The Night Voice (36 page)

Chuillyon crouched down, cocking his head slightly.

—We . . . must go to . . . Leesil—

Chuillyon's eyes widened at that demand, hearing the words in his head. In puzzlement, he looked up beyond Chap, perhaps to the mountain.

—Where . . . did you . . . hide . . . the sprout?— . . . —We must . . . take . . . Wynn . . . and go there . . . now—

“Does Leesil still carry his branch?” Chuillyon asked.

—Yes—

While reaching for the pocket of his robe, Chuillyon answered. “Then we can reach him from here. I have already retrieved the . . .” He faltered, looking up.

Chap heard hooves pounding closer behind him, and he spun around.

• • •

Khalidah faced Leesil as he heard Beloved speak again.

—Open the anchors and break my bonds. Unmake me and unmake existence. My kin will pay, and I will be free. End my bondage—

Is this what his god thought to do, to unmake existence and be free? That would not happen, though certainly Beloved would die. Any nonsense concerning “kin” meant nothing. A new master would take Beloved's place, no matter how many else died for him to become a god.

The lines, symbols, and signs of sorcery took shape in Khalidah's sight.

He turned on Leesil first.

• • •

Ghassan heard every word within the prison of his own flesh. He heard the very thoughts of his captor. Wild fear grew in his effort to understand what was about to happen.

The Enemy sought to die and spoke of “kin,” and Wynn had let slip enough references to orbs—the anchors. Perhaps some of that had come from the majay-hì they called Chap. A few times Ghassan had seen strange things concerning that one.

Then there was the other black majay-hì called Shade.

Two descended from a Fay-born race, one little renegade sage, a half-blood, and a dhampir—half-undead—had sought out the orbs. A fallen
Lhoin'na sage who traveled via the gift of a fabled tree, supposedly as old as the world itself, had joined them. And along the way there had been too many tenuous connections he had overheard in his prison as those with Khalidah sought to recover all of the anchors . . . of Existence.

Ghassan knew theories of the Elements—and there was one orb for each. If they were “anchors,” and even one was opened to free what it anchored . . .

Existence itself—everything—would end.

Ghassan had failed so many times against the specter, even to the loss of his own flesh. It had kept him alive within it merely as a resource, if needed. And he knew what had happened to all other such hosts it had taken.

He could not defeat Khalidah, but he would not need to do so.

• • •

Leesil heard every hissing whisper of the Enemy, as if those words had been spoken aloud to echo through the cavern. He was left at a loss for their meaning, and he second-guessed opening the orbs, one or all.

Why would something that thought itself a god want to die? Why would it want them to kill it? While Ghassan appeared lost in some seething thought, Leesil looked from one companion to another. There was only one that he could trust now.

Chane hadn't heard the whisper—because of his ring—and didn't know what the Enemy wanted.

“Chane,” Leesil whispered, “don't let . . . anyone . . . anyone . . .”

Suddenly, his voice failed, and he couldn't make a sound.

Chane stared at him. “What? Do not let anyone what?”

Leesil tried to answer but couldn't. Both his hands opened of their own accord, and he dropped his winged blades.

He felt a weight lift from around his neck, and as his hand came up, he was holding Magiere's thôrhk. He didn't even know he'd removed it until he saw it in his hand. He tried to turn but couldn't.

He could see Chane looking away, looking at something beyond him,
and still he couldn't turn his head. Instead, he faced the orb chests in the cavern's entrance. As he took a step toward them, he saw Ore-Locks doing the same. In panic, he struggled to look for Brot'an, and then . . .

Chane's face twisted, lips separating over elongated fangs. He half crouched for a rush, then twisted and stumbled back as if struck by something unseen. Again, and again, and the third time, he wrenched backward, toppling and flipping across the cavern's rough floor.

Everything around Leesil became fuzzy, like a half-remembered dream upon waking, as he took another step toward the chests.

• • •

Brot'an heard Léshil falter in speech and then saw him reach up blindly to remove Magiere's thôrhk. Instantly, Brot'an fixed on Ghassan, who stood passive, still, and silent. Ore-Locks copied Léshil's every action, as if he were under the same influence.

Chane tried to rush Ghassan and was somehow thrown backward.

As Chane's feet left the cavern's floor, Brot'an flicked loose the tie holding his left stiletto. The blade's handle dropped against his left palm as he pulled the bone knife from behind his back.

Ghassan's head began to turn his way.

Brot'an threw himself back and left over the smaller vertebrae of the skeleton's tailbone looping toward its skull. He ducked and half crouched against the larger vertebrae near that skull. Inside his mind, he repeated a litany:

The stillness of thought is a silence, unheard and unnoticed.

The silence of flesh leaves only shadow, impenetrable and intangible.

Mind and body but not spirit became one with the shadows, and as Brot'an watched, Ghassan's expression shifted to shock.

The domin backed away, spun around, and looked everywhere in trying to find his vanished target. He back-stepped even farther and then turned to reacquire his original targets.

Both Léshil and Ore-Locks faltered in shuffling toward the chests. Chane
rose, stumbled, and tried to pick up one dropped sword. Again, at Ghassan's glance, the undead flew backward, and he slammed into the far wall with an audible crack.

Brot'an did not move in thought or flesh. Though shadow held and hid both, spirit alone kept his presence and awareness. Deep within he already knew who had to be saved most of all.

Léshil was somehow the way to kill the Enemy, if it was truly here.

And Brot'an believed it was, for he had finally realized that it had a tool among them. He watched Ghassan without conscious thought. He had set his next action deep within himself before vanishing. He waited in stillness for Chane's next attack to trigger his own reaction. And when that came . . .

• • •

Leesil's forced steps faltered just before he heard someone grunt amid a clatter of something striking stone. That was quickly followed by the rough sound of someone falling on the cavern floor.

For that instant, nothing drove Leesil forward, and he was able to barely turn his head.

He saw Ore-Locks do the same with visible effort. His last clear glimpse of Chane had been of the vampire trying to pick himself up.

Leesil knew Ghassan was still somewhere behind him. His body lurched, his hand clenched tighter upon Magiere's thôrhk, and one of his feet slid forward. However he and Ore-Locks were being controlled, Chane was not affected. And the one person Leesil hadn't seen anywhere was Brot'an.

He knew the old assassin's tactics.

Brot'an must have shifted to the cavern's far side and melded into the shadows, but if he even moved, the shadows wouldn't hide him anymore. Unlike Chane with his ring, if the domin fixed on Brot'an, he might be able to use Brot'an against Chane.

There was only one way to give Brot'an an instant to strike.

Chane had to move the other way to draw Ghassan's attention.

Leesil fought to speak, but only two words came out: “Chane . . . orbs . . .”

• • •

Chane's head felt as if it had split as he struggled up. He knew he was damaged without feeling for the wound at the back of his skull. The cavern dimmed and blurred again and again, and he struggled to keep his feet. Then he realized both of his hands were empty.

There was something long but blurred near his left foot. That glint had to be his older, ground-down blade and not the mottled steel of his dwarven longsword. When he tried to reach down for it, he nearly lost his balance and stopped.

What had happened with the others?

They had heard something, but he had not. Had it tampered with their awareness? Then Ghassan had focused upon Leesil and Ore-Locks, and both had turned away.

Chane had realized then that Ghassan was the traitor among them. But Brot'an had somehow vanished into the skeleton, and there was no one else left able to stop Ghassan.

When Chane lifted his head, Leesil and Ore-Locks were only blurs in the half-light. Before he had hit the wall, both of them had lurched and shuffled strangely toward the cavern's entrance. He tried to reach again for one of his weapons and heard . . .

“Chane . . . orbs . . .”

He froze and looked. He still could not see Leesil clearly, but it was the half-blood's voice that he had heard. What about the orbs?

He thought he understood, though it was a deadly ploy.

What if even one orb was taken away? Could Ghassan accomplish anything if that happened? However, any one of the orbs' presence had always sated Chane's hunger.

He needed hunger now.

He needed to find a way to call it up.

Chane let himself fall and collapse upon that blur of one sword. As he hunched there, he clawed at it blindly, until he gripped its hilt. He needed to hunt, to feed, and to kill.

Once he had freely reveled in the beast within him—that was him—for the pleasure it had brought. He had given that up, pushed it down, and chained it, in order to be what Wynn might want. Now he had to be that thing—that monster—he never wished to see reflected in her eyes.

And if he did not, and she still lived . . .

Chane loosed the thing chained down for so long within him as he held to only one thought—an orb.

• • •

Khalidah panicked for the first time since the dhampir had rammed his previous host out of an empty manor's window back in the empire's capital. The elder assassin had vanished without a trace.

No matter how much Khalidah probed for any presence, he could not find Brot'an. That was impossible. Even though he could not reach Chane's mind, he could see that one. All he could do was drive the half-blood and dwarf, but even in that, he had to split his awareness a third way to remain sensitive to other mental presences that might reappear in the cavern.

Brot'an was still here—somewhere—and would never flee, so how did he evade detection? How? This fearful, irate wondering cost him.

“Chane . . . get to . . . orbs . . .”

At Leesil's stuttered whisper, Khalidah exerted his will to silence the half-blood. He glanced aside, looking for Chane. The undead was on his hands and knees, broken and cowering, so Khalidah looked to the dwarf and then to the half-blood again.

Without warning, Chane lunged from the floor, rushing at the half-blood.

Bending Leesil and the dwarf to his will was nothing to Khalidah, and even splitting his awareness a third time to remain aware for Brot'an was
only slightly trying. But Chane, his mind hidden though he remained visible, was another matter.

This time, Khalidah would smash that undead to pulp upon stone.

Chane rushed by the half-blood without pause.

Khalidah flinched at that, focused on Chane . . . and inexplicably blinked.

• • •

Ghassan felt Khalidah's shock as Chane rushed for the chests holding the orbs.

Somewhere in the cavern, the elder assassin hid his presence. As Khalidah split his focus again to fix upon Chane, Ghassan struck out with the last of his near-broken will.

All he needed was an instant of control for a breach of focus—just a
blink
.

When it happened, torment followed with the specter's outrage.

You . . . I am done with you! I no longer need even your memories!

Within the prison of his own mind, Ghassan burned as if set afire. In so much sudden pain, he could not even scream, though none would have heard him.

His suffering ended suddenly.

Ghassan floundered in the darkness, but even then, he tried to reach for and hold on to Khalidah's presence yet again.

• • •

It took but an instant.

At Chane's lunge and Ghassan's wayward glance, Brot'an sprang and vaulted the skeleton's tailbone. He matched every running step to the sound of Chane's footfalls to mask his approach. In three steps, he reached his target.

There was one strike that might kill quicker than a sorcerer's thought.

Brot'an wrapped his left arm around Ghassan's throat as he rammed the stiletto's tip up into the back of the domin's skull.

• • •

Leesil saw Chane rush by toward the chests, and then he lurched to a sudden halt. He almost fell forward and for an instant didn't realize he could move freely. Chane's distraction had worked, and Leesil knew he needed to act quickly.

He dropped Magiere's thôrhk, grabbed up both fallen winged blades, and spun, ignoring Chane. Again he stalled.

Ghassan stood with eyes wide and mouth slack, a thick arm around his throat. His own hands gripped tightly to either side of that arm's elbow, but he didn't move.

“Chane?” Ore-Locks shouted somewhere to the left. “Chane!”

“Stop him,” Leesil ordered without looking. “Any way you have to.”

Ghassan's head lurched slightly forward, eyes rolling up under his lids. Behind him stood Brot'an with his other hand hidden behind the domin's head, and Leesil knew what the elder assassin had done.

It was over for the moment. The traitor among them was dead.

Ghassan's eyes snapped open, narrowed viciously, and his hands released Brot'an's arm to thrust up and back for the master assassin's head.