The Brush of Black Wings (2 page)

Brittle vines clung to broken colonnades
carved with abstract symbols. Literate in several ancient
languages, Martise couldn’t decipher the cryptic marks—swirls and
lines set in haphazard patterns, abstract animals and what looked
like faces blunted and weathered by time and the elements. A set of
steps elevated the interior room with its partially collapsed roof.
The same stone used to build the colonnades paved the raised floor
and bore similar carvings. The chiseled outline of a smaller
circle—possible remnants of an altar—decorated a center
paver.

Ruins like these littered this patch of
woodland. Silhara had told her most were nothing more than decrepit
hulks, like the fortress itself. “A few,” he warned, “still carry
the ghost of their power. I’ve marked those.” His black eyes had
frozen her in place. “Stay away from them, Martise. They can be
dangerous.”

Martise saw no markers for this one but hung
back. As if he knew what she hunted, Cael avoided the mushrooms
while he reconnoitered the ruin’s perimeter, sniffing the ground
and snorting. She watched him, looking for any bristling of fur or
the reddening of his eyes that signaled unfamiliar magic lingered
here. The magefinder completed his circuit, gave her a soft “woof”
as if to say things had passed his inspection and loped away in
pursuit of some other creature unfortunate enough to capture his
attention.

Reassured by the dog’s actions, she approached
the temple’s perimeter and set to work filling her basket. The
woods remained silent, even as the morning aged and sunlight snaked
through the twisted canopy above her. No birds whistled or chirped.
Even the crow that perched sentinel in a nearby tree stayed quiet.
Neith’s woodland bent to the will of its master, watchful and
waiting for any who might trespass.

The shears grew heavy in her hands. Even with
her gloves on, her fingers were stiff with cold. Martise traveled a
quarter of the distance around the ruin when she tripped on a
hidden root. She caught herself, bracing a hand on the ruin’s
lowest step. An odd resonance, like the clanging of a funeral bell,
thrummed the earth under her knees, and invisible fire surged up
her arm.

She yelped and jerked her hand off the stone.
A mournful sigh breathed through the trees in response. Martise
leapt to her feet, fingers realigning until she gripped the shears
like a dagger. The urge to call for Cael battled with the
instinctive command to remain quiet and listen. A heaviness
saturated the air, similar to that feeling before a rainstorm. But
there was no dampness beyond the snow that turned her hem sodden
and no thunder in the distance.

She scanned the wood, peering into its
undulating shadows. Her arm still tingled, and her little finger
twitched in involuntary spasms before going still. The crow watched
her from its branch. No other sound followed the sigh, and she
began to wonder if she’d simply imagined it or mistook the muted
keening of the wind for something else. She hadn’t imagined the
bolt of power.

Green sparks danced at the corner of her
vision, and Martise turned to stare at the temple. Within its
raised circle, witchlight danced like frantic fireflies, bouncing
off the columns and back to the center as if caged by invisible
bars.

The lights multiplied until thousands swirled
in a shimmering veil that grew tighter and tighter, coalescing into
a coruscating pillar of radiance that pulsed from the center of the
circle carved into the floor.

Martise recoiled and dropped her basket.
Memories flooded her mind. A muddied tor, and at its crown a
similar column that pulsed poisonous light, trapping Silhara in its
grip as he dueled a corrupt god for his life and soul.

The residual tingle in her arm strengthened
and spread, sliding across her chest and shoulders, down her hips
and into her legs. It pooled at the base of her spine, pushing and
shoving until she was physically forced to take a step toward the
ruin. She dug in her heels in a futile attempt to resist. Her feet
slid across the snow in an involuntary stumble.

“
No you don’t,” she snapped. She
dropped to her backside, shears forgotten beside her. While her
feet stretched toward the stone, she was able to stay in place away
from the steps.

The pulsing light flickered from the palest
viridescent to the deepest emerald. Where it thinned, she caught
shadows of things that cavorted and wriggled. Some were sinuous, as
long and serpentine as vipers. Others were squat and scurried
rat-like along the column’s spangled walls. A tall shadow took form
within its confines, a blacker shape amongst the green.

It solidified for a moment, revealing a man
with princely features and the mad eyes of a demon. Martise gasped
and scuttled back on her elbows, resisting the hard pull on her
spine. The man wore dark, flowing robes that coiled around him with
a life of their own, their edges caressing his legs with phantasmic
fingers. He watched her, an icy smile curving his mouth.

He raised a hand as if in greeting or
recognition.
“Kashaptu,”
he said in a voice funereal and
thick with the echoes of ghosts.

Magic—once familiar—shot through her. She
cried out as the Gift she thought shattered in a battle for her
husband’s life resurrected inside her in a burst of heat and pain.
It bled out of her skin in a flash of white light, ricocheted off
the ruin’s invisible barrier and struck a nearby oak. Wood cracked,
and the tree split cleanly in half as if sliced through with a
sword. Branches fell into other trees, snapping limbs like
desiccated bones until both halves of the trunk hit the ground with
a thunderous boom and a shower of snow. The crow took flight, along
with a host of other heretofore camouflaged birds.

Martise clutched her midriff, gasping for
breath. The column of light pulsed, and the figure within watched
her with eyes like sword blades caught in sunlight-bright, hard,
utterly inhuman.

An elegant hand pressed against the light,
spraying green sparks from his fingertips.
“Kashaptu, mi peti
babka.”
The nonsensical words spilled from the specter’s mouth,
no less commanding for being whispered.

Unseen hands pulled on unseen strings, and
Martise was yanked up like a puppet. She growled and planted her
feet, furrowing tracks in the snow as an ancient power dragged her
closer to the light. Her terror gave rise to her rage, and that she
poured into her Gift, awake and aware inside her. Her magic had
once attacked and destroyed a lich to save itself. She prayed it
would do the same now to the creature battling her for
control.

This time the light tumbled off her in an
amber wave and dashed itself against the ruin. The green
luminescence sputtered, and the figure in its depths winced.
Martise concentrated all her strength inward and glared at her
adversary. “You are unwelcome. You are unwanted. Leave this
place!”

More amber light flowed from her, became a
weapon. It punched through the invisible barrier and slammed into
the luminescent column in the temple’s center. A thin scream rent
the air before the green light collapsed in on itself. A lone spark
flew out to spatter across Martise’s chest. She stumbled backward
as a dank coldness that had nothing to do with winter and
everything to do with a crypt, washed over her. It faded before she
took her next breath, leaving her shuddering and swatting at her
clothes in a frantic effort to wipe the foul sensation off her
body.

Branches creaked above, scraping against each
other as if speaking amongst themselves in a language as arcane as
the one the entity in the light had uttered. A low resonance
vibrated the ground beneath Martise’s feet, and she darted away
from the now empty temple.

A sharp snap sounded in the trees followed by
a rupture in the air before her, and Silhara strode into the
clearing. Clad in a worn shirt, faded breeches and an apron stained
in neroli oil, he was more bedraggled peasant than infamous
god-killer. Dried orange blossoms clung to strands of his hair. He
wielded a long cane knife in one hand and a dagger in the other.
Despite her recent scare, Martise managed a smile. He’d come
prepared. What he couldn’t obliterate with magic, he’d cheerfully
butcher.

His black gaze touched on her face and body,
looking for injury, before scanning the surrounding wood and the
ruin looming behind her. His eyes narrowed. “The forest gave
warning. Are you all right?”

Instead of answering, she rushed him. He gave
a soft “umpf” when she wrapped her arms around his middle and
squeezed hard. The flat of a knife blade pressed against her back
as he gathered her close. Martise took comfort in the feel of his
wiry frame, his scent of citrus and matal tobacco in her nose. They
overpowered the lingering odor of death that tainted her
clothes.

Silhara went rigid and eased out of her hold.
His nostrils flared, and he peered closer at her. “You’ve the scent
of the dark on you, my wife, and it isn’t the wood’s curse. What
happened here? And who do I need to kill?”

CHAPTER TWO

Martise shivered inside her cloak. “I don’t
think you can kill this with a blade.” She glanced back at the
temple. “I was picking parasols and tripped on a tree root. I
caught my balance on the first step. A witchlight grew in the
temple’s center after that.”

She described the burgeoning column, the
shapes trapped inside it and the appearance of the phantasmic
figure with the possessed eyes who greeted her with a raised hand
and a strange word. Silhara’s harsh features sharpened even more at
her tale. She was on the verge of telling him of her Gift’s
resurrection when he interrupted her.

“
Where’s Cael? He should have
stayed with you.” His gaze went from tree to tree, looking long
into the woodland murk.

Martise shrugged. “He’s off hunting I think.
There didn’t seem to be any reason for him to stay. I thought it
safe. I didn’t see any of your safeguards, and Cael sniffed the
perimeter. No reaction from him.”

Silhara eyed the ruin, his scowl deepening.
“And none from the ruin until you touched the step.”

“
Only then, and by that time Cael
was off chasing rabbits or whatever creatures lurk under these
trees.”

He handed her the dagger and cane knife. “I’ll
take a look. If anything bolts out, cut its head off.” He left her
gaping at him to circle the temple.

She held the weapons loosely, certain she’d be
more likely to cut off her own toes before she took down an
attacker. “Be careful, Silhara.”

“
Always.”

That was a flat out lie, but Martise held her
tongue. She didn’t feel like jesting or teasing at the moment, and
she flexed her legs, ready to leap forward and shove Silhara out of
the way in case the green radiance reappeared.

He nudged her abandoned basket of mushrooms
aside with his foot and held up one hand, fingers steepled
together. Lightning sizzled off his fingertips. He pointed his hand
toward the ground and walked a path around the ruin. Steam rose on
ghostly ribbons where the miniature bolts fired from his fingers
seared the snow-covered grass as he walked. He was constructing a
protective circle, one that kept the danger within.

Martise might have found comfort in his
actions save for the fact he was inside the barrier with the ruin.
Oblivious to his risk and her fear for him, he closed the circle
and climbed the steps toward the temple’s center.

Even in boots, his tread was soundless as he
traversed the interior. His lips moved in silent conversation while
his hands sketched patterns in the air. Martise recognized the
motions—summoning spells, revelation enchantments. He sought to
coax out whatever might linger there. His efforts were fruitless.
No witchlight reappeared, even when Silhara ran his hands across
the engraved circle and traced the mysterious carvings on the
columns.

He frowned at Martise. “It’s silent.
Dead.”

His statement held no accusation, but Martise
crossed her arms and returned his frown. “I know what I
saw.”

Silhara’s lips twitched. “I believe you.” The
faint smile disappeared in favor of his usual dour expression.
“This is a false silence. Something waits here—lies low and comes
alive at the opportune moment. Right now it wants to stay hidden.
You didn’t recognize this demon’s word?”

She shook her head. “No. The language was
either too old—”

“
Or not of this world,” he
finished for her. Silhara made another circuit of the ruin’s
interior. “I’ve explored this temple many times and never sensed a
presence before.” He paused and cocked his head, his gaze
enigmatic. “You said the witchlight appeared when you touched the
step. What haven’t you told me?”

Her rediscovered Gift thrummed inside her, a
presence she once thought herself fortunate to be rid of. She
feared it and all it stood for, but a small part savored its
return, and she was reluctant to reveal its resurrection, even to
the man who understood its power and would slay anyone who tried to
use it against her.

She motioned to him, growing more uneasy the
longer he stayed within the barrier circle. “Come away from the
ruin. Call Cael back.”

Silhara scowled. “Martise...”