Black Magic (31 page)

Sorin stood with him, watching carefully should he start to fall again. "Koray …"

Koray looked at him, expression as guarded and wary as the first day they had met. "What?"

Why had he ever thought he could make amends? Flinching at the cool tone, ignoring the ache of despair in his chest, Sorin said, "Nevermind. So your energy is full restored?"

Something that Sorin thought might have been disappointment flashed across Koray's face, but then was gone. "I'm fine, though I'm not sure I like being so aware of the rest of you."

Sorin blinked, realizing that was exactly what he was feeling. "I knew I was aware of something, but it was just a quiet buzzing at the back of my mind, like growing so used to the sound of locusts you scarcely hear them anymore."

"Yes, it's quite fascinating," Neikirk interjected. Beside him, Cerant chuckled fondly. Neikirk cast him a quelling look and continued, "I think it must be similar to the awareness of the Goddess that you three—four?—are always mentioning. Though obviously I cannot be sure, I think if you tried to focus on a particular person you would be able to convey emotions, even thoughts, strongly enough that person might hear them."

Koray made a face. "I have no desire to communicate so intimately with anyone. What is the point of such a thing?"

"The Court of Five," Cerant said, a faint glow to his eyes, not quite speaking as he would in a trance. "Bound together, to lead together, never to lose touch and fall apart."

Sorin swallowed at that, the ache in his chest growing. Awareness or not, he and Koray had already fallen apart. It had seemed so easy, when he had left to go after Koray, to imagine apologizing and setting all to rights. But every time he looked at Koray the words dried up and he was left floundering in uncertainty.

"It is strange," Brekk said. "I am not certain how I have gone from being a demon to being a warlock—"

"High Warlock, even," Emel said with amusement. "I think you might be too good for a lowly paladin." Brekk growled at that and pulled Emel close.

Sorin turned away from them, wishing there was somewhere he could go to be alone. "I am going to go check on the rest of the camp. Koray, you should go back to bed. Whatever just happened may have restored your energy, but you still need proper rest."

Koray sneered in his usual fashion, so familiar that Sorin almost smiled. "You look closer to collapsing than I, My Lord High Paladin. I have told you a thousand times that I do not require your damnable fussing. I am not one of your little soldiers—"

Emel's laughter cut him off. "I see you two are back to normal already. Good to know. It really has not been the same without your bickering. Strange how quickly that became ordinary." He clapped Sorin on the shoulder, then turned to Cerant. "Anything else you need to do with the star?"

"Not at present," Cerant said. "The purpose was to connect the five of us. The power and the connection will be necessary shortly, I think. By sunrise at the latest and possibly sooner." He looked at Sorin, eyes still glowing faintly. "Put your necromancer to bed and then go to bed yourself, High Paladin. Your sword will be needed sooner rather than later, so rest while you can."

Sorin nodded, but before he could say or do anything, Koray regarded them all icily and said, "I can take care of myself just fine." Turning around, he stalked off into the camp. Sorin sighed.

"Let me guess—you haven't talked to him, yet?" Cerant asked. "I suppose there hasn't been a chance, though."

"What is there to say, even if I had the chance?" Sorin asked.

Cerant lifted his eyes to the sky. "Plenty, if you are still sounding that forlorn. Go talk to him. Stop sneaking heartbroken looks at each other and
talk.
"

Sorin raised his hands in defeat. "I will, I promise, but I think we have bigger concerns at the moment."

"Like what? The Court of Five is established, our captives are still sleeping off their purification, and I doubt we will hear from the queen before morning. I think there is time enough for you to speak with Koray and then go to sleep, Sorin."

"Fine," Sorin said and obediently left. Dread coiled in his stomach because it seemed to him that Koray had been clear enough thus far about wanting nothing to do with him. Even when they had first met he had not been so quiet and cold.

He was not surprised to find his tent empty, and for a moment he was tempted to go to bed and try to reconcile with Koray when he was rested. But he could not go to sleep until he knew the idiot was not hiding away somewhere uncomfortable and miserable because he would not assert his authority to obtain a decent bed.

Worse, he would not put it past Koray to have already started working.

In the end, a half mark of searching and inquiring eventually led him to where Koray was sitting with several other necromancers around a campfire. Sorin turned to leave, but one of the necromancers looked up and saw him. "High Paladin!"

Koray whipped around, scowling. "Did you need something?"

"I just wanted to be certain you were well, High Necromancer," Sorin said. "Did you need me to arrange a tent for you, or at least see that proper bedding is brought to you here?"

The scowl on Koray's face faltered, replaced by uncertainty. "Sorin …"

"Can we talk?" Sorin asked tightly.

Koray hesitated a moment, then nodded and stood up, gathering his robes about him as he stepped away from the fire. He called a farewell and promise to return to the other necromancers, then joined Sorin.

"My tent?" Sorin asked. "Unless you would prefer somewhere else."

"Your tent is fine," Koray said quietly. "I—thank you for saving me. I thought I was dead."

"I would never let you die," Sorin replied and led the way back through camp to his tent. Someone had been there and left a fresh pitcher of mulled wine in place of the cooled one. Sorin poured a cup and thrust it at Koray. "Are you certain you're feeling better? I have never seen you so pale and pale is your typical state." Koray glared at him for that. "Sorry," Sorin said with a sigh.

Koray sighed with him and sipped at his wine.

The silence stretched on as Sorin tried to remember all the words he had so carefully rehearsed. In the end, though, the only words that came together were, "I'm sorry."

"I—"

Whatever Koray was about to say, Sorin did not get to hear, as a knight burst into the tent and announced, "High Paladin, the High Priest says the prisoners have awoken and you should come speak with them at once as they are suddenly eager to confess all."

"Goddess damn them!" Sorin snarled and stormed from the tent before he gave into an urge to throw something.
Of course
the alchemists would choose that damned moment to wake up.

He headed for Cerant's tent, where the prisoners where tied to a post inside it. They looked exhausted and more resigned than remorseful, but Sorin cared little for why they were willing to give answers. "I am told you want to confess."

"Yes," said the first alchemist, the one who had been so stubbornly silent before.

"What are your names?" Cerant asked.

"I am Whitley. He is Issur," Whitley replied. "We are privately owned alchemists intended to spend our time experimenting. We were good enough at what we did that her Majesty bought us back from our masters and ordered us to begin performing certain experiments for her."

"The demons?" Neikirk asked, stepping up to Sorin's left, Cerant on Sorin's right.

Issur shook his head, shaggy hair falling in his face. "Not at first. They began as attempts at imbedding the energies of paladins, priests, and necromancers in vessels."

Neikirk frowned, eyes flashing. "It is forbidden to steal energies from people for the purposes of imbedding. It is forbidden to take energies where the taking causes harm."

"Small amounts cause no more harm than using that same energy to imbed incantations or activate them," Whitley said dismissively. "But whatever we did, we could not get it to work. We eventually learned more effective ways of taking energy—"

"And it never once occurred to you that stealing energy is what demons do?" Sorin demanded.

"Where do you think we learned how to do it?" Issur asked, sounding tired. "The queen had demons brought to us that had been injured in battle and snuck off by her men. Eventually, when we needed greater numbers of demons, and more often, she had soldiers start hunting them for us, the same as they brought us the others."

Cerant made an angry gesture. "You—your queen—kidnapped Vindeian citizens? How dare you! Vindeia has never troubled Navath; we have always left you in peace even though your treatment of alchemists is abhorrent. Why would you harm us?"

"We needed to study energies and how to make
all
energies do our bidding. The most frustrating part of being an alchemist is that we cannot tap into the vast stores of energies used by Vindeia. The priests, paladins, necromancers … we cannot compete with that, even though we can contain raging fires and great healings in tiny jewels. It takes time and the gathering all manner of different energies. We have variety, but we'll never possess your raw abilities."

"That is not a reason to visit atrocities upon other people—or even upon demons," Neikirk said. "Why would the queen permit it? If she wanted to make a more concerted effort to stop the demons—"

"It wasn't about the demons," Issur interrupted.

"Shut up," Whitley hissed.

Sorin scowled. "What was she really planning? What was her true purpose?"

"Vindeia," Koray said. Sorin half-turned his head to look at him. The alchemists cast him hateful looks, but Koray paid them no mind, eyes on Sorin. "I was speaking with some of the necromancers who are back on their feet—the ones who were kept in cages. They banished what ghosts they could before they grew too tired to work. They said the ghosts they managed to speak with said something about growing stronger than Vindeia. I was going to mention it to you, but we …" He shrugged and fell silent.

"I see," Sorin said quietly, too angry to do more than hold still. "Why would she want to attack us? We have never done anything to warrant it."

"We have no political motivations," Whitley said stiffly. "Our interest was in the experiments. How the results are used is of no concern to us."

Neikirk grimaced. "That is exactly why I never had any intention of sharing my lightning incantation."

Whitley and Issur's eyes lit up. "You made a successful lightning incantation?" Whitley asked.

"We're getting off topic," Cerant cut in. "Why would Navath want to attack us?"

It was Neikirk who replied, "There has always been resentment for Vindeia, though it is much further into the country. Being as close to the border as we were, Master, you would not have really encountered it. Those close to the border know how hard Vindeia works to drive back and contain the demons and the 'live and let live' mentally with which they regard us. Further south, much deeper into Navath, they resent that Vindeia controls most of the continent and has always had an excess of power. Nor do they trust what they perceive as 'alarming pagan zealotry'.

Sorin laughed at the description of their worship of the Goddess. "Well, that is an opinion they share with a few countries. It does not bother us what people think of the Goddess or our love for her. The people of Navath once loved her too. It is saddening they have fallen so far from that faith that they would hurt their brothers for having it, for what that faith grants them."

The alchemists said nothing.

"Secure them," Cerant ordered another paladin standing nearby. "No one is to go near them save the five of us and Emel."

"Yes, High Priest," the paladin replied and called for a knight to help him take the prisoners away.

When they were gone, Cerant smiled ruefully at Sorin and said, "Shall we all try going to bed again?"

"I suppose it can't hurt to try," Sorin said with a sigh. "I do not anticipate success, however." He bid them all a good night and followed Koray out. They were halfway back to his tent when the horns announcing visitors sounded, and he let out a long groan. "I hate when I am right. All I want to do is make amends and go to sleep. Why am I not being allowed to do either of those things?"

"Amends?" Koray echoed softly, staring at him. Sorin stared back, afraid to hope, but doing it anyway. "I thought …" Koray stopped as the horns sounded again. Sorin heaved a sigh and headed for the front of camp.

Snagging a passing knight, Sorin said, "See that I am brought tea.
Strong
tea."

"Yes, High Paladin," the knight replied, sympathy in his voice, and dashed off to see the order carried out.

Reaching the front of the camp, Sorin watched as what proved to be fifteen riders burst into camp. By the markings on their horses, just visible in torchlight, and the uniforms of the soldiers and alchemists that comprised most of the party, the queen had arrived.

Sorin hid a grimace and folded his arms across his chest. Koray and Brekk stood on his right, and Cerant and Neikirk stood to his left. "Her Majesty," Neikirk murmured. "I did not expect that she would come herself."

"Oh, I think she had no choice, given what we found," Cerant said. The figure on the lead horse smoothly dismounted, then threw back her hood to reveal a face that might have been pretty were it not set with a cold, severe expression. "Majesty," Cerant greeted.

She narrowed her eyes at each of them before casting her gaze over the camp in general. "There is an alarming lack of respect in this camp. Do you not bow before your sovereigns back home? I am Queen Trellia and I will not tolerate such gross disrespect." On either side of her, four knights and alchemists assembled, tensed for violence.

"Only those who merit such respect receive it," Cerant said. "Our people will not be bowing before you, who brought about the white demons that have killed thousands. We most certainly will not bow before someone who made them with the hopes of eventually deposing us and taking control of Vindeia."

"Who are you?" Trellia snapped.

"High Priest Cerant, Voice of the Goddess and one of the Court of Five, the ruling body of the Holy Kingdom of Vindeia."