Fortress Draconis (41 page)

Only Orla and Crow were oddly armed. The mage carried her staff, which was a bit long for use in close quarters. Alyx did not feel inclined to dispute her choice, however. Crow wore a longsword at his left hip, and a quiver of arrows on his back. His black-lacquered bow sat athwart the wales, and the arrow he’d nocked pointed toward their target.

Green eyes glowed from one of the lower windows, but didn’t track their passage. Having seen the shot Crow made at Stellin, Alyx knew he could kill the owner of those eyes in a heartbeat, but doing that would alert thesullanciri to their presence. They all hoped she wouldn’t find out about them until her life’s-blood was pulsing out.

The longboat gently bumped up against the building’s doorstep. Will slipped from the boat and opened the door. He peeked in furtively, then took the rope Crow tossed him to make the boat fast. Resolute entered the water without a sound on the port side of the boat, then lifted Orla clear while Alyx got out on the starboard side. The marines, drawing their swords, joined the procession and entered the ramshackle building’s vestibule.

The open stairwell went up and doubled back before reaching the second level, repeating that pattern to get to the third. Will started up on cat’s feet, staying low and watching for things before waving others on. Resolute followed him, with Alyx next, then Orla and the marines. Crow stayed at the base of the stairs, watching, ready to shoot at anything moving that wasn’t a friend.

They’d made it up to the second-floor landing—and Will had ascended halfway to the third—when a keening wail rose from above them. A large, odd-looking, pale creature clung to the ceiling above the stairwell. It had a human face on a spiderlike body and its eyes glowed the telltale green. It opened its hands and started to drop down on the party, but before it had fallen ten feet, Crow’s black-fletched arrow split its breastbone.

The thing slammed into the stairs and bounced up once. Resolute kicked it through the railing, sending it further down. All eight limbs thrashed and twitched as its call tailed off, but its silence mattered not at all. Other throats throughout the building had picked up on its shrieking and echoed the alarm. Doors opened and misshapen creatures emerged. Their eyes—and most had more than a pair and often had them scattered over their bodies—blazed with hellish jade fire.

Resolute roared past Will, slashing and stabbing at the creature guarding the upper landing. It had four arms: two human and two the forepaws of a dog. The face would have been human, save for the jutting canine muzzle with bared teeth. It snapped at the Vorquelf, crushing mail and ripping into the flesh on his right arm. Without so much as a snarl, Resolute drove a longknife through the thing’s chest.

His charge carried the impaled creature across the landing and buried the blade in the wall. The beast howled, gnashing its teeth. It tugged at the longknife’s hilt, trying to free itself, but it only released a torrent of blood. The creature’s strength flowed out, leaving it limp and hanging there on the longknife, its feet dangling inches above the floor.

The Vorquelf roared a challenge in Elvish, then kicked in the door leading to the upper floor’s central room. As he raced in, something leaped on him from above the door. He went down in a somersault, catching the creature under him as he rolled. That cleared the doorway, allowing Alyx to race in after him.

She took the room in with a glance. Clinging to walls and ceiling were more of the spiderlike creatures. What the dim stairwell had failed to reveal, the lamplight in the larger room made immediately apparent. The creatures had human faces because they were human, or had been. Magick had melded the flesh of two individuals, pressing them together, back to back, giving them four legs, four arms, and faces in the front and back of their skulls. Scuttling across the floor or along the wall, they watched, then leaped.

Alyx backhanded one diving monster with her buckler, then stabbed down through another attempting to bite her knee. She caught sight of a third scurrying along toward her, but a whizzing-whir ended in a thunk. A bladestar blossomed from the thing’s forehead. The creature pitched face forward, so the bladestar bit into the wood, stopping its forward slide.

Will sent another bladestar whizzing into the room, pinning a spider-thing’s foot to a wall. The Spritha took wing from Will’s shoulder, then dove on one of the beasts. Qwc spat out a wad of webbing that expanded to blind the thing. As it tried to claw the webbing off, Orla stepped through the doorway and incinerated it with a sizzling gout of sorcerous flame.

-/About the time Resolute regained his feet and tossed the broken-necked beast aside, the door to the west room opened. A naked man-thing leaped through it, then crouched as the cat’s-heads grafted onto his shoulders hissed angrily. Cat’s paws had replaced his fingers and patches of fur striped his body. Green light shone brightly in his eyes, but he did not attack.

The emergence of thesullanciri from that same room demanded the attention of everyone, even Resolute. Her flesh and the gossamer gown she wore were of the purest white, save where radiant blue tattoos decorated her skin. Many of the patterns matched Resolute’s, and fairly pulsed with power. She wore her long black hair loose and both it and the gown rode the currents of power swirling around her as if teased by a light summer breeze. The molten gold of her eyes broke as hot red lightning played through those orbs, yet the touch of her gaze chilled Alyx.

The gold eyes flashed. “Better than I could have expected here in my playground.”

Orla swung the staff in line with thesullanciri. Fire erupted from the staff, but before it could hit Chytrine’s general, the man-thing intercepted the spell. The magick engulfed him utterly, save for a droplet of fire that squirted from his back and splattered thesullancirfs thigh.

It ignited the gown, but thesullanciri slapped it out as if it were no more bothersome than a spark. She snorted as the greasy curtain of smoke that had been the man-thing rose to the high ceiling. “Your magick, Magister, is known to me, and I am proof against it.” She lifted her hand and neither it, her thigh, nor the gown showed any sign of the fire.

Thesullanciri glanced at Resolute. “You know your magicks are not enough to kill me. Only one of you is a threat.”

Thesullancirh voice trailed off, then she darted toward Will. Stunned at her quickness, he didn’t even attempt to back off. Green energy curled around her clawed hands and he could all but feel them tearing into his guts, stringing them around the room.

Steel rang as Crow drew his sword and interposed himself between Will and Chytrine’s agent. “He’s not the threat, Tsamoc here is.” A milky gemstone fitted into the blade’s reinforced-forte, which danced with internal light.

Thesullanciri sprang back, then let a cold smile twist her lips. As she reached up and took hold of the gown’s shoulders, the magickal energy rose in a mist and dissipated. Broadening her smile, she peeled the garment down to her waist, exposing her breasts. “It might be, but not in your hands. You could never plunge it into me.”

Crow extended the blade and it did not waver. “In a heartbeat.”

She laughed, but took another step back. “You would find Myrall’mara’s heart is as hard as yours, silly man, harder.” Thesullanciri nodded a salute to them, then smiled. “Now is not my time, and I shall not gloat in victory. I leave you, reluctantly, but I am called away. When next we meet, you shall think on this and know how kind I have been to you.”

She circled a finger over a tattoo on her right breast. The blue of her tattoos flared brilliantly, blinding Alyx for a moment. When her vision returned, Myrall’mara had vanished. She turned to look at her comrades, but saw past them and their shocked expressions.

And she called this her playground.

A shiver shook Alyx. Where the spider-things had been, now lay the bodies of the naked children who had been transformed into them. The one she’d stabbed had become two, each struck through the heart. One bore the wound on her chest, the other on her back.

Will sat on the floor, caressing the side of one little girl’s face. He brushed away the blood and tucked dirty hair behind her ear. “This was Skurri. She was my friend.”

Crow slid his blade back into his sheath. “She made us make war on children. You, Princess Alexia, and you, ‘the Norrington.’You and your comrades have slaughtered children. We might have driven her off, but…” He tugged his hood forward to hide his face.

“So that’s why she let us live?” Orla slowly shook her head. “There are depths of evil I never could have imagined.”

“We played her game. We made war on children.” Alyx’s nostrils flared. “The slaughter of the children on Vilwan, and now this, here. As rumor of these things spread, a lot of people are going to wonder if Chytrine is truly the evil one.”

Will slowly stood, wiping his bloodied fingers on his thigh. “Let them wonder. She may think she won, but she was here to get me, and she didn’t. Doesn’t matter what her reasons were, it was a mistake. She got my friends dead, and it’s one I’ll make her pay for.”

Kerrigan Reese did his best to hide the stiffness in his joints as he entered the large roundarcanorium atop the Vilwanese tower in Yslin. The domed roof had a round opening in it, letting cool air and starlight in. Flickering flames from a dozen alcoves built into the walls provided shifting light, but more than enough for him to see the other four individuals in the room.

Kerrigan paused just inside the doorway and bowed his head. “Magister Orla. Magisters. You summoned me?”

Orla had a scowl on her face, but she said nothing, glancing at the gaunt, grey-robed man nearest the doorway. Kerrigan studied him for a moment, then felt a glimmer of recognition.

“Magister Baoth, forgive me for not recognizing you.”

The man who had been one of his first tutors—-concentrating on constructive magick—nodded. He still had wiry hair, which he wore short, but grey predominated over black, both on his head and in the beard he had grown.

“You honor me by remembering. These are Magisters Vulrasian of Croquellyn and Carok-Corax Ryss.”

Kerrigan’s eyes widened slightly. The tall elf, with jet-black hair and blue eyes, had figured strongly in the chronicles of the Aurolani invasion in which Vorquellyn had been lost. Though not known as a Magister of Combat, the elf had led a group of Croquelves and had landed them in the Ghost March. For months they harried Kree’chuc’s troops, ambushing supply trains, assassinating officers, and generally creating havoc. Rumor that he and his men were approaching was enough to force the Aurolani to evacuate a village.

The urZrethi mage was someone Kerrigan had never heard of before. Like all of her kind, she was short and her flesh was the color of the earth—in this case the red of iron-rich soil. She had gathered her sulphur-yellow hair into a thick braid and knotted it with a black leather thong. As with Baoth and the elf, she wore a grey robe that marked her as being very accomplished in the arts of magick.

Belatedly, Kerrigan bowed his head. “I am honored.”

“As are we, Adept Reese.” The urZrethi’s voice came a bit deeper than he would have expected. The elf silently nodded in agreement.

Magister Baoth produced a yellowed scroll from one sleeve of his robe and extended it to Kerrigan. “I would like you to read this over and determine if you can understand it.”

The Adept took the scroll and could feel the antiquity of it. He slowly unrolled it and began to study the words. The scroll had been decorated with wonderful illuminations that connected words here and there, giving the whole thing a flow. Kerrigan immediately recognized the scroll as possessing a spell.More importantly, the spell is complex enough that it can’t be worked alone. There is much here, but much more is missing.

He glanced up from the document. “I understand it, but it is odd. It’s a human spell, I can see that, but it is jarring. It is as if it is a human transcription or adaptation of another magick.”

Baoth nodded. “A fascinating observation. Can you cast it?”

“Not alone. There are things missing.”

The elf studied him for a moment. Unlike Vorquelves, whose eyes were one solid color, the Croquelf’s eyes had whites and even a black pupil. Kerrigan felt self-conscious as the Magister raked him up and down with an intense gaze, but he managed to forestall a blush.

Vulrasian tapped a finger against his chin. “Impressive, Adept Reese, to get that from a single reading. In fact, that is only one third of the spell. Carok-Corax and I possess the other two portions of it. Our portions will catalyze the effect.”

Kerrigan frowned. “I’ve read of such things, of course, but never studied them. How will I coordinate with you? I’m assuming, of course, that you want me to cast this spell, otherwise why have me read it. Also, while it is a human spell, I don’t believe either Magisters Baoth or Orla are capable of casting it.”

“You are correct. It is an older spell, and that scroll is a transcription of an earlier one, which has since crumbled to dust. Yes, we do wish you to cast it, but it is not your place to coordinate with us, but ours to coordinate with you.” The elf gestured toward him. “Strip off your clothes.”

That command did make Kerrigan blush. “Magister, I would rather not.”

“The spell demands you be naked.” Vulrasian looked around the room. “You cannot imagine that we have not seen naked humans before. Remove your clothes and move to the center of the floor.”

Kerrigan reluctantly complied. He moved to the middle of the floor and stepped down into a six-inch-deep bowl depression in the floor. While only a yard across, it was more than large enough to encompass him completely. With a word or two he could have invoked the runes and sigils inscribed in the ring around the bowl, raising a magickal shield in a column around him, but he had no sense that they were out to harm him, so he did not.

He handed the scroll back to Magister Baoth, then cast a glance at Orla, leaning there on her staff. She met his stare for a moment, then shook her head and looked down. He would have asked her what was wrong, but clearly any reservations she had about what would be happening had been overruled.