Sorceress of Faith (45 page)

“Well,
well, well,” creaked a sly voice. “What do we have here? A little intruder.”

It
was the man in the cowled robe, but he wasn’t a man, he was a giant—nearly a
third taller than she, with misshapen hands furred with hair on the backs, the
only flesh she could see. He might once have had the coloring of a Lladranan,
but his skin now showed a distinct shade of green.

He
rose from a thronelike chair and walked slowly to her. She couldn’t see into
the hood that covered his face but got the unsettling impression of movement,
like a mass of wriggling worms, or tentacles. Marian set her back against the
wall.

At
that instant, the monster chasing her lumbered through the doorway.

Lurching
from side to side, it reached the balcony, stretched its wings and tottered to
the rail.

A
dreeth. A small dreeth, but still terrifying.

The
flying dinosaur’s leathery wing-tip brushed against an invisible forcefield
over the railing and sparked. The beast hissed. Flames shot from its mouth.

Marian
gulped. “I didn’t know dreeths were fire-breathing.” The comment came from her,
all right, though she didn’t know what possessed her to speak.

The
once-man chuckled wetly. “I am working on it. But if they have fire, they must
be small. I picked the image from the Exotique Alexa’s brain.” Another snicker
that made Marian’s skin crawl. “You Exotiques
do
have a rich imagination
for monsters.”

Marian
tried to keep images of movies, of graphic novels, of fantasy gaming cards
showing evil beasts, from flooding her mind, ready to be culled and used by
this creature.

The
dreeth turned toward them.

“Go!”
The cowled figure waved a three-fingered hand studded with pus-filled lumps at
the dreeth and the rail. A shimmer and hum and the forcefield vanished. The
dreeth screamed as it flew away.

Marian
was sure that whatever awaited in the room below was worse than what she faced
here. At least it sounded as if there were massed monsters down there, but
still…She crept toward the rail, looked over it.

Sure
enough, there were at least a hundred. She recognized slayers, renders,
sangviles—three more dreeths, these gigantic. There were other horrors, lesser
and greater, that she had no names for. Most of them were eating live, writhing
animals. Would she be dinner, too?

The
inhuman creature rasped laughter. “There is no escape for you that way. There
is no escape for you at all.” He advanced on her. “An Exotique Scholar, what a
prize. What shall I do with you? What pretty hair.”

His
hand reached for her, stopped. His head tilted. “What do we have here?”

She
froze in terror. Tuck hid in her hair.
Please, no, not Tuck.

The
man-beast roared with laughter, his fetid breath washing over her, a drop of
spittle hitting where her neck curved into her shoulder. It burned. Marian set
her teeth against a scream.

She
shrank against the wall. She had to
do
something. She’d survived in her
dreams! Blue fire had sizzled from her fingertips. She had no clue what blue
fire was, how to find it within her Power, how to use it.

Think!

“You
have a little spy. Something the Circlets set upon you. How cute.”

He
couldn’t have said “cute.” No, he hadn’t—she’d just heard it, filled in the
blank. She wondered how much she was feeling, sensing from him, and what she
actually heard. What was real.

“But
I am the Master and though I enjoy toying with you, it is time to send your
poisonous presence where you cannot affect the nest. Yes, I am the Master.”
White, curved fangs gleamed in the darkness of his hood. His fingers, elongated
and multi-jointed, plucked a little glass orb the size of a marble from her
shoulder. She hadn’t even known it was there.

With
thumb and forefinger, he flicked it over the rail. There was a tiny flash, a
roar from the monsters.

“Oooh,
and you have a mousekin, too. An Exotique animal with Power, also a threat to
our home,” the un-man said. “I think I have sensed his essence before.” He reached
again.

“No!”
Her fingers closed on something in her skirt pocket—the brithenwood stick.

“Yesss.”
Now his voice was sibilant, snakelike. His fingers curled and claws sprang from
the tips, swiped at her neck, severed a swath of her hair. Missed Tuck.

“No!”
She flung the brithenwood, wrapped in anger and Power. It struck his eye and
pierced it!

He
shrieked in agony, plucked the stick from his eye and dropped it, snatching his
fingers back. A droplet of blood fell on her hand, burned as much as his spit,
trickled to her wrist tattoos and flashed white, searing her.

The
Power of his pain and rage lifted her from her feet, flung her over the rail to
fall to the horrors below.

Death.
And her last sight would be the deformed mage, eye exploded, black blood coating
the empty socket, trickling down his cheek. Long tentacles around his mouth
wriggling in pain.

But
he slowly closed his fingers into a fist and her fall halted. She hung
suspended in air.

Not
such an easy end for you!
His malevolent voice hit her like cudgels,
bruising.
You are Powerful. I will suck that Power from you, drain it drop
by drop, and your agony at its slow loss will make it all the tastier, all the
stronger for my own use. And when my little horrors need some special energy,
I’ll carve off a piece of you for them. I wonder what will go first? A finger?
Perhaps a whole hand or foot
…

The
monsters screeched and the noise drowned out even the master’s mental words in
her head.

After
a long moment when he communed with his underlings, he turned back to her,
flicked his fingers. The blow was a strong backhanded slap that snapped her
head back. With a screeching yell he sent her into the dark place.
Go, now,
to the larder where your obscene alien vibrations do not disrupt us. Go!

Larder.
Larder. Larder.
The word reverberated in Marian’s mind, increasing in loudness with every
repetition until it struck her unconscious.

27

M
arian awoke to
nothingness. To silence and darkness and no physical sensation. She could hear,
see,
sense
nothing. Knew nothing.

Was
nothing.

She
had not a bit of control in her life, in her fate. Panic shredded her.

She
couldn’t hear her breath or her heartbeat.

She
couldn’t smell any fragrance from her dress or even her own perspiration.

Nothingness.

She
screamed.

There
was no sound.

No
intake of air, no taste on her tongue.

She
couldn’t feel the gown against her body.

Worse,
she couldn’t feel
herself
. She tried to close her hands into fists, felt
no flex of muscle, no pull of tendon, no touch of finger on finger, fingers
curled into palms.

Biting
terror filled her, shrouded her mind.

What
was left of her?

No
body.

Only
mind.

For
untold aeons she screamed inside until her fear subsided from sheer weariness.

Slowly,
slowly one thought connected to another. She became aware again.

Was
she dead?

Was
this limbo? Absence of sensation. Best definition of limbo she’d ever come
across and she was living it. Maybe she was living it.

If
she was dead, why was her brain still working? Why did she still have an idea
of self?

Marian.

She
was Marian Dale Harasta.

Relief
fluttered through her. If she could think, perhaps she could somehow get out of
this mess.

With
her mind.

She’d
had Power once.

Before
she’d failed.

She’d
made mistakes. She’d not listened to her instincts, she’d trusted the wrong man,
she’d failed.

Humiliation
flooded her, self-accusation. She’d
failed
. And now she was here, in
limbo, unable to control anything.

Maybe.

Inside
her head she sang a spell to move the air.

Nothing.

She
tried licking her lips.

No
tongue, no wetness, no plump lips.

Thought
vanished under quivering fear.

But
this time the descent into panic was shorter. She believed.

She
reasoned. She knew her identity, she felt hot and cold—or perhaps it was just
the recalled wash of hot and cold through her body as it reacted to emotion—icy
fear, flushing embarrassment, guilt.

Marian
Dale Harasta
.

Yes,
the edge of panic receded. She still hung in the limbo of the lost. It wasn’t
as dark as she had thought. Perhaps that had been black terror pressing upon
her brain, binding her spirit. She thought her eyes were open but saw nothing
but grayness, like fog. It tricked her mind into making shapes where she knew
there were none.

Was
Tuck still with her? Hanging on to her shoulder? She hoped so but he could be
biting her ear and she wouldn’t feel it. Perhaps he hadn’t lost reason like
her. Maybe she hadn’t thrashed around in panic and bucked him off. She could
only hope he was with her and coping better than she.

Was
the knot still twined around her finger like a ring? She didn’t know. She
couldn’t feel it, so she certainly couldn’t fumble to untie it.

Once
more she moved her feet, but could not feel the stretch of tendon. Dark humor
welling up, she sent instructions to her feet to close together, to tap heels
together three times, her mouth formed the words
There’s no place like home
.

It
didn’t work. She hadn’t expected that it would. She couldn’t feel her feet or
any vibration in her throat.

She
was truly helpless. Her worst fear come true. And nothing she’d done all her
life to be perfect had saved her from this. None of the knowledge she’d slaved
to learn, to remember, could help her. None of the innate Power she’d felt and
honed in Lladrana could save her. All those lessons—useless.

Lessons.
The word sat in her mind like a silver splinter. Pointed, hurting a little,
prodding her, like there was something she should remember. What?

At
least she had her brain. She could think. She didn’t know if time passed in
this limbo, or how it passed. Whether nanoseconds or years passed in the worlds
outside. Whether she herself aged.

Another
tiny bit of calm trickled through her—at least her mind still worked. Perhaps
her studies provided her with help after all. She might be able to amuse
herself for quite a while, and that could keep her from going mad…again.

She
wasn’t pleased that she’d lost control so totally, given herself to fear and
panic and self-condemnation at a stupid mistake.

Well,
she should cut herself a break—no one she knew had ever experienced what she
had, found themselves suspended in nothingness. So who knew what
they
would have done? How could she measure herself against the unknown courage of
someone else? Except she did it all the time.

She’d
gauged her prettiness, her sexual attractiveness, her social skills against
that of her mother, or other girls and women in Denver society. Had always
found herself lacking there.

She
thought of Andrew. She wondered if tears welled up in her eyes, if her throat
closed, because the tightness she felt in her spiritual heart should have
brought such physical reactions. Her love for Andrew was, and had always been,
powerful and unconditional.

Thinking
of Andrew steadied her. She wondered how he was doing in his new retreat,
whether she’d found any way to help him, or could have found some in the
future.

Marian
considered whether—when—Alexa and Bossgond would miss her. Fury overwhelmed her
at Jaquar’s betrayal, at his last gesture of shoving the weapon-knot in her
hand so she could destroy the nest, while destroying herself, as well. He
had
been her doom and she hadn’t listened. Instead, she’d listened to the stupid,
false Song between them and his words. She’d been so pleased that he’d found
her beautiful, so blinded by their lovemaking.

Another
lesson wasted.

Lesson.

Maybe
the thrill of riding the lightning, of feeling immense Power crackle through
her, of the acceptance by Alexa and Bastien and the Marshalls in the Castle had
made it easy for him to deceive her. Especially after that ghastly experience
with Sinafin.

Knowledge
blinded her: she could have sworn it flashed white-hot and atomic in her mind.

You
have learned your lesson
, Sinafin had said. And before that—in the endless
moments of
that
traumatic experience, the feycoocu had repeated again
and again,
I can’t hear you
.