War of Wizards (28 page)

Yet somehow, somewhere, King Toth had escaped.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Wights came in through the broken door and ripped apart the two guards who tried to stop them. More wights tore open shutters on the balcony and leaped through the windows and balcony door. The three guards at the door fought back with their scimitars, but wights pulled them limb from limb.

Darik and Ethan would have been killed, too, but Darik’s hands were withered, and he couldn’t grip his sword, and Ethan had grabbed the khalifa and was helping the servant girl drag her back toward the balcony. He spotted the wights coming in from that direction and drew his sword with a cry. Darik moved to his side, vowing to use his life for something, if only as Ethan’s shield.

“Fight and you die,” Chantmer said sharply. “Stand back and live.”

Hajir and Fenerath stood rigid with terror as wights streamed past them, and the wights ignored Chantmer, as well. Darik thought the wizard was right. He had to trust Chantmer’s magic; there was no alternative.

“Put the sword away,” Darik told Ethan.

Ethan did as he was told as the wights encircled them. Rima knelt on the ground with Kallia, but Darik pulled the girl away, and they all stood back apace. Wights clustered around the khalifa, who still moaned and arched her back, but they didn’t touch her.

“What are they doing?” Darik asked.

“You have lost,” a voice said from the doorway.

A figure entered from the hallway, taller even than Chantmer. At first, he looked like any other wight, a pale, glowing shape, but slowly, his features resolved themselves until he seemed almost solid. His eyes were piercing, wizard-like, resembling Chantmer’s, but the prominent nose and the square-cut beard on his rugged jaw made him look more like a king or lord.

His robe was full at the sleeves in no style Darik recognized, and his long, flowing hair was pulled back in a bun on the back of his head and pinned with a jeweled brooch. A crown of interlocking silver leaves encircled his head, held together at the front with a gold sunburst.

Darik knew, without being told, who this man was. He was the dark wizard, the wight of King Toth himself, and he had come to claim the khalifa.

The dark wizard looked around the room. He dismissed most of them with a glance, but his eyes rested briefly on Darik. A cold shiver worked down Darik’s spine, and his knees felt weak.

“The stink of your magic lies about this place,” Toth said. “Yet you are no wizard, you do not have this power. Who is your lord and master?”

“The boy has done nothing,” Chantmer said. “This was my doing, dark wizard.”

Toth regarded him. “Ah, so it was. Chantmer the Tall—I should have known it. But what exactly did you do? The infant delays its arrival, and the time is short. Yet you did not try to kill it. The queen still lives, and the thing growing within her is stronger than ever. You have served me, is that your purpose?”

Darik looked with horror at Chantmer. “What have you done?”

Chantmer raised an eyebrow at him. “I have only done what needed doing. I never served you, nor your queen, only the greater good of this world.”

“And what is it you wish in return?” Toth said to Chantmer. “To stand by my side as I take control of the whole of Mithyl, to be my servant in the final struggle against the cloud kingdoms? Very well, bend your knee, and I shall accept your submission.”

“And if I do? Would you give me this city to rule?” Chantmer asked.

“Yes. You may rebuild the whole of Aristonia, if you wish, and declare yourself the lord and master of it all.”

“A kingdom of the dead,” Chantmer said.

“Why, Chantmer?” Darik cried. “Why would you betray us again? To serve the dark wizard? You want to be his slave?”

“You are still a fool, boy,” Chantmer said. “I am Toth’s enemy. So I have always been. He knows what I have done—his wights have told him—and he is only bargaining. Offering me worthless prizes so that I will turn aside my magic and let him enter.”

Darik and Ethan exchanged confused looks.

“Then why did you say all of that?” Ethan asked.

“Are
you
a fool, as well? I am gloating in my victory, of course. And delaying the enemy while I do so.” A smile came to Chantmer’s lips. “And now it is too late for the dark wizard. The Huntsman’s horn sounds.”

There it was, in the distance. A long blast on a hunting horn. Baying hounds. The noise came through the windows over the din of battle. That horn had once struck terror into Darik’s heart; hearing it meant the Harvester was abroad in the land, hunting, gathering souls. No child heard the Harvester and his hounds without feeling terror that his time had come. But now, hope lifted in Darik’s breast.

The wights seemed to hear the horn at the same time. They tilted their heads and wailed, then fled. Some scrambled over the dead guards to reach the hallway, while others hurled themselves from the windows. Moments later, they were gone. All but Toth. He rushed to Kallia.

Ethan drew his sword and swung at the dark wizard’s wight as it passed. His sword passed through Toth, and he cried out as if burned as the weapon flew from his hands. Ethan collapsed, gasping.

Darik rushed at Toth. A fist of cold air threw him back. It was like a winter gale blowing off the mountains, and he fought to get through it, but it was too strong. The wind pushed the viziers against the wall and threw the servant girl across the floor.

Toth tore open Kallia’s robe to expose her massive, swollen belly. He plunged his fingers into her flesh and was soon inside her up to his wrists. She cried out and thrashed beneath him.

“Help me!” she screamed.

Chantmer threw up his forearm to block the blast of wind. “Fight him! Keep him out!”

“Darik!” she cried. “By the Brothers, help me!”

But Darik couldn’t get through the wind. Toth was now in up to his elbows, and a triumphant smile spread across his face.

“I have won, I shall be reborn. Death has no power over me!”

“No!” she cried.

Kallia grabbed for his face and pushed. For a moment, they were struggling together, and then Toth fell back with a curse. The wind died. The fit left her the instant he lost contact with her body. She sat up, gasping, a hand over her exposed belly. Toth rose to his feet, trembling and shaking, his eyes blazing with rage and hatred.

A sigh at the door, and all eyes turned. The Harvester stood at the threshold. Physically, he looked like a man, middle-aged and strongly built, with a thick, curly beard. But everyone in the room seemed to shrink when he stepped inside.

A bag hung from the Harvester’s belt. It squirmed and writhed with the prey of his hunt. He held scythes in each hand, as if for cutting ripe stalks of wheat, or maybe they were swords. No, it was a hunting bow, with an arrow notched. Every time Darik blinked, the weapons changed.

Rima screamed, or maybe that was one of the viziers. It might have even been Darik; he was almost overcome with terror.

Hounds bayed and barked in the corridor outside the room. For the moment, the Harvester didn’t allow them to enter.

“King Toth, Lord of Aristonia and Dark Wizard of Veyre, your time has come.”

The Harvester’s voice was deep and cold, and it seemed to seep into Darik’s very bones. His knees buckled at that sound, and he almost fell. Something deep within—his very soul—begged him to flee the room, but he could not move.

“You have no power over me,” Toth said.

“You are a mortal soul,” the Harvester said, “and tonight you will come with me.”

“We have fought before,” Toth said. “I have always escaped. Even in this form, I have power.”

Darik stared. Why wasn’t the Harvester moving? Why didn’t he finish it?

“The vessel has closed against you,” the Harvester said with a glance to Kallia. “And you do not have the strength to find another body. Should you escape, generations will pass before you can return.”

“Then go, leave me,” Toth said. “The city is full of wights—gather them before they escape. Do not waste your time hunting me. I am but one soul. What am I to your dark gathering?”

“Tonight, you are everything.”

At last, the Harvester moved. One moment, he was at the door, and the next, he was where Toth was, scythes swinging. His hounds poured into the room, monstrous things the size of lions, with long, slavering jaws that looked more like hyenas’ than dogs’. They sprang snarling toward King Toth.

But the dark wizard was no longer there. He had vanished in a puff of smoke.

The Harvester stopped. His hounds stood whining and baying, then looked up at their master and whimpered.

“Take my soul,” Kallia said from the floor. “Do with it what you will, but do not leave me here to be stalked by the dark wizard.”

“Your time has not come,” the Harvester said.

“Then kill this child growing within me. Toth cannot be reborn through me.”

“What grows within you no longer matters. It has no life force. It will come in due course, but it will not be alive, and your enemy cannot enter it.” With this, the Harvester turned toward the door.

Chantmer had remained quietly near the window, but now he spoke. “Huntsman, do not leave. King Toth has not escaped. Darik, move aside.”

Darik had no idea what the wizard meant, but he moved over to Ethan and the viziers, where they lay trembling in fear and staring at the Harvester with wide eyes.

Chantmer pulled back his sleeves and inspected his arms. He located a small tattoo in the crook of his left arm. From Darik’s position, it seemed no more than a simple rune, the last marking left on the wizard’s body after the long night of magical battles, and he didn’t see how there could be enough power there to have any effect whatsoever.

“
Et erubescant ex omnibus, quæ abscondita sunt.
” 

Darik understood the words:
reveal things that are hidden.
 

The oil lamps burned brighter. Those flames that had blown out in the dark wizard’s blast of wind now relit with flares of light. A dark shape caught Darik’s eye. There, on the floor, like a cord or a belt made of shadow. It stretched from Kallia’s belly to the wall where Darik had been standing. There was another shadow there against the wall, so thin it was no bigger than a water stain on the plaster.

But the shadowy cord grew more solid with each passing moment, until it was quite clearly a heavy chain, each link as big as Darik’s fist. And the thin shadow on the end became King Toth. The chain encircled the dark wizard’s wrists and traveled from them to the khalifa’s belly.

“My magic kept him from entering the new body,” Chantmer said, “but as soon as he reached into the khalifa to touch it, he became bound to the thing nonetheless. He cannot escape it now. Huntsman, Dark Gatherer, Harvester, youngest of the brother gods—your prey is trapped.”

The Harvester came at Toth, scythes swinging. The dark wizard pulled and tugged at the chains, but couldn’t get free. The scythes struck him, whirling. Toth screamed and clawed at the metal blades, but with no effect. Still, each blow did little damage, and Darik began to wonder if the dark wizard’s soul was invincible. But when the Harvester pulled back, Toth stared up with gaping eyes, all reason gone from his face, his features bleeding into a ghostly blue.

And then the hounds came. They barked and bit, tearing and savaging. They ripped off an arm, then a leg, opened the wight’s belly and tore out chunks of whatever substance lay within. And still, Toth’s wight fought and flailed. But he looked like a fish that had been dragged on a hook from the water and thrown onto the deck of a boat, slowly suffocating: mouth gaping, body twitching, but dying.

At last, the Harvester called off his dogs. He bent, and in a quick movement, gathered up what was left as if it were discarded clothing, then stuffed it into his bag. The bag writhed and twisted, and for a moment, Darik saw a gaping, terrified face pressing against the leather from within. Then it was gone.

The Harvester raised his horn and let out a long, piercing blast. His dogs lifted their heads and bayed. They raced from the room into the corridor, and the Harvester strode after them.

For a moment, all stood gaping. Then the khalifa struggled to her feet, and Rima rushed to get a silk sheet from her bed to wrap around the woman’s bare belly. Chantmer stood gloating by the window, gazing out at the palace with such a look of satisfaction that Darik couldn’t stand to look at him. Instead, he followed Ethan across the room, where the man peered timidly into the corridor.

Ethan turned back, his eyes wide. He put a hand on Darik’s shoulder. “We have faced the dark wizard and spoken to the Harvester in the same night, my friend. And we have lived to tell the tale.”

“Yes,” Darik said. “Yes, we have.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Veyre had fallen into their hands, and Markal and Whelan had overthrown the Dark Citadel itself, but before they’d arrived back at the gates of the city, panicked riders galloped up crying that an army of wights was overrunning them. The other wizards from the order—Timothe and Philina—had held them back for a spell, but they’d exhausted their magic and been forced to retreat.

Markal charged after Whelan, expecting to find another desperate battle, but when they reached the gates, Veyrians were throwing down their weapons and surrendering en masse. The king’s men across the battlefield were cheering and embracing, with no wights to be seen. Someone said they had vanished. One moment, wights had been surging onto the battlefield, and the next, they were gone. Ravagers had been leading them, but the undead knights collapsed, motionless, the same moment the wights fled.

Whelan turned to Markal, and his face was full of wonder. “What does this mean? Could it be—?”

Markal could hardly dare hope. “It must be.”

“Then the dark wizard is . . . ?”

“Defeated. He must have been. Wherever he went, his power is broken.” Markal turned toward the Dark Citadel, feeling, sensing. There was nothing emanating from it now, no magic, no foul feeling. It was an empty ziggurat of black brick, and nothing more.