A Thread in the Tangle (42 page)

The only way to reach the pinnacle was by teleportation runes that bore the Archlord’s runic eye, and to her knowledge, the only people allowed access were Isek, Oenghus, and herself.

Since the sun was shining, she walked to the Spine by way of the curtain wall.
 
By the time she was half way across the battlements, the brisk sea breeze had raised goose bumps on her shoulders, leaving her shivering and cold.
 
Despite her discomfort, she stopped to lean over the wall, watching the waves crash against the cliff face far below.

A hand seized the nymph’s belt, pulling her to safety just as she had decided to try levitating down for a closer inspection.
 
Isiilde straightened, but the scolding she was prepared to deliver died on her lips the moment she saw who had ruined her planned expedition.

“I know that look, foolish fire Imp.”

“I am not an Imp, Rashk,” Isiilde said, crossing her arms.
 
“I’m a nymph.”

“So you say, but I begin to wonder,” Rashk mused, leaning casually against the battlements.
 
The Rahuatl’s bronze skin gleamed beneath the sun, highlighting her ritual scarring and the ceremonial needles of ivory poking through her exposed skin.
 
She wore her sun bathing outfit, a sparse loincloth and little more.
 
No one ever told the Wise One to put her clothes back on as they did Isiilde, and what was more, Rashk had far more to display than the faerie.

“If I were a fire Imp then I’d have flown from here long ago.”

“True,” Rashk said, giving one of her braids a firm tug—a rare gesture for the otherwise unaffectionate Rahuatl.
 
Rashk glanced at the floating tray behind her and arched a hairless brow that had been imbedded with ivory studs.
 
“You go to your master?”

“If I can find him.”

“He is in audience and smells restless,” the woman warned, studying her claws.
 
“I have heard of your hunt with Grimstorm.
 
Too bad for us that the Imp lived.
 
Tell him to bite its head off next time.
 
Mice play dead and so do Imps.”
 
Isiilde tucked that bit of information away, however, she didn’t think she’d try it when she caught the fiend.
 
Rashk’s dark eyes narrowed and her black lips thinned.
 
She touched Isiilde’s cheek with one cool claw, running the flat of the little blade down her skin in a manner more caressing than threatening.

“You smell different, child, not so young anymore,” Rashk grinned knowingly, showing off a row of pointed teeth.
 
“Your scent is ripe.”

“It is?” Isiilde frowned, wondering what the Rahuatl meant.
 
“Is that bad?”
 
Sometimes their language didn’t translate well, but then again, that was true of their entire culture.
 
Once they were as reviled as Voidspawn, but in actuality, the Rahuatl detested the Void as much as the Blessed Order.

Rashk cocked her head to the side and then began to laugh, a sound that rumbled from her taut belly.
 
“For you maybe.
 
Keep your claws on today and stay close to Grimstorm, but if you value my advice, then stay closer to your master.”

“I had planned as much.”

“Go then, and when next we meet, I hope your teeth are sharpened.”
 
Rashk chortled softly at this last, but instead of questioning her further, the nymph pressed her palm against the woman’s in the ritual of farewell and headed inside.

The throne room was located on the first floor of the Spine, so she skipped lightly down a winding stairwell, appreciating the echo of her singing in the spiraling emptiness.
 
A door from the little used stairwell led into a connecting hallway, which she took, making her way down two more corridors until she arrived in the Grand Entrance Hall.

Isiilde took a moment to gawk at the domed ceiling, which had been subsequently painted and enchanted with a myriad of constellations that mirrored the cycle of the night sky.
 
A successful use of the Gift, unlike Lispen’s whirlpool of chaotic energy churning above the floor in the adjoining chamber.
 
Beyond the outer sanctum, sat the Hall of Judgment, where the Nine held council.

Steeling herself, she walked past the archway that led to Lispen’s folly, setting her eyes on the throne room, which was flanked by two guardian statues that dominated the end of the hall.

The prodigious twin doors were imposing, two solid barriers of titan metal, smooth as glass and nearly seamless, unadorned save a circle of runes.
 
Surprisingly, they were not wards, but rather runes of warning, cautioning all who dared to enter against ill intent, lest the hounds awaken.

The guardian hounds sat patiently at their post.
 
Their stone forms rippled with stagnant muscle and the tips of their alert ears reached towards the stars on the ceiling.

The nymph shied from their gleaming eyes and grinning maws.
 
Their expressions were so comical that they bordered on terrifying, like a grim jester she had once seen in Coven’s Square, with painted face and plastered smile.
 
The visage had haunted her dreams for a fortnight.

Faced with the giant hounds, the warning on the doors was troubling, but none of the Wise Ones really knew what would trigger the hounds, or if they would awaken at all.
 
‘Ill intent’ was a vague term, and as Oenghus had confided, everyone and their mother wanted to ring the Archlord’s neck.
 
So whatever the hounds guarded, it certainly wasn’t the Archlord.

When it came to their own stronghold, she thought, Wise Ones were not very knowledgeable.

Beyond the doors, was a place of emptiness.
 
It would take all her courage to cross this chamber without an escort, but her desire to find Marsais was strong, and it spurred her onwards like a frightened horse.

Isiilde nudged the heavy doors open, and slipped through the crack, stepping into a dimensionless universe of obsidian, all polished darkness and glossy reflection.
 
Then she ran, keeping her eyes downcast, focusing on the tips of her boots.
 
Obscured shadows drifted in the stone’s reflection, like bodies trapped beneath a frozen lake of blackness, features blurred and twisted with immortal agony.

The chamber was wrong, everything about it pricked and needled her senses, screaming at her to flee.
 
And she was not alone in her fear.
 
The Wise Ones did not speak of the chamber, refusing to put a name to what was better off forgotten.
 
It was a dirty little secret, rotting in the center of the Spine like a festering disease.

Marsais usually met her in the entrance hall, so he could escort her through the chamber.
 
Once, she had asked him about the nameless place, and he answered with silence.
 
She thought he would not speak at all, but then he finally did, saying she was wise to fear the chamber—that was all he said, and he never spoke of it again.

Relief washed over her when she stepped into the throne room.
 
It was a columned monstrosity whose ceiling was lost in shadow.
 
Again, this wasn’t one of the nymph’s favorite places, but she tolerated it far better than the previous room, focusing on the rays of weak light that shone from stained glass windows high on the walls.
 
Here, the stone mirrored the exterior of the Spine.
 
Veins of gleaming quartz spiraled up the forest of monolithic columns; each pillar a masterpiece of brilliance.

The cavernous hall would have been beautiful if not for the ring of faces that had been chiseled around the base of each column.
 
The sculptor had taken exquisite care to carve ears, eyes, and mouth for his creations, but then in some moment of madness, someone had come along and desecrated the stone faces.
 
Their eyes had been gouged, their ears chopped off, and the mouths chiseled down with brutish carelessness.
 
Like the chamber before, Isiilde feared those faces, not for their ghastly appearance, but for the methodical way in which their disfigurement had been carried out.

The throne room was vast, and it was easy for the nymph to move stealthily along its edges towards the two men conversing at the far end.
 
As she tip-toed from pillar to pillar with her tray trailing silently behind, their echoing voices began to take shape; one belonged to Marsais, and the other to Tharios.

“Yes, I have read all of your reports on Lachlan,” Marsais was saying.
 
“However, I will not yield on this matter.”

At the sound of his authoritative voice, giggles threatened, which was always the case when he spoke with his ‘Archlord’ voice.
 
Others found his manner intimidating, but Isiilde found it amusing, because it was so unlike her Master.
 
“You know my reasons.”

After ensuring that the tray was out of sight, she crouched behind a pillar not far from the two, and poked her head around to survey the scene.

“Unfortunately, reason and your name are rarely found in the same sentence,” Tharios remarked so reasonably that it was easy to overlook his sardonic words.
 
“No one has ever known your reasons, Archlord.
 
You let your whims guide you, steering this Order haphazardly, with no clear path for the rest to follow.”

Isiilde glared at Tharios, disliking the tone he was using with Marsais.
 
His manner was reminiscent of the way Zianna often spoke to her.
 
She tilted her head, studying the two, realizing that Tharios wasn’t as handsome as she once thought.

Oh, to be sure, he was fashionable enough, wearing a high-collared robe of misty silk that showed off his lean physique.
 
His raven hair gleamed in the shadows and his pale face was as smooth as alabaster.
 
But now, observing the two side by side, she realized there was something wrong.
 
Tharios was like a painting that was beautiful at first glance, but the more one stared and studied, the image became disturbing.

In comparison, Marsais was aged, hardened by time and stronger for it.
 
His long white hair was the snowy crown of an ancient mountain, and his high cheekbones had been honed by the salt and sea, while his eyes were steel and his patience limitless.
 
The throne where he sat was jet black as the nameless chamber, cold, remorseless obsidian that contrasted sharply with the crimson of his robes.
 
Unlike Tharios, Marsais had nothing to hide beneath his noble brow.

“I refuse to be goaded in the direction for which you’re aiming,” Marsais said at length, unhurried and calm.

“My apologies,” Tharios said.
 
“I am simply frustrated by your decision—many of us are.”

“If enough of you were frustrated than I would have been overruled at council.”

“But you could influence them.”

“I certainly could if I were not suspicious of Lachlan’s motives,” Marsais agreed.

“I fail to see what Lachlan has done to warrant such suspicion.
 
He is a reasonable man.
 
A cultured man with a clear vision of unity for his people.
 
He seeks our support, because in us, he sees a like minded ally.
 
Throughout history, our Order has stood for the very things that he values; to rule through wisdom, not by force.”

Isiilde had to admit that she didn’t quite see what the issue was either.
 
The South was fragmented, full of warring Thanes and petty land disputes.
 
Surely stability would bring peace?

Marsais began chuckling softly.
 
Something flashed in the dim light, attracting her attention, drawing her eyes to the end of his long goatee, where three hollowed coins were woven into his braid.
 
Their musical clinking seemed to mimic his amusement.

Isiilde had never seen the coins in his hair before.

“Hmm, perhaps you should spend more time perusing our libraries,” Marsais mused.
 
“Allow me to give you a brief lesson in history.
 
You see, every man starts off much the same as this Lachlan.
 
Every king begins with good intentions in his own mind, but then the lure of power calls to him in the night.”
 
Marsais leaned back, resting his elbows on the armrest, steepling his elegant fingers.

“His eyes are enticed by a river, a single mile beyond the borders of his kingdom, so what does the king do?
 
Simple really, he seizes it for his people, in the name of good.
 
Then his ego swells, and with his brains between his legs he charges heedlessly onward, taking what is not even needed, until he finds himself in his dead neighbor’s bed, mounting another man’s queen.
 
What does history whisper to us from the past?” Marsais hissed.
 
Not waiting for an answer, he pressed relentlessly on, “The king’s eyes drift again, this time to the next border, and he embarks on a vicious cycle, unquenchable and pointless.
 
I will not tie the Isle to a path with no end.”