Tracing the Shadow (5 page)

The air rippled like fast-flowing water and Tabris flew back through the glass, melting like a fading shadow into Imri’s body. Rieuk stood transfixed. He had never wanted anything so much in his life before. He looked at Imri with awed respect. “Tell me,” he said, finding his voice at last. “Tell me how I can get an Emissary of my own. I’ll do anything.
Anything.
”

“We practice a different form of apprenticeship in my order,” Imri said, his voice low, intense. “The bond between us will be far closer, far more intimate than that sterile vow of obedience you made to Kaspar Linnaius. A bond that is strongest when two with the gift are drawn together.”

A wave of heat seared through Rieuk’s body. Even though he stood apart from Imri, it felt as if he were drowning in the warm depths of those golden-brown eyes. “You mean…” And then his innate skepticism reasserted itself, and he said dryly, “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

Imri smiled. “No one has fully awakened you. What were your masters thinking of, letting such incredible latent power as yours stagnate?”

“Is it too late, then?”

“Come here,” said Imri, “and let’s see what I can do.”

Long black hair, silkily soft, brushed across Rieuk’s chest. Slowly, lazily, Rieuk gave a sigh and opened his eyes and saw that Imri Boldiszar was bending close over him, holding a clear phial to his lips. All the previous night’s golden warmth had faded from the magus’s eyes, to be replaced by a look of such ruthlessness that Rieuk felt his heart stop with fear. He tried to move and found that his limbs were paralyzed.

Tabris, hovering overhead, alighted on his chest. Rieuk felt as if a dark weight was pressing down on him, forcing the life from his body.

“
Imri? What are you doing to me?
” He tried to speak but his tongue was frozen and no sound came out. His eyes filled with tears.
I trusted you. For the first time in my life, I trusted someone.
The tears spilled down his cheeks and he could not even lift his hand to wipe them away.

Imri stared at him. Through the blur of his tears, Rieuk stared back, hurt and uncomprehending. And then Imri turned away. “It’s no use,” Rieuk heard him say in an anguished whisper. “I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. There must be another way. Tabris, return.”

The crushing weight lifted as the Emissary faded into his master’s body. Rieuk took a breath…and heard his own voice faintly asking, “The phial…what did it contain? Poison?”

“It’s called a soul-glass.” Imri sat, shoulders hunched, head lowered. “It is used to contain a stolen soul, so that the stealer may use the empty body for his own purposes.”

“Soul-stealing?” Now Rieuk realized the extent of his own gullibility. “You wanted my soul? Or my body? But
why
?”

He heard Imri sigh. “I need to be the semblance of Rieuk Mordiern to get close to Kaspar Linnaius.”

“To learn his secrets?”

There was another pause. Eventually Imri said, in a flat tone, “To get my revenge.” He turned around and Rieuk saw again the ruthless fire in his eyes that had so terrified him.

“But if you took my body, what would happen to your own? Wouldn’t it just lie here, wasting away, without you inhabiting it?”

“If the soul is parted from its original body for too long, the soulless body dies. But my soul stays within me, and my Emissary enters the victim’s body to do my will.”

“And
my
soul?” Rieuk had to know everything that Imri had intended to do to him.

“When the soul-glass is crushed, the imprisoned soul is set free…but, unable to rejoin its body, it becomes one of the Lost Souls that wander the Ways Beyond, preying on others for all eternity…”

Rieuk gazed at Imri. “You’d do that…to me?”

Imri gazed back at Rieuk. No one had ever looked at him in that way before. “I had my orders. I was ready to do it. But that was before I met you.” Imri bent over him, a curtain of black hair falling on either side of Rieuk’s face, and lightly kissed Rieuk’s eyelids. Rieuk felt sensation flood back into his paralyzed body. He sat up slowly, dizzy with the thought of how close he had come to annihilation.

“Go. Go before I change my mind. I can’t imagine that you would want to stay with me now.”

Rieuk pulled his shirt on; but when he tried to do up the buttons, his hands were shaking so much that he could not manage it.

“Here. Let me.” Imri’s deft fingers took over, as if Rieuk were a child. This small, intimate gesture brought back sensual shivers of how Imri had undone those same buttons the night before.

“You spared my life.”

“Huh. The more fool me.”

Rieuk was struggling with violently conflicting feelings. Somewhere deep inside him, he was aware that he had gone from being the victim to the victor. “What did my master do to you, Imri?”

“He stole something from my order. Something that was not his to take. And I was charged with getting it back.” Imri’s voice had become very quiet but Rieuk could hear an intense anger charging every word. “I must return it—or suffer the consequences.”

“What will they do to you if you fail?”

Imri Boldiszar gazed steadily at Rieuk, a darkness shadowing his tortoiseshell eyes. “They will strip away my Emissary. And as we are bonded, body and soul, we will both be destroyed.”

Imri was telling him plainly that he would be executed by his fellow magi.
He’s only saying this to make me feel beholden to him. If I fail, he’ll die—and horribly. What better way to persuade me to do his will?

In the silence that had fallen between them he could sense that Imri was still looking searchingly at him.

“It’s called the Lodestar. The sacred Lodestar of Ondhessar. It’s a crystal unlike any other in this world.”

“A crystal? And my master stole it?”

“You’ve
seen
the Lodestar?”

Rieuk nodded. It pained him to hear that raw eagerness in Imri’s voice. How could he tell him that he had not only seen it, he had let loose the power it contained? “It was—it was my fault.” Rieuk turned his head away; he could not look Imri directly in the eyes. “Don’t hate me, Imri. My master was working on an invention to carry voices through the aethyr. He went searching for crystals that were in tune with each other to use in the machine. I—I used the crystal and—”

“You set Azilis free?”

“Azilis?” Rieuk repeated, his thoughts in confusion. “You mean the aethyrial spirit? I heard it calling to me. I thought it was trapped. So I—”

“Aethyrial spirit? Is that what Linnaius called her?” Imri spoke slowly, bleakly, as though not able to come to terms with what had happened. Rieuk sensed a dangerous change in Imri’s mood. Only a little while ago, the magus had been on the point of stealing his soul. How would he deal with him now? “So the crystal is empty and the spirit is at large?”

“No, no, Magister de Maunoir bound it. It’s in a book.”

“A book? Where is this book?”

“At the college, most like.”

“Then all is not lost.” There was a reckless glint in Imri’s eyes. He smiled suddenly at Rieuk, and Rieuk felt himself helplessly drawn back, entranced. Imri Boldiszar was a powerful magus and Rieuk would protect him.

CHAPTER 4

“Open up! In the name of the Commanderie!”

Klervie woke to the sound of shouting, men’s voices loud in the dark of the night. She heard the thud of fists pounding against the cottage door. Terrified, she lay still, not daring to move.

“Hervé de Maunoir! Open up!”

She heard her mother, Maela, whispering frantically to her father. “Slip out by the pantry window. Go!”

“And leave you to face them alone?”

“I’ll stall them. Just go!”

“Break down the door.” The brusque order outside was swiftly followed by juddering blows that made the whole cottage tremble. Klervie clapped her hands over her ears.

Suddenly the loudest blow was followed by the splintering rending of timber. The door burst open and men came running in. Klervie shrieked in terror and, snatching up her book, ran to her mother’s side.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Maela’s challenge rang out. “How dare you disturb my child’s rest? By what right do you break into my home in the middle of the night?”

At the same time, the sounds of a violent scuffle erupted in the cottage garden, punctuated by shouts. Then came a sudden cry of pain that made Klervie flinch as if she had taken the blow herself. “Papa!” she whispered.

“I have a warrant from the king.” A burly officer in a plain black uniform loomed over them, a folded paper in hand; Klervie noticed that it was secured with a scarlet seal.

“A warrant? We are not criminals—” began Maela, but her voice trailed away as more soldiers appeared in the doorway, dragging a man by the arms. “Hervé!” she cried.

Klervie flinched. Her father’s head drooped; drops of red dripped from a gash on the side of his skull, staining the clean flagstones. A horrible sick feeling gushed through her whole body; she wanted to run away, but her legs had begun to tremble and she could only stand and stare.

“So you thought you could escape us?” The officer gazed impassively down at her father. “By order of his majesty, King Gobain, I arrest you, Hervé de Maunoir.”

“On—what grounds?” Papa seemed to be having difficulty speaking. Klervie felt Maela’s hands tighten on her shoulders.

The officer gave a grim laugh. “Heresy. Practicing the Forbidden Arts. Summoning daemons—”

“What?” Maela interrupted him. “My husband is a reputable alchymist. He has never dared to practice the Forbidden Arts. He has more sense!”

“Seize everything. Every book, every piece of writing, down to the smallest scrap,” ordered the officer, ignoring her.

Bright gouts of lanternlight illumined the darkness as the soldiers ransacked the cottage, piling Papa’s books into chests, taking away boxes of papers. Klervie held tight to her beloved storybook, determined that no one should take it from her.

“The wards,” Maela was murmuring. “Why did the wards fail?”

Though Klervie did not understand what the wards were, she knew that they were there to protect them. And now Maman was saying they had let in these harsh-voiced and brutish men who were turning their home upside down. There came the crash of breaking crockery in the kitchen and Maela winced.

“What have you got there?” The officer loomed over Klervie. His eyes radiated such stern disapproval that she shrank close to her mother, arms crossed, both hands clutching the precious book to her breast.

“You wouldn’t begrudge a little child her book of tales?”

“Fairy tales are a dangerous and corrupting influence on young, impressionable minds.” The officer snatched the book from Klervie and stared at it with suspicion. Then his stern expression softened. “
Lives of the Holy Saints,
” he read aloud, nodding. He thrust the book back at Klervie. “Not a title I had thought to find in the house of a filthy magus.” He turned away, striding into Papa’s study, barking out orders.

Klervie gazed at the book in astonishment. In the harsh torchlight she noticed that the picture engraved on the front had changed; instead of the Faie with hair silver as starshine, her arms wound around the neck of a unicorn, she saw a haloed saint, eyes piously upraised, hands fervently clasped together in prayer. But before she could ask Maman why the picture had changed, the officer reappeared.

“We’re all done here, Lieutenant. Take him away.”

The soldiers began to drag Papa out of the door, his toes bumping over the flagstones, leaving a bloody trail behind.

Maela ran into the lane in her nightgown. She caught hold of one of the men by the arm. “Where are you taking him?”

Klervie had stood watching, mute with fear. Now she ran after her mother, only to see the man throw Maela to the muddy ground.

Klervie stopped, shocked to see how brutally he had treated her mother.

“I’ll follow you, Hervé!” Maela cried, her voice shrill, close to breaking. “I won’t let them keep us apart! I’ll—”

The sky turned white. Klervie shut her eyes, dazzled as an ear-bruising explosion shook the night.

“Oh,
no,
” she heard her mother whisper. Jagged flames leaped high into the misty darkness, coloring the trees and houses a lurid orange.

High on the hill that overlooked the village, the College of Thaumaturgy was burning.

“Stay back!” Imri hissed, tugging Rieuk into the shadows as a troop of soldiers tramped along the lane. They were dragging a prisoner.

“Who are they?”

“Inquisitors.”

“But I must warn the others—”

“It’s too late.” There was such urgency in Imri’s voice that the protest died on Rieuk’s tongue. “Don’t you understand? There’s nothing you can do now. I’ve seen the Commanderie Inquisition in action before. They hate our kind. All you can do is hope we get away without being seen.”

At that moment, Rieuk sensed a faint yet familiar electric tingle. Two officers of the Inquisition had stopped close by. One pulled what looked like a fob watch from his breast pocket. A
crystal
watch? As he held it aloft, Rieuk felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. He sagged against a wall, suddenly weak and disoriented.

“Ugh.” Beside him, Imri staggered as if he had been kicked in the chest.

“Look, there’s a streak of darkness in the stone,” said the officer.

“It must sense more mage blood close by,” said his companion, raising his pistol. “Could Maunoir’s apprentice be hiding out here?”

Rieuk’s instinctive reaction was to run like hell. But his limbs were trembling and would not respond to his will. He was helpless.

“Maistre Visant!” came the call. “We’ve breached the college walls. Come quick!”

The Inquisitors hurried away, and Rieuk saw not the dial of a watch face but the sparkle of a quartz on a golden chain as the officer tucked it back in his pocket.

The instant they had gone, Imri grabbed Rieuk’s hand, pulling him along the unlit lane.

“Can’t—run—anymore.” Rieuk dropped to his knees, trying to gulp in lungfuls of air. His throat was taut and dry and his ribs ached. “What happened back there? I felt so weak.”

“Angelstone,” Imri rasped. “It—has to be. It negates our power.”

“I never knew—” Rieuk broke off as the night sky flared with the lurid brilliance of the burning college. He gazed in dismay as the flames roared toward the stars. All the rare and ancient books would be incinerated in that inferno. All that precious knowledge accumulated over centuries would be lost forever.

“We can’t stay here.” Imri’s hand pressed on his shoulder, firm yet insistent. “They’ll scour the lanes. They’ll put blocks on the roads.”

Rieuk looked up at Imri’s face in the fire-streaked darkness and saw nothing but the flames reflected in the lenses of his spectacles. There was no way of reading the expression in the dark eyes behind those blank lenses.

“We must get out of Francia—and as soon as possible.”

“So Azilis is free at last.” Imri leaned on the rail of the barque, gazing out across the sunlit dazzle of the waves.

Rieuk was fighting to stay in control of his seasickness. The salty wind had freshened, gusting in fierce bursts, stirring up huge waves.

“You saw the conflagration at the college. Maunoir’s book could never have survived such a blaze. And as the pages burned, so she would have returned to the aethyr.”

“Is that…a good thing?” The barque crested another rolling breaker and Rieuk slipped to his knees, clutching his stomach.

Through the rising surges of nausea he heard Imri’s voice suddenly quirked with amusement. “Seasick? Silly boy. Why didn’t you say so?” Rieuk felt Imri’s hand on his head, tousling his hair. He flinched, fearing he was about to puke. And then a swift, bright current of cleansing heat passed through his body from his head to his toes. He opened his eyes and saw Imri kneeling beside him on the damp boards.

“Better?” Imri inquired.

Rieuk drew in a tentative breath. He could feel the barque’s timbers shuddering as it cut through the breakers, he could hear the waves slapping against the hull, but the nausea had gone. “What did you do?”

Imri helped him to his feet. “What use is an apprentice to his master if he’s lying groaning in the bilges?”

The master of the barque was shouting orders to the crew; the wind changed as they rounded the headland and the sailors began to climb up into the rigging to unfurl more sails. In spite of the sun’s bright sparkle on the burnished blue of the summer sea, Rieuk felt as if distant storm clouds were looming, darkening the hours yet to come.