Black Magic (19 page)

A hand landed on his back, right between his shoulder blades, and something cool was pressed to his lips. Water, he realized, as he swallowed a sip and the taste of blood was washed away. He forced his eyes open and stared at the priest kneeling in front of him. "Is this what I get for standing on the altar without permission?"

The priest laughed very faintly, and his words were pitched so only Cerant could hear him. "No, Majesty—this is what you get for inheriting the position of High Priest."

Cerant sucked in a startled breath and barely kept his own voice quiet as he asked, "What?"

"Surely you are aware …" the priest trailed off, staring at him. "You are not. But … you must have been hearing her voice for months, Majesty—High Priest—"

As suddenly and easily as that, realization came crashing down on Cerant. He called himself a thousand different kinds of fool for never putting the pieces together. Headaches that felt like shouting and always preceded something bad. The way he was poor in battle, but especially strong in faith. His pity—the empathy that was a hallmark of all priests. "How did I never …" He shook his head and stood up. "So what do I do now?"

But he knew the answer to that question. The priest who had helped him seemed to sense it and moved away instead of answering his question. Cerant moved to the altar, where someone had already lit candles and incense. Pressing his hands together in prayer, Cerant focused for the first time on not fighting the headaches, but accepting them.

The pain was like knives driven into his temples and the base of his head, but he ignored the tears that streamed down his face, the growing restlessness of the people behind him—everything. His attention was solely on breathing in, breathing out, slow, deep, taking in all the pain, focusing on the clamoring noise and accepting it.

Bit by creeping bit, the din in his head quieted down. The voice that came out of the noise was both thunderous and faint. Welcome home. Be at peace. Listen and I help.

Cerant let out a bark of laughter, lifting his eyes to the image of the five Goddess Blossoms over the altar. No image of the Goddess was permitted, but her symbols were used everywhere, especially the Blossom.

High Priest. Him. Cerant had never heard of anything more ridiculous.

Sharp pain cut through his head and he took it for the reprimand it was. If that was what She wanted him to be, then he would do his best to serve. "By the will of the Goddess, by the grace of the Goddess, and for love of the Goddess and her children, I do accept the sacred duties given unto my keeping."

He bowed his head, felt something like the brush of lips to his temple, and in a burst of light and swirling incense, his words were accepted and the position formally bestowed. Cerant turned, spread his arms, and said, "It is good to be home. I thank you all for the warm welcome, though that joy was quickly shattered. I can only hope that with the new duties given unto me, I can serve you all well and help to restore Vindeia to the better days for which we have so long struggled. Now, let us bow our heads and pray for all who were lost this night."

Cerant began the prayer of mourning, the words coming easily, smoothly, and it was no effort at all to move from leading a prayer to singing the hymn of farewell. The priests—his priests—took it up flawlessly, the Cathedral thrumming as it carried the song to all corners of the room and the castle beyond.

As the hymn neared its conclusion, Sorin and Emel stepped through the doors at the back of the Sanctuary. Under ordinary circumstances Cerant would have laughed at the look on Sorin's face. Instead of laughing, however, he finished the hymn and beckoned Sorin forward to join him. "High Paladin, explain what has happened this night and the precautions that should be taken."

Nodding, Sorin faced the congregation and explained in detail about the white demons and how much more dangerous they were, the fact that they were not easily defeated even by paladins, and much was still being learned about them. "Stay in your homes as much as possible. If something seems strange, contact the priests or the paladins at once. It's growing colder and snow has already begun to fall. Hopefully the weather will impede the demons as much as it impedes us, but do not assume that such will be the case."

They spent another two marks addressing concerns and two more after that were spent accepting congratulations and welcomes. By the time most of those assembled had come and gone and the priests had gently urged the rest away, Cerant was ready to collapse. When the sanctuary was empty save for himself, Neikirk, Emel, Sorin, Koray, and three priests, he sat down with a groan on the altar steps.

"High Priest, hmm?" Sorin asked with a grin. "No wonder you made such a poor swordsman."

Cerant rolled his eyes. "What am I doing as High Priest? What are we supposed to do about the empty throne? I cannot be both—should not be both."

Sorin just laughed. "You're the one who is supposed to answer questions like that, High Priest."

Groaning, Cerant rubbed at his temples. "Neikirk, do you have any lightning incantations left? When in the name of the Goddess did you have time to make that one you used?"

"While we traveled, Master," Neikirk said. He eyed Sorin speculatively and added, "I do not have spare lightning, Master, but perhaps a spark?"

Sorin replied cheerfully, "I have no idea what that means, but I've plenty of 'spark' of my own, alchemist. Don't think that having a high priest as a master will spare you my revenge."

"You two are very much alike," Neikirk commented.

Beside him, Koray tossed his head and narrowed his eyes at Sorin. "One is more than enough if you ask me. I trust the Goddess in all things, but I do question her tastes occasionally."

Cerant laughed. "My father often questioned the advisability of keeping us alive, I admit. But that only brings me back to wondering what we are going to do for a king …" He trailed off as pain slowly built in his head and let his eyes slide shut, focusing until the pain and the din turned once more into those strange, thundering whispers.

Rule not by one. Rule by five. No king. High Court. Room of the Star. Behind altar.

"First trance," Sorin said when Cerant opened his eyes. "You really are High Priest." He smiled faintly. "It suits you. What did our dear Goddess have to say?"

"Rule not by one, but by five. No king, but a High Court. Something about a Room of the Star behind the altar. But I've been into every room in this Cathedral, even the few that are not listed on any designs."

Sorin sighed. "That sounds like more upheaval we do not need—and yet probably very much need, blast the woman. Is it something that must be done immediately, finding this room, this court of five? Five what? Nevermind. I am more concerned with those demons. Do we know anything about them?"

"They come from Navath," Neikirk said, voice the flattest, coldest that Cerant had ever heard it. "I saw the markings on their bodies tonight. They were alchemical marks, used wrongly to try and force the demons to collect the sorts of energies used by alchemists."

Emel and Sorin both frowned, and Emel said, "I know nothing of alchemy and so do not understand what you are saying."

Cerant laughed, mostly at Neikirk's affronted look. He held up a hand to stay Neikirk's words. "Magic is entirely too complicated a subject for so late a mark and after all that we have survived tonight. Alchemists can draw out small amounts of energies from various things—plants, animals, inanimate things like rocks, even the very earth itself—and recombine those energies into what they call incantations, which are like spells, but slightly different. They then bind these incantations in various gems, called vessels, storing them to be used later. They cannot draw upon the vast sums of energy that is the mark of paladins and priests, and of course necromancy is a realm of its own. But what the alchemists lack in sheer power and flexibility to alter a spell with a word, they make up for in creativity and that ability to save up the incantations for later. What Neikirk is saying is that somebody tried to warp that alchemist ability so that demons could be used as living vessels."

"That sounds like black magic," Sorin said.

"By Navath's definition, it is certainly illegal," Neikirk replied. "Living things cannot store any energy except their own, or a compatible energy that can transmute into what they need, the way plants use sunlight to grow and humans and animals eat food. For example, by looking at those gathered here, I can see that priests and paladins are two variations of the same type of energy, like cold and hot. Priest and necromancer … are both cold, but different kinds of energy. And the cold of the necromancer compliments the hot of the paladin." He frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder if there is not something that should parallel necromancer and compliment priest, given what I see now. How strange, I never knew—"

Cerant reached out and tugged Neikirk down to sit next to him, startling him into silence. "Experiment later, my dear."

"Oh. Yes, Master," Neikirk said, but still stared at them all thoughtfully, clearly weaving theories and devising experiments.

"Stop calling me that," Cerant said, kissing his cheek. "People are going to think their high priest has gone mad and is keeping slaves or something."

"Yes, Master."

Sighing, Cerant turned back to the others and said, "We need to speak with Navath, but I think it safe to say that they will ignore any missives I send. We will have to send—"

"Me, Master," Neikirk cut in. "No one else here can navigate court the way I can, except perhaps you."

Cerant grunted. "Not me. I only the Navathian court once, and that was on neutral territory. Ordinarily I would go myself, but I need to remain here now that I have been named High Priest—and I can best act as leader until we figure out this court of five the Goddess mentioned." He sighed and conceded reluctantly, "You are right, my dear. I must send you."

"I'll go with him," Emel said. "I'm the second most powerful paladin in the castle and I may not know my way around the Navath court, but I can protect Master Neikirk and follow orders. I'll select a handful of paladins and knights to go with us, and perhaps a priest?"

"I can go," said one of the priests who had lingered. He stood and bowed. "Lisay, my lords. I grew up near the southern border and have some familiarity with their ways. I will accompany them."

"So be it," Cerant declared. "You'll leave in the morning, after opening prayers. For now, you're all dismissed." He sighed as everyone left, leaving him alone with Neikirk. "You did not seem especially surprised by my change in status, my dear."

Neikirk nodded. "Things you told me of your homeland, the magic performed by priests and paladins, made me wonder. I did not think of high priest, but I did wonder if perhaps you were meant to be a priest. When I realized you were royalty, though, I thought perhaps I had been wrong."

"You are seldom wrong," Cerant said with a smile and tucked a knuckle under Neikirk's chin, tilting his head up. He kissed Neikirk softly. "I hope you do not mind having a priest instead of a king or an exile."

"They're all the same man to me." He drew back when Cerant tried to kiss him again. "Are you allowed to enjoy intimacies?"

Cerant laughed. "The celibacy of priests is a rumor made up by you mad Navathians. If it was ever a law here, it was discarded so long ago no record remains. I'll probably find myself demoted if I fuck you on the altar, my dear, but I prefer a good bed, anyway." He yawned, eyes watering with it. "Though it will have to wait until another night, for I am quite beyond doing anything else with this one. Come, let us go see how everyone is faring and if anything else requires my attention for the night so that we can go to bed. We have only just arrived and already I must send you away again."

"I hope that I can find a solution to the white demons for you, Master," Neikirk said, twining their fingers together as they left the Cathedral.

Brekk tore out the throat of the white demon, heedless of the blood that covered him, already covered in so much that it would take forever to scrub it away in the frigid creek. He yanked out the sword still lodged in the demon's chest—and jerked at the way energy jolted through him. Dropping the sword with a grimace, he settled for using his claws to finish the demon once and for all, tearing through its throat until he could tear its head off. After that was finally accomplished, he summoned a bit of precious magic and set the corpse on fire, not moving until there were nothing but ash and bits of bone remaining.

When the flames finally died away, he used the tattered remains of his own tunic to wrap the sword up. He held it tightly as he launched into the sky and flew back to the woods that were all he had to call home. He landed on his feet, but immediately sank to his knees, overcome with exhaustion. Thoughts of Emel flitted through his mind, but Brekk set them aside because he would not likely see his lover for days and preferred not to torture himself by dwelling.

Setting the wrapped sword on the creek bank, he stumbled into the water and scrubbed himself clean as quickly as he could, hissing at the biting cold. Climbing out again, he headed into his tiny cabin and called up a gentle fire, letting it wash over him, warm him. He needed to conserve his energy until he was able to replenish it, but damn it all he was cold. Retrieving the sword, he carried set it on the small table near the fireplace.

Once his cabin finally began to warm up, he returned his attention to the sword. Overcome with curiosity, for he had paid it little mind when Emel had first shown it to him, Brekk slowly unwrapped it. Touching the blade, power once more jolted through him, hot and uncomfortable. Clearly, he was not meant to touch it. Anguish and pain poured through on the heels of the power, all the sharper because he understood the grief of the trapped soul. Someday, he would be the dead demon and poor Emel the paladin left in agony.

If he closed his eyes, he could feel the throb of anguish in his chest, hear the voice of the devastated soul. That shouldn't have been possible. He was no priest or paladin to feel such things, had never been able to hear the ghosts though he could see them plain enough.