own kind for more than an hour without getting caught up in a magical pissing match, and while that had only happened a few times in Sankara, the clean-up afterward had been expensive enough that she did not relish the thought of a repeat performance.

Not to mention they were all her lovers, and a woman should never bring more than two of those into a room without first hiding all the breakables.

Carefully locking the chest and then securing the room it was hidden in, she ordered a servant to bring her a small brazier and flint. Her staff was accustomed to such requests and she soon had what she needed.

Then she drew in a deep breath and tried to still her soul so that the athra would flow freely from it, as her witch father had taught her to do so long ago. She rarely used her own power these days—rarely needed to—but sometimes it could not be avoided. The tokens the Magisters had left with her would help provide focus for her efforts, but if she wanted to use that focus to contact them, her own soul must provide the power.

It will only cost me a minute’s worth of life
, she told herself.
Surely it is worth the sacrifice, to call someone here who can do greater things
.

When her spirit was still and she felt ready to shape the athra to her will, she struck a flame and set fire to the tokens. The smoke was fragrant and clean, and she shut her eyes as she breathed it in, taking the Magister’s spiritual signatures into herself, weaving a message to bind to them, sending it forth along that channel. The task was strangely difficult, almost as if her life force did not wish to be bound, and when the message finally went out it felt weaker than it should be. Was she too tired—or perhaps too stressed—to cast a simple communication spell properly? If so, it was the first time such a thing had ever happened to her. She was a natural in witching terms, had been so since her childhood, and the single greatest struggle of her life had been how to learn
not
to use the power. This was an odd sensation, almost as if her soul did not want to release the athra she required. Curious… and troubling.

Come look through my eyes
, she whispered into the smoke, to the distant Magisters receiving her message.
See what is here
.

What manner of message the Magisters perceived would depend upon their mental state when it arrived, of course. Those who were awake would probably be aware that visions were being sent to them, and from whom they came. Those who were asleep, however, might simply incorporate her offerings into their natural dreamscape, and not realize that this handful of images had any special significance. Yet another reason why calling to the Magisters did not always produce results.

Shutting her eyes, she envisioned the traveler as she had seen him, bloodstained and filthy. Then she replayed in her mind his chilling explanation she had been given, and his own dismal prophecy.
The whole of his land has been destroyed… everyone killed… there was some sort of great monster there… it will come here too
…

He is delirious
, she thought into the smoke. I
cannot tame his mind or know his secrets without assistance
.

At last it was done. She bowed her head before the brazier for a moment, wondering why she felt so weak. On those rare occasions when she used her own witchery it generally invigorated her, causing her body and soul to feel abuzz with vital energies. This sensation was exactly the opposite. It was as if accessing her power had opened some wound that was bleeding out her energy into the night, weakening her more with every moment that passed.

The message has been sent That is all that matters. If there is something wrong with me, those who can help with a will be here soon enough.

She settled down upon her couch and tried to shut her eyes and sleep for a while, aware that once her Mag-isters arrived there might be little time to rest.

Three of them came, though not the three she had invited. Colivar was first, stepping through the intervening miles between
here
and
there
without warning or fanfare. To her surprise he brought Sulah with him, a pleasant-looking young man with the fair skin and blond hair of the northern races, who had visited her once before. “He has an interest in this matter,” Colivar said mysteriously, and would not explain further. That was fine. This Magister shared things with her in his own time, which was sometimes frustrating, but she was certain he would not leave her ignorant in any matter that impacted the safety of her realm.

Fadir arrived shortly after, clothed in his usual husky, red-haired body; charms and talismans hung from the coarse braids of his long hair like barbarian trophies. She watched with some interest as he and Colivar took each other’s measure like wary dogs; evidently neither man had assumed other Magisters would be present. It was a small thing but it pleased her, as did any happenstance which managed to surprise her sorcerous lovers. She knew enough of their natures to understand that
novelty
was the most precious commodity in their universe, and it pleased her to know she had provided it.

Briefly she outlined the situation for her guests. Coli-var’s expression was dark as he listened; Fadir’s was simply wary. Sulah seemed as curious and receptive as a young morati, so much so that she wondered if he had only recently gained his immortality. Then again, that might be an aspect he feigned to set rivals off their guard. If her years with the Magisters had taught her nothing else, it was that there was no perceivable limit to the games these men might play with one another. A young-seeming Magister was as likely to be one thousand years old in truth as he was likely to be twenty.

Colivar nodded when she was done speaking; his expression was grim. “Take us to him.” Sulah started to whisper something to him but Colivar shushed him; with a pang of jealousy in her heart, Siderea realized they had not truly fallen silent, merely moved the conversation to realms of unvoiced thought that she could not share. She did not protest their privacy, but led the three of them in silence to the chamber where her guest lay. By the time they arrived there, Sulah’s expression was as grim as Colivar’s.

The man was asleep, but he did not look peaceful. He stirred fitfully as if in the grip of some nightmare, and moaned softly as they approached, as a wounded animal might.

“I have given him something for the fever,” the physician said. “His outer wounds are cleansed and dressed but I can only guess at the wounds inside him. He needs your skill, Majesty.”

A Magister’s voice inside Siderea’s head told her.
The sickness is in his mind, not his flesh
.

She spoke the same words aloud, as though she had determined the fact herself. The physician nodded, trusting to her power, and backed away to give the newcomers room to come close. They did so, Fadir coming to the foot of the bed, Colivar and Sulah to one side of it, and Siderea sitting down on the edge of the mattress on the other side. The servants had peeled the man’s foul clothing off him and managed to get him clean enough that the bruises and cuts which covered his upper body were plainly revealed. Blankets covered the rest of him, but she was willing to bet that the view down there was much the same.

She waited a moment for the Magisters to study him with their invisible sorceries, then gently put a hand upon the man’s cheek. He jerked upright in his sleep and began to pull away from her hand—and then something seemed to take hold of him, freezing him in place. His brow furrowed as if in pain, and then, after a moment, slowly relaxed… and his body relaxed as well, falling back onto the bed with a creak of weary bones as his eyes slowly opened.

There was no pain in his gaze now, nor fear, nor was there anything that might rightly be called human consciousness. Whoever had taken control of him had clearly brought him to a state where he might answer their questions without being driven to madness by the memories those questions might arouse.

“Who are you?” she asked it softly, in the tone one might use to calm a wounded animal. It was probably unnecessary, given what the Magisters had done to him, but it would encourage those of her people who were present to believe that she was the one who had brought him to this calm, if not by witchery then by the simple power of her presence.

“Halman Antuas.” His voice was equally quiet, but without human inflection of any sort.

“Where do you come from?”

His brow furrowed; he seemed to struggle with the question.

“Permit me, Majesty.” It was Fadir.

“Of course.” She nodded graciously for him to proceed.