Sourcethief (Book 3) (16 page)

Celia exchanged pleasantries with the minor
functionaries. She shared a perfunctory "good evening" with General
Westel and inquired about his family. Though she had no affection for the old
stodger, his family was well positioned and it never hurt to be in their good
graces. Lieutenant Shayl, who kept the closest watch on Sir Brannis, chatted
with her a while and informed her about Brannis's state of mind.

"He said there was some fierce magic tonight,
Sorceress Celia," Shayl had told her. "I'd wait for him to finish if
I was you."

Thus she stood outside Brannis's office, waiting.
She gave herself over to the aether as the fading light from the corridor
windows gave way to nightfall and gloom. She stood watching the wards, not even
finding the customary spot that Brannis usually left for knocking upon. Truly,
he wished not to be interrupted.

Her mission was routine, but orders were orders
nonetheless. Caladris had found out that Sir Brannis had been at Dolvaen Estate
for a meeting, and it vexed her superior that Brannis went about on his own,
working toward ends he could not divine.
Find out what he was there for,
Caladris had said.
Take all night, if that is required. Wrest is from
beneath his pants if that's what it takes
. He could be downright crude when
far enough down in his cups.

A sudden blindness came over Celia as the wall of
aether that had been warding Brannis's office went dark. She was disoriented
for a moment, but the light from the ward was replaced by a shining beacon
within the room. Unable to see the door in the aether any longer, she switched
back to the light and allowed herself inside. There was a strange sensation,
even before the door opened. She was unable to place it.

Brannis was inside, hands upon the new speaking
stone he had been working on. A ghastly orange light shone from the crystal,
providing the only illumination in the room save what little starlight entered
through the windows.

"Celia," Brannis shouted, twisting about
to look at her. She was unaccustomed to surprising him; she had thought he
always kept one eye to the aether, knowing her by Source before she even opened
the door most visits. She had assumed he allowed the ward to fall to allow her
inside. "Stay back. I have to draw a dangerous amount to keep pace with
this thing. It is threatening to force back all my aether, I think."

"Brannis, what are you doing?" Celia
asked, shouting over a throbbing sensation that she recognized as coming from
her Source. It fought back reflexively against Brannis's draw. The sensation
grew more pronounced as she entered, though it was a good six paces to reach
him. "Runes shouldn't be doing that. They're glowing in the light."

"I know, but everything should be fine once I
finish filling it, just keep back in the meantime."

"No, something is wrong. Those runes were
complex, but nothing that should be taxing you," Celia said. "Hold it
steady a moment, let me have a look at it."

"Poor idea ... having a hard time ... keeping a
hold as it is."

Celia looked to Brannis himself, previously
distracted by the speaking stone. She noticed the look of pain on his face.
He
isn't going to be able to hold much longer if he doesn't finish empowering that
stone
. She moved closer despite his warning. Rather than feel an increase
in the ache in her Source, she felt it ebb.

"Thank you. Let me have a look," Celia
said. She put her face as close as she dared, peeking around Brannis's long
fingers as they trembled, holding onto the runed device. "I think I see a
flaw inside."

"A flaw?" Brannis shouted with a touch of
panic.

"I doubt you'll get this filled before
destroying it. I'm surprised you haven't already."

"I can't hold it any longer," Brannis
said. "Get away. Run. Out the balcony and jump for it." He bowed his
head over the stone and she felt his draw once more.

"Brannis, you're just making it—"

"GO!"

Celia turned and bolted for the balcony. She tore
open the windowed door and rushed to the railing. She leaned over and he
stomach rose to her throat. The gloom well hid the street below, starlight
shadowed by clouds, but she knew the height of that balcony.

"JUMP!" Brannis shouted. She turned to
look at him. He had picked up the crystal, pulling it close to him, buried against
his stomach.

"I ... I can't!" She looked down once
more, then back to Brannis. She saw him turn his back to her.

BOOM.

* * * * * * *
*

Celia regained her sense of sight, but still saw
floating spots before her eyes. There was a pitched whine that pervaded
everything; she could hear nothing else above it. She screamed Brannis's name
but could not tell if her lungs held any breath to shout.

Dizzy, she slumped against the balcony railing,
surveying the devastation. The room was gone, largely. Kyrus had shielded the
direction of the balcony with his body. Toward the other side of him the blast
had torn the building apart. The sturdy, ancient structure of stacked granite
blocks was open to the air, more a courtyard surrounded by ruined walls than a
proper building. The entire front was ripped open, making Kalak Square visible
from where she sat, illuminated by flames from the explosion. She saw no
bodies, but knew there must have been. She had spoken to too many men for them
to have all exited the building in the few moments since she had seen them.

Kyrus?
She saw no sign of him.

She switched to aether-vision but her aether-sight
was blinded, a wash of indistinguishable blue in all directions. She stood up
to have a look for him in the light, but thought better of it as the balcony
wobbled beneath her. A moment's careful, seated observation told her that it
was she who swayed, not the remnants of the structure.

On hands and knees despite the peril to her dress,
she crawled into what was left of Kyrus's office, enacting a small shielding
spell after she cut her hand on glass shards.

The floor of the room had collapsed, but not
shattered. A sizable chunk lay propped at an angle, forming a ramp down to the
rubble below. If anything was left of Brannis, it would be down there. She
followed the floor down, turning to descend feet-first, but the precarious slab
was not up to the task.  It gave way.

Celia screamed; at least, she imagined she did. Her
ears gave no confirmation, just a continuation of the same whine.

She stopped mid-air before she got the chance to
find out whether her shield was up to a task more demanding than broken glass.
The fire-lit stone jags had come just an arm's reach from piercing her
midsection. She floated along, pulled by magic.

She turned and saw Kyrus—clothes shredded to rags at
the front, seated on the rubble of the ground floor, propped on an elbow. She
drifted toward him. His mouth moved but what questions he might have asked of
her, she knew not. She did not feel the light grip of magic release her until
she was pillowed atop him, gathered in his arms.

The state of immediate shock wore off with safety
apparent. She buried herself in his chest and cried silently against his bare
skin. He stroked her hair and she felt a rumbling in him that must have been
from speaking. Wracked with sobs, with Brannis the one to comfort her, she
could not imagine betraying him.

Caladris and Dolvaen can both
drift in the winds
,
she told herself.

Her arms were tucked up before her as she huddled in
Kyrus's embrace. She felt for a cord about her neck. It ran down to where a
small stone pendant hung, nestled quietly between her bosoms. It had been a
gift from Rashan. It might only work once, he had told her, but it was time to
call for aid.

Treachery, warlock. Brannis
betrayed by-

She felt the stone twitch in her grasp, its magic
spent. She tucked it back in its hiding place and allowed Kyrus to comfort her.

The rushing wind across her ears was the only sound
Juliana heard for hours at a stretch. True quiet was beginning to sound eerie,
as if there was some aspect of the world that was missing. The deck of the
Starlit
Marauder
was growing comfortable beneath her feet. Attuned as she was to
the sound of the wind, she could easily detect a discordant note: footsteps on
the stairs.

"Stay below," Juliana shouted. "If
you need me, give a yell and I'll come down."

The footsteps continued, heedless of her.

"I come prepared," a voice called back to
her. She had known it would be him; his men were afraid of her. She turned to
see the Safschan version of her friend Rakashi carrying a coil of rope, one end
already looped around his waist. He crouched low as he made his way across the
deck.

Juliana tilted the
Starlit Marauder
in a
shallow banking maneuver, forcing Tiiba to scramble for a handhold. She glared
back at him when he turned an angry look her way. It was the sternest look she
could envision on him. Rakashi had always been hard to rile.

"You are still upset," Tiiba commented.

"They sure spent the long coin educating you
now, didn't they?" Juliana turned her attention back to flying, sparing
glances enough to note that Tiiba was tethering himself to the railings.
I
oughtta turn this thing upside down, let him dangle a bit.

"Is all well up here?" Tiiba asked. He was
close enough that he was not shouting to be heard. Juliana refused to turn.

"Everything is fine. Go on back down."

"I cannot help but notice that we appear lost.
We veer and circle too much to escape notice."

"Looking for Denku Appa," Juliana
muttered, daring Tiiba to hear her above the winds.

She felt his hand take her by the chin. She jerked
her head away, having hated the gesture since Rakashi had used it on her as a
girl. It had taken her a year and more to break him of it, but he had gotten
over his need to look her in the eye when talking to her. Tiiba seemed not to
have learned.

"Look at me!" he shouted. Juliana turned,
startled to hear him raise his voice for anything but to drown out the gale of
the
Starlit Marauder's
passing. "What did you just say?"

"I was looking for Denku Appa," she
admitted. "That little island Brannis got stranded on. Seemed as good a
place as any to leave you and your friends."

"Stop the ship. We go in pointless circles
anyway. Come below and let us talk in peace."

She studied Tiiba's mismatched eyes; one was missing
a patch that would have made the resemblance to Rakashi uncanny. There was no
sign that he was willing to negotiate the point. Her eyes flicked briefly to
the rune-blade sheathed at his back. Tiiba's eyebrows raised and he turned his
head as if to say:
violence?

Juliana gritted her teeth, blinked, and shook her
head just slightly. The
Starlit Marauder
came to a halt and drifted
slowly in the breeze. The buckles and straps that kept her at the helm fell
loose as she extracted herself. She shouldered her way past Tiiba on her way
down to her quarters.

She was sitting on the edge of her bunk when he
arrived, coiling up the length of rope he had brought on deck. She noticed
things about him that only Soria's eyes were accustomed to noting: he stood
with his weight to his back foot, his left shoulder foremost to her, the coil
of rope was held between them as he wound it back into neat loops.
He's
worried I might attack him
. She sighed, forcing a smile onto her face.

Tiiba's posture eased. He closed the door behind him
as he entered and set the rope down on a chair. He took a spot beside her on
the bed.

"Decisions can be hard things to make,"
Tiiba said. "The materials from which you build them can make them good or
poor, no matter the skill that goes into crafting them."

"So this is where you try to convince me that
you killed Iridan because you love me?" Juliana said. She did not like the
feeling in her eyes. Her vision was blurring and she blinked to clear it.

"So you think me jealous then?" Tiiba
said, the hint of a chuckle in his voice. He was kind enough to refrain from
actually laughing.

"To protect me then? I admitted we fought,
after all."

"You told me you had to hold yourself back from
killing him," Tiiba said. His tone was as mild as a grandmother's.

"What are you herding me toward, Rakashi?"
Juliana asked.

"You spend so much time with Brannis that you
pick up his habits. Think less, reason more. Why did I kill your husband? I am
Safschan, fighting alongside our Megrenn friends. He slaughtered our troops,
our sorcerers, he cut down three of my brethren: blade-priests, not just
Safschan. I knew them like brothers, but it was not vengeance for them
either."

"Why then?" Juliana asked.

"Because I am a warrior. I met my foe on the
battlefield and slew him. I was the better, the luckier, the one left alive.
That is the way of war."

"Why you, why not someone else?"

"They tried ... and died. Success is the crime
that draws your anger. Because I love you, I never told you it was me. It was a
badly made decision, but built on love," Tiiba said. He put his arm around
her. Juliana sat rigid, unrelenting for the moment in the face of his attempted
reconciliation.

"Not jealousy?" she asked.

Tiiba pulled away from her, gesturing up and down
the length of her with both hands.

"Of this? What warrior babe might issue through
those hips without cracking them like a wishbone? Where would a suckling babe
find his milk? I have seen Soria in the bath pools, and doubt your magic
enhancement will make you any milk. Get us on to Safschan, and I shall
introduce my current mistress and show you what a mother looks like." She
stared after Tiiba as he rose with an amused smile on his face.

"But I always thought—"

"Keep your Brannis. Have skinny sorcerer
children with him if you wish. But keep your thoughts out of my loins. I have
always thought of you as a niece. It disturbs me that you think otherwise of me
..."

Tiiba closed the door behind him.

* * * * * * *
*

The town of Neirasch was nearly deserted save for a
few soldiers who had been left behind to purchase time for the fleeing
refugees. Their lives were the only coin the demon would accept. They looked
fresh, unsullied, grim—and it was an experienced and knowing eye that did the
judging.

Rashan stood at the fore of three-score Kadrin
infantry, freshly disgorged from the
Looming Blade
. It was Rashan's new
favorite among the airships: the largest in the fleet, freshly runed, and
converted from a captured Azzat freighter that had passed through the wrong
waters and caught the warlock's notice. The ship was large enough to
comfortably carry those soldiers and many plundered luxuries.

The defenders of Neirasch held the center of town as
if there was some strategic value to the sturdy little courthouse, the civic
hall, or the communal well. In truth, the library some streets over would have
been their best defense; Rashan knew he was hard pressed to wantonly destroy
books. He guessed at their numbers: fifty, perhaps one hundred depending on how
close their Sources were huddled together and how many were hidden beyond his
vision.

"Same as always, captain," Rashan said
over his shoulder. "Wait for my command then chase down whatever
survives."

"Pretty town you have," Rashan shouted in
Safschan as he began his slow walk to the Safschan defenders. "Will your
wives and children be coming home tonight to weep over your bodies? Of course
if I need to smoke rats from the holes they hide in, they might find that
nothing remains of their homes but ash and rubble when they arrive."

Rashan did not know what to expect from his prey.
The Safschan thus far had defied prediction. From city to city, they had laid
traps for him, ambushed him, fled from him in terror. They had engaged in
hit-and-retreat actions that suggested disciplined leadership then stood
stoically to be massacred with weapons in hand. A few singular individuals had
proven entertaining, though none had yet to pose a challenge let alone a
threat. From the Sources he saw, Neirasch would not provide the first.

"Hold!" A voice boomed. Rashan's eyes
snapped toward the sound. One of the stronger Sources approached him, a
weakling blade glowing in the aether at his back. "I would face you,
demon, in single combat."

"Ah, so you know me," Rashan greeted the
warrior. He was one of the blade-priests the Safschan relied on for the core of
their forces. He was not an impressive specimen of their kind. "Would you
honor me with your name sir? I am afraid the killing of nameless foes leaves
little impression on my mind. So many, so many you see ..."

"I am Diabach, of the blade," the
blade-priest identified himself. He drew his rune-blade.

"Say you understand, and the town is spared,
Diabach," Rashan replied in winter-worn Takalish. He hoped it was good enough
to be understood.

"What manner of curse did you wish on me,
Kadrin dog?" Diabach asked.

"The curse of a shabby vocabulary of insults,
it would seem," Rashan said. He drew Heavens Cry but let it dangle loose
in his hand as he continued. "Dogs are virtuous beasts: they take training
well, are vigilant in their duties, and would die for their masters. Call me a
craven murderer, I quite liked that one. Or how about pestilent blood-merchant?
I think that is my favorite this past season, though once boiled to its core it
makes little sense. It had style and vitriol though and that counts for a great
deal."

"Are you here to fight or talk, Rashan
Solaran?" Diabach asked, rune-blade held forth.

"Very well, my impatient seeker of—"

Bows strummed and arrows flocked to Rashan as if
they were starved and he the last morsel to be had. A dozen and more struck the
warlock's shielding spell and bounced off, all aimed quite remarkably well
toward his head. A handful struck to the skull, two piercing it. All others
were struck easily away.

Diabach took the momentary opening to launch his
attack, sliding one hand down to meet the other near the hilt and attacking
Rashan while he was incapacitated.

Clang!

Heavens Cry struck the blade aside. With his free
hand, Rashan pried the arrows loose from his head and crushed the shafts in his
fist.

"Why do you not bleed?" Diabach asked,
eyes wider than before. "What manner of creature are you?"

"You folk all call me 'demon,' but do you
understand what you say?" Rashan parried twice more, the speed and
strength behind his blade overpowering his mortal opponent's strikes and
driving them wide.

Treachery, warlock. Brannis
betrayed by-

Rashan frowned. It was a rather inconvenient place
for the message to leave off.

"I am afraid I am called to more pressing
business," Rashan apologized, giving a small bow.

The next of Diabach's swings Rashan did not attempt
to avoid. He put out an arm and caught it on his shielding spell, reinforcing
it just before impact. Heavens Cry slammed into Diabach's side, finding the
blade-priest's defenses nearly as formidable. But Rashan had finished toying
with his mouse. The force of the next blow drove the rune-blade right back into
Diabach and Heavens Cry passed through the blade-priest's midsection.

"Two blows. More than I would have
wagered," Rashan spoke to the corpse. "Well done." Rashan gave
Heavens Cry a flick of his wrist to clean it then used the tip to slide the
rune-blade away from the entrails and spreading pool of blood.

"Captain," Rashan shouted back to his own
men. "Have at. Await my return before moving on."

With that, Rashan rose above the Neirasch town
square and disappeared in a sphere of aether.

* * * * * * *
*

A crowd was beginning to gather about the shattered
remains of the headquarters of the Kadrin Army. The debris, the dust, and the
smoke from countless small fires kept them well back of the place, but by
informal accord, a perimeter formed some distance back. That perimeter widened
when a ball of aether arrived from nothingness to deposit Warlock Rashan
between them and the destruction.

"Oh my," Rashan said, sweeping his gaze
across the building. He strode off toward where Kyrus and Celia lay. "I
say," he called out, more loudly, "I do hope you won."

"I might call it a draw. The building lies in
ruins but so do I, it seems." Kyrus swept a gesture to his surroundings
with one hand while the other held fast to Celia. She stirred in his embrace,
twisting to face Rashan.

"He saved me," she told the warlock.

"What befell?" Rashan asked, "Skip
the obvious for now. We shall lead up to that, I am sure." Rashan skipped
from one rock chunk to another—walls, floor and ceiling all jumbled together,
indistinguishable.