The Drowning City: The Necromancer Chronicles Book One (33 page)

“Are they mad? Attacking the hall—”

“It’s another distraction,” Isyllt said. “Damn me for not seeing it sooner. Breaking the wards isn’t enough—they mean to wake
the mountain. They’ll have someone at Haroun’s summit, waiting for the others to finish.”

Jabbor swore. “What can we do?”

“You and the others stay here, try to salvage as many wards as you can. I’m going up.”

“Why?” Jabbor asked coldly. “Why do you care? Why not just run?”

Isyllt shrugged, her pale face impassive. “Because I’m trapped on this side of the river too, and I don’t want to die for
the Dai Tranh’s zealotry. Zhirin?”

She only hesitated a heartbeat. “I’m with you.”

She thought Jabbor would argue, steeled herself against it. He let out a breath and shook his head. “Go on. Be careful.”

From the southern road came the sound of horses. “The Khas is here,” Jabbor said. “Maybe they and the Dai Tranh can kill each
other off neatly and leave us to clean up.” He leaned in and kissed Zhirin, soft and quick. “Hurry.”

She’d ridden to the mountain dozens of times, but never walked there, let alone run. Her sandals chafed her feet raw, and
she didn’t know how her legs kept moving. She thought she glimpsed someone in front of them, but it was hard to be sure through
the darkness and flicker of the wards. The posts glowed fiercely, not their usual soft light; Zhirin doubted that was a good
sign.

The ground sloped steeper and steeper as they neared the stair, and they scrambled and slid with every step. She heard hoofbeats
again, close behind, but the riders would have to abandon their horses to follow any higher.

They hit the stairs and ran faster, despite stubbed toes and burning thighs. Someone was definitely climbing ahead of them,
and they were gaining now.

“Wait!” Zhirin’s breath failed and she had to shout again.

The person paused, a slender silhouette against the witchlights.

“Xinai!” Isyllt called.

Another few steps and Zhirin recognized the mercenary. White as bone in the cold light, eyes lost in shadow. Isyllt’s ring
blazed and Zhirin glanced around as if she might see the ghost.

Steel gleamed in Xinai’s hand. “Stay back.” Her voice was rough, cold as her blade.

Isyllt hesitated, one foot on the next step. “Don’t be a fool, Xinai. The mountain isn’t some little spirit you can tame.
It’s not like the nakh.”

“Go, necromancer. This is none of your concern. Consider your life a gift for bringing me home.”

Isyllt’s breath hissed through her teeth. “You’re possessed.”

“No, just reunited. Leave, before I decide to take that ring away from you.”

Zhirin looked from Xinai to Isyllt. She had to stop this, but her mouth was too dry for words.

Footsteps scraped on stone below, and the tension broke and reformed. Isyllt cursed. Then golden witchlights blossomed all
around them as Imran and Asheris climbed onto the landing.

The five of them stared at one another for a long moment, then Xinai bolted. Not up the stairs but down, dodging lithely around
the startled mages.

“Kill the necromancer,” Imran said to Asheris. “I’ll take care of the Dai Tranh.”

Zhirin looked at Isyllt, whose face was a mask in the eerie light.

“Go on,” she said, calm and brittle.

Zhirin hesitated for a heartbeat, but her courage broke and she fled down the path after Imran and Xinai.

She caught up with them at the next landing. Xinai’s daggers gleamed, and Imran’s magic hung around him thick enough to make
Zhirin’s skin tingle. He didn’t spare her a glance, but a tendril of power licked at her.

“Go home, girl,” he said. “And for Vasilios’s sake, I’ll spare you.”

Zhirin barely saw Xinai move before a dagger flickered toward Imran. Only to clatter to the stones a yard shy of its target.
He gestured in turn and Xinai stiffened and stumbled, one hand rising to her throat.

Zhirin stared as the woman’s face darkened, her own hand lifting in unwitting accompaniment. She could help Isyllt while Imran
was distracted, or climb to the crater and try to stop the Ki Dai. The mercenary had chosen this.

But she couldn’t walk away. People had already died tonight, ancestors only knew how many, Dai Tranh and Tigers and whoever
else was unlucky enough to be in the way. More would doubtless die before dawn. But she couldn’t walk away from this.

“Leave her alone.” Her voice nearly broke.

Imran frowned and glared over his shoulder. “I told you to go.” He’d probably never had an apprentice talk back to him before;
it nearly made her laugh.

“And I told you to let her be. Killing her won’t stop the others. Worry about the mountain.”

“Don’t dictate priorities to me, girl. The rebels are the danger here—and after tonight, we won’t have to waste our time with
them any longer.”

She didn’t argue, only drew her magic to her. The incredulous look on his face was almost worth what was sure to be her quick
demise. The river was too far away to answer her here; instead the mountain churned hot and angry at her back.

Imran fought like a classical duelist, his body straight and still behind layers of wards while his magic spun sharp as daggers
around him—Zhirin was surprised he didn’t call a halt till they could find seconds and draw circles. She wasn’t strong enough
to face his spellcraft head-on. Instead she dodged and wove, threw illusions and ribbons of fog to distract him while she
twisted away from his assaults.

Magic dizzied her—for an instant she was quicksilver speed, elusive and untouchable. Then a gust of wind sharp as a blade
sliced her cheek, and another tore her sleeve and the flesh beneath. The air thickened in her lungs and her throat tightened
when she tried to draw breath. Her magic broke against his and rolled away as the pressure in her chest grew. Drowning on
dry land. Her knees shook, but the vise around her throat wouldn’t let her fall. The night splintered into shards of black
and red.

Then the grip vanished and she collapsed, knees cracking the stone hard enough to make her sob as air rushed into her aching
lungs.

Imran stumbled and fell as well, groping toward his back. As Zhirin’s vision cleared, she saw Xinai’s knife hilt standing
out of his shoulder. She and the mercenary stared at each other while Imran swore and bled on the stones.

Then he began to scream.

Isyllt stared at Asheris with
otherwise
eyes. Now that she knew how to look, she could see the truth. Such a simple disguise, but effective. Few would think to look
for demons in the Emperor’s palace.

“They bound you.” The words left on a wondering breath. “They bound you in flesh and stone.”

Asheris nodded. “And they bound me well. I will do as I’m bid. I cannot free myself, and I must kill anyone who tries to free
me. And even if I were rid of the stone, the chains of flesh cannot be broken—I am anathema now, demon. My own kind will never
take me back.”

“There must be a way—”

He spread his arms, gave her a mocking bow. “Lady, you’re welcome to try, since I must kill you anyway. I won’t be as easy
to stop as an animated corpse.” His smile fell away. “I’m sorry. This is not my will.”

She barely called her shields in time to stop the wall of flame that crashed over her. Heat and chill shattered each other.
She flung witchlights in his face, but he batted them away like gnats. He was stronger than any other demon she’d fought;
he was stronger than her. They might duel for a time, but eventually he’d wear her down.

She sent a ghost shrieking toward him—it couldn’t harm him, but he flinched. She closed the distance between them in three
strides, slammed her shoulder into his chest. His flesh might not age or die, but it still functioned; the air left his lungs
in a grunt and he stumbled back. Isyllt kept close, ripping his coat as she clawed for the collar.

It was ensorcelled, of course. Layers of spells wound the thick work-hardened wire, shielding and strengthening and reinforcing.

She expected him to throw her off, braced against the blow, but he only wrapped his arms around her, gentle as an embrace.
Why fight, when he could burn her to ash?

Letting her ring hold the shields, she concentrated on the spells on the collar. It was cunningly wrought—a pity she couldn’t
show it to the Arcanost. Three different mages had layered the wards, each style reinforcing the others’ weaknesses. She found
a loose end and tugged, but the spell only unraveled a little before catching in another knot. It would have been a lovely
puzzle if the air in her lungs weren’t already painfully hot. Sweat dripped from her face, slicked her hands and blurred her
eyes. Asheris murmured something in her ear, but she couldn’t hear the throb of her pulse.

Abandoning finesse, she called the cold. Too soon since she’d last done it; a shudder racked her. Her bones ached, and the
force of it scraped her veins like glass splinters. But it answered. Death, decay, the hungry cold that waited for the end
of everything, spiraling through her like a maelstrom. She tightened numbing fingers in the collar’s loops and whorls.

Asheris shuddered now and caught her shoulders. His magic rose to answer hers: a sandstorm, a whirlwind, smokeless flame.
Two faces hung before her—the man’s, and a fire-crowned eagle. She closed her eyes before it dizzied her.

Her spells were failing. The heat bit deeper; her hair was burning. But the spells on the collar died too, slowly corroding
beneath the entropy in her hands. Asheris caught her left wrist, gave a raptor’s shriek of rage and pain. She smelled her
skin crisping, but she was already numb.

“Stop,” Asheris gasped. “Please.”

He was more powerful than she, but not more powerful than the force she called. Storms stilled, flame smothered, and in the
end even stars chilled and died. She could stop his undying heart.

But she’d die first. Ice within, fire without, more than her fragile flesh could withstand. If she left herself open to the
abyss too long, it would claim her.

The last of the ward-spells dissolved, leaving nothing but gold beneath her frozen fingers. Gasping, she broke the channel.
The pain of it made her scream and she might have fallen, but her hands were locked stiff around Asheris’s throat. He cried
out too and stumbled, and they both fell to their knees.

“Please,” he whispered, “please—”

She had exhausted her magic. His fire would burn her, and she had nothing left to stop it. But she wasn’t dead yet, and gold
was soft.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back, raw and ragged. Then she kneed him in the groin as hard as she could.

He groaned and tried to curl around the pain, but she forced him back, driving her knees into his stomach and tugging at the
collar. Blood slicked her hands, hers and Asheris’s, as wire bit their flesh. Her vision washed dull and spotted as she began
to feel the pain, but she held on, shaking like a terrier with a rat in its jaws. Metal twisted, bent, broke. Strand after
strand. She sobbed with the pain, tears and sweat and blood from a bitten lip splashing Asheris’s face.

Snarling, he pushed her off and backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling on the stones. She choked on her own
tears and curled into a pain-riddled ball. She couldn’t stand, could only lie shuddering and wait for the death stroke.

But Asheris didn’t spring for her, only rose to his knees, trembling like a blown horse. One hand clutched his throat as he
choked and gagged. She might have crushed his larynx. As blood filled her mouth and her cheek began to throb, she couldn’t
quite care.

Then she felt the pain in her hands, and something else. Gold twisted around her claw-hooked fingers, gleaming beneath the
blood. And in the palm of her ruined left hand lay a blazing diamond.

She forced herself to her knees, peeling the wire out of her hands; blood welled in the cuts, dripped to the ground. She and
Asheris stared at each other through witchlight and shadows.

“Destroy the stone,” he gasped. “Imran wears its twin—part of me is still bound in them. I can’t do it, please—”

The pain on his face made her look away, pain and desperate hope. She couldn’t stand to hear him plead again. But she had
no way to even chip such a stone, let alone shatter it…

She turned, clumsy, and stared at the orange light glowing from the mountain’s cauldron. Diamonds were forged in the earth’s
fire. That would be enough to melt it.

She stumbled to her feet, knees buckling. Her arms were nothing but pain from fingertip to shoulder, and her face was already
swelling from the blow. But she could still walk.

The stones shuddered beneath her feet. Beneath the keen of the wind she heard shouts and sounds of battle. The Dai Tranh must
have broken the wards. They needed to be away from the mountain as fast as they could.

So she, like a fool, was climbing up it. It made her laugh, till her hand cramped around the stone and she whimpered instead.

The lake of fire was higher than it had been, great bubbles of flame bursting on its surface. The stench of sulfur and burnt
rock choked her. She crouched on her knees at the lip of the crater, afraid to stand against the wind.

She spared a heartbeat to stare at the ruined collar. Still beautiful, rubies like drops of blood amid the mangled gold, the
diamond rich and flawless. He was a demon and she meant to free him. She’d never be able to stop him again if he turned on
her.

Only a heartbeat’s hesitation and she flung the stone away, into the cauldron. She didn’t see it land, but flames belched
high and bright. And from the landing below came a fierce raptor’s cry.

She turned, scrambled down the stone till she reached the steps. And stopped as Asheris rose in front of her on four burning
wings. His eagle’s head turned, watched her from one blazing eye. Even Assari friezes couldn’t capture the beauty of the jinn.

He alit on the step below her and the light died, leaving only the man. His clothes were torn and filthy, skin lusterless
beneath blood and sweat, but his throat had healed.

“Lady, it is done.” He offered her a hand and she took it, but when their fingers touched he flinched away. He stared at her
right hand, her beringed hand, and for an instant she wondered if he would send her into the volcano as well, to free the
bound ghosts.