Sword of Shadows (28 page)

“How do you know this?” Borten demanded.

“I went there last night as Fox. I did not intend to enter their camp, but on a whim I wandered inside. That’s when I saw her.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mariel’s tone was distraught, angry.

“Because I thought it best that you—especially you, young maga—did not know.” He met Borten’s gaze. “She’s been claimed by one of the officers, a man of very high rank, though not, I’m afraid, high enough to deserve her.”

Borten lowered his sword, though doubt remained in his expression.

Mariel paced beside them, hands working as if to extract words from the air. “If you had told us, we could have rescued her somehow and brought her with us! We could still bring her with us. She might know where Catarina and Tasha are, and we could all be together again. Whole. A coven, like before.”

She halted and eyed both of them with determination. “We must go back. We have to set her free.”

“Oh, for the love of the Gods, don’t be a fool!” Corey said. “Even if there weren’t an army surrounding Adiana, by now that Syrnte commander has bound her mind to his. In the moment she sees someone she recognizes, he will know. That person will be captured, tortured, and slain.”

“But the girls—”

“The girls are dead.”

Mariel stared at him dumbfounded. Her eyes watered as if he had slapped her in the face.

“I saw it in her aura.” Corey softened his tone. “Everything once dear to Adiana is gone. The girls are beyond our help, Mariel, and so is Adiana.”

“Then why return?” Borten asked with narrowed eyes.

“Because I cannot…” Corey faltered. A self-deprecating laugh escaped his lips. Who would have thought he would succumb to such sentimentality? “I cannot find it in my heart to leave her. During Ernan’s rebellion, when I was arrested in Selkynsen, Adiana was the only one who came after me. Somehow, she convinced Khelia and Rishona to give her a band of warriors that I might be rescued. It was a fool’s mission, and lucky for her by the time they arrived in Selkynsen I had long since been taken to the King’s City. Otherwise she would have died in the attempt to free me, and I helpless to do a thing about it.

“When they missed their opportunity, Adiana sent the warriors back to Ernan and traveled alone to Moisehén. There she waited, day after day, night after night, certain that on any given morning I would be publicly beheaded or burned. She waited because she did not want me to die alone, without a friend nearby.”

Mariel’s brow furrowed. She shook her head. “Mistress Adiana often told stories of the rebellion, but that was not one of them.”

“Likely it displeased her to learn afterwards that I was not languishing in some rancid dungeon, but rather housed as the King’s guest in the sumptuous apartments of the East Tower, a willing traitor to Ernan’s cause. I myself did not hear this story from Adiana. It was Renate who told me. I did not understand how much her devotion had moved me until now.”

Corey looked to Borten. “Adiana is suffering a torturous dismemberment of the spirit at the hands of the Syrnte. I may not be able to save her, but I can bear witness to her fate as a friend, and stand nearby when she meets her darkest hour.”

For a long moment no one said anything. Insects buzzed through the humid air, leaves rustled in the breeze, a chipmunk scampered past their feet.

Mariel turned her back on the men and drifted to a nearby elm, where she leaned against the trunk and watched the woods in silence.

Borten sheathed his sword.

“Go,” he said. “May the Gods be with you.”

Corey nodded and let his gaze linger on Mariel’s slender back before starting on his way.

He had gone some thirty paces when Mariel’s shout stopped him. The girl came running and breathless, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She thrust the staff into his hands. “Take this.”

“Mariel, I cannot risk—”

“Please. The forest tells me you will need it more than I.”

“I see.” He doubted her story, but could not deny the sense of security he found in the resonance of the smooth oak.

“You must tell Adiana—” A sob cut through her words. Drawing a shaky breath, she straightened her shoulders and wiped away the tears. “If you can find a way, please let Adiana know that we are with her. We are always with her. Our love for her will never end.”

Corey wrapped his arm around Mariel and pressed her tight against his chest.

“This,” he murmured, setting his lips upon her forehead, “is why the magas will never be vanquished.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Ehekaht rehoert aenre!

Fire flared through Eolyn’s veins and burst from her palms in twin shafts of red that pummeled the stone wall in front of her, only to be thrown back in a cloud of suffocating heat that expanded until the maga, unable to withstand the blaze any longer, released her spell with a cry of frustration.

Hair singed and robes smelling of smoke, Eolyn stalked forward and beat her fists against the cold rock, before sinking wearily against its unflinching face, cursing Tzeremond and the spell that transcended his death.

“It’s hopeless,” she moaned. “Nothing will break this.”

High Mage Thelyn stepped close, his hawkish nose following the hairline cracks between well-fitted blocks.

“You mustn’t despair,” he said. “Every mage in the City has tried his hand at this ward. You have only just begun.”

Despite the complex layout of Tzeremond’s quarters, Thelyn and his brothers in magic had long ago determined where the secret library must lie. A careful mapping of the apartment had revealed the existence of a room near its center, with no visible entrance. It was here that Eolyn and Thelyn had focused their exhaustive efforts.

“It’s been three days already,” Eolyn said. “Three days is too long.”

By now Akmael would be in Rhiemsaven. Only the Gods knew how much time he had before his first confrontation with the Syrnte.

“We must look elsewhere for our answers,” she said.

“Where else? The libraries of East Selen? We’d waste a quarter moon just getting there and back.” Thelyn stepped away from his examination of the wall. “It’s remarkable. Common hammers and maces shatter upon touching this. Even a red flame cast with all the fury of a High Maga cannot leave a scar. I would very much like to have this ward. Let us hope it, too, is somewhere inside.”

Eolyn groaned and let her head fall back against the wall. She covered her face with aching hands. Her shoulders were stiff, her stomach sour from having channeled so much destructive magic without the aid of a staff. They had tried every conceivable trick in their attempts to unravel the ward. She knew no spell more aggressive than the flame she had just cast.

She turned her ear to the rough stone.

“Would you deny me your knowledge even now, Tzeremond?” she whispered. “Our country is under siege, your King in danger. I know you have no love for me, but it is said you once loved our people. For their sake, please. Let the echo of your voice return.”

The stone remained silent.

Eolyn ran her fingers through her hair in dismay.
It’s no use
.

“Perhaps we should rest,” Thelyn said. “Return later this evening, or tomorrow.”

Muffled laughter followed his words, the belabored wheezing of an old crone.

Eolyn straightened and glanced down the darkened corridor that led to the other rooms. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

Again, the crone laughed.

“It sounds like it’s coming from inside the wall,” Eolyn said.

Don’t try too hard, child,
a woman cackled,
or you’ll break your teeth!

Eolyn gasped when she recognized the voice.“Impossible.”

“What?” Thelyn demanded. “What did you hear?”

Shaking off her doubt, Eolyn rose and set both hands upon the wall. She drew a deep breath, intent upon acting before reason undermined instinct. The invocation fell from her lips as more of a question than a command.

“Ghemena?”

The wall remained silent.

Blood rose hot to Eolyn’s cheeks. She felt like a fool. “Curse it all! You are right, Mage Thelyn. We should rest, for I am at my wit’s end, and subject to the whims of a woman gone mad.”

Thelyn drew a breath to respond, but was interrupted by a thump from within the wall, followed by the scraping of stone against stone. A long slow hiss of air released into the room, like the sigh of a weary lover, carrying the stale odor of dusty parchment.

Thelyn laughed out loud, strode forward, and extended his arm into the space revealed by the parting of the wall. “Three years and countless mages, when all we needed was a maga with the right word! Corey will be overcome with envy at not having been here to witness this.”

Eolyn stepped away from the shadow-filled passage, wary of what might lay inside. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I. Why would your student’s name hold the key?”

“Not my student. My tutor, the woman who adopted me. Ghemena of Berlingen.”

Thelyn’s countenance lost some of its levity. He raised his brows and looked toward the doorway.

“Ah,” he said.

“Ah?” Eolyn repeated, bewildered. “Is that all you can say? You knew him better than I could have ever hoped to. Surely you must understand this mystery. What does it mean?”

“I suppose it means the old wizard was a young man once, and like any mage, subject to the whims of
aen-lasati
. Doyenne Ghemena would have been a worthy choice for Tzeremond’s discerning temperament. She was one of the few of their generation who matched him in skill and knowledge.”

“Impossible,” Eolyn said. “Tzeremond hated the magas, all of them.”

“Did he? Don’t misunderstand me, Maga Eolyn. Tzeremond never lost the opportunity to remind us of the ruin the magas brought to Moisehén, and the danger he believed they posed to our kings. He undertook the duty of destroying them with genuine determination. But every mage has a heart, or so Caradoc taught us, and thus we must surmise that Tzeremond loved someone once. Ghemena of Berlingen is as likely a candidate as any I can imagine.”

“He ordered her abbey destroyed! Berlingen was razed, and all within murdered.”

“No, in fact.” Thelyn leaned upon his staff. “That is a story I can tell. Kedehen wanted Berlingen obliterated. He was certain the abbey had given refuge to the magas during the war, and thought it a nest of sedition. Tzeremond argued against the strike, out of concern—as the story is told—for the treasures held in its library. Though given what we’ve just witnessed here, perhaps he was worried about more than the burning of books. Kedehen ignored Tzeremond’s counsel, as you well know. And Berlingen is no more.”

Eolyn shook her head, unable to reconcile this version of history with everything her tutor had told her. “Ghemena despised him. She blamed him for everything. The deaths of the sons of Urien, the crowning of Kedehen, the start of the war, the persecution of her sisters, even her own exile. Never once did she even hint that they might have…”

A shiver ran through Eolyn, like the icy caress of a winter wind. For an ephemeral moment, the cottage of her childhood took shape around her. She felt the warmth of blankets and furs, and inhaled Ghemena’s sweet aroma of old age and quiet places.

He was handsome, if you can believe, with a unique color to his eyes,
a piercing amber brown that could leave a young maga like me very unsettled.

Words uttered one Midwinter’s Eve, a few sentences lost in a long night of storytelling.

She looked up at Thelyn, as if he might hold the key to the mysteries of the Doyenne’s heart. “Ghemena detested Tzeremond and everything he represented. She never could have loved him.”

The mage studied Eolyn with an odd expression, as if she were the misplaced piece of some curious puzzle. “Perhaps Tzeremond’s affections were not returned. Though as you must know, Maga Eolyn, it is one of the continuing mysteries of Primitive Magic, how many are driven to despise the very people they once loved. Of course, now both of them have been delivered to the Afterlife, so we may never be certain what really happened.”

Eolyn wrapped her arms around her, a chill on her skin.
How many more secrets did Ghemena keep from me?

Thelyn ignited an amber glow in the crystal head of his staff. He nodded toward the library. “Shall we?”

They stepped into the room together, pausing just beyond the doorway while their eyes adjusted to the dim light.

“We will have to send for candles,” Thelyn observed.

Even as he spoke the shadows lifted, revealing a windowless room in somber shades. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling. On these lay countless tomes, scrolls, and loose sheets of paper neatly stacked under polished stones.

What space was not occupied by books was filled with artifacts of magic. Eolyn recognized tools hailing from places as far away as Galia, Antaria, the Paramen Mountains, and even the lands of the Syrnte. Interspersed among them were unfamiliar objects of enchantment, the origins of which she could not place.

Thelyn had lapsed into a reverent silence.

Eolyn left his side and wandered into the room, skirting tables laden with bulky piles of books until she came to a broad desk. She laid her hand upon its smooth surface, a single wide plank cut from the heart of an ancient oak. On the polished wood sat his quills, a dry inkwell, and more stacks of paper and books. One volume lay open, the richly illustrated page marked with a charcoal ribbon.

At Eolyn’s feet sat an ironwood box carved with strange symbols. Before considering the consequences, she bent to open it. Nothing lay inside except a length of dark silk.

Eolyn stood, holding the musty cloth in her hands. A sense of mourning crept into her heart.
There is anger here, and much sorrow.

“Something was destroyed in this place,” she murmured. “Something of great value.”

“Let us hope it was not what we seek,” Thelyn replied.

Eolyn scanned the long shelves, warped under the weight of Tzeremond’s massive collection. She let go a heavy sigh. “I thought the difficult part would be getting in here, but look at this. It would take years to read through it all, and we have at most days. How will we even know where to begin?”

“I will send for scribes and mages to assist us.” Thelyn crossed into the room and took a place at her side. “In the meantime, I think we can find the answer to your question by considering another: What was the last spell that Master Tzeremond cast?”

Eolyn blinked and met Thelyn’s eyes. “The one he used against me. Ahmad-dur.”

A grin broke on Thelyn’s face, and despite the thread of horror that always returned with the memory of Tzeremond’s attack, Eolyn found the mage’s satisfaction contagious.

“Of course!” She reached for the open tome, heart leaping with hope. “Let us start where Master Tzeremond left off.”