Throne of Scars (6 page)

W
e prepared to leave Citadel early in the morning
,
having eaten a frugal breakfast of hard bread and cold meats. The wound tingled under my tunic, and I was in a foul mood. The meat had tasted rancid and I was looking forward to dipping my face under a still functional fountain on the way to the great library.

“It’s called Haven,” Ittisana said, stretching her limbs after having declined our meager meal. We had found her in the armory, seeking a blade to suit her. She had found a sabre and a shield, and it fit her immodest chain skirt and vest. “It’s a Haven for learning, and a place where no feuds are allowed. Were. Now it’s only a building, of course.” She smiled crookedly. “Everything’s changed now. Perhaps the dead have ransacked it in search of treasure.”

“This so
-
called Haven is sure to be half burned down,” I snorted, pulling at my robe. I grasped the gauntlets for the artifact that would be a powerful tool when we left for Svartalfheim and the City of Scardark. “It’s a bit of an
unfortunate name for the place, isn’t it? Should call it the Tomb,“ I muttered.

She marked me
, I thought,
with a sword that splits hearts.

Thak was nodding, inspecting his huge two-handed sword. “It’s still a Haven. The dead don’t go there.”

“Why?” I asked and tucked the plain iron mask of the artifact to my thick belt, and grabbed a sheeted sabre, which I tied to the belt.

Thak got up and put the huge sword into its sheath in his back, and adjusted the hilt. “Commoners weren’t allowed in when they were alive. I guess they won’t enter in death. As you know, the dead have these urges from the past.” He smiled at me and Ittisana frowned with confusion. I gave Thak a begging look and mercifully he didn’t mention the visitor I had had that night. I swiftly moved to the doorway in case he changed his mind. I pushed it open, and saw before me the dark, wide stairway that led down to the Citadel’s lower floor. There, we’d walk for the portcullis and the gate, and make our way over the moat and out of the place.

Two draugr stood outside the door, masked as the living. They looked like live elves, but they were silent, almost reptilian in their absence of movement. That silence was better than when they walked and whispered malignantly to each other, but I still hated them. “Step out of the way,” I told them with a snarl.

One sneered at me, as the other one stood away, leaving just enough room for us to pass. I walked past them, hating each moment near the things. I bumped into one, and sensed it was contemplating on pushing my back, but Ittisana strode after me, and Thak followed, looking at the two dead like he would measure a carcass at the butcher yard. They stepped fully out of his way and we walked down spiraling, cold stairs. I caressed the spells I knew, and tapped my fingers on the iron mask. Ittisana skipped next to me. “Have you named it yet?” she asked with infuriating happiness, a sentiment that was unsuitable for my mood and the atmosphere of the dead palace.

I looked at the mask. “I have not.”

“You took it in battle with Strife, and you should. You fought well, killed the champion of the House Coinar and it’s your right,” she said with a smile, her dark, eyes measuring the mask.

“Yes, I should,” I answered, bothered by her suggestion. Naming weapons was probably as old a tradition as using them, but I felt like a fool for trying to think of a suitable name. Almost like a child.

I let my hand strike the surface of the mask. The truth was the thing made me uneasy. I had used it to help Shannon escape and if Kiera had fallen in love with me during that fight, I had nearly made a mess of it. Controlling it had been hard, very hard. Secrets were hidden in the thing. The fiery snake had been Strife’s forte, and since that bastard had been evil as any elf that ever lived, I wanted something different.

But the mask disagreed.

Disagreed?

Yes,
I decided. It disagreed. It had disagreed that day. They thanked me for stepping up to save Shannon, to help her fight off Danar Coinar and Cosia, but the moment I had donned it, it had taken over. I had not known what to do. I had tried to guide it, but it had thrust at the enemy before I had even thought about it, and when I fought to control it, it had fought back. The result had been a near disaster. The thing had wanted to reign free. It had wanted to kill as it pleased, to burn and rip flesh apart, and perhaps Strife had done little else but let it, guiding it ever gently if something was to be spared?

There was something inside it. A …thing? Someone? I knew not.

Creating magical artifacts was a skill that was apparently rare, and if Strife had used it, and they fought well together, then perhaps the mask wanted someone utterly reckless and evil to partner with.

Or, I thought, it made Strife reckless and evil.

I frowned. I grasped the mask, and looked at it. I tapped it with a finger, struggling with fear. “I’ll give it a name. Iron Trial.”

Thak rumbled. “It’s a thing of fires. Something more heroic would be—”

Ittisana shook her head. “He is struggling with the thing. Let him name it.” She placed a hand on my shoulders. “The stairs are dark down there.”

Indeed, torches were not burning, and it was pitch black at the end of the stairs. I swallowed panic, but fought it and placed the mask on my face before I could think about it. It stayed on my face, covering everything but my mouth and jaw, held magically.
Iron Trial, that’s what you are,
I thought.

I felt it.

It was there, the heat in the gauntlets, and that snake, it was slithering inside my head, not unlike Kiera had. Yet, this was not a creature I understood. It had heard its name, and disdained it. I was sure of it. I let out heat, forcing it out of the gauntlets. The snake came out. It slithered out of the cracks in the gauntlet, and the mask felt heavy, pressing against my skull. I took an involuntary step forward, and growled with determination. It was ten feet long now, and it
circled me. I felt the mask heating, as the thing turned to look at me closely, flicking a fiery tongue my way.

I cursed and stopped breathing, fighting the thing. I sensed my companions had stopped moving, and the dead were watching my struggle from the shadows.

Fiery dragon,
I thought.

That’s what I wanted. Something like the Masked One, the beast that had helped us escape Euryale. It had been a man when it was Euryale’s prisoner, but vast, terrible when it arrived in Himingborg after Euryale’s death. I had gazed at the twenty-foot wyrm with terror, before it flew into Svartalfheim.

The snake rolled in the air, ignoring my wishes. It felt disdainful at my request. It struggled and I held it there, looking at me, though my head was burning. It resisted, it fought, and I trembled with the effort, gods knew how long. Something was different from the last time. What had been a killer of a spell, an evil spirit, was stronger, thicker, much more powerful. I felt drunk with the terrible force, but struggled through the intoxicating feeling and kept on
demanding obedience.

Finally, the fiery body pushed out wings, tiny at first, then vast.

They opened, extended, the tail shortened, the head flattened, and the whole thing became small, very small, until it sat on my palm.

I had won,
I thought, though part of me wondered if I truly had. When the strength was truly measured, would my will conquer? And why did the whole thing feel so different? I stared at the fiery, tiny thing, and sensed it was much more dangerous than it had been before. Perhaps much more dangerous it had been with Strife.

I felt tired, supremely exhausted, and staggered forward, the dragon lighting the way on my palm. Ittisana appeared next to me, staring at the thing. She frowned deeply. “It
detests
you. And I feel it’s really different—”

“Oh,” I said, grasping the railing as I stumbled down. “I know. It’s willful. It’s like a partnership where nobody’s the boss. And it is different. I’m not—”

“It belonged to an elf,” she smiled. “An evil elf. And you are a human. It feels insulted. Just my guess. But it seems more powerful than when I’ve seen it before. Be careful.”

I snarled, the mask almost too hot on my face. “
I
killed Strife, remember? I killed him, and shoved my sword in his elfish gut,” I growled. “It should
respect
that, if nothing else. I’ve seen it murder dozens, but it must know I can fight well enough.”

Ittisana sighed. “I said you are a human. A brave one matters little to it, perhaps. And I also said evil, didn’t I? You lack that as well.” The dragon slithered in my palm, as if in agreement. “But it is yours until you die. It will have to accept that.”

“Perhaps it will get him killed then,” Thak rumbled. “Work with it, Ulrich.”

I nodded. “I will. But I’d rather use my own powers.”

“Remember,” Thak said from behind, “that you are leading us against a First Born and the dragon. The dragon is no less dangerous than Stheno. That artifact? It might be able to hurt something like they are, indeed. Especially if it is somehow even more powerful. I think it will be useful. Perhaps you
should
let it rule and you just let it do its thing? Besides, it covers that nasty Bone Fetter that mars your fair skin.”

I looked at my left hand. The gauntlet covered the Bone Fetter indeed, the magical shackle the gorgons and Euryale had used to shut us humans off from
the magical weave. Shannon had dealt with the dragon, made a Dragon Pact with it, and it now controlled the fetters. But not me. We all had unique skills. Shannon could see what spells others gathered. She could see the dead, even before she died. Anja could open any lock. Albine knew when someone lied, and I? I could not be shackled. But Thak was right. The artifact
was
important. But to let it rule me?

No.
“I’ll keep working with it.”

Thak let out an exasperated sigh. “Do. But it might be best if you let it fight for you. Just remember that.”

I saw darkness below and knew the great central gallery would be there. “What if it takes over and never lets me go?” I asked with a strained voice, truly afraid it might happen. I fought the urge to grasp the mask off my face.
Iron Trial, indeed.

We reached the bottom floor, and I sent the fiery thing roaring across the wide, long arched hallway, lighting the ancient, colorful and masterful paintings in the ceiling, the cobwebbed stools, and the dead who hid in the shadows, standing guard. Ittisana nodded. “You have to be careful. Do not insult it. Don’t try to break it. Never try that. It will fight you. It
might
even try to control you. Dverg
-
made artifacts are all somewhat sentient, you see? But Thak is right as well. When the time is right, the battle worth fighting, you should let it rule you. Otherwise someone might be able to get it off you, if they were fast enough.”

Thak grunted. “I could. No fire can kill me, not even dragon fire.”

He was right. He was a jotun, a fire giant.

Soon we reached the portcullis, entered the guardhouse, and waited for a drawbridge and another portcullis to be lowered. I grasped the mask with difficulty, and pulled it off. It came off easily, the fire disappeared and I put it in my belt. I wiped the sweat from my face, tottered forward, my chest aching terribly.
Damn Kiera.
Ittisana put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it for support.

When the doors were open, and the moat could be crossed, we stepped out where the market had once spread across the harbor. A gentle wind was blowing from the Straits, ruffling the abandoned booths and stalls forlornly. Mar, Aldheim’s star was pale, a slab of reddish clouds covering half of it. We turned and took the Silent Way past the high walls of the Citadel of Glory. We passed the towers and fortifications of the ancient bastion of might, walked under the shadow of the walls that guarded the White Court, and took to the abandoned alleys leading north. We walked for half an hour, and finally passed the place where we had saved Shannon from Danar Coinar and Cosia, who had hoped to kill Almheir Bardagoon in the library. There the battle spells had incinerated hundreds of elves, and even if the bodies had since been removed, the place was a wreck. Walls of the mansions had fallen, pillars toppled and broken like child’s toys, the cobblestones torn up across the whole square. The ancient fountain still spewed water, and I stopped there to drink greedily. I looked up to the library, a squat, towered white building of immense. The pennants of the Safiroons were still fluttering on top of it. The dead had removed most, but not these ones. “Why?” I asked Ittisana. “Why can’t commoners go inside?”

She sat down and ladled water to her fanged mouth. “If Shannon forced the draugr to, then they would, but they are afraid of it. The library is the work of generations of Regents, and only those who can See the Glory can be trusted to treat it and the tomes respectfully. They say most books are covered in gold and silver, and even in Aldheim riches tempt the poor. So, only the highest nobles were allowed to delve into the mysteries of the great library. The draugr, though tempted by the riches, won’t go anywhere near it. They slink away, stand in front of it, skulk around it at night, but they are slaves to their past.” She looked up at the place with a squint. “I think Shannon’s happy to keep them out of there. There is a well of knowledge to be studied, and she always loved such stories, didn’t she? She doesn’t trust the draugr to move them to the Citadel.”