Flight Into Darkness (62 page)

“Are you mad?”

“And it's my only chance to save Oranir.” Rieuk pushed past the elder magi, making for the subterranean way that led back into Azilis's shrine.

“Rieuk, come back. Come back!”

He heard their voices calling after him down into the deep shaft but ignored them, pressing on into the darkness.

He had failed to save Imri. He had been too young, too inexperienced, to defend him against Linnaius. But he was older and maybe a little wiser, and he was damned if he was going to lose Oranir too.

Rieuk came out by the magi's concealed door into the empty shrine. Candles of creamy wax were burning in the little alcoves, and a bunch of fragrant white lilies lay where Azilis's statue had stood. Strange that the Rosecoeurs should still keep her memory alive here even though they had stripped the shrine of her precious relics.

He felt another burst of aethyric power shiver through the fort. He heard voices moaning, crying out in pain. The ground trembled beneath his feet again and a little spatter of stones fell down onto his head.

If that madman's not checked, he'll destroy the very place he was trying to preserve.

Rieuk climbed the steps that led up to the surface, back pressed against the wall, until he reached the entrance to the courtyard. Night had fallen, but torches illuminated the darkness, revealing a ghastly sight. Bodies lay everywhere, Allegondans in the grey uniform of the Order of the Rosecoeur. Some, still living, tried to push themselves up and crawl to safety. But the Arkhan's guards moved among them, mercilessly thrusting their spears into any Allegondan they passed, living or dead. Others swarmed up onto the ramparts, tearing down the Rosecoeurs’ flags. And through the carnage stalked the Arkhan himself, his eyes aflame with Nagazdiel's power, gazing down at his victims with a triumphant smile on his lips.

“Ondhessar is yours, Lord Arkhan!” Sardion's captain of the guards went down on one knee before him, holding up the bloodstained standard.

“Burn their flags,” Sardion ordered. “And strip the bodies. Cast them out into the desert and let the jackals feast upon them.” He turned toward the entrance to the shrine and Rieuk shrank back inside as the fiery eyes scanned the darkness.

“And now it's time to reclaim Azilis's birthplace.”

Rieuk retreated as the Arkhan made his way into the shrine.

About halfway down, Sardion stumbled, and one of the guards caught hold of him, asking anxiously, “Are you all right, Lord Arkhan?”

“Let me be!” Sardion pushed the supporting arm away and set out again down the stairs. Rieuk flattened himself against the wall, watching as the Arkhan entered the empty shrine alone.

“Where is my daughter?”
Nagazdiel's voice rang out, harsh as the beating of a funeral gong. ”
Why have you not protected her, as you promised to? Your ancestors made a blood oath to keep Azilis safe within this shrine. And now she is gone!”

The Arkhan began to totter across the floor of the shrine, his hands clutched to his throat as if he were choking. A strange, horrible sound issued from his mouth: a gargling, strangled cry.

“H—help me.” His bloodshot eyes, bulging in their sockets, gazed at Rieuk in mute appeal, one hand clawed out toward him. “Rieuk… Mordiern…”

But Rieuk could only watch helplessly as the Arkhan dropped to his knees. Sardion's face was altering: The color was fast draining
from him, to be replaced by a deathly, livid hue. His skin began to shrivel and contract. And still the agonized gargling cry went on, slowly fading to a wheezing death rattle.

“This mortal body is too weak to sustain me.”

As Sardion crashed forward onto his face, Nagazdiel issued from his twitching frame and entered Rieuk once more.
“Now take me to my daughter,”
the Drakhaoul whispered in Rieuk's mind.
“Hurry.”

Rieuk felt the power of the Lord of the Realm of Shadows pulsing through him. He turned as the guards came running down the stairs. At his feet lay the Arkhan's body, nothing more than a twisted, desiccated shell, as if Nagazdiel's presence had sucked all the living Essence from his veins.

“What have you done to the Arkhan, Magus?” The captain of the guards came forward, leveling his spear at Rieuk, waving on the others to follow. “Arrest that Emissary!”

The guards began to advance on Rieuk. The panicked cry, “The Arkhan's been assassinated!” went echoing through the shrine.

”
We're wasting time here.
” Rieuk heard the frustration simmering in Nagazdiel's voice.
“Ormas, lend me your wings.”

“Wings?”

Rieuk backed away from the guards. It felt as though a whirlwind was unraveling within him, channeling upward from the core of his being to concentrate in his back and shoulders. A tremendous pressure was building in his body. Any second now, the pressure would prove too great and his body would explode into fragments of flesh and bone. Something was trying to burst out through his spine. He gave a cry of agony as the great smoke-black wings unfurled. And then, as if he had always known how to fly, he was lifting from the ground and winging slowly up through the stairwell, aiming for the archway that opened into the courtyard.

“Free. Finally free at last!”
Nagazdiel's cry shuddered through his body. The Drakhaoul prince had synthesized Ormas's abilities with his own to transform Rieuk's body; he had drawn out Ormas's spirit wings and transmuted them so that he could fly once more. Rieuk could feel Nagazdiel's wild delight as he soared up into the star-studded sky. The Drakhaoul had been imprisoned in the shadows for years without number; to be flying unfettered once more filled him with ecstasy.

Far below, the ground was fast receding as he rose higher toward the stars. Ondhessar looked like a child's toy fort against the expanse
of the endless desert. But as Nagazdiel turned toward the north, Rieuk heard him say,
“She's fading… there's not much time.”

And as they flew onward, Rieuk began to notice that they were leaving a trail of smoky darkness in their wake, as though every beat of the Drakhaoul prince's great wings was spreading the dust of the Realm of Shadows over the land beneath.

“What's that darkness over there? Is it an oncoming storm?” Enguerrand pointed toward the southern horizon, shivering. “Can't you feel it? There's a taint of Nagazdiel's presence in the air.”

“But how can that be?” Eugene looked over the side of the sky craft and saw what Enguerrand was pointing at. The clarity of the blue sky was smirched, as if clouds of smoke were billowing across the Southern Ocean toward Francia. “The Serpent Gate was destroyed; Gavril and I made sure that it was sealed forever. What do you think, Kaspar?”

Linnaius was shading his eyes to look too, keeping his hand on the tiller of the craft to keep it steady. He shook his grey head. “If Prince Nagazdiel has left the Shadow Realm, then that can mean only one thing. The Rift is widening and the balance between our world and the next is breaking down.”

“The balance?”

“Azilis, the Eternal Singer, has always watched over the Rift between the mortal world and the Ways Beyond. But since she left the Rift, that balance has broken down.”

Eugene scratched his head, bemused. “You know very well that I'm no expert on the metaphysical or the mythological. Could you explain it to me in plain terms, Kaspar?”

“If the balance is not reestablished, then the chaos of the Realm of Shadows will bleed into this world and—”

“And unless Azilis returns to the Rift in time, it will be too late to save our world,” said Enguerrand. “The last chapter of
The Book of Galizur.
The end of all things and the return to chaos.”

“The end of the world?” Eugene echoed, stricken. If it really was the end of all things, he wanted to be with Astasia and his children. He lapsed into troubled silence, wondering why in spite of all the ordeals he had undergone to prevent the coming of Nagazdiel, some crazed fool had somehow managed to set the Drakhaoul Prince free from his prison.

“I should have taken matters into my own hands.” Linnaius was
muttering to himself. “I should have taken Celestine to Ondhessar. And now it may be too late.”

Even as Linnaius was speaking, a thin, mean wind began to whine around the craft, bringing with it a fine, dark dust that stung the skin and made the eyes water. Eugene, shielding his face, looked back again. “The darkness is gaining on us, Kaspar. Can you go any faster?”

“Faster than Prince Nagazdiel?” Was that an ironic smile lighting Linnaius's silver eyes? “I'll do what I can.” And Eugene saw him close his eyes, pressing his fingertips to his forehead, muttering beneath his breath.

The craft shuddered and bucked as a cold current of air shot toward them. Linnaius opened his eyes, looking upward.

“So you came at last, old friend,” Eugene heard him whisper to the empty sky above them. And suddenly Eugene saw it—a powerful translucent sky dragon, snaking straight toward them, its silver eyes radiant as stars.

“What is this monster?” Eugene cried.

“You can see him?” Linnaius's wispy brows raised in surprise. “This is Azhkanizkael—a
wouivre,
or air serpent. I suppose you could call him my familiar. He is stubborn and proud these days, and doesn't always answer my call.” As if in reply, the
wouivre
tossed its great whiskered head and, coiling itself around the craft, it shot off at tremendous speed through the clouds.

CHAPTER 9

Alain Friard knew himself to be a steady, even-tempered man, not easily roused to anger. But the sounds he heard coming from the Inquisition interrogation cells that rainy night induced feelings of such deep disgust that he knew he must act or lose his mind.

He went directly to the officers’ quarters and, without even knocking, flung open Kilian Guyomard's door. Kilian was lying on his bed, still in his shirt and breeches. Friard thought he could detect the smell of strong spirits.

“What do you want?” Kilian asked sullenly.

“I may not be one of the elite order of the Rosecoeur,” said Friard, barely able to conceal his anger, “but I am still your superior officer. Come with me.”

Kilian stretched his arms up over his head, yawning widely.

“Come
now.
And that's an order, Lieutenant!”

Kilian swung his legs off the bed and slung his jacket over his shoulders.

“Have you been drinking?”

“I'm off duty. Is it forbidden to drink off duty?”

Friard shot him a hard, disapproving look. “And tidy yourself up. You're a disgrace to the order.” As he set off, Kilian slouching behind, he couldn't help but ask himself what had caused Kilian to change from a smart, keen-eyed officer to this dull-eyed, unshaven shadow since he had returned from Muscobar. Guilty conscience? If Kilian felt even a drop of guilt about what he had done, maybe there
was still hope, Friard thought, marching him briskly across the rainswept courtyard.

The guttering torch in the passageway outside the cell cast just enough light for Jagu to be able to see what they had done to his left hand. Only he didn't want to look. He didn't need to look. He knew from the dull, throbbing, grinding pain that his flesh had been slowly crushed and twisted in Visant's Glove until every bone in his fingers had been broken beyond repair.

He drew in a slow, sobbing breath.

The swollen pulpy mass that had once moved so nimbly over the keys of the fortepiano had been swathed in bloody bandages.

And Visant had promised him that the next day they would apply the Glove to his right hand. Unless he agreed to testify against Celestine.

“You were with her in Azhkendir,” Visant had said, his face expressionless. “You know her secrets. All you have to do to spare yourself more pain is to tell us what you know.”

“Bastards,” he whispered into the night. He wanted to sleep, if only to blot out the thoughts and fears clamoring in his mind. But every time he dropped into an uneasy doze, the pain needled him awake again.

By the torchlight, Friard could see Jagu lying on his side on the narrow cell bed, his head turned away from the bars confining him, his body curled self-protectively in on itself.

Kilian made to turn away, but Friard gripped hold of him and forced him to stay where he was.

“Look,” Friard said quietly. “Look at what you've done. Have you seen his hand, or what's left of it?”

Kilian said nothing. He just stared, his face unmoving.

“Is this what you wanted? Is this really what you wanted?”

“Shut up!” Kilian said through his teeth. And, twisting free of Friard's grip, he strode away down the corridor.

“Faie!”
Celestine's whispers became increasingly urgent, echoing around the cell in which the Guerriers had confined her.
“Faie, wake up. I need you. Please!”

“Shut your mouth, witch!” The jailer had come to open the grille
of her cell; two Inquisition Guerriers stood behind him. “She's been going on and on like that all night,” he said confidentially. “Calling on her familiar spirit like that. It shouldn't be allowed.” He spat.