The Long Hunt: Mageworlds #5 (30 page)

Read The Long Hunt: Mageworlds #5 Online

Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: The Long Hunt: Mageworlds #5
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“Good. Try to touch their nature. Know how they hold you. Find the mechanism. Follow the circuits, watch the electrons flow within them. When you understand them, you will be free of them.”
Jens concentrated for a moment as they walked, but nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
“Let me help,” Guislen said. “Concentrate again. Or, if concentration doesn’t bring results, relax and let your mind be empty of all preconceptions about the nature of locks.”
Then, as with the hatch of the
Inner Light
on Sapne, Jens became aware of the inner nature of the lock’s materials. He knew the bolt, the catch, the magnet that held them in place, and the lines of flux that wrapped around them.
He touched the lock with that awareness, and the binders clicked open and fell away. Jens brought his hands in front of him and looked down. Angry red lines circled his wrists. He massaged them while he spoke to Guislen.
“Did you do that, or did I?”
“You did it. With some help.”
“Am I an Adept, then?”
“You have the talent. But I told you a long while ago that you were meant to be neither Adept nor Mage. Come—we are almost at the Guildhouse, and time grows short.”
They came out of the park and crossed a street. Around the corner and under a pointed arch, an alley led up to a set of wide stone steps between two buildings.
“I recall this,” Jens said. “It’s not the Guildhouse. It’s the way to the house of Caridal Fere, the Master of Nalensey.”
“The Guildhouse and the house of Caridal Fere are the same place,” Guislen told him. “Master Fere has decided to seek temporal power for the Adepts of this world, and to rule its rulers. From here our ways part for the last time. Your task is great, but mine is urgent. Farewell.”
“Farewell,” Jens said, but he was speaking to no one. Guislen was gone.
Jens turned, and walked up the stairs toward the upper entrance of the house of Caridal Fere.
“Freeze right there,” came a man’s voice behind him. Jens recognized the Ophelan slur to the words. “Don’t turn around. Very slowly, walk back this way.”
“Why, that sounds like my good friend Kolpag,” Jens said. “What brings you here?”
“Shut up. You’ve cost me too much time and trouble. Keep walking back.”
From the sound, Jens could tell that Kolpag was keeping well out of range of a kick. And if Jens turned, he’d only buy himself a stun, or worse.
He reached up to touch the amulet he had worn since Sapne. In spite of the morning’s adventures, it still lay against his chest. Perhaps it worked, perhaps not, but he’d had a great deal of luck lately. He grasped the amulet.
Luck
, he thought.
She gave me luck for a reason.
If he could get some of that luck now … the amulet broke from its cord and fell to the pavement in a tinkle of tiny shards. Without thinking, Jens bent forward to pick it up. A blaster bolt sizzled above his back, inches above his spine.
He really is shooting at me
, Jens thought.
So why am I still alive?
On the heels of the thought came the sound of a body falling to the pavement behind him. Jens straightened and looked around. Kolpag lay on his back partway up the marble stairway. Then Jens turned again and looked forward.
An elderly woman stood there, dressed like a midclass Khesatan matron on a holiday. She held a blaster in both hands. To Jen’s surprise, he knew her.
“You’re Tillijen—Gentlelady Blossom from the tea shop!”
The woman nodded. “And Armsmaster to House Rosselin. Took you long enough to move out of my way so I could get a clear shot.”
Jens went over to where Kolpag lay on the shallow steps with his head lower than his heels. The blaster-man was dead, his forehead marked with an ugly hole surrounded by seared flesh. Jens reached down and pulled the weapon from the man’s hand.
“Looks like I’m going to make a career of stealing blasters off of dead bodies,” he said. He straightened and spoke to Blossom. “Do you know where my cousin is?”
“Somewhere inside, I presume,” she said.
“Is your partner here too?”
“Bindweed’s gone around to the front.”
“Well, I’m going in myself. Please tell her not to shoot me on the way out. I don’t want to ruin a perfect day.”
Then Jens looked down. The luck amulet lay on the pavement, cracked and broken, shattered by its fall.
“Good thing the Adepts say that luck isn’t real,” he said. “Otherwise, I’d have to start worrying.”
With that he walked forward, past Blossom and into the house of Caridal Fere.
 
Mael had lost his staff when he fell. He pulled himself to his feet, grabbing the woven cable of silver cord and using it to pull himself away from the blows of the
ekkannikh
.
Ahead of him Mael could see the strands flying out from the end of the cable, like a rope unlaying. At the cable’s end stood another figure like the one who still pursued him. Its staff was also a glowing white—and by that glow, Mael saw that its face was a younger twin to that of the creature who followed him.
Mael felt himself begin to despair. He was trapped between the two phantoms, the cords of life all around him tangled, their right order gone, with the tarnish spreading in all directions and shooting off into the night.
The wind sang among the wires.
Mael stopped, and leaned his forehead against the cable. This was the end-point of his vision. No time now to arrange the cords into the pleasing pattern that he knew was required. No place to run.
He lifted his head to look at his approaching foes with pain-dimmed eyes, then turned to the mass of jumbled cords. With bare hands he grabbed them, seeking the rot at the center to pull it forth and expose it.
“I will be found doing my duty,” he repeated to himself. “I will be found doing my duty.”
The light approached him from either side. In the combined glow of the staves, he could see the
eiran
cords, his hands small and weak beside the great cable. To what arrogance did he owe his belief that he could change this and make it right? All was lost.
Then the phantom that had awaited him spoke—not to him, but to its elder double.
“We met once before, on Sapne. You did not face me then—but now you must.”
“Have it as you will,” said
ekkannikh
, and struck the first blow, not at Mael but at the newcomer.
Mael watched them for a while as they fought. The glowing staves wove and plunged, while the crack of wood on wood was like a drumroll, rhythmic and steady.
Then Mael turned away and began struggling once again to find the place where the great cable unlaid, sending its tarnished strands out into the universe, flying up beyond sight into the dark sky. A gap in the cords appeared, and he could see almost to the cable’s inner core.
He pushed on farther, though he was torn and scratched by the contact. Daring to grasp the essence of life and luck, that was what wounded men … . There was the inmost, the final strand. Mael could hardly see it. It was lost in its own darkness, as if it sucked in the light.
He reached out and grasped the deepest strand. It felt hot to his touch, hot and burning. The pain spread up his arm to his shoulder. He would not let go. He pulled harder. Two of the inner cords shifted slightly. Behind him, as he worked, he still heard the noises of combat—the clash of staves and the thud of wood against flesh.
“I must break you,” said one voice; and—“You shall not,” said the other.
Mael pulled again. Some of the inner, flexible, rotten cord broke free and slithered toward him. He fell backward, but kept his grip on the burning silver wire. The cord followed him. He seized it with both hands and pulled again. The pain was excruciating, but more of the cords came free. Perhaps it was a trick of the unsteady light from the moving staves behind him, but the
eiran
seemed to be less tarnished than before.
Faster and faster the cords unwound. The rotted cord piled up at Mael’s feet, and still he pulled. His wounded back throbbed with every effort, but he didn’t dare let go.
 
“They’re both insane,” said Rhal Kasander, drifting toward where Faral and Miza stood. Miza moved closer to Faral, and without needing to think about it, Faral put an arm around her. “You’re off-worlders,” Kasander added, “but at least I know what you are.”
Chaka growled under her breath.
*I wouldn’t,* Faral said. To Kasander he said, “My friend tells me that she took the weapon she’s holding from the cold dead fingers of the person you sent to kill her. She wants to know if you prefer the blaster shoved down your throat or up your ass.”
“This creature is your friend?”
“Friend, agemate, neighbor, all that. We grew up together. Never expected her to show up here, though.”
“Please be so good as to inform your agemate that any attempt to kill her was not by my command.”
Chaka replied, and again Faral translated, “You’re still a mannerless thin-skin who spies on his guests.”
“All that, I do confess,” Kasander said. “Now can we please take this opportunity to decamp?”
“No,” said Faral. “If it wasn’t you that screwed up bribing the crowd—”
Kasander shook his head. “No, no … I was as shocked as you.”
“—then either Fere or Hafelsan set up Jens to get thrown off the Golden Tower. Now I want to watch the two of them try to kill each other.”
In the center of the room, the combat had already begun. Even to Faral’s eyes, it was clear from the very beginning that the Master of Nalensey was overmatched. Fere’s every move was anticipated and blocked, while Hafelsan—moving lightly in spite of his greater bulk—toyed with him, touching him here and there, light taps, as if to say, “I could kill you at any time, but I choose not to.”
Caridal Fere was getting pushed back, away from the window, toward the center of the room. His arms brought his staff up more and more slowly with every block and strike. A predatory smile came to the face of his opponent.
Then Hafelsan paused and looked aside—at what, no one could tell. In that instant, Caridal Fere seized the opportunity and struck, spearing his staff into the other’s midsection. But Hafelsan did not collapse. Instead, he split in two. For a moment Faral saw a dreadful vision of a skeletal figure covered in a black cloak and scraps of rotten flesh, standing between two layers of skin covered with morning-robes.
Then the revenant vanished, taking his staff with him. On the floor, in a puddle of disgusting fluid, lay only an empty skin.
 
The cords were unlaying faster and faster from the woven cable. And faster and faster, Mael pulled in the flawed cord that he held in his hands.
And still, behind him, the Adepts fought, in a blaze of light and a clash of staves. When Mael looked in the direction of the combat, he saw that one of the two phantoms now had a clear advantage—he was driving the other one back, attacking while his counterpart was forced to defend.
In the distance beyond the combatants, Mael saw another figure approaching.
Who now?
he thought.
What chance is this?
Then he saw: it was Mistress Santreny, and she had her staff. Another of the walking dead? He feared it. These Adepts were a cursed race.
But while he had gazed even that briefly into the distance, the fight closer to hand had ended. The Adept who had waited for Mael’s approach was the victor, and the
ekkannikh
was beaten to the ground. It knelt there, head hanging, its breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Yield,” the Adept said. “We are one; we must be together.”
“I yield,” said the
ekkannikh
, and lifted its empty hand.
They made contact, flesh to unliving flesh—and the one began to melt into the other.
Still Klea approached, not seeing the drama before her. The light of the staves flickered out, and the sole illumination came from the lights of the distant city, reflecting from bent grass and hewn stone.
The silver cords were untangling themselves now, pulling away from one another, springing up into the sky or sinking into the earth.
The two phantoms, victor and vanquished, merged fully and became one, looking the same as before—a slight, dark-haired man in black, leaning on an Adept’s staff. He raised his face to the sky, and to Mael’s eyes his substance seemed to waver and fade.
Then Klea walked unseeing through him, and the vapor that had been his being ascended.
Mael felt very tired. The black cord that had piled around his legs nearly calf-deep was gone, dissolved into mist. He fell to the ground as the last of the
eiran
faded from his sight.

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