Shards of Time

  “What, I wonder?” said Seregil. “Do you suppose Rhazat sends the dra’gorgos out to market?”

  “It’s possible,” said Thero. “They are able to come out and take things back with them. Of course, Klia’s escort disappeared when she did, horses and all. Maybe they’re eating horsemeat.”

  “Micum said you were looking for how to use the new seal,” said Alec.

  “Yes.” Thero held it up. “I think I can fuse it to what’s left of the original gold spike—” He faltered, then covered his eyes with his hand.

  “We can’t seal Klia in there, Thero.”

  “Do you think I want to? If you could have just gotten her out—!”

  Alec kept silent: the pain in the wizard’s voice verged on the emotion he’d shown after reading the arm ring. And there the wizard stood, beside Khazireen as it were, the man who’d done exactly what Thero most dreaded: sealed away the great love of his life. If it came to that, Alec had no doubt that Thero would take his own life, just as Khazireen had.

  “I’ll try again, as often as it takes,” he said softly.

  Pocketing the seal, Thero crossed the chamber and went into the tunnel, leaving the light for them.

  “Bilairy’s Balls,” murmured Seregil.

  “He won’t survive sealing her in.”

  “In his place, I wouldn’t, either,” Seregil said softly.

  “Me, neither.” Alec put an arm around Seregil’s waist, but it was the skull he was looking at. “Khazireen and Nhandi—they did their duty, and Klia will, too. She told me she’ll never break the seal on that side.”

  “Honorable to the end,” murmured Seregil, returning the embrace and pulling Alec closer.

  “She’s made herself a knife out of her gorget and wanted me to tell Thero that she won’t suffer. I couldn’t do that. Not yet.”

  “Plenty of time for that.”

  They stood there in silence, side by side with the dead lover, and Alec listened to the now familiar sound of dripping water.

  Plink plink

  Plink plink

  “The crack that lets the water in. That probably happened when they set the seals, right? Thero talked about the earth shaking and Kordira told you about the huge black wave that struck the island. So the arm ring, the skull, and probably the seal were covered with dripstone over the years after that.”

  “Probably.”

  “When the seal broke away on this side, Rhazat’s influence started to leak back into our world, too. She can send out dra’gorgos anytime she wants, possess people, drag them into her plane.”

  “Restoring the seal on this side will stop that, Alec. What’s your point?”

  “Until something happens to the new seal. Obviously they’re not invulnerable. And when that happens, Rhazat will still be there, and maybe she’ll find someone to break the seal on her side. Then what? She’s loosed on the world again and no one is prepared to deal with her.”

  “Prepared.” Seregil raised an eyebrow. “So you’re suggesting that we—”

  “Let her out, yes, and be ready to deal with her. We’ve killed one dyrmagnos. I’m game for another. The only thing is, what do you think would happen if Klia did break the seal on the other side? Another cataclysm?”

  Seregil shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

  Rhazat watched with silent amusement as Klia picked at her dinner, trying to pretend she was hungry after a long day’s walk. But Rhazat smelled other food on Klia, and hadn’t missed the hint of color in her wan cheeks. She also detected the touch of something else, though she could not make out who or what it had been—neither ghost nor living. It was so pleasant to be surprised after a life as long as hers.

  “How was your hike today, my dear?” she asked.

  Klia glanced up at her, eyes devoid of anything but loathing. “The same as any other day, I suppose.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. You’ve dined at someone else’s table. No wonder you have no appetite for my humble fare.”

  The woman shrugged and ate a spoonful of what she believed to be lentil porridge. It had chunks of turnip floating in it, Rhazat noted. Interesting that she’d imagine such humble fare, except that she still reeked of fresh turnip, together with bread and dried venison.

  “I believe you’ve had a visitor today.”

  Klia didn’t bother to look up.

  “Really now, it is quite an exceptional event. I think it wasn’t sweet little Mika, but another of your friends, perhaps the one who has eluded my stalkers on several occasions.”

  Klia shrugged again and reached for the loaf of bread in front of her. Striking as swiftly as a rock adder, Rhazat pulled out the flint knife she’d used to carve the roast fowl and slammed the tip down through the back of Klia’s right hand. The woman screamed in pain, or perhaps outrage, then something very unexpected happened.

  It happened so quickly that Klia barely had time to register the pain in her pierced right hand before she instinctively snatched the knife out with her left, threw herself across the table, and buried the blade in the dyrmagnos’s chest, then pulled it free and slashed at her neck. Rhazat had somehow moved out of reach, however, and Klia found herself once again in the repellent grasp of a dra’gorgos. It closed icy fingers around her wounded right hand in a crushing grip and the flint blade fell from her grip.

  “That was most unwise,” Rhazat gasped.

  Thick black blood welled slowly out of the wound on her chest, yet it did not stain the front of her gown as it ran down between her breasts. More of the black, oily-looking liquid stained the flint blade, now tauntingly just out of reach near Klia’s feet. Held fast, in danger of losing her right hand, she refused to struggle.

  Looking up at Rhazat again, Klia noticed something else: the skin around the wound sagged slightly, like pierced tent canvas, and a hint of something dry and brown showed through, like the cast skin of a snake.

  Before Klia could make out any more than that Rhazat pressed a hand to the wound. When she removed it there was no sign of it or any of the black blood.

  “I’m not so easily killed,” she said with a smile that promised bad things to come. “You do try my patience, my dear.”

  Walking back to where the dra’gorgos still held Klia, gripping her waist and bloody outstretched hand in a hideous parody of a dancing figure, Rhazat picked up the knife, cocked her head as she inspected the glistening blade, then plunged it into Klia’s side just below her ribs. Klia gritted her teeth and swallowed a cry of pain as the dyrmagnos gave the crude blade a slight twist and yanked it out.

  “So you’re finally going to kill me,” Klia gasped. “Go on, then. Don’t make a meal of it.”

  “Oh, but I would make a meal of it, if that’s what I chose to do with you, and your death would take a day or more.” She covered the rent in Klia’s coat with her hand and suddenly the pain ceased as if it had never happened. “Even Nhandi screamed in the end, as I flayed the last of her skin from the bottoms of her feet. But we both know I’m not going to kill you.”

  The dra’gorgos, responding to some unspoken command, slid its icy grip from Klia’s hand to her forearm. Rhazat took the hand between her own, and the pain stopped there, as well. When she let go, Klia saw that nothing but the pale, slightly raised line of a well-healed scar remained, paralleling the delicate bones in the back of her hand.

  “Shall we agree to play nicely?” asked Rhazat, lazily waving the blade inches from Klia’s eyes. “Some things are harder to heal than others. Now, who brought you the food?”

  Klia stared her down, saying nothing. It had been easier to stand up to the dyrmagnos when she had no hope of rescue. Now the will to live reasserted itself, yet she could not betray Alec.

  “Very well,” said Rhazat. “Since you’re not hungry, I certainly won’t force you.”

  At another unspoken command the dra’gorgos bore Klia at dizzying speed up to her bedchamber and left her there, slamming the door closed and disappearing. Klia went to the door and tried the lat
ch. For the first time since she’d come here, it was locked. She went to the window and found that it still opened. Instinct dictated that she use any means necessary to get down to the ground and run. Logic overrode it with the knowledge that there was no place to go.

  That night around the fire outside Thero’s tent Micum fried up the fish he and Mika had caught and everyone did their best to eat for the boy’s sake. Thero mostly just dissected his with his fork, Seregil noticed, as if it were a mildly interesting specimen in his workshop.

  No one had said anything to Mika about Klia’s predicament; as far as the boy knew Alec was still trying to get her out, but Seregil caught him stealing worried glances at Alec and Thero. It was hard to keep secrets from a child as smart and intuitive as Mika had turned out to be. Perhaps because of that the boy didn’t protest when Thero sent him to bed earlier than usual.

  “Can we speak in your tent?” Thero asked.

  The four of them went there and Thero once again cast a protective silence and stood in the middle of the tent, facing them. “I think it’s time to talk of very serious things.”

  “Alec and I have been doing some thinking of our own,” said Seregil. “Sit down and hear us out.”

  Surprised, Thero settled stiffly on the edge of Alec’s narrow cot.

  “We talked in the cave after you left,” Alec began. “Sealing Klia in there is a death sentence, but there’s another way that gives her a chance at least. What if we let Rhazat out?”

  Thero stared at them in disbelief. “Are you insane?”

  “Think about it,” said Seregil. “Things as they are now are untenable, since she can reach out by way of her dra’gorgos. Sealing Klia in solves the problem for a while, until something happens to one of the seals again. If Rhazat gets her hands on someone else to break the seal, then she’s loosed on an unsuspecting world and Klia’s death will have been in vain.”

  “But we can defeat her,” said Alec. “We killed Irtuk Beshar, and we can kill this one.”

  Thero shook his head. “Can you imagine how powerful she must be for Nhandi and her lover to have gone to such extreme measures to contain her?”

  “But when we were in Zikara you said yourself that she will have gotten weaker after so many centuries with no living people to feed on,” Alec reminded him.

  “I said it was a possibility. And she’s been feeding again.”

  “All the more reason to strike now, before she gets any stronger,” urged Seregil. “She’s only had a few months of a soldier here and a peasant there. That can’t have made up for centuries of starvation yet.”

  “And how do you propose we release her without wreaking havoc on the world?” asked Thero.

  “We’d have to catch her by surprise,” said Micum, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. “Which means we’ll have to figure out where she’ll be when Klia breaks the seal.”

  “That depends on when Klia breaks the seal,” said Alec. “If Rhazat is with Klia when she does it, then the fourth cave will open on our side and we can attack her then.”

  “That would be better than letting her reach her tower,” said Seregil. “I can only imagine what sort of wards she has on it. And of course there’s the matter of the dra’gorgos.”

  “Once the seal is broken, her plane will be broken, too, won’t it, Thero?” asked Alec. “Then your magic should work against her, and the dra’gorgos.”

  “Hopefully that will be the case. We don’t know what the effect of breaking the inner seal will be, though,” said Thero. “There could be another cataclysm—earthquakes, black waves from the sky, the deaths of thousands, including us, probably.”

  “Or it will simply be like opening a door,” said Seregil. “Isn’t it worth finding out? Otherwise we leave things as they are, and let Rhazat devour the island a few people at a time with the help of her dra’gorgos until maybe she’s strong enough to break free anyway. Or we seal Klia in, and I for one am not willing to do that. Please, Thero, we’ve got to try!”

  Thero closed his eyes, and Alec could see his hands trembling. Yet his voice was steady, his gaze determined as he opened his eyes and said, “I suppose we should get started.”

  “First things first,” said Seregil. “We need to send all the soldiers and servants at the encampment, palace, and shrine away. They’re a potential food supply. Besides, there’s no point in endangering them needlessly when there’s nothing they can really do to help. Also, I can’t help wondering if there are more like Zella around us. You didn’t detect her, Thero. Who knows how many other spies there might be?”

  “I didn’t detect her because I didn’t know to look,” the wizard replied. “Since then I’ve been more careful. So far I haven’t found any spies. I’ll keep looking, of course.”

  “How can we order them to leave?” asked Alec. “We don’t have any authority over them.”

  “No, but Klia does,” Seregil said with a wink.

  It was a simple matter for Seregil to forge an order from Klia; he’d known her—and her handwriting—all her life. In it, he instructed the soldiers to move the camp to the base of Mount Erali and wait for her there. If he sent them back to Deep Harbor it wouldn’t be long before it became clear that Klia had never made it there, and that was the last thing they wanted. There hadn’t been any serious unrest since Klia had arrived, and Seregil meant to keep it that way.

  So he and the others made a show of packing up and moving back down the road to Mirror Moon as the soldiers moved out. Once at the estate, however, they gathered what they needed and prepared to steal back to Menosi.

  “I have to stay here?” Mika asked in disbelief as he watched Thero rearrange the materials in a trunk that night.

  “I’m not leaving until tomorrow.”

  “Master, what if you need me?”

  “Then I will send for you,” the wizard replied. “We’re going to be doing something dangerous and beyond your skills. This is not a punishment, Mika. You simply have to accept that even though you are my apprentice and I trust you implicitly, there will be times when you can’t come with me, and times like this when I can’t tell you why, for your safety and ours. That is my wish now, and my order to you: stay here until I return.”

  Mika nodded, picking unhappily at the linen binding the splints on his broken arm. “I understand, Master. I just wish—”

  Thero patted his shoulder. “It was the same with my master when I was your age, Mika. When you’re older you’ll understand better, and by then you’ll be powerful enough to come with me. In the meantime, I need you to heal and be well. I shouldn’t be away more than a few days, and Klia will be with me.”

  “If anything happens to Alec, you won’t be able to get to Klia.”

  “That’s right. And if that’s the case, I will send for you. But not before.”

  “Yes, Master Thero.”

  “I need you to make fresh arrows with shafts that haven’t been used,” Thero told Alec that night as they sat by the fire in the empty library with Seregil and Micum. “Do you have any white fletching?”

  “No, only red. But Nysander used white that day, didn’t he?”

  “You’re in luck,” said Micum. “I saw a brace of swans hanging in the kitchen. I’ll go get what you need.”

  “I’ve got the tack, but I’ll need some fresh shafts,” said Alec, rising to follow him. “I’ll go ask Dorin.”

  Thero fought off another crushing wave of fear as he laid out the materials he needed on the table: a blue inkstone, brushes, water, a handful of golden sesters, and the precious silver foil. Not fear of what lay ahead, but that it wouldn’t be enough.

  “We’ll get her back,” Seregil said from the chair by the fireplace.

  Thero nodded grimly.

  “You know how to bespell Alec’s arrows the way Nysander did? How confident are you?”

  “I know the spells. I just haven’t had occasion to use them.”

  “So you’re saying Alec might go up against our enemy with no advantage?
An ordinary arrow won’t stop a dyrmagnos, assuming we manage to lure her out. We know a sword doesn’t. Even if you dismember them, the parts will reunite.”

  “I know that! We’re just going to have to hope for the best, and that Illior is on our side again.”

  Seregil said quietly, “It isn’t easy, is it, when the one you love most is beyond your reach?”

  “How did you stand it, when Alec died?” Thero asked, laying out golden sesters on the table.

  “Sebrahn brought him back quickly. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  Thero turned to him. “You’d have chosen to die, too, wouldn’t you?”

  Seregil nodded.

  “What I saw when I held Nhandi’s arm ring. What I felt—” Thero picked up a pair of coins, held them in trembling fingers, set them down again. “I experienced the grief that destroyed Khazireen. I feel a kinship to him. I will be in the same impossible position he was in, if in the end we have to seal Klia in with that monster. I keep thinking about the skin magic Rhazat is using, and how she must have gotten it …”

  “So do I. Klia showed Alec a blade she made of her gorget. It’s sharp and it’s gold, so Rhazat can’t touch it. Klia will use it if she has to.”

  “Illior’s Light.” Thero rested his arms on the table and cradled his head in his hands. “What if we can’t do this? What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Well, if things go seriously wrong then none of us will have to live with our mistakes, since we’ll all be dead. So that’s taken care of.”

  “You’re such a comfort.”

  Seregil chuckled darkly. “Alec had a talk with me on the way to the palace, the day you first examined the corridor where he disappeared. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was being overprotective, which he interpreted as my not considering him a capable equal.”

  “Yes?”

  “Klia survived a war, Thero. She’s as intelligent as you are, and twice as brave as the rest of us put together, not some damsel in distress. She just needs our help.” Seregil paused. “Every time Alec and I go out on a job for you, I have to accept that he might not come back with me. But if he dies a hero’s death, it’s his choice and his right.”