“Are you ready?”
She had no choice but to acquiesce. She nodded, not trusting her voice.
The adjudicators motioned in unison to the soothmancer. He rose from his bowl of alchemies and stepped behind Dart.
“We will know the truth about this daemon,” Argent warned, his one eye bearing down on her. There was a measure of calculation in his gaze.
From the corner of her eyes, Dart watched the blood-tipped fingers of the soothmancer rise on either side of her head. They glowed with fiery Grace. Dart attempted to brace herself, not quite knowing how to gird against what was to come.
“Stop!” a shout burst out behind her.
Too late.
Wet fingers touched her—at forehead, temple, and throat.
Dart could not turn. Fire locked her in place, burning and probing through her skin toward the core of her being. Still, she recognized Castellan Vail’s voice. Relief flowed through her.
“Tashijan is under attack!” Kathryn called firmly as she stepped into Dart’s view.
Before anyone could react, the soothmancer behind Dart suddenly screamed, a bloodcurdling cry that burst from the man as if from his very bones. His hand fell away from Dart, freeing her. He stumbled to the side, holding out his arms.
Smoke curled from his fingertips, each digit burnt away to the first knuckle.
The stench of cooked flesh swelled out.
Seeking relief, the soothmancer sank to his knees and plunged his seared fingers into the alchemy in the silver bowl. The blood in its basin ignited as if oil had been set aflame. The fiery conflagration coiled up the mancer’s arms, turning robe to ash, searing skin and hair beneath.
Betrayed by his own alchemy, the man fell back into a contorted sprawl, writhing on the stone.
At the high bench, the adjudicators were all on their feet.
Cries echoed around the room.
Dart noted Kathryn’s worried expression. Behind her, Brant stood with Laurelle, each with a look of dismay.
A voice boomed with authority, cutting through the growing mayhem. Warden Fields stood with an arm pointed at Dart. “Daemoness!” he cried to the guards, to the knights of the Fiery Cross. “Slay her!”
9
A MEASURE OF DARK GRACE
ABANDONING THE UPPER CITADEL, TYLAR CROSSED DOWN into the subterranean lair of the masters. Here the oil lamps affixed to the walls were stationed farther apart, some gone dark, unwelcoming to all but the studious masters who found little cheer in anything but their studies. Tylar did not mind. He drew power from the deeper shadows, swelling the Grace in his borrowed cloak. Below the Citadel, the crowd on the stairs also thinned rapidly.
Rogger matched Tylar’s more hurried pace.
Kathryn had sent the pair below to discover what new threat lay within the cellars of Tashijan and to alert the masters to the danger in their midst. But Tylar also knew she had suggested this mission for a more expedient reason: to keep Argent and Tylar apart. She had to rally Tashijan and draw attention away from Dart. With little love lost between regent and warden, Tylar’s presence would only antagonize. So Tylar had not argued. He had seen the number of cloaks bearing the sigil of the Fiery Cross. They would need Argent’s full support if they were to raise Tashijan’s defenses to their full. And Tylar had no doubt that every cloak and sword would be needed.
Both above and below.
Tylar left the stairs and headed toward the quarters of their one ally here. Gerrod Rothkild. The bronze-armored master knew these levels better than any. But Tylar sought Gerrod for another purpose, too. According to Kathryn, he had been studying the cursed rogue skull and examining its traces of seersong, a measure of dark Grace still locked within the bones. If they were to withstand the threat hidden out in the storm, knowledge could prove mightier than any diamond-pommeled sword.
But as he turned a corner, Tylar saw he was not the only one seeking Gerrod’s attention this night. The master’s door lay open ahead. Firelight shone into the dark hallway, bathing two figures.
Master Hesharian stood with a thinner figure in a master’s robes.
“I will not be thwarted,” the rotund master declared. “Any study into dark arts must be sanctioned by the Council.”
“There is nothing dark in my studies here,” Gerrod answered, hidden within his doorway, blocking the way. From the slight ringing muffle of his words, Tylar could tell that Kathryn’s friend had secured his helmet. “And I will not have my work disturbed at this delicate juncture. So unless you have a signed edict to violate my door, I will ask you to leave me to my studies.”
“If I find out otherwise…” A hard threat echoed behind Hesharian’s words. “Now is not the time for secrets when talk of daemons rings in our own halls.”
Tylar approached, interceding. “If it is daemons you seek, Master Hesharian, then I’ve come in a most timely manner.”
Hesharian turned at his words, as did his companion. The thinner master’s milky gaze fixed upon Tylar, faltering his step. The tattoos of the man’s mastered disciplines seemed to twitch in the flickering hearthlight, like spiders skittering across his bald pate. Then he stepped back from the doorway and into shadows.
Tylar spoke as he reached them. “The castellan’s page has been captured. The one accused of summoning daemons. She is to be soothed as we speak.”
Hesharian’s eyes widened in recognition of who stood before him. “Lord Regent,” he said formally, after tripping over his words for a breath. “How may I be of assistance to you?”
“For the moment, you can best serve Tashijan by joining Warden Fields. Matters move quickly. I’ve come at the request of the castellan to fetch a master to attend the soothing in the adjudicators’ chamber. She sent me to ask Master Rothkild—”
“Then it is timely indeed that you have come upon me,” Hesharian interrupted, stepping forward and half-blocking the doorway. “For such a dark soothing, it is only fitting that the head of the Council be in attendance.”
“Of course. I’m sure Kathryn meant no slight.”
“I’m sure,” he answered with faint enthusiasm. “And besides, it seems Master Rothkild is much too busy with his studies at the moment. Master Orquell and I will answer the castellan’s summons. I’m sure she will appreciate my personal attention.”
Tylar offered a bow of his head in feigned gratitude. Master Hesharian and his elderly companion set off toward the stairs, pushing past them with hardly a glance back.
Still, Rogger slumped into Tylar’s shadow as if not wanting to be noticed. Tylar glanced to his friend, but he merely shook his head, his eyes shadowed with worry. Tylar waited until the two masters vanished beyond the bend in the corridor before turning back to Gerrod.
The bronze master glowed in the firelight. “Thank you for driving Hesharian from my doorstep.” He edged back into his room, inviting Tylar and Rogger inside with a whirring wave of his arm. “I can only guess there was a greater purpose in drawing off the head of the Council.”
Tylar nodded. “Best he is out from underfoot. We have much to discuss.” He quickly related all that had happened in the past half bell, from the storm’s threat to Dart’s apprehension. “As Kathryn works above, we must work below. Word must spread through the Masterlevels. We must be prepared.”
Gerrod nodded, expressionless behind his bronze mask. “But prepared against what?”
“That’s what Rogger and I will seek out. Tracker Lorr is down there somewhere. We must find him. We’ll head to the deepest levels of your domain while you raise your fellow masters.”
“And this storm…” Gerrod turned away and strode toward an arched opening into an inner study. “I knew there was something dangerous in its manner—the way it sucked air alchemies to itself. And now, if the Wyr-mistress was correct, it casts out seersong to bend all Grace to its will.”
Tylar followed the master, drawn by any hope of an answer. He still pictured Eylan vanishing into the storm. If there were to be any possibility of fro
nting a rescue, they would need to know more.
“Seersong is also fueled by air, darkly twisted as it may be,” Gerrod said, stopping before the closed door to his study. “The storm seems tied back to that aspect of Grace. Air. If only we knew more…”
“Mayhap we do,” Rogger said, warming himself beside the hearth. He turned to heat up his backside and eyed Tylar pointedly. “The storm. The face it bore…”
Gerrod glanced to Tylar for elaboration.
Tylar recalled the countenance shaded in streaks of Gloom—a disquietingly familiar countenance. He had not even voiced his misgivings to Kathryn earlier. There had been no time, and Tylar had wondered if he could be mistaken. Here in the warmth, he had begun to doubt what he had seen.
Or maybe he just wished it to be false.
Rogger dashed that hope. “I recognized the face, too.”
The thief yanked up the sleeve of his woolen shirt and bared his upper arm to the firelight. He tapped a scar burned into his flesh.
Tylar read the Littick sigil. The name of a god. The same as whose face had been borne by the storm winds.
Ulf of Ice Eyrie.
“It was the third god-realm I visited for my pilgrimage,” Rogger said and pulled his sleeve back over the branded sigil. “There’s no mistaking that cold face.”
Tylar slowly nodded. It had been long ago, when he was new to his cloak. He had been hunting some bloodrunners with a small group of knights, tracking them into the god-realm of Ice Eyrie. They had been caught in an ice storm, came close to expiring. Rescue had come from Ice Eyrie. The hunting party had been taken to the hollowed-out mountain that was Lord Ulf’s domain. Tylar had spent the rest of the winter in that ice-locked realm. And in all that time, he saw the aloof god only once. Lord Ulf spent most of his time in his castillion atop the windswept peak. Still, it was hard to mistake him, with his snowy hair framing a dour and long face, as craggy as his peak. He was one of the rare gods who did not bear a youthful and pleasant demeanor.
And now here again was his countenance, painted in swirling swaths of Gloom. Tylar met Rogger’s eyes. There was no denying the truth.
Another of the Hundred had been swallowed by the Cabal. Once again, the War of the Gods stirred, striking openly at the heart of Myrillia.
Gerrod took the announcement with his usual armored indifference. “It makes a certain sense. Lord Ulf bears a Grace rich in air. But it still doesn’t explain how he controls this storm. Not even he can wield such power.”
“Perhaps he is aided by the Cabal’s dark forces,” Tylar offered, picturing the swirl of Gloom, the bleeding of the naether into his world.
Gerrod shook his head. “Such power would still have to flow through Lord Ulf. It would have to be wielded by him. Even Chrism, possessed by his naethryn undergod, would have failed to bind this blizzard to his will.”
“Then how is it being done?”
“I can’t say. Not yet. The answer is hidden behind the white cloak of the storm. But I have a growing fear.”
“What’s that?”
“The storm was not born out of nothing. It rose from the north and traveled south across the First Land. It has taken a full half turn of the moon to reach here. Arriving in a timely manner. Tied to the arrival of the Godslayer.”
“Not all of the Hundred were happy with your regency,” Gerrod continued. “Several spoke against you, while others remained silent.”
“Like Lord Ulf,” Rogger said, worriedly scratching at his beard. “He had closed off his realm, freezing his borders.”
Tylar had never given such actions much thought. Lord Ulf’s isolation seemed merely a solidifying of the god’s usual solitary nature, turned inward to protect his realm. But was there a darker purpose to it all?
“It would take the strength of more than one hand to birth this storm and guide its path and wickedness.”
“Or more than one god…” Rogger mumbled.
Silence settled over them.
Tylar now understood the bronze master’s fear. After the Battle of Myrrwood, Tylar had been wary of another move by the Cabal, the dark naethryn forces who sought dominion over Myrillia. But could Gerrod be right? Could the storm herald something even more dire? A faction of the Hundred now turned against him, against his regency?
Tylar held out one hope. “The face in the storm…it was sculpted of Gloom. Surely that must suggest the Cabal is involved here.”
Gerrod sighed. “Not necessarily. As any alchemist can manipulate Graces to dark ends, so too can any god. Though you are right to still fear the Cabal. When gods corrupt their own Grace, they lay themselves open to the dark forces of the naethryn. It is a dangerous path. And I worry that if we challenge Lord Ulf and his fellow gods too fiercely, require them to tap even more deeply into this dark font, then our own efforts could push them over the edge and fully into that dark abyss.”
“So either we succumb without a fight,” Rogger said, “or risk forging an even greater threat?”
Gerrod nodded. “Where there was one daemon-possessed god before, a legion could arise now. Myrillia would be torn apart.”
Tylar allowed all he had heard to sink into his bones. The others stared at him for guidance. He had none. It was a situation a thousandfold more dire than he had first imagined.
The heavy silence was finally broken—but not by anyone in the room.
A distant baying reached them, rising from far below.
Only one beast could howl that loudly.
“It’s Tracker Lorr’s bullhound,” Tylar said, turning to the door, reminded again that they had more to fear than just the storm.
Kathryn swept forward, casting out her cloak between her young page and the guards’ swords. “None will harm her!” she declared.
To one side, the soothmancer still lay on the floor, cradling the burnt stumps of his fingers. The silver bowl of his alchemies still smoked, casting forth a reek of burnt blood. A second mancer crouched over his companion staring daggers toward Dart.
Bloodnullers swept in from sheltered alcoves to either side, fetid with their black alchemies, ready to strip any Grace from the accused.
Kathryn raised a hand against them all, giving them pause. She kept her focus on the bench, on Argent. “She is still my charge. She will not be slain until a full investigation is made!”
Argent was on his feet, flanked by the two adjudicators. The elderly man and younger woman hung back, plainly shocked and unwilling to intervene. They were as much pets of Argent as the knights bearing the Fiery Cross. There was only one true adjudicator here.
The warden’s one eye glared down at Kathryn. “You protect someone who is plainly tainted by the dark arts. Can there be any question now that she did indeed summon a daemon?”
“That can be decided at a later time. For the moment, we have a greater danger to Tashijan. The storm beyond our walls is not a normal blizzard, but one blown up by Dark Grace, brought to bear against our towers.”
Her words silenced the smattering of cries. A few swords lowered. Eyes turned to the high bench.
“Madness…” Argent mumbled, then continued louder. “Storms of Dark Grace? What ale-addled sop has churned up such a tale?”
“It is no tale. Master Rothkild has studied the crashed flippercraft. He found the alchemies of the ship drained from its reservoirs, bled dry by the storm. Tylar—the regent himself went outside our walls to scrutinize the storm directly. It holds around Tashijan like a whirlwind, while beyond its icy cloak hides a dark force. He saw its face briefly, almost died for the viewing, and lost one of his own for his efforts.”
Kathryn read the wariness in the warden, but also a growing worry.
“And where is the regent now? Why does he not bring this word to me himself?”
Kathryn met the warden’s gaze, wondering if perhaps it had been a mistake to send Tylar off to search the cellars of Tashijan. But she also saw a fire rise in Argent and recognized the manner in which he bit his words upon mentioning Tylar.
The two were oil and fire.
“The storm is not the only threat we face. A Hand of Oldenbrook has brought word from Tracker Lorr.” She motioned to the boy named Brant. “Lorr has discovered something foul hidden beneath Tashijan. It stirs now while the storm has us snared. Tylar has gone to seek out the tracker to learn more. The Masterlevels must be cleared. Knights must be gathered to wall and cellar. Before we are caught defenseless.”
Her words stirred the small crowd that had gathered behind her. The two adjudicators had slunk behind Argent’s shoulders and had their heads bent together, speaking hurriedly.
Argent straightened. To his credit, the set of his lips turned thoughtful with concern, ready to take matters from here. He had led many a campaign against forces both human and otherwise. Though lately he had shown a craven lust for power, he was still an able leader of men.
Before he could speak, a sharper shout broke through the murmuring. Kathryn turned to see a squint-faced young squire with piggish eyes push forward, arm pointing, flanked by knights. His voice held a keening edge.
“It is him! That is the boy who helped Page Hothbrin escape! He is in league with her!”
All eyes swung between the accuser and Brant. Even Argent’s. A shadow passed over the warden’s features.
“Brant is a Hand of Oldenbrook,” Kathryn argued. “Just arrived. I have heard his story. He heard my page scream and merely went to her aid.”
Argent looked little mollified. “And according to your testament, he is also the one who brought forth stories of lurkers hiding below Tashijan.”
“He brought such a word from Tracker Lorr—a wyld tracker you’ve known for many a campaign.”
“Then where is Lorr?” Argent held up his hands. “Why does he send a boy to rally Tashijan?”
Kathryn opened her mouth to answer but was cut off.
“No!” Argent leaned forward, leaning fists on the table. “The only dark art I’ve seen with my own eye was the burning of the soothmancer by your page. She has shown herself to be cursed. If there is foulness afoot in Tashijan, perhaps we should look here first for answers.”