He could see the fighting pits now. Bannon gingerly touched his cracked ribs and felt pain resonate through his bones. He cursed Kor and his companions under his breath, then cursed himself for failing. He wanted to see Norukai heads roll, blood spouting from the stumps of necks as the men tumbled to the ground, felled like those poor yaxen at the butcher house.
If only he’d had Sturdy …
In the combat pits, the fighters were shirtless, their scarred, well-muscled bodies glistening with oil and sweat in the torchlight. They practiced against each other, using swords and shields. Two dour morazeth trainers lounged back on stools, critiquing their moves. Across the passageway, Bannon could see a much larger barred cell, and with a jolt he recognized it. Ian’s cell. His heart skipped a beat.
“Sweet Sea Mother!” He gripped the bars and drew in a deep breath, but his chest felt like a shattered bottle. He forced himself to breathe more calmly, then called out in a hoarse voice, “Ian, are you there?”
He saw figures moving in his friend’s chamber. The champion’s cell. Because of the angle, he couldn’t see much, only the shadows flickering and spilling out. When they came into view, he saw that one figure was Adessa, leader of the morazeth and trainer of the arena fighters. Her breasts were bare, small, and hard as if her feminine curves had been distilled down to tough muscle. Her brown nipples were erect and so sharp they looked like weapons. Indifferent to her nakedness, Adessa casually wrapped the black leather strap around her chest. A moment later the scarred and steely-eyed Ian stepped up beside her. He glistened with sweat, as if he had just engaged in personal combat.
Seeing him, Bannon cried, “Ian! I’m over here. I—”
The other young man just looked at him. His flat metal gaze slid over Bannon as if he weren’t there at all. Ian retreated into the unseen corners of his spacious cell. When Adessa opened the barred door to exit, Bannon realized the gate wasn’t even locked. Apparently, Ian and these warriors were prisoners by their own choice, held captive by training, reward and punishment. He remembered his friend’s cold stare, the angry twist of his lips.
Bannon wondered if these fighters had been so indoctrinated or their wits so addled by numerous head blows that they didn’t actually want to be free. Maybe they had forgotten what it was to be free. The fighters in the open training area kept dancing around each other’s blades, thrusting and parrying, yet maintaining silence all the while. Even when one struck a severe blow against another, his opponent didn’t cry out.
After closing Ian’s barred door Adessa crossed the passageway to Bannon’s much smaller cell, moving like a lioness ready to strike. Bannon stood his ground, but the look in the morazeth’s brown eyes made him falter. She grabbed the bars of his cage and used her key to work the lock. He heard a click, then a snap of springs, and she yanked the cell door open.
“You’re awake, and you’re alive—for now. Tell me, Bannon Farmer, are you worth my time?” He faced the hard woman, sensing that she was a bully just as his father had been. His heart thudded in his chest, but he had long since stopped being frightened of bullies. He had finally stood up to his father, but if he’d done that years earlier, then his life—and his mother’s—might have been much different.
Bannon faced her. “I am a guest in Ildakar. My friends Nicci and Nathan will come for me.”
“Your friends are weak and have no power here.”
Bannon remembered when Nicci had faced the Lifedrinker, destroying the evil wizard just as she had destroyed Victoria. He thought of Nathan slaying the monstrous selka who attacked from the sea and the dust people who crawled out of the desert sand. “My friends have a great deal of power.”
“Not power that counts,” Adessa said.
“Then Amos will come to free me.” Bannon tried to sound convincing. “He’s the son of Sovrena Thora and Wizard Commander Maxim.”
Adessa’s close-cropped black hair glistened with sweat. Her lips quirked in a razor smile. “Who do you think brought you here?”
Bannon’s heart sank as he slumped down on the wooden pallet. He knew she spoke the truth. He realized that no one would help him, not now. Nicci and Nathan would eventually notice he had gone missing and they would track him down—if he could remain alive long enough. “I just wanted to give Ian his freedom.”
“The champion already has his freedom. He is doing what he likes, and he will die in the arena. He is my lover, and I may even let him plant a child in me. What man could be more free?” Adessa’s stomach was flat but marked with runes, as were her arms, her neck, and her cheeks. Her thighs were likewise a book of protective spell symbols written with pain. Adessa had a feral power coiled inside her and a simmering sexual ferocity that Bannon found more intimidating than her strength.
“What made you this way?” Bannon asked.
“I am a morazeth. I am a product of the most perfect training. I am currently the best and most successful, and I take my duty very seriously.”
“But I don’t know what the morazeth are.”
“We are your darkest nightmare.” Adessa stepped closer, and he could smell the perspiration on her skin. The glow of his small candles painted her arms and thighs a rippling copper. “For many thousands of years in Ildakar, long before General Utros came with his army, long before the shroud was erected, the morazeth have been fearsome fighters and trainers. Hoping to gain status, ungifted merchants, tradesmen, and artisans would offer up their girl children to become morazeth. Only the finest, most perfect specimens are selected for training, and of those only one in ten survives to be branded with the protective spell symbols.” She used her forefinger to caress the welts on her left thigh, tracing angles and swirls that wove a shield through her flesh and soul.
“Daughters have their skin branded inch by inch as they pass their training.” Her face twisted in a flicker of pain across her memories. “The weak ones who whimper are killed.” She stroked her palm over the panoply of arcane markings on her forearm. “We consider any smooth patches on our skin to be shameful marks, and we hide them.” Her dark eyes glittered as she leaned close. “Feel honored that we have taken an interest in you. We will train you so you can fight and die.”
“I can fight and die without your training,” Bannon said.
“But you will die more swiftly if you do not have it. But such training comes at a cost. Are you worth it? I assume you will be intractable, so I may as well start your lesson now.”
She withdrew a small cylindrical object like the handle of an awl from her hip. Because it was black, he had not noticed it against the leather of her wrap. She stroked her thumb down its contoured wooden side, and he heard a faint snick. A sharp silvery tip snapped out, a thick needle no longer than the first knuckle on his forefinger.
“Each morazeth has a special weapon like this. We call it an agile knife.”
Bannon wondered what she meant to do with it. The needle tip was too short to cause any real damage. “Is it poisoned?”
“Far worse than poison. It is composed entirely of pain.”
She jabbed the stubby point into his thigh, and with her thumb she touched an odd rune etched into the wooden handle. Bannon felt an explosion of pain ripple up and down his muscles, as if a great crash of thunder had struck him, concentrated in that tiny needle tip.
He screamed and collapsed, utterly ignoring the ache of his multiple bruises and the sharp edges of his cracked ribs. His movement dislodged the tiny agile knife, and the pain disappeared instantly, although the aftereffects made him shudder.
Adessa looked at him, disapproving. “That was your first lesson.”
Shaking, spasming, he got to his hands and knees and spewed vomit onto the cell floor. He looked up at her aghast, his jaw slack. With the back of his hand he wiped drool from his mouth. “What … was that?”
“It was pain,” Adessa said. “The agile knife has a spell-bonded symbol connected to one of the runes branded on our flesh.” She stroked the contoured handle again and smiled. ?
??It doesn’t take much to release it, and we have other symbols that can be used to make it kill; just the tiniest prick and you will either be dead, or you will wish you were dead.”
He panted. His thoughts were scrambled.
Adessa continued to stare at him. “Now get yourself up. There’s a water basin to clean your face.” She cast her glance to the passageway outside of his cell. Bannon barely focused on another figure standing out there, a slender female also wearing the scant black coverings of a morazeth. “I have already chosen the champion as my special pet, so I give you to Lila. She will know what to do.”
The young woman opened the barred door and entered his cell as Adessa departed, without even a glance back. Bannon wanted to lurch to his feet and knock Lila down so he could bolt out into the passageways and escape.
But he knew Lila would stop him.
She crossed her arms over the leather band that wrapped her breasts. “Because you are soft and weak, I’ll grant you an hour to rest and recover.” Her lips twitched in a grimace that might have been intended as a smile. “I will use the time to consider what you deserve for your second lesson.”
CHAPTER 44
Bells tolled to alert the city. In a solemn procession, the members of the ruling council moved through the streets of the upper plateau, heading toward the great pyramid. Well-dressed nobles and upper-class merchants climbed the streets to the upper levels, gathering as if for a festival. The eager movement in the streets, accompanied by the closing of shops, inns, and restaurants, signified that this was a day of great importance.
“Whatever is happening, I don’t like this,” Nicci said, stepping out of the grand villa. “Not at all.” No one had called them, but she suspected it might have something to do with the ominous spell the duma had promised.
Nathan and Nicci left the grand villa, joining the crowds and looking for answers. “Where is that boy Bannon?” Nathan asked, looking around.
“Now that the Norukai are gone, maybe he’s with his so-called friends,” she said. The young man was far too open and trusting, and she had seen the half-hidden sneers on the faces of Amos, Jed, and Brock. Nicci recalled that she herself had had no friends when she was young. Her stern mother had forced her to work the streets in the name of the Imperial Order, following the teachings of Brother Narev, while scorning all the hard work and success that her father achieved. Nicci had not understood friendship, had not wanted it. Youthful friendship remained a foreign concept to her, but she had grown close to her companions.
She made a quiet comment, just loud enough for Nathan to hear. “He may not wish to be here, depending on what the wizards intend to do … and what we may have to do to stop them.”
The skies were overcast, but the smear of gray clouds carried only gloom, not rain. The clamor of tolling bells continued across the city, echoing from all the levels. Nicci felt a crackle of tension in the air, both excitement and dread.
“No one informed us,” Nathan said. “Maybe we aren’t invited.”
Nicci didn’t intend to let that stop her. “We’ll invite ourselves. Come with me, Wizard.”
Nathan’s azure eyes narrowed as he watched people ascending the steep streets to gather on the upper level of the plateau, crowding near the base of the pyramid. “I believe you’re right, my dear sorceress. I don’t need my gift to sense the brooding in the air.”
Nicci tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and set off with a determined stride. “I do have my gift, but if I choose not to do anything with it, then what use is all that power?” Her throat was dry, her voice husky. “I can’t just stand and watch.”
“I understand how powerful your gift is,” Nathan said, “but if you do something rash, you will turn a whole city against us, and we’ll end up dead, or at the very least defeated. You know what the wizards of Ildakar can do. You saw Maxim petrify that rebel before our very eyes.”
Nicci did not slow her pace. “But they haven’t seen what I can do. The duma members and all these gifted nobles have never experienced anything like me before.”
“Indeed, no one has.” Nathan hurried to keep up with her. “I will help as much as I can.”
They joined the crowds of jostling people gathered at the top of the plateau. One well-dressed man carried a bowl of grapes tucked in the crook of his right arm, and he plucked one purple sphere after another, sucking it dry and spitting out the seeds.
Nicci smelled a wash of pungent sweat and stinging perfumes. The men had oiled, wavy hair and wore armbands that set off the color of their pantaloons and waist sashes. Strips of exotic furs adorned their half capes or the cuffs of their long robes. The women wore swirling gowns as if they were going to a grand gala. The tolling bells played a dissonant metallic tune that rang from a dozen high towers throughout the city.
Intent on her purpose, Nicci glided among the people who were in no hurry. Nathan stayed close to her side. “Dear spirits,” he muttered. They reached the wide base of the stair-stepped pyramid, sensed the excitement growing among the spectators. “It must be the blood magic, Sorceress. We knew the wizards were going to do something like this. I expect there will be killing. A lot of it.”
“I expect they might try,” Nicci said.
The crowds parted as the council members finished their slow procession and arrived at the pyramid. Thora and Maxim were in the lead. An icy wall seemed to separate the sovrena and the wizard commander, but they were partners in the powerful magic that protected the city. Thora wore a sapphire gown trimmed with lush gray fur, while Maxim had a long garnet-red cape lined with white fur spotted with gray, as if ashes had fallen onto pristine snow. The two did not look at each other, nor did they glance at Nathan or Nicci as they passed.
The members of the duma walked behind them, staring ahead with solemn expressions: the fleshmancer Andre, Chief Handler Ivan, matronly Elsa in her purple robes, dark-skinned Quentin wearing an ocher robe and a golden amulet on his chest, Damon with his shaggy black hair and long mustaches.
Uneasy, Elsa flicked a glance over at Nathan, gave him a brief smile, then turned to mutter to Quentin, “It isn’t right to do this without Renn. We should wait for him to come back from his expedition.”
“He might never come back,” Quentin mumbled, as they walked past. “The duma can do without him. Renn’s too unreliable. I’ve never been totally convinced of his loyalty since Lani made her bid for power.”
Elsa looked shocked. “Renn has always been a faithful member of the ruling council!”
“As you say,” Quentin replied, just as they were walking out of earshot. “But once the shroud goes up, he will have to remain outside until we let him back in. And I hope the blood magic buys us a good deal of time.”
Thora and Maxim had ascended the stone steps to the top of the pyramid, and turned to face the crowds from their high vantage. The five duma members climbed up to join them among the components of the strange apparatus on the top platform, the gleaming half sphere mounted in its armature cradle, the quartz prisms standing tall on metal rods.
Wizard Commander Maxim extended his arms and gazed across the people. Even from the bottom of the pyramid, Nicci could see the sparkle in his eyes. “Ildakar has stood for thousands of years.” The wizard commander’s voice sounded tinny and resonant, but she had no doubt even the slaves and tradesmen in the lowest levels of the city could hear him.
Thora spoke next. “Ildakar is protected because we protect it. Our perfect way of life is sacred, but such perfection comes at a cost.” Her voice was hard, but she did not seem saddened by what she had to do. “The cost of blood.”
Down below, ten members of the city guard marched forward, their steel-shod boots making a sound like drumbeats on the flagstones. They led a group of twelve slaves bound by ropes around their wrists. Some of them struggled and pulled back, but the guards did not cuff them. They simply marched along, implacable, forcing the slaves to follow.
Nicci recognized faces from the slave market, the
“walking meat” delivered by the Norukai. The guards herded them single-file up the worn stone steps, five women and seven men. Two of them were old, three were young, and the others of varying ages. A thin man and woman, both with brown hair and dusky skin, walked close to each other, moving fatalistically. From their dress and facial features they looked to have come from the same village. The woman went up the stairs first, one step after another. She extended a hand back and the man reached forward to brush his fingers against hers. Nicci could tell they knew each other, cared for each other. Several slaves wore blank expressions as if they had been drugged, perhaps by the red wisterias. One woman stumbled and sobbed, trying to keep up with the rest in spite of sore joints. Tears ran through the wrinkles on her face. A muscular man twisted and tugged on his rope, but the others kept moving forward, ascending to the fenced platform below the top of the pyramid.
Thora turned to the crowded slaves. “Stand before Ildakar!”
The captives moved restlessly, looking confused, and the sovrena stamped her foot, sending a flicker of power through the structure. The magic jolted the captive slaves, seized their muscles, and forced them to stand rigid like puppets.
The crowd muttered. The merchants and nobles in the finest clothes looked eager as they watched, but those in drab clothes were less excited.
“Stop!” Nicci called out from below, eliciting a gasp from the crowd. “If there is such a price, Sovrena, why don’t you pay it with your own blood?”
Thora scoffed down at her. “Because my blood is worth too much.”
Nicci felt the angry magic coiling within her, like eels swimming through a muddy canal. She felt warm vibrations like hidden strands throughout the city, a spiderweb of magic centered on the pyramid. “So you kill captives instead? For entertainment?”
“For necessity. These slaves will pay the cost. That’s what they are for.” The twelve captives were fixed into place one level below the complex apparatus on the upper platform. Some of the slaves shuddered. The old woman continued to weep, even though she could barely move, held in place by the magic.