Oathen (42 page)

“By all means, call the guards,” Anjoya said.
“I’ll be most pleased to tell them how you and Count n’Gida
conspired with a certain Lady Mist for the further advancement of
your plans for a Vinten empire. You should have destroyed your
poison vial rather than simply dropping it in a palace privy.
Imorlar’s agents are very thorough.”

Several guards arrived, and in short order
they took Aponden and n’Gida into custody and removed them from the
treasury, ignoring their protests of entrapment.

Count Rentos turned to Runcan and Anjoya,
looking bemused. “After nearly three years, it’s finally over. Did
the lady truly marry the Magister before he died?”

Anjoya turned her smile to the wary Counts.
“I’m still awaiting your oaths of fealty, gentlemen.”

~~~

Kemsil heard the door open. “Meena!” he said,
struggling to sit up. “I was hoping you’d come!”

“Don’t you strain yourself,” she said,
striding to his side and pushing him back down. “You’re not healed
yet.”

But he resisted. “I’m not an invalid, woman,”
he griped.

“Are too. For the moment.”

“Is it too late to help me?” he asked, his
eyes lined with pain.

“You don’t look like you’re dead and rotting
to me.” She sat on the edge of his bed and put her hands on his arm
and chest.

Healing rippled through his body, sealing his
wounds. He sighed in relief, slumping with the cessation of
pain.

“You’re welcome.” Meena grasped his hand and
helped him into a sitting position.

He looked down at his healed stump. “I guess
it was too much to hope that it would magically reappear,” he said
in a quiet voice.

“Sorry, Kem,” Meena said, shaking her head.
“I’m not that good.”

“It’s all right. What can you do?” he asked
with a shrug. “My life isn’t fixable. I’m a one-armed man who can
never go home, never have children.” He sighed, looking away. “I
told Geret I wish he had let me die.”

A slow smile came over Meena’s lips; she
looked at him with a secret in her eyes.

“What?” he asked, suspicious.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to do for you
for a long time, Kemsil. Now that the Circuit of Sa’qal is
destroyed—which I don’t blame you for, so you shouldn’t blame
yourself—I have the chance to fulfill my wish. And I’m not taking
‘no’ for an answer,” she added, pressing him back onto the
bed.

“What do you intend?” he asked, his hand
coming up to rest on hers.

She smiled down at him and took his face in
her hands. “Close your eyes.”

He did so.

She leaned over him, pressing her lips to his
forehead in a warm kiss. “This is something only I can do for you,
and after all you’ve done for me, Kem, you deserve it.”

One hand slid into his long dark hair,
grasping it close to the base of his scalp. As he frowned in
puzzlement, the hand jerked his head up and to the side, and
Meena’s other palm slammed into the side of his chin, wrenching his
head around much farther than he’d thought possible. Bursts of
white-hot pain exploded within him as his neck broke.

His vision darkened, and he tried to gasp for
air. With fading hearing, he detected Meena’s voice. “So sorry.
That probably hurt a lot.” She turned his head back to its original
position, then placed a hand on his chest, where his heart
stuttered its last.

Kemsil Urondarei died.

And awoke a few moments later, shuddering and
gasping, limbs trembling. Meena leaned on his shoulders, holding
him down, while the spasms passed. He lay panting under her weight,
trying to get his eyes to focus on her face. With a wince, he
murmured, “I hope that was better for you than it was for
me.”

Meena threw back her head and laughed, her
rich voice echoing in the stone room. “It can be good for you as
well, from now on.” She let him sit up again.

“I don’t understand.” He frowned, still trying
to cope with the fact that Meena had just killed him, and that he
was capable of putting that thought in the past tense.

“Kemsil,” she said, “the banns constrain you
for the rest of your life, but that’s as far as they can reach.
I’ve taken you beyond death. I couldn’t kill you while the Circuit
was actively hiding us from the cult, but since it was lost, I saw
no reason to wait anymore. With your death, the banns have ceased
their hold on you. And if Aldib was able to sense their cessation,
they all think you just died. So, they won’t be hunting you
anymore, either.”

Kemsil blinked, stunned by the sudden gift of
a normal life. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. “I have no
words,” he finally managed to say, “that could possibly approach
the level of gratitude my heart is brimming with. As long as I
live,” he vowed, taking her hand, “I will proudly proclaim the
generosity of the Shanallar. I’ll tell this story to my seventeen
babies and my ninety-six grandbabies—”

Meena laughed. “You might want to discuss that
with Anjoya first!”

“Probably. In the meantime, may I interest you
in testing my newfound freedom? Make sure the banns are really
gone?”

Meena tsked, eyeing him coyly. “You know that
wouldn’t prove anything. I’d survive either way. Stars and
darkness, what insatiable lover of women have I unleashed on the
world?”

Kemsil grinned at her, subtly raising his
eyebrows. “The rarest and best sort: having been resigned to
eternal deprivation of female company, even the most casual of
touches will seem a god’s boon to me. And no woman will be able to
refuse that sort of worship. Not from me, that is.”

Meena shook her head with a smile. Switching
topics, she said, “Ahm’s taking Sanych down to the lowest level of
the castle now; I thought you might like to come watch with
me.”

“What’s going on down there? Will there be
women?” he asked, leaning forward with suave interest.

Meena rubbed the bridge of her nose and
sighed. “Several, I’m sure, though none for you.”

“Alas again.” His expression sobered. “It’s to
do with destroying the
Dire Tome
, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m relatively invincible, but Sanych
isn’t. To keep her alive long enough to help me destroy the
Tome
, Ahm will cast a powerful spell on her.” Meena paused,
looking caught up in faraway memories.

“Come,” she said, pulling Kemsil to his feet.
“Sanych is going to be Oathbound.”

Four hundred years ago

Jacasta dashed to the far end of the stone
chamber, running up the circular steps of the massive dais in the
center of the room, and then down the back side. The book in her
arms felt like it was made of lead. The carven words on the walls
seemed to speak on a level just below her hearing, making her ears
throb. The torch she clutched in one hand threatened to burn her
ear.

“Hurry!” Arisson shouted. He created a
magic-blocking shield as he entered the chamber behind her, then
whirled, swords drawn, to face his attackers. They pelted through
the narrow doorway, nearly on his heels.

A blast of fiery magic that would have
transformed him into a small pile of cinders slid harmlessly past
his shield instead, lighting the entire room for a moment. His
sword flicked out, slashing at the Enforcers as they rushed him.
Two of them died in seconds, and their sprawling bodies slowed
those behind them.

Jacasta flung the book from her, suddenly
feeling its rage upon her skin. Arisson had focused all his energy
into his personal shield, and the shield protecting her from the
book had vanished. His mental apology for hurting her wafted across
her mind. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she called, “Better
me than you.” She opened the
Dire Tome
and began flipping
through the thick pages.

Behind her, more Enforcers and spellcasters
pressed Arisson at the doorway to the Heart of the Dragon. His
melee and magical skills were tested to the limit.

“Yes!” Jacasta cried, slapping the pages flat
as she found what she sought. Focusing her eyes on the shifting
words, she began uttering the spell. A ripple passed through the
book, and a small glassy black orb rose from the page until it
rested entirely on its surface. Jacasta snatched it up, heart
pounding, breath catching.

Not much time.

“Arisson, I have the key!” she shouted. Though
she did not expect a verbal answer, a rush of love reached her
through the Oathen bond. It nearly unmade her; tears flowed down
her cheeks as she grasped her dagger in one hand and the orb in the
other.

Steady
.

His single, clear thought redirected her
resolve. She guided the dagger’s point to the skin over her heart.
With a final deep breath, a final burst of love to her soulmate,
she closed her eyes and plunged the blade into her body, until the
hilt pressed against her chest. Agony swarmed her mind, threaded
heavily with Arisson’s sorrow and love; she jerked the blade back
out and pressed the orb to the wound, growing dizzy and faint as
the black orb siphoned away her life’s blood. Moments later, she
collapsed near the back wall of the chamber.

Just before her world went black, she murmured
to Arisson, “Your turn. I love you.”

She came back to consciousness, seeing a pair
of legs standing over her. One of her husband’s swords lay
discarded by her feet; she took it. A fight of magic and steel
raged all around her as Arisson struggled to fend off the remaining
half-dozen Dzur i’Oth members from the key in his hand, the
Tome
, and his wife’s body.

The dagger was still clenched in her hand. She
reached out and stabbed one of Arisson’s opponents in the calf with
it. The Enforcer yelped, as much with surprise as with pain. She
scrambled to her feet and stood back to back with Arisson. She
sensed his shock and amazement.

“What happened?” he blurted.

“I just died,” she clipped, blocking with her
dagger and stabbing her opponent in the arm with her
sword.

“Again?” His voice was thick with disbelief as
he dodged a pair of sword swings and stabbed another Enforcer in
the ribs. A dozen more Dzur i’Oth entered at the far end of the
room, racing down its length to engage the enemy and recover their
precious
Tome
.

“The key…it’s still full?” she
asked.

He locked hilts with a cultist, then shoved
him away with a kick to the chest. He took a moment to feel the
heft of the object in his off hand. “Yes.”

“The book rakes my flesh off when I get near
it, but I heal, and you don’t, so I’ll use the key. Can you buy me
some time?”

“I can.” Arisson closed his eyes.

Jacasta knew his trick; he was lining up two
layers of his magic-blocking shield, between them and the arriving
combatants. Then he inverted one of the layers. The effect of magic
trying to block itself created a massive magical backdraft. Every
Dzur i’Oth in the room was blasted to the far wall, two hundred
paces away. He turned to Jacasta. “Swiftly, beloved.”

She darted to where the
Tome
lay
against the back wall. The page she needed was right across from
the one she’d read before, yet the book tried to make it impossible
to read the words. She squinted and held the page flat as she
chanted the twisting words, feeling a migraine begin to stomp
through her skull.

The cultists picked themselves up and ran back
toward Arisson. His blade awaited their blood.

“Key!” Jacasta rose to her feet, catching the
orb as Arisson tossed it backward over his shoulder. She slammed it
against the ancient text of the nearby wall. There and then the
portal opened, directly behind the key, expanding a pace in all
directions. A hazy blue glow emanated from the hemispherical
wrinkle in reality. Within, a stone lectern awaited its charge.
Jacasta lifted the large book, shoving it toward the blue
space—

The
Tome
’s consciousness flared to life
in her mind. Its chaotic magic focused on her, intensifying its
destructive rage on her body.

FLASH—A choice awaits the
confiner. How much is she willing to give in order to complete her
task? Only complete sacrifice will do. Only everything will
suffice.

Jacasta staggered in pain, her hands halfway
into the otherworldly dimension. The images the
Tome
placed
in her mind left no doubt as to its meaning: if she pressed the
book all the way through the barrier, the spell of confinement
would require everyone in the room to die.

Including Arisson.

Beloved
. His thoughts were clear in her
mind, a skill she’d never mastered.
My life for the world. Do
it.

The cultists were howling, cursing, screaming
at the top of their lungs. Their voices echoed off the curving
stone ceiling, where a clinging staircase led to the volcano’s
throbbing, molten heart. Arisson braced for their impact upon his
blade. Jacasta glanced over her shoulder at him; her husband was
willing to die by their blades.

But by her hand? What horror was this, to die
at the hands of one’s Oathen? It was anathema!