Dark Magic (66 page)

This one, she thought—knew!—she would not confront. The occult power he wielded was too great: she could feel it in her bones, in the membrane of her flesh, and she felt a terrible certainty that Anomius was right in his assumption that only the three she sought held the key to his defeat. She watched in tremulous silence as he lowered his arms, thankful when the oppressive weight of his magic eased and the air grew once more still.

She watched as he went to the weary horse and rummaged in the saddlebags, bringing out the makings of a fire, a tinderbox, and chunks of dried dung. Watched still as he arranged those things and sparked a flame. Then, despite all she had seen in both her lives, thrust a knuckle between her teeth and bit down hard to prevent herself gagging as she watched him prepare his meal.

Now she understood the nature of the dismembered bodies she had seen, the reason limbs were missing, as if the corpses had been butchered: butchery was what it was.

She watched as Rhythamun set part of a man to roasting, casual as if he spitted a haunch of venison or a rib of beef over the fire. The sweet, porky smell of sizzling human flesh overcame the scent of the grass, and Cennaire fought the urge to vomit, thinking wildly that for all she had done, for all Anomius had
made of her, there yet remained depths to which she would not—could not!—sink. She felt a dreadful revulsion, and that became a kind of clarification—that this creature she observed was sunk lower into evil’s mire than any living thing should go; that whatever ends were sought, limits existed still, past which a step like this carried a being beyond the pale of understanding, beyond the pale of reason.

She swallowed the bile threatening to spill out as Rhythamun gnawed on his horrible feast and tossed the bone aside. Watched as he rose and strolled to the rimrock of the chasm, peering down as if in anticipation of some arrival.

Whatever he had summoned did not come that day, or the ensuing night, which Cennaire spent huddled in the grass, afraid for the first time since Anomius had made her what she now was; not until noon of the next, awful day.

Then, climbing up through the heated haze that shimmered the light along the edges of the Kess Imbrun, she saw riders ascend the rim of the Daggan Vhe. Five men on small, shaggy horses, all clad in outfits of cotton and leather and link mail, short, heavily curved swords sheathed on their waists, bows slung in leather buckets behind each saddle, and lances booted before. They clattered and clinked as they surmounted the precipice and halted, heads hanging, their eyes vacant, looking nowhere.

They were short, she observed, and—when Rhythamun barked a command that wafted the almond scent of magic heavy on the morning wind and they dismounted—bowlegged, with long, oiled hair hanging in ringlets from beneath their conical helmets, nets of mail cut with eyeholes dangling from the forward edges. Each, like sleepwalkers, raised the concealing metal veils, and she saw their faces were broad and squat, the cheekbones high and steeply slanted beneath angled eyes that seemed almost feline in their yellow hue. Their skin was the color of old, oiled leather, darker than any Kern’s, and cut deep
with lines that radiated from the eyes and the mouths, curving down from nostrils to lips, so that their ages were unguessable. Three wore mustaches, thin and waxed, sweeping in parentheses to the lower edges of their angled jaws; two sported beards, thin, stiff triangles of blue-black that jutted proudly despite their shambling, entranced posture.

She watched as Rhythamun inspected each one, carefully; as would, she thought, a man inspect a horse he thought of purchasing, checking posture and muscles, assessing stamina and strength and speed. Then she heard the wizard speak again, and again smelled the scent of almonds on the warm wind, and again stifled a cry of surprise as the Jesseryte warriors snatched out their swords and set to fighting.

It was a brief and bloody combat that, at the end, left one standing alone, the rest stretched bloody on the grass, he cut, though not badly, his sword and the wide-bladed knife he had used smeared from hilts to tips with gore. Rhythamun laughed obscene approval at that victory, and waved his hands, mouthing guttural words that sealed the man’s cuts and sent him to pitching the slain, one by one, into the depths of the Kess Imbrun. Another command, another waft of almond scent, and the horses followed the men, tumbling over and over into the chasm to crash, lost, onto the rocks below.

Then Rhythamun beckoned the surviving Jesseryte toward him.

Cennaire watched as the warlock clasped his hands tight upon the man’s shoulders, the almond scent stronger now, surpassing all other smells as Rhythamun spoke, each word seeming to burn on the air, a fierce, red glow growing between his mouth and the Jesseryte’s, the sense of power palpable, like the enormity of a building storm. It seemed then that the grass bent, blown by an occult wind, and Cennaire crouched lower, afraid, knowing that this wizard was one mightier than Anomius, and that if he sensed her presence she must surely be dead, or worse.

Even so, she could not tear her eyes away, and consequently saw the sudden rush of indescrible power that flooded between Rhythamun and his victim as the arcane chant ended and the mage possessed his new body.

What had been Daven Tyras fell, like a string-cut puppet, down into the grass. For a while the Jesseryte stood, head hung, long streamers of spittle dangling from his lips, his yellow eyes blank. Then, as if the connecting strings of his mind were tugged by a new master, his head snapped up and his eyes focused. He laughed, and Cennaire flinched at the naked obscenity of the sound. He wiped the drool from his mouth, glanced, chuckling, at the body of Daven Tyras, and stooped to bring a small black book from under the shirt. It was a slender volume, insignificant save in the sense of power that radiated from it, an aura that set Cennaire’s teeth to clenching, her skin to tingling. It was, she knew beyond doubting, the Arcanum, and for a sole, wild instant, she thought of rushing forward to snatch it from the warlock’s hand. But what then? He would destroy her—of that she felt no doubt—and neither Anomius or her own revenant strength could protect her from his magicks. She forced herself to calm, to stillness, watching as Rhythamun dragged the vacated body to the precipice, tossing it after the others.

Then he mounted the one remaining horse and rode it down into the Daggan Vhe.

Cennaire remained where she was until the last echoes of the descending hooves faded into the vast silence of the chasm, and then a while longer, reluctant to risk discovery, convinced that even from the depths of the canyon Rhythamum could strike against her. Finally she crept, slowly and cautiously, to the rim, flattening there to peer down. Far below a toylike shape moved, dark against the sun-baked rock, its progress inexorable as a spider’s down a wall. Cennaire watched until man and animal were no
more than a blur, and then indistinguishable from the shadows cast by the overhanging bluffs.

Slowly, no longer so frightened but still confused, she retreated from the edge of the Kess Imbrun to settle in the grass, thinking over what she had seen and learned.

In all the world, she thought, she was the only one to know Rhythamun’s new face. She glanced at the satchel containing the ensorcelled mirror—should she summon Anomius and tell the wizened sorcerer what she knew? How should he then command her?

To go after Rhythamun?

That was a notion for which she felt scant appetite.

And, a further consideration, had Anomius not told her the three questers alone held the unlocking of the shape-shifter’s magic?

More—the thoughts tumbling one over the other in wild array—might this not be a gambit she could use to her advantage? She alone knew Rhythamun’s Jesseryte face—which must surely provide a bargaining point with the three. And Anomius had ordered her to join them, to inveigle herself into their company. How better, then, than to offer guidance to the wizard’s new shape?

And more again: if they commanded the magicks that might defeat Rhythamun, might they not also command such power as could free her heart, release her from Anomius’s dominance? Surely, in return for what she might now offer, they would aid her in that.

She nodded, staring unblinking into the face of the high, hot sun, a decision reached: she would not bring out the mirror to commune with her master, but seek to use this knowledge to her own advantage. What she now knew, she would communicate to the questers alone—carefully, maintaining her role—and look to bend events to her own gain.

Satisfied, she settled down to wait.

W
HEN
she saw the riders approaching, she felt genuinely thankful, for her own sake, as if she were, truly, lost. She watched them, crouched in the grass, until she was certain they were not clansmen, then rose, waving and calling.

They came toward her at a canter: a beautiful woman, whose flaxen hair streamed out, glinting in the morning sun, mounted on a grey horse; a dark-skinned Kern astride a big black stallion, his hair black and bound in a long tail, his eyes hard and blue as he sighted her; a younger man, tanned dark, but Lyssian to judge by his features and the sun-bleached mane that he wore in the Kernish style, his expression puzzled.

Cennaire ran toward them and they slowed, eyeing her curiously, hands lightly touching their swords’ hilts, glancing round as if anticipating some trick, wary of ambush.

“Praise all the gods you’ve come,” she cried. “My name is Cennaire.”

THE END, OF THE SECOND BOOK.