Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (40 page)

Talinus snorted. “No surprise there. There’s not much love
lost between my kind and the Fey.”

“Pity,” said Danica. “Although that was rather easy, don’t
you think?”

Elias fixed his black eyes upon Talinus, who grew still
beneath his glare. “Maya called you a Dark Fey. What do you suppose she meant
by that?”

“What, like a fairy?” Danica asked.

Talinus grinned and showed Duana his teeth. “I’ve gone by
many names. To the dark skinned people of the southern continents you may well
appear a demon, or a God. There’s no accounting for taste, Duana.”

Elias frowned down at Talinus and then exchanged a long look
with Danica. He hadn’t expected Talinus to give him a straight answer, but the
imp’s reaction told him that he had stumbled upon something. It seemed to Elias
that every time he answered one question a half-dozen more sprang up in its
place. The more he learned, the more he realized how little he actually knew.

Elias sat down, hugged his legs, drew the cloak he had taken
from one of the dead Senestrati about him, and prepared for the long wait until
midnight.

†

“He’s alive.” Though fear grasped her tight in its icy
fist, Eithne took a step toward Mirengi. “You’ve haven’t found my Marshal yet.”

“It matters not,” said the maimed former Prelate, “he
delivered you to me, as I knew he would. That I don’t have him as an audience
for the ritual only takes the sugar from my tea.”

“Impatient whelp. You had him in your grasp, but let him go,
because you couldn’t wait until your assassins located me on their own. Tell
me, do you think the gambit was worth it? Knowing that the man that did this to
you is still out there? That he might yet return to foil you?”

Sarad folded his hands and peered at her with his milky,
pupilless eyes. “I see what you’re trying to do. It won’t work. You think to
goad me into striking you down, so that I can’t perform my ritual. I’m not that
vapid. I didn’t masquerade as a cleric for over a decade only to fall prey to
the machinations of a child-queen in the final movement. Come midnight, I will
break the spell that your ancestor bound to your bloodline. The magic that
endures in you will be undone. House Senestrati will return.”

“You still have enemies. Your masters will not hold this
land uncontested.”

“Once the ritual is complete, no force born of this earth
can stop us. If you think me unsufferable, be glad that you will not live to
bend knee to the power I serve. This kingdom alone will not satisfy them, they
will rule the continent. Your Marshal best hurry, backed by more than his sword
and his sister. He has six hours before you, and this age are no more.”

†

“It is time,” Talinus said. “I can feel Sarad amassing
his power.”

Elias, who still sat with his back to Danica’s, tilted his
head back and rested it against hers. The long wait was over. At last he would
have either satisfaction, or rest. He had delved into his memories and tried to
remember everything his father had taught him, but there was simply too much. He
knew that he would have to trust in his instincts and hope that he had learned
his lessons well. Like the morning before an important exam at the schoolhouse,
pouring over last minute notes did little good. One had to surrender to the
fact by that late hour that they either knew the material or did not. Instead
Elias sought the void and surrendered to the quiet core of him that he found
there.

“Those tattered rags don’t much suit you, Duana,” Talinus
said and threw a brown bundle at his feet.

“What’s this?” Elias asked and took a knee before the pile. What
he saw took his breath. “Father’s duster.” As he unfolded it he found hidden
inside the scabbard for his sword, his father’s shield, and hat. He cast aside
the second hand cloak and ill-fitting scimitar scabbard he had procured from a
fallen enemy. He looked up at the imp, who wore an almost kindly expression. “How?”

“I’m bred of the old blood. I can pass unseen when I wish
to.”

“Thank-you, Talinus.”

“What,” said Danica, “nothing for me?”

“As a matter of fact,” Talinus said and pulled another
bundle from nowhere.

Danica took the rope from him. Stiff, thick and some sixteen
feet long, the rope had a waxy, fist-sized knot at one end. “One of the ropes
that Slade bound me with. I had left this behind.”

Talinus padded close to her. “Take what your enemy has used
against you and make it your own. Possess it. When their tools have no power
over you, you will be free.”

Danica locked eyes with the imp. She nodded. “Let’s go,
brother. We don’t want to be late for the party.”

The siblings walked to the foot of the wytchwood. Elias laid
a hand on the trunk. “We’re ready, Maya.”

Without delay the wytchwood emitted a green light, which
originated in the heart of the trunk and burst out in brilliant aureole that
encircled the entirety of the tree and pushed into the mossy earth at its feet.
Motes of white light flitted around the energy field, and Elias knew
instinctually that each was as alive as he.
Luck to you, Starchild
,
Maya’s voice whispered in his mind.

A sense of weightlessness washed over him then and he felt
as light as the energy that surrounded him, and as expansive. The impression of
expansion grew greater yet until he lost all awareness of his body. He felt his
being
shift
—that was the only term with which he could begin to
articulate the experience—and then he found himself standing beneath the boughs
of the sister wytchwood in the royal gardens.

Wytchwood

Elias crouched close to the trunk of the wytchwood and
leaned against it until he recovered his equilibrium. He looked to Danica whose
wide-eyed expression told him all he needed to know about her feelings on the
short trip. Elias adjusted his sword baldric and whispered, “If Talinus is
correct, the illusion that obscures the aspect of the wytchwood should hide us
as long as we remain under its boughs.”

Danica nodded. “Can you see the guards posted at the door?”

Elias craned his neck. “No, the hedge is blocking my view.”

“What do we do?”

“Give me a moment to think.” Talinus had told them that
Sarad was taking no chances tonight, and thus posted two men at every door in
and out of the palace. His meticulousness would have stymied them had they
tried to sneak in from outside the palace walls, but since they had
circumvented them handily, but three doors stood between them and the throne
room where Sarad intended to carry out his fell ritual. The first was at the
entrance to the royal gardens, the second at the top of the staircase that
connected the gardens to the inner court, and the third being the entrance to
the throne room, which would also be barred by an energy barrier.

Elias heard a rustle behind him and he reached for his sword
with an oath upon his lips. He turned to find Danica climbing the wytchwood. “What
are you doing?” he whispered as loud as he dared.

“You were taking too long, and we’re in a hurry.”

“And you’re too impatient! You’ll get us killed before we
get to Sarad.”

“I can see them. Just two, like Talinus said.”

“Good. Listen, I’ll sneak along the hedge and surprise them.
You back me up.”

“I have a better idea. Talinus said that we would be invisible
as long as we remained close to the tree.”

“It looks like he was right, which is probably the only
reason we’re still alive, thanks to your shenanigans.”

“It’s an advantage, brother. We draw them to us and have a
proper ambush. They won’t even see us until it’s too late. Then we can hide
their bodies in the tree.”

Elias paused and looked up at Danica’s silhouetted features,
lit only by starlight, as it was a New Moon. “Brilliant,” he said. “If we make
it out of this, you’re never going to let me forget this, are you?”

Elias heard the smile in her voice. “Not a chance. I’ll stay
up here and attack from above. You stay by the trunk and pull them in. Ready?”

Before Elias could respond Danica shook a large branch and
crowed shrilly. Elias cursed under his breath and drew his sword as quietly as
he could manage.

“Did you hear that?” one of the guards said and moments
later peered around the hedge.

“Aye,” said the other, “sounds like a wounded pigeon. Rat’s
with wings, me mudder used to call ‘em. Why doncha go check it out.”

“Fire and brimstone,” said the first guard and walked around
the hedge. Danica gave the branch another shake. “I think you’re right. Just
saw a branch move in that big tree.” Danica shook the branch again, with more
gusto. “There she goes again. I’m not sure. That’s gotta be one big pigeon.”

“Hold up,” said the guard from the far side of the hedge. “I’m
coming. We better check it out just to be sure.”

The first guard, clad in mercenary piece-mail, and bearing
the crest of House Oberon on his tunic crept toward the wytchwood. He drew a long-sword.
As he passed within reach Danica lowered her rope, which she had tied into a hasty
loop with a slip-knot. She dropped the impromptu lasso over the guard’s head
and gave it a jerk. Instinctively, she poured her magic through the rope in
blue-white ripples of energy that danced along its length like liquid light. The
guard went rigid at once, stunned by the shocking spell.

Elias sprung at him, grabbed his tunic, and pulled him under
the shadow of the wytchwood. The senseless guard crashed to the ground, face
down, with Danica’s lasso still about his neck. Elias gave his hand a shake,
numbed from contact with Danica’s magic.

By now the second guard had rounded the hedge and approached
the tree. “Firth? Firth, where’d you get to?”

Elias waited until the guard ducked the low hanging boughs
of the wytchwood and struck him behind the knees with the flat of his blade. The
guard pitched forward onto his knees with a cry, but Danica silenced him in
short order, for she dropped from the tree, landed on his shoulders, and
wrapped her arm around his mouth. Danica bore him to the ground and wrapped her
legs around him as she rolled onto her back. The guard struggled against her
but it proved in vain, for he didn’t have the necessary leverage with which to
free himself.

Elias laid his naked sword at the guard’s armpit, where his
raised arm left an opening in his breastplate. The guard went stock-still. “Be
quiet and don’t fight us, and you may yet live,” Elias said. The guard gave a
curt nod. “Good. Danica, let him loose.”

“You can’t be serious,” Danica hissed between gritted teeth.

Elias crouched and laid a hand on her arm. “We’re not the
enemy. We won’t kill a defenseless man. He wears the tunic of Oberon’s
mercenaries. He’s likely just following orders.”

Danica released her hold on him. “What’ll we do with them?”

“Tie them together. By the time they free themselves or are
found we will have gained the throne room.”

“We won’t be any trouble,” said the guard as his wild eyes
flitted between Elias and Danica. “Oberon doesn’t pay that well.”

“Shall we cut out his tongue so he doesn’t scream?” Danica
said and winked at Elias.

“I think not,” said Elias. He crouched by the guard, who
still lay on his back. “Tell me, what’s your name?”

“Seamus.”

“Now, Seamus, are there guards posted at the door atop the
staircase?”

“Yes,” said Seamus. “Two.”

“Good. Do you know their names?”

“Yes, they’re both Justicars.”

Elias exchanged a glance with Danica. “Seamus, I think we’re
going to need your help.”

“I don’t know that I could be much help to you,” Seamus said
in a small voice. He looked away from Elias and focused for a beat on his
comrade, who was yet unconscious.

“Seamus,” Elias said, “you don’t want me to give you to the
witch, do you?” He indicated Danica with a nod.

Seamus swallowed. “Witch?”

Elias spread his hands. “You’ve seen your fellow. He’ll wake—I
think—but I don’t envy him the headache he’ll have when he does. Now, can I
count on you, Seamus?” The beleaguered guard nodded. “Excellent. Here’s the
plan.”

Scant minutes later Seamus knocked on the door atop the
staircase that opened into one of the two main halls in the royal wing that
connected the great hall, the audience chamber, the greater courtyard, the throne
room, and the royal apartments beyond. “What?” came the immediate reply in
heavily accented common.

“Alhazarad, it’s me, Seamus.”

“What?”

“I need to use the privy. Please open the door.”

A disgusted sigh sounded on the other side of the door. “Go outside.”

“I can’t. I had curry last night.”

Silence fell, and then an outburst of ill concealed
laughter. The door swung into the hall. “Honestly,” Alhazarad said, “I don’t
know where Mirengi’s lackey found you goats.” Alhazarad peered into the
stairway. “Seamus, why are all the sconces out? It’s as black as sin in there. Seamus?”

As the Handsman stuck his head into the stairwell Danica let
fly the rope that had once served as the object of her torment. Crackling with
silvered lightning, the rope wrapped around the throat of the false Justicar. Unlike
in the gardens, Danica held nothing of her power back and the Handsman was dead
on his feet before she, with a mighty tug, pulled him through the doorway and
over the shoulders of Elias, who crouched near the top of the staircase, but
outside the small ring of light that bled into the stairwell from the floor
above.

“What in the nine hells,” began the other, stunned Handsman
before he drew his scimitar and sprinted through the doorway, tracking Danica’s
footfalls down the darkened staircase, only to find himself stopped short by
four-and-half feet of steel as he impaled himself on Elias’s readied sword.

“Elias?” Danica hissed into the pitch black as the residual
flame that had consumed her rope burnt out.

“Yes,” whispered Elias as he heaved the dead Handsman off
his sword. “I’m fine.” He turned as he sensed Danica approach. “Nice work—I
think the whip may be your favored weapon.”

Danica snorted. “Well, I’ll have to find a new one that’s
less flammable.”

Light bloomed in the stairwell as Seamus lit a match and
rekindled one of the snuffed wall sconces. “Is it done?” To his credit, his
voice quavered but slightly.

“Yes, Seamus,” said Elias, “well done. Now, go hide in the
gardens.” The petrified mercenary wasted no time in complying. To Danica Elias
said, “Quickly, take one of their cloaks.”

They dragged the bodies deep into the stairwell, then crept
into the upper hall and closed the door behind them. The siblings crouched
back-to-back while they waited to see if their hasty ambush had drawn any
notice. When Elias didn’t hear the sound of boots clacking down the cavernous
hallways he leaned his head over his shoulder and whispered, “The men posted
outside the throne room may have heard us, but they daren’t leave their post.”

“Fine by me, as long as no one else is coming to sandwich
us,” said Danica. “But what now?”

Elias considered but a moment. “Draw up your hood. We walk
straight at them. Don’t stop. We take them out quick, press them into the
energy wall Talinus told us about.”

“Together.”

“Together,” Elias said. “Now.”

They stood, drew up the hoods of the dead men’s cloaks, went
straight down the hall, turned the corner, and walked toward the throne room. The
two men that guarded the throne room’s double doors, before which stretched a
radiant, scintillating wall of diaphanous, brick-red energy that stretched from
floor to ceiling, had their scimitars naked and in hand.

“Ho!” called one of them. “Who goes there?”

“Cease! Show yourselves!” cried the other, even as the first
began to chant in the guttural tongue of the necromancer. A ball of black,
liquid fire coalesced in his free hand. After a final exclamation he hurled the
flickering sphere of fell magic down the hall.

“Gladly,” snarled Elias as he threw back his hood and
flourished his sword from underneath his pilfered cloak. He caught the fireball
on the tip of his sword. The terrible inertia of the conjured flame pressed
against him, but he pushed into it, driving forward with his legs, and the oily
flame shuddered and succumbed to his steel, funneling into the enchanted blade,
as the runes etched into its base burned with all the fire of a blacksmith’s
forge.

The Handsmen exchanged a glance and raised their scimitars
into high guards. The Duana siblings closed the distance to the doors without
breaking stride and raised their hands as one. Concave rings of force lanced
from their palms and hurled the Handsmen from their feet and into the cataclysm
of fell magic at their backs.