The Soul Mirror (61 page)
Authors: Carol Berg
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Fantasy fiction
His hand flew to his hair, yanking on his queue as if to wake himself, yet succeeding only in pulling more wild strands loose. “Gods, I’ve not actually talked with anyone in four years, so I’m prattling nonsense like the popinjay, and you’re sure I am the Souleater’s minion . . . or a murderous lunatic . . . which I surely am. But the world teeters at the brink of a chasm from which it will not recover, and I don’t give a horse’s ass about the world, but they’re going to make me kill the self-righteous little prick to accomplish this rite, and I’m already mad, as I’ve told you, so I’ve this notion that you’re the only person in the world who can help me stop it . . . and save his annoying, godforsaken, priggish balls.”
The summerhouse trembled as he stomped down the steps and into the spattering rain. He didn’t go far. As my knees had turned to wet cotton with this vehement outpouring of arrogance and grief, that was just as well. It meant I didn’t have to chase after him to confirm that Duplais was the
self-righteous little prick
he wanted to save. He stopped a few paces from the steps, letting the rain hammer on his head and sluice over his shoulders and back, while the silks of this malevolent tapestry, animated like his black snaketethers, wove their murderous story.
self-righteous little prick
he wanted to save. He stopped a few paces from the steps, letting the rain hammer on his head and sluice over his shoulders and back, while the silks of this malevolent tapestry, animated like his black snaketethers, wove their murderous story.
A man with no family, no connections, no friends. Even Duplais, who had brought Dante here, who had formed some sort of bond with the prickly sorcerer, had come to believe him corrupt and vicious. Yet Dante had taken exactly the path Duplais propounded.
Keep your secrets. Let events unfold. Do the hard things that are necessary.
Duplais had said the sorcery the mage pursued drove him deeper into the dark, ravaging him body and soul. And then came this night, when his masters told him he must murder the man he believed the one honest man in the world.
Keep your secrets. Let events unfold. Do the hard things that are necessary.
Duplais had said the sorcery the mage pursued drove him deeper into the dark, ravaging him body and soul. And then came this night, when his masters told him he must murder the man he believed the one honest man in the world.
Anguish at what his course demanded—and fear at the price he would pay for it—had sparked his tirade this hour past. Chains, knife, Duplais’ journal . . .
so cruel a death
. . . uncanonical spellwork.
Necessity will leave me a husk . . .
feeling
it will leave me dead. . . .
so cruel a death
. . . uncanonical spellwork.
Necessity will leave me a husk . . .
feeling
it will leave me dead. . . .
The rain should be stirring the scents of the dying garden: lingering flowers, drying leaves, hardy green grass. Instead it reeked of sulfur. A world teetering at the brink of a chasm.
I crossed to the door. The gray raindrops spattered in unnatural patterns, some leaping high like balls of hard rubber, some looping, some not rebounding at all, but chasing other droplets across the step. Chaos.
“What do you mean by undoing what you do in the day? The queen lies ill and despairing. My mother remains confined. Father Creator, did you send my sister to her death?”
He faced neither toward me nor away, but exactly at right angles. His arms were folded across his chest, empty without the staff. Different. Less formidable, his frantic energies spent.
“I did not kill the girl, nor did I advise it, drive her to it, or ignore its prospect,” he said in his more customary even measure. “It happened very suddenly. But certainly I bear responsibility. I have consorted with those involved. I made sure it was not investigated. As with all this, you must believe as you please.”
I could not answer. What use a list of crimes, when he had already conceded guilt?
“As to the undoing . . . The Aspirant’s objective—this magic I help them work—is no less than the permanent overturn of natural law. Portier saw a hint of it at Eltevire, but he had no idea of the scale. The Aspirant believes that if we penetrate the Veil sufficiently, create a big enough hole and seal it open, we will invert the order of nature entire—the laws of physics and alchemistry, the behavior of weather, of oceans, the instincts of animals. It will be madness. With the natural world no longer predictable, a terrified populace will turn back to mysticism. To sorcery. But, in truth, I don’t think the Aspirant cares about the result so much as the doing.”
Hand of Heaven . . . to hear it stated so bluntly . . . Reason called his claim absurd, and yet the things I had seen in the city . . . in the Rotunda . . . in Dante’s own chamber . . . whispered that reason no longer held sway.
“The efficacy of this rite, the mystery, is founded in the nature of the realm beyond the Veil.”
“Ixtador,” I offered.
“Aye. The Aspirant withholds what he knows of Ixtador’s history, teasing as he does. But I’ve gleaned it is neither a divine state—else why am I not seven times god-struck for breaching its boundaries?—nor is it some common aspect of the universe that we’ve only discovered in these hundred years since the Wars. I’ve never believed in gods or angels or Heaven, not since the day I first told someone I could hear voices in my head, but whenever I reach beyond life with this work I do”—his neck twisted and his shoulders hunched, as if to fend off a blow—“what I perceive is perverse, aberrant, a festering wound hidden deep inside the body of the natural world. Even if we halt this rite and defeat the Aspirant and his minions, we cannot simply close the
Book of Greater Rites
and walk away. Which means—”
Book of Greater Rites
and walk away. Which means—”
“We have to let events unfold. Learn more. Know what we are dealing with.”
He jerked his head in assent. “Exactly so. Do you know much about the Mondragon codices?”
“Duplais told me their history.”
“The Aspirant keeps the index volume. I decipher what I can from the other three, practice and perfect what I learn, then formulate the spells in a more traditional way and teach them to the Aspirant. The magic is”—he closed his eyes for that moment, not to summon a word, but as if to recapture something treasured—“magnificent. Also complex and difficult. But alongside this work—unshared with my colleagues—I’ve developed a skill at visualizing spellwork, the patterns and shapes of it, as you might see the hidden structure of a leaf beneath an opticum lens. I can then translate my understanding into simple forms that can be manipulated.”
The hieroglyphs, certainly. Dared I tell him I had seen?
“My patterning allows me to detect when someone uses these spells I’ve taught them. If I’m alert and if I’ve the strength of mind, I can go in and—”
“You alter the spells!” Enlightenment flashed as clear as Dante’s fire. “You corrupt their work and then taunt them for their failures. It makes you necessary to their plan.” That’s what I had seen him doing two nights previous, altering a spell in subtle ways.
His head snapped around to stare. “How could you know that?”
“Logic.”
He strangled a retort and averted his face again. “If I can ensure that
I
work this culminating rite on the day the Aspirant chooses, I can ensure the worst does not happen. That’ll not be as simple as it sounds. The Aspirant is magically capable”—distaste heated his telling—“as long as he uses leeched blood to enhance his innate gifts. And he is highly intelligent. He keeps a close watch on what I teach him, matching it with what
Diel Voile Aeterna
—the index—leads him to expect. If he gets an inkling that I’ve been thwarting him, and decides he’s learned enough of what the books can teach to work the rite, he’ll dispense with me and attempt it on his own. I must take him down first.”
I
work this culminating rite on the day the Aspirant chooses, I can ensure the worst does not happen. That’ll not be as simple as it sounds. The Aspirant is magically capable”—distaste heated his telling—“as long as he uses leeched blood to enhance his innate gifts. And he is highly intelligent. He keeps a close watch on what I teach him, matching it with what
Diel Voile Aeterna
—the index—leads him to expect. If he gets an inkling that I’ve been thwarting him, and decides he’s learned enough of what the books can teach to work the rite, he’ll dispense with me and attempt it on his own. I must take him down first.”
But my blood could open the books to the Aspirant. Did the Aspirant know that? “You still don’t know who he is.”
“No.” Dante returned so far as the lower steps and sat. Hard drops pelted his already sodden garments. He rubbed the back of his neck, tugging at the silver collar as if it chafed. “This is where matters get nastier, of course.”
“The Aspirant is not my father.”
“That conflicts, just a spit, with your testimony against him.” He glanced over his shoulder. I was close enough to make out the prominences and hollows of his face, the dark brows and unshaven chin against the paler skin, but no finer detail.
“On the same night I heard you for the first time, I heard my father’s voice in the aether. There was no mistake.”
“Does he share the tangle curse? Did he hear you speak back to him?” Never had I felt a mind snap up my words so quickly.
“I don’t think he heard me. And I’ve not heard him again. He’s your friends’ prisoner.”
“They’ve hiding places all over. Laboratoriums, dungeons. I’ve visited at least three besides Eltevire. But I’m not allowed to see their prisoners. I am their hireling—useful, but ultimately not of the same rank. Not to be trusted.” He leaned back on his elbows and turned his face up into the rain. “I need the book back, else everything is wasted. Your keeping it will get me dead, which will not grieve you, but it’ll not save anyone—not your father, not your king, not Duplais.”
Of course it would come back to the book. But I was not ready to join hands with my mother’s destroyer. “What do they plan for Duplais?”
“His death is to be a part of the rite, but as I’ve translated only pieces of it as yet, I don’t know which part. The index guides the whole working. Unfortunately it references a missing page of the
Book of Greater Rites
. The Aspirant gave
Diel Schemata Magna
into Orviene’s custody once, years ago, before I joined their little cadre. Orviene claimed
he
could translate it. When forced to give it back—because, of course, the banty rooster could not do what he said—a page was missing. We’ve spent a great deal of time trying to reconstruct the missing information from the other parts we know. That’s tricky. Dangerous. Knowing the power involved, I’d not like to think we’ll get it wrong . . . which may be only slightly better than getting it right.”
Book of Greater Rites
. The Aspirant gave
Diel Schemata Magna
into Orviene’s custody once, years ago, before I joined their little cadre. Orviene claimed
he
could translate it. When forced to give it back—because, of course, the banty rooster could not do what he said—a page was missing. We’ve spent a great deal of time trying to reconstruct the missing information from the other parts we know. That’s tricky. Dangerous. Knowing the power involved, I’d not like to think we’ll get it wrong . . . which may be only slightly better than getting it right.”
“What was on the page?” Surely he must detect my rising excitement. I’d never imagined Cecile’s fragment to be a part of Lianelle’s book . . . not merely complex, but
encrypted
.
encrypted
.
“Diagrams. Maps, you might say. They would describe the arrangement of participants—the principal practitioner, which I intend to be me, and the assistants who will work supporting spells. Also the arrangement of the objects whose energies will shape the magic—persons, plants, animals, stones, or the like. Unlike the nonsense the Camarilla spews, the power for true enchantment does not come solely from the practitioner’s blood, but from the complex energies of nature, bound in physical reality and shaped by use and history and belief . . .”
For that one moment, I heard the voice of my friend of the mind . . . the teacher . . . the man who relished the properties of planets and night-blooming flowers, who reverenced magic. Dante. They were truly the same man.
“. . . and there might be other markings, describing the sequence of the work or aligning the layered spells to the particular location or . . . activities. This is a rite intended to rend the Veil between life and death. I’ve some ideas about what must be involved. Fundamental things. Powerful evocations of life and death.”
Like the death of a man who could not die. And necromancy . . .
I was torn between rushing off to incinerate the page and confessing I had it. “It’s never been found?”
“No. Whatever she did, whatever she said, your sister shook the Aspirant. He feels pressed for time, as if he’s seen a flaw in his scheme, and he’s pushed me to be ready much earlier than planned, whether or not we ever find the diagrams. He made the mistake of prodding Antonia about the missing page. She was convinced someone had got hold of it, as Orviene was always trying to impress people with his great magic. The crone took it upon herself to manage the situation, but she didn’t come up with it.”
Dante spoke of Cecile’s murder as little more than a lady’s pique. “Naturally you helped Antonia manage this
situation
.”
situation
.”
My disgust must have struck him square on. He shifted around on the step. The graying light revealed his face hard as hewn granite, instantly banishing any idea I might have of casual murder.
“And
you
are unsurprised to hear your mistress’s mother is a murderess. You associate with the woman every day, yet allow her to walk free unaccused, poisoning and manipulating your aristo lady. You are indeed an
agente confide
worthy of Portier’s mentoring.” His flint-hard eyes were the color of jade. “I did not do this murder. I’m kept back to deal with the larger magics. The Aspirant threatened to bleed the witch if she did something so stupid again. He insinuated he’d use her viscera in the very rite she thinks will give her Sabria to rule. He may do so yet. I’d not weep.”
you
are unsurprised to hear your mistress’s mother is a murderess. You associate with the woman every day, yet allow her to walk free unaccused, poisoning and manipulating your aristo lady. You are indeed an
agente confide
worthy of Portier’s mentoring.” His flint-hard eyes were the color of jade. “I did not do this murder. I’m kept back to deal with the larger magics. The Aspirant threatened to bleed the witch if she did something so stupid again. He insinuated he’d use her viscera in the very rite she thinks will give her Sabria to rule. He may do so yet. I’d not weep.”
Though I had no love for Antonia, I wouldn’t wish the Aspirant’s vengeance on anyone, even a traitorous, conniving murderess. “She conspired with a sorcerer to do the murder. If not you, then who? Jacard?”
“Jacard would piss himself if he smelled blood. Kajetan has more followers than just the mewling nephew. His mindless sheep from Seravain will do anything to further his holy mission.”
My head spun yet again. “Jacard is Kajetan’s nephew?”
“That’s why I couldn’t get shed of the incompetent little vermin until he threw his panic fit. Evidently you told him that I’d tortured your brother. He decided you knew everything and were ready to expose us. I thought Kajetan would strangle him for having you hauled to the Bastionne.”
He glanced around, as if he sensed the blaze in my gut. “I visited your brother one time only and left him useless to the Aspirant. I could not help the rest.”
“You’re despicable! He was innocent . . . a boy!”
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