The Hammer and the Blade (15 page)

  "That's an inversion notation, written in the Mages' Tongue. You missed it, I assume, unless you
intended
to shrink and weaken yourself and the priest?"

  The guards chuckled.

  "Probably you thought it would make you stronger, larger?"

  Nix felt himself color. Egil had the good grace not to mock him.

  "Leave off, Adjunct," Egil said.

  "
Lord
Adjunct," Baras corrected.

  "Adjunct is what he gets from me," Egil said again, and stuck out his jaw.

  Rakon did not look at Egil. He stood up straight, looming over Nix. A dark look came into his reptilian eyes.

  "The wand is Afirion, is it not? How did you come to possess it?"

  "As you'd expect," Nix said.

  "You stole it?"

  "'Stole' is a strong word. We
took
it, and other things, from a tomb in Afirion."

  "The tomb of Abn Thahl," Rakon said softly. His knuckles were white around the wand.

  "Aye. How would you know that? Abn Thahl is an obscure, minor wizard-king of the nineteenth dynasty who ruled only three years."

  "There are many things I know," Rakon said, his jaw clenching, as if he were biting down on more words he'd like to say. "Were there… guardians in the tomb?"

  Nix had no idea where the questioning was going. He looked to Egil but the priest shrugged, his expression puzzled.

  "Were there?" Rakon pressed.

  "Answer him," Baras said.

  "Of course there were. There always are with Afirion tombs. There were walking dead, deadfalls, an acid trap, a devil."

  Some of the guards smirked with disbelief, others went wide-eyed.

  Rakon kneeled, jabbed at Nix's cheek with the wand as if he would stab him through the eye with it. "Killed devils, have you?
Have you
?"

  Nix leaned back, bewildered. Anger brewed behind Rakon's eyes, and Nix had no idea what had put it there. Whatever control he thought he'd had over the discussion had just been lost. At the moment Rakon looked capable of anything.

  "I… don't know what to say."

  He could not bring himself to call Rakon "my lord."

  Rakon inhaled and stood. Staring down at Nix, he snapped the wand between his fingers. It died in a puff of smoke and green sparks.

  "Say nothing, Nix Fall. I've heard all I need to hear. You two are the men I want for this task. So you're the men I'll have."

  "Is that so?" Egil said, his tone threatening. "I guess we'll see about that."

  "Egil…" Nix began.

  "Oh, I know threats would be idle," Rakon said.

  "Depends on the threat, I suppose," Nix said thoughtfully. "Egil is terrified of–"

  "So I'll make none. But you'll do what I wish nevertheless. You know I'm the Lord Mayor's personal sorcerer, yes?"

  Nix nodded.

  Rakon smiled at him, took a step back, and looked to Baras. "The priest first. Then the talker."

  "My lord," Baras said, and he, Jyme, and a third guard took station around Egil.

  A vein rose in Egil's brow, thick and pulsing, but he did not gratify them with fear or a pointless struggle. Instead, he stared straight at Rakon, his eyes holding a promise of eventual violence, as he awaited whatever was coming.

  "None of this is necessary," Nix said. "Whatever
this
is. You want our help. We'll give it. Egil, tell him you're reasonable."

  Egil spit a glob of phlegm at Rakon's shoes.

  "Among the hill people that's a sign of friendship," Nix tried.

  "Shut up," Jyme said.

  "This will be uncomfortable," Rakon said to Egil, and began a recitation in the Mages' Tongue, the language sharp-edged, ragged.

  "Shite," Nix muttered, squirming against his bonds to no avail.

  The magical words seemed to have a physical existence as they exited Rakon's mouth, the syllables pelting Nix like hail. He could not follow the incantation, could only blink against the growing magical energy. Even Rakon's guards – even Jyme – looked uneasy in the presence of the sorcery.

  The energy in the room gradually intensified, manifesting as a distortion in the air that snaked behind the sorcerer's gesturing hands. When Nix finally recognized the nature of the spell, the hairs on his neck rose.

  "There's no need for this," Nix said, struggling with his bonds to no avail. "Shite, shite."

  "Nix?" Egil asked, looking at him sidelong.

  "A compulsion," Nix said. "A spellworm."

  Egil cursed, kicked at the guards around him with his bound legs. The men, cursing, pushed him flat onto his back.

  Jyme secured his legs, Baras held him down at the shoulders, and the third guard lay across his chest. Rakon stepped over to Egil, still incanting, the energy trailing his gestures in a finger-thick rope of reified magic.

  Nix shouted to Egil in Urgan, Egil's native tongue, the language of the hill folk of the north. He hoped no one else in the room understood him.

  "Focus on Ebenor, Egil! Look to your faith! You have to preserve a piece of your will. Your life depends on it! Focus on Ebenor!"

  The energy in Rakon's hands solidified into a wriggling worm of power. Still chanting, he took the worm in his hands and crouched over the prone priest.

  Baras drew a dagger and stuck its tip into Egil's mouth, scraping teeth, forcing the priest's jaws apart. The moment it was open, Rakon loosed the spellworm headfirst into Egil's mouth.

  The priest gagged as the worm wriggled down his throat. Egil thrashed his head from side to side, nicking his cheek on Baras's dagger, a froth of spit and blood foaming his mouth. The spellworm squirmed in further, finally disappeared down his throat.

  Egil went still, his eyes wide. The men holding him looked at one another, nodded, and released him. Egil only lay flat on the ground, chest heaving, staring up at the rafters.

  "Whoresons!" Nix said, straining against his bonds. "Fakking whoresons!"

  Rakon turned to Nix, his expression fixed and hard.

  "Get him ready," the lord Adjunct said, and began to incant anew.

  Nix's mouth went dry; sweat poured down his back. The three guards left off Egil and seized Nix by the arms and around the legs. He could barely move. He might as well have been in a vise. Baras brought his dagger toward Nix's cheek.

  "Not necessary," Nix said. "But I meant it sincerely when I called you whoresons."

  "Let me," said Jyme, brandishing a dagger of his own.

  "Shut up, Jyme," said Baras, then to Nix, "Sorry it went this way."

  Rakon moved toward Nix, incanting, a second spellworm forming in the air between his gesturing hands.

  Nix took a deep breath and ignored the chant and focused his mind inward. He had to preserve a mental refuge within himself, isolate a bit of him from the magic of the compulsion.

  I am Nix Fall of Dur Follin
, he told himself, attempting to counter Rakon's chant with a chant of his own. He pictured the Heap, the cawing gulls, the layer of shite.
I am Nix Fall of Dur Follin. Nix Fall of Dur Follin.

  The spellworm solidified in Rakon's hands.

  Baras tapped Nix's cheek with his blade. "Make it easy, eh?"

  Nix closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

  The spellworm slipped into his mouth, as slick as a string of mucus. It slithered down his throat and wriggled into his guts. He gagged, spat, and heaved, but the worm went deeper, sinking into his guts and diffusing through his body, sorcerous tendrils wrapping themselves around his will, rooting in his mind. He resisted, teeth gritted, but still it expanded in him, trying to fill him up, conquer his mind.

  He thought of Mamabird, the smell of her onion stew. He thought of the mask he wore to cover the frightened boy at his core, the pith of him a secret even from Egil.

  The muscles in his body, head to toe, seized all at once. He bit his tongue again and blood filled his mouth. The men lowered him to the ground while spit and blood ran down his cheeks. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, breathing, breathing, as sorcery stole his will.

  "Sit them up," Rakon said after a time, and rough hands sat Nix up. His head lolled on his neck, a marionette without strings. His eyes wouldn't focus. Rakon was a blur before him.

  It seemed insufficient. Rakon's spell bent him, twisted his will, made it the sorcerer's own, and when Rakon spoke, his voice, redolent with power, echoed in Nix's braincase like the words of a god.

  "Nix Fall and Egil of Ebenor, you will travel with me and my men to the tomb of Abn Thuset, enter it when I say, take the Horn of Alyyk from within, return, and give it to me. Do you understand?"

  The words pulled a response from Nix the way a fisherman pulled a hooked fish from the Meander. Egil echoed him.

  "I understand."

  Rakon crossed his arms over his chest, satisfied. "Bring them, Baras. We leave with the dawn."

  "Yes, my lord," Baras said. "But…"

  "But?"

  "I think they may have helped without use of a spell. Is this the best way to secure their aid? I wonder if this was necessary."

  Rakon stared at him. "You wonder, do you?"

  Baras lowered his head. "I'm sorry, my lord."

  "Do you think they wouldn't have run the moment opportunity presented itself?"

  Baras looked from Nix to Egil, back to Rakon. "I… don't know. Probably."

  "Almost certainly. Now that's no longer a risk. I can't take a chance with my sisters' lives, Baras. The compulsion is a distasteful necessity."

  That convinced Baras. "Yes, my lord."

  Jyme pulled Nix to his feet. Nix wobbled. Jyme's breath was hot against Nix's ear.

  "Say again who's got the luck, now?"

  Jyme's tone sounded far less prickish than his words. The sorcery had unnerved him, too.

  Nix shook off Jyme's grip, stood on shaky legs, and adjusted his shirt. He licked his lips and said, "The spellworm in my gut doesn't stop me from sticking a blade in your belly, Jyme. You remember that when smart words knock against your crooked teeth, wanting out."

  The words came out partly slurred, but he'd made his point.

  Jyme frowned, swallowed, and backed off.

  "Jyme, you
will
accompany us, of course," Rakon said. "To Afirion."

  "What? Afirion? No, my lord. I just wanted to see these two get what they had coming. And even then I didn't know they'd get this or…"

  He caught himself and stopped talking.

  "Jyme, you
will
accompany us," Rakon said. "That's an order."

  "My lord?"

  "Whatever business you may have, it'll keep," Baras said.

  "This wasn't the deal," Jyme said to Baras. "You didn't say anything about this."

  "You didn't ask," Baras said with a shrug. "You wanted in. Now you're in."

  "Or if that's not enough to convince you," Rakon said, "perhaps another compulsion is in order?"

  Jyme held up his hands. "Not necessary, my lord. I'm happy to come to… Afirion. But I have no kit. I'd need–"

  "We have everything you'll need. The supply wagon and carriage are already loaded. You're not to leave Baras's sight. If you attempt to, my men are authorized to use force. I am understood, I trust?"

  Jyme swallowed his anger. He looked at Nix, back at Baras, to Rakon. "You are, my lord."

  Rakon pointed at Egil and Nix. "The compulsion is a blade at your throat. Do other than I've instructed and it will kill you." He sneered at Nix. "But maybe you already knew that from your year at the Conclave?"

  Egil swayed on his thick legs, his clenched fists held clumsily before his face. Even the eye of Ebenor on his head looked disconcerted. He spoke in a voice more slurred than Nix's.

  "I'm going to kill you, all of you. I'm looking at dead men."

  No sooner had he uttered the words than he puked all over the ground.

  "Bring their weapons," Rakon said, eyeing the vomit with a pinched expression. "And the small one's bag of tricks. They'll need them when we reach the Wastes."

  "The Wastes?" Nix said. "What?"

  He must have misheard.

  "Yes, my lord," Baras answered. "Awake or not?"

  Rakon eyed Nix and Egil. "I don't care. Just don't kill them."

  "Understood, my lord."

  "Shite," Nix said, a moment before the painful blow of a sword pommel sent him once more into oblivion.

 

 

 
 

Nix awakened with a groan, flat on his back, thrown once more into the back of a cart. He blinked, staring up at the canvas-covered ribs of the wagon. The gray light of dawn trickled in through the loose flap at the back. Rain tapped lightly on the canvas, and even that soft drumbeat made Nix wince. His head hurt worse than his worst hangover, and his tongue tasted like he had taken a lascivious lick of Shoddy Way.

  At least he was no longer bound. He ran a hand over his skull, felt the tender, painful lumps under his hair. He seemed to be collecting them. He massaged the pink furrows the rope had left on his wrists. He was disarmed and his satchel was gone. He tried to sit up but dizziness and a flash of nausea put him back down.

  Egil lay on his side beside him, still unconscious, snoring, drool collecting in his beard. The priest had a discolored lump as large as a gull's egg on the top of his head, the tattooed Eye of Ebenor with an eyeshine.

  Nix swallowed down his dry throat, found it as coarse as sand. He flashed on the spellworm, Rakon's manic gaze, the slippery, squirming thing wriggling down his throat, expanding in him, stealing his will.