And only my sister knew I was in Felarati. I dreamed of walking with her in a strange land. Was it a dream, or…
He hissed as Tyressa began cocooning his hands in silken bandages. “My hands are throbbing.”
“They will for a while, but should heal well.” She gently knotted a bandage off at his wrist. “Keep them clean and dry, if you can.”
“I’ll try.” Keles sighed. “What are we going to do?”
“About what?”
“This place. These people.” At the height of a storm, as the short, savage Eyeless Ones had closed on the ruined fortress, Keles had not only rebuilt the fortress, but had transformed the refugees. The eldest shed years, and children pulled them on. Armor and weapons had materialized, and the garrison could have fended off another assault. But they had no supplies. They could easily be starved out of the fortress.
“You should have filled the storerooms with rice and wine while you were rebuilding.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You jest.”
“I do, but I was also hopeful.” She tied off the other bandage. “Could you not do that now?”
Keles shrugged. “I could if I knew what I had done. Rekarafi says this was the second time I did something like that. The first time I moved the cavern in Ixyll, but I have no real memory of that. Last night I felt urgency and frustration, and yet…”
“And yet, because it was not the same in Ixyll, you doubt that emotion has anything to do with it?”
He nodded. “I know of jaedunto. Moraven Tolo was a Mystic swordsman. The few times I saw him fight, he was almost emotionless. Since what I did last night required magic, I have to assume I reached a level of jaedun. In Ixyll that made sense: I drew a map because I’m a cartographer. But, last night? True, I had been working as an engineer in Felarati, but I have no significant formal training.”
Tyressa dumped the bowl of water she’d used to clean his hands. “Not knowing what you did makes it difficult to repeat.”
“There have to be common elements between the two situations. Both times I was singularly focused. I pictured things in my mind with incredible clarity.” He shrugged. “That must be one piece to using magic, but I have never heard of anyone being able to do something like this.”
“True.” Tyressa looked around, then frowned. “If only you could conjure supplies. We cannot stay here. I need to get you back to Nalenyr, and I need to get Jasai away from Deseirion. Plus, we need to keep ahead of the Eyeless Ones. The sooner we can move out, the better. Don’t you think?”
Keles thought for a moment, then realized Tyressa was asking him for permission to organize the survivors. “I trust your judgment. You have my support. How long?”
“By noon. We’re in good shape. If the water supply holds, we’ll be okay for a couple of days. There are villages we can hit for food. Once we get into Helosunde, we’ll be among friends.”
“I like the idea of being in Helosunde.” Keles stood and offered Tyressa a hand. She took it gingerly and applied no weight or pressure as she stood.
“I will talk to Jasai about organizing the people. They are devoted to her.”
“Good idea.” He bowed to Tyressa and she returned it. As she walked away, various people approached her. They shot covert glances in his direction. A variety of them had drawn circles on their armor, or donned circular amulets.
To ward off magic. Keles shuddered and wandered toward the fortress’ open gate. Over seven centuries ago, magic had caused a cataclysm known to all as the Time of Black Ice. Waves of chaotic magic had swept over the world, killing many and transforming others. Since then, any undisciplined use of magic was considered an abomination.
The people’s reaction didn’t surprise Keles. Right now they were all thankful for the transformation that had allowed them to defend themselves. Soon enough, however, they’d fear the power he had used. They would wonder if he could take away what he had given and why he hadn’t returned them to their former selves.
But they were not alone in their fears.
He, too, feared what he had done. He could not control it. He couldn’t even identify it. It was possible that he could accidentally do something even worse. He could become as bad as the vanyesh.
Stop it! Keles frowned as he walked down to the edge of the muddy moat. His whole life had been centered on learning how things worked, and yet here he was convinced he could never figure out how to control magic. Mystics respected discipline and training—both of which would sharpen a person’s mind, free him of inconsequential thoughts, and allow him to concentrate on what needed to be done.
I need a task I can focus on. He squatted at the moat’s edge and scooped up mud with his fingertips. He ran his thumb over it—something didn’t feel right. It was cool and gritty, but not as rough as he would have expected. Not at all like the sand the Desei mixed to make concrete. It was the residue of the Eyeless Ones that had dissolved in the moat.
It didn’t matter. Keles concentrated and recalled a memory of playing in the mud on the banks of the Gold River. His father had been there. Along with his sister, Nirati, he had been making castles out of the mud. While he and Nirati scooped out shapeless mounds, his father somehow transformed it into straight walls and tall towers.
He focused on that image and called to mind the conviction that the mud had a proper shape. He did not allow himself to entertain any other thought. He would make it into what it was supposed to be.
A tingle began at the base of his scalp and clawed its way up through his hair. Something shifted and mud dripped from his fingers. A castle loomed large in his vision. Suddenly he saw himself there, on the top of a tower, looking out over a vast continent. Mountains rose and fell. Clouds gathered. Fierce lightning crashed. Snow fell and winds howled.
Then the white curtain parted, revealing the slender figure of a man in a white robe, with flowing white hair. Around him, verdant grasses grew up through the snow. The man straightened, his gaze rising from the base of the tower.
A jolt ran through Keles. “Grandfather?”
Qiro laughed. “A tower? This is the best you can do? You thought you could supplant me, and all you can raise is a tower?”
“I never…” Keles shook his head. “Where are we? What is this place?”
Qiro threw his arms open, and mountains rose to stab through the clouds capping the valley. “This is Anturasixan. It is my world. I created it! I have done what you will never do.”
“I don’t understand.” Keles leaned against the parapet. Though the stone appeared to be polished granite, it felt cold and wet, like the mud from the moat. “How did I come to be here?”
“You’re not here. Not yet. But you will be. Soon. Come to me, Keles. You, too, can be a god.”
Then the tower collapsed, reverting to mud, which splashed over Keles in a viscous wave. Something hard closed around his ankle, pulling him down. Keles kicked something solid, but the hold on his ankle only tightened.
Keles flailed his hands. They broke the surface. The moat, it has to be! His lungs burned, his flesh tingled. He kicked again, trying to swim to the surface, but the thing kept dragging him deeper.
Keles’ lungs ached. To breathe was to drown, yet the urge was irresistible.
I’ve gotten my hands wet. Air bubbled from fiery lungs. What a silly last thought.
Then something plunged into the moat from above. The pressure on his ankle vanished as strong hands grabbed him by the back of the neck and thigh, then pushed him up through the muck. He broke the surface, sputtering, and sucked in cool air before landing hard and bouncing.
He tried to stop himself from rolling, but that only hurt his hands. He slammed into the fortress’ wall and slumped over, swiping mud from his eyes.
A hulking creature emerged from the moat, mud sheeting off his body. The coating did not hide the bony plates on his arms or the hooks at his elbow. Mud dripped from clawed hands and water pasted long black hair against half his face. That face split with a grin that reveal
ed an ivory phalanx of needle-sharp teeth.
“You must be more careful, Keles Anturasi.” The Viruk’s words came in a deep, gravelly rumble. “One of the Eyeless Ones caught you by the ankle.”
Keles shook his head. “But there weren’t any present.”
Rekarafi brushed mud from his shoulders. “Not until you brought one to life.”
“What?”
“I was there on the wall, watching. You scooped up mud, then let it drip back. The Eyeless One took shape. It grabbed your ankle and pulled you under.”
Keles drew his knees up, the wall solid against his back. “But that wasn’t what happened. I was trying to make a sand castle from the mud. All of a sudden I found myself in a tower, facing my grandfather. He wanted me to come to him, which was when the tower collapsed and I was dragged under.”
The Viruk crouched and touched some of the mud to his tongue. He spat it out again and it steamed on the ground. “This mud is not from here.”
“I had that same impression.” Keles hugged his knees to his chest. “My grandfather created the Eyeless Ones. I think he shaped them from the mud of the land he created.”
The Viruk’s dark eyes widened. “He created life from nothing?”
“So it would appear.”
“This changes everything.”
“What do you mean?”
Rekarafi’s eyes slitted. “If he can make life from nothing, he can just as easily make all life into nothing. And if you cannot stop him, that is exactly what he will do.”
Chapter Three
4th day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Wentokikun, Moriande
Nalenyr
Prince Pyrust of Deseirion wanted to laugh. There he stood, nine steps from the Naleni Dragon Throne. Prince Cyron, having lost half an arm to an assassin, sat there waiting to die. Yet, at the other end of the red strip of carpet running to the throne room’s doorway, a small, dark-haired courtesan known throughout the Nine as the Lady of Jet and Jade had just commanded Pyrust not to kill Cyron.
The Desei Prince shook his head. “Beautiful and yet insane.” He smiled at Cyron, stepping closer. “She’ll not outlive you by much.”
Cyron did not reply. He just stared past Pyrust, at the Lady of Jet and Jade, his eyes already glassy as if he were dead. Still, his nostrils flared with a heavy, irregular breath.
Pyrust intended to take another step forward, and another. With one strong blow he would decapitate his enemy. His sword would so swiftly pass through the man’s neck that his head would remain in place until a bloody geyser vaulted it into the air. The head would land on the carpet, rolling to his feet, eyes staring up at him from a blood-dappled face. Then his greatest enemy would be dead, and Nalenyr would be his.
He sensed her at his elbow before she spoke. “Nalenyr will never be yours, Pyrust.”
She had advanced silently and stood within striking distance. “You think it a rival nation, but it is merely another province in my Empire. I deny you the right to slay my provincial governor.”
Pyrust spun, his sword poised to strike. “Prattle on about being Empress all you like, but it shall save neither you nor him. I am not a simpleton to believe in wishful tales. There is no protective matriarch who will return to save us.”
The Lady of Jet and Jade smiled beguilingly. The courtesan’s hand came up slowly, twisting, fingers opening as a lotus might blossom. The seductive gesture captivated him with its delicate ease. Then, there she was, right up against him, inside his guard. Her other hand rose up his rain-splashed breastplate and caressed his cheek.
Heat flashed through him, rising to his face. Sweat condensed on his brow and spilled down to burn his eyes. He remembered the sensation from his last coupling with his wife, Jasai. In the heat of passion he had gotten a child on her. The pleasure had filled him with warmth and peace.
Just as I feel now.
“No!” Pyrust went to shove the woman away, but she danced beyond his reach. He stepped toward her, but his left leg weakened and buckled. He went to a knee and a hand, still managing to keep his sword off the carpet. He tried to rise, but his right leg failed as well. He struggled to lift his head, then found himself on his knees before the Dragon Throne—a position he had imagined only in his worst nightmares.
His only solace was that Cyron, too, stared unbelieving at the courtesan. Had he moved, had he lifted his sword, Pyrust would have been at his mercy. The Desei Prince’s limbs trembled uncontrollably.
The Lady of Jet and Jade bowed to both of them. “You have my sincere apologies for the fraud I have perpetrated. Since my return from Ixyll eons ago, I have known many leaders. You have given me the most hope—and caused me the greatest fear.”
Cyron slowly shook his head. “It is not possible. You are not the Cyrsa of legend. You cannot be.”
The woman smiled warmly, and yet with a superior air that almost made Pyrust believe her story. “Would this be because Cyrsa was the warrior empress who led the expedition to destroy the Turasynd?”
Both men remained mute, which drew a quiet laugh from her. “History remembers me as it does because I have spent a great deal of money bribing minstrels, storytellers, and playwrights to present me as a warrior worthy of the Keru. Many know that I was but a Pleasure Wife to the last Emperor; but since I led an army, they assume I had military training. But I was never a warrior, only a courtesan who was given to the Emperor to distract him. He dithered when decisiveness was needed to save the Empire, so I acted to save it myself.”
Pyrust frowned. “Then you would be over seven hundred years old…”
“Closer to eight hundred, though I think the time I slept in Ixyll has not been counted against me.” She brought her hands together at her waist. “I am a Mystic. Mastery of my arts has conferred upon me the customary longevity. You, Prince Pyrust, have had a mild taste of what my magic allows me to do.”
Pyrust nodded slowly. He had not had an orgasm when she touched him, but his body responded as if it had. The intense pleasure, the exhaustion leaving him so weak he could not stand, the clues were all there. It was as if, with a simple caress, she could reawaken sensations to leave him sated.
Helpless.
He looked up at her. “You could have killed me, couldn’t you?”
“Far more pleasantly than your Mother of Shadows harvests her victims, yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Cyrsa smiled. “It has never been my way to destroy assets which are useful to the Empire. My Empire.” She looked past him to Cyron. “Prince Cyron has informed me of the situation in Erumvirine. The invaders, whoever they are, have likely taken Kelewan. From there, they can either strike south at the Five Princes, or north. But I have a feeling they’ve attacked in both directions and suffered for it.”
The Desei Prince frowned. “Is their host that great?”
“I do not know, but the ego of their leader certainly is.”
Cyron shook off some of his lethargy. “Who leads them?”
The Lady of Jet and Jade’s face closed. “Prince Nelesquin.”
“The vanyesh leader?” Pyrust weakly rubbed his half hand over his forehead. “He died in Ixyll.”
“He did. I saw to it that he was entombed in the Wastes. Then the survivors and I—who had been bathed in so much wild magic that the miracles the vanyesh performed were as conjurers’ tricks to us—retreated and built a sanctuary. We raised Voraxan with magic so the power could drain from within us. We did not wholly succeed and could not return here lest we destroy the Empire we fought to save.
“We slept, in shifts, and some of us went out on patrols. I was awakened and taken to Nelesquin’s tomb.” Her eyes focused distantly as she spoke. “It had been fashioned of black basalt and was flawless. We wrapped stone around it like thorned ivy. You could not look upon it and see it as anything b
ut a fell place, a lair of vipers and poison. We hoped any who ventured into the Wastes would shun it.”
Pyrust shivered, her words painting pictures in his mind of a dark place, twisted and obscene. The angles warped, the decorations grotesque and terrifying. There could be no mistaking the foul nature of what lurked behind those walls.
“But what we found rekindled terror in our hearts. Nelesquin had come on the expedition, bringing his vanyesh with him, but it was never his intent to save the Empire. His goal was to have the Turasynd and the Imperial heroes destroy one another. He had anticipated the Cataclysm and wanted his vanyesh to harvest the power. Then they would return to strengthen the Empire into a machine that would enable them to conquer the known world.
“And there, at his tomb, we found his ambitions had not died with him. His tomb had been burst open, from within.” She stared at them intently. The chill running down Pyrust’s spine tightened his bowels. “None of us had believed he would have the power to return from the dead. Apparently he did.”
Cyron shifted slowly in his throne. “And this was when you returned to watch and wait. You built up your network of spies to alert you to his return.”
“I had no choice.”
The Desei Prince came up on one knee. “If you feared his return, why did you not work to reunite the Empire? As separate nations, we are at a disadvantage.”
“I did not know how he would return. He might just as easily usurp a provincial throne as the Imperial throne. By maintaining the split, I denied him a significant power base. He, alas, found one elsewhere.”
Cyron sighed exhaustedly. “Anturasixan.”
She nodded. “I feared that to be the truth when you mentioned it to me.”
“What are you talking about?” Pyrust looked from one to the other. “A land named after your cartographers? Did the Stormwolf expedition discover it?”