You knew there would be a price to pay when you called them here, he told himself. He submitted himself to your authority when he answered that call. Did you think that would go unchallenged? You cannot deny him now.
Slowly Salvator reached out to take the primus’ hand in his own. He stared at the man for a small eternity and slowly, formally, lowered his head. His ritual kiss barely brushed the ring, but the carved ruby burned his lips like a hot brand. If he looked in the mirror now, would he see the sigil of the Primus Council seared into his flesh?
When he raised his head up again, the primus nodded solemnly. “The Church will give you what you need.” He put a hand on Salvator’s shoulder and squeezed it gently; coming from such a formal man, it was a disarmingly intimate gesture. “May the Creator look with favor upon your cause.”
Not my cause, Salvator thought. Ours. But he simply whispered “Amen” and watched in silence as the primi filed out of the chamber.
Chapter 25
D
ARKNESS.
Throbbing heat.
Struggling toward the surface of a black sea. Black mirror surface, unbreakable. Suffocation. No air to scream.
Must breathe. Must think. Must breathe. Must breathe.
Pain.
Body out there somewhere. Must find it. Reconnect. Reconnect . . . .
After an eternity of failed efforts, Kamala finally opened her eyes. The darkness that surrounded her was thick and hot, but a trickle of light coming from somewhere at least confirmed that her eyes were really open. It seemed nothing short of a miracle.
Where was she?
She tried to move, but could not. A limb trembled somewhere in the distance, but she wasn’t sure which one. Sweat trickled down her inner thigh. Otherwise, her body would not obey her.
What had happened?
She tried to draw upon her athra, to craft a spell that would help her comprehend her situation, but the mere effort sent pain lancing through her head, and the light began to spin around her. Bile welled up suddenly in the back of throat. She tried to bend over to vomit, but she found that she could not move, so she had to fight back the nauseating wave lest she choke on it.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the sickness receded a bit, and the light grew more steady. It was not a real light at all, she realized; she was seeing the residual power in this place, made visible by her Sight. Whispers of forgotten spells too subtle to notice in the full light of day became visible in such darkness, and also told her where she was. Still in Tefilat, apparently.
She was not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
What in the name of all the gods had happened to her?
Shutting her eyes, she tried once more to summon forth sorcery. But the power slid from her mental grasp like a hagfish in slime. It was as if her very mind had become incapable of organizing anything more complex than a simple thought. Sorcery required much more than that.
She was hungry, she realized. And thirsty. And her arms hurt. A lot.
She dreamed of a woman chained by her wrists, suspended naked from a ceiling high above. Her wrists were covered in blood from where the iron shackles had cut into them. She was hung with her toes barely touching the ground, so that if she strained with all her might she might be able to shift enough weight to take some of the pressure off her arms. At least for a few minutes. But the effort was exhausting, and she couldn’t keep it up for long.
Or maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was something worse.
The bird flies over the canyon, unsteadily at first, then with increasing confidence. At the outskirts of the city it lands on a ledge high up the canyon wall, out of sight of the city below. Placing a small talisman by a crack in the rock, it uses its beak to push it in, until only the edge of it is visible.
It cocks its head for a moment, as its tiny brain tries to process what it has just done. Surely the shiny talisman would look better adorning its nest than it does in this desolate place. But the thought is only a fleeting one, and after a moment the sorcery that is controlling it wins out. Leaving the talisman behind, it heads out across the desert once more, to pick up its next assignment.
The shadows withdrew slowly, painfully. Kamala was more aware of her surroundings now. Also more aware of pain. Her arms felt as if they had been jerked out of their sockets. She struggled to reach the ground with her toes and push up, to relieve some of the pressure on her arms. Blood from her wrists was trickling all the way down to her shoulders now, mixing with the sweat that slicked her body. The chamber was hot. So hot. She could smell her own fear.
“The secret is that it must work quickly, of course.”
Startled by voice that came suddenly from behind her, she lost her balance for a moment. Pain lanced through her arms as she struggled to get her footing once more. Once she accomplished that, she tried to crane her head back to see where the voice was coming from, but her strained neck muscles spasmed from the effort, and she had to face forward again.
“A Magister can cleanse his body of any drug, and needs only a moment to do so. So a drug meant for a Magister can have no warning signs. It must do its job the first moment that it becomes active, or else it is useless.”
A figure in black robes walked around her. Magisterial black. It took up a position in front of her, then raised up its head so that the dim light shone upon its face.
Lazaroth.
“I tested it on myself,” he said. “Very unpleasant, but you can’t trust other people for things like that.” He walked up to Kamala, until he was so close that she could feel his breath on her face; with the shackles raising her up high, her face was level with his own. “Do you find it . . . effective?”
Her mouth was so dry she could barely get the word out. “Why?”
He put a hand to her cheek and stroked it gently. The motion mocked that of a lover, but his expression was cold and cruel. “Because you invaded my territory. Because you spoiled my game. I do not take such offenses lightly, Kamala.”
“Tefilat is . . . yours?” A thin rivulet of sweat began to trickle down between her breasts, making her acutely aware of her nakedness. Such a thing had never bothered her before, but somehow, in front of this man—this Magister—she felt ashamed.
“I did not mean Tefilat,” Lazaroth said.
She struggled to make some sense of that, but the act of trying to think made her head pound. “Kierdwyn? Or . . . something else?”
He did not answer her. Instead he ran his hand down her body, fingers sliding along her sweat-slicked skin, from her throat down to her breast and then to her stomach, feeling the curves of her form as if she were some curious statue. She tried to draw back from him, but the chains would not allow it. She wanted to kick out at him, but she knew she did not have the balance or the strength necessary to make the blow meaningful. And it would just make the situation worse if she did. Right now there was still a chance, however slim, that she could talk her way out of this situation. The minute she spat in his face there would not be.
“I could smell the sorcery on you,” he murmured. “The others couldn’t, but I could. Fools! They were so convinced a female Magister couldn’t exist, they failed to see what was right in front of their faces.” He looked into her eyes; something in the depths of his gaze chilled her to her very core. “Never looking deeper than the surface,” he whispered. “Never asking the questions that need to be asked.”
Kamala’s mouth was so dry it was hard to form words. “If I had known you didn’t want me in Kierdwyn, I wouldn’t have gone there.”
A strange, dark smile flickered across his face. “Ah, Kamala. Do you think that’s what this is about? Or perhaps I should say . . . do you think that’s all this is about?” He shook his head and made a tsk-tsk noise. “Like the others, you can’t see what’s right in front of your face. A pity. I expected more of you.”
He glanced to one side and the light in the room grew brighter. “Your lover is all wrapped up neatly and read
y for delivery. He would have been in Queen Siderea’s hands by now if I could transport him safely from here. As it is, someone is being sent to come get him. No doubt he will find the ride . . . interesting.” He shook his head. “You would never have found him, Kamala. No sorcerer can find him now, nor can they free him. Siderea wove a trap out of the substance of his own body, and there’s no force on earth that can banish it without destroying him in the process.”
“You’re working with her? With the Souleaters?” Kamala blinked. “Why?”
Again the chilling smile. Lazaroth said nothing, but he walked slowly around her. She twisted her head to watch him until it hurt too much to do so, then faced forward once more. Listening with dread as he came up behind her, feeling the cloth of his robes brush against her from the rear, praying to gods that she had abandoned long ago.
His hand slid forward over her hip, serpent-like, seeking the place where her legs parted. She tried to jerk away, but that only pressed her more closely against him.
“A female Magister.” He whispered the words into her ear, his breath hot against the side of her face. “What does that mean? Is female a quality of the flesh or of the spirit? If you alter one of those, does the other change also?” His fingers sought out the most sensitive parts of her flesh, and he stroked them roughly, brutally, a mockery of pleasure. “Does it mean to be weak?” he whispered fiercely. She gritted her teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response. I have survived worse than this, she told herself. A cold and terrible comfort.
And then, without warning, pleasure exploded in her loins. A false heat conjured by sorcery raced through her veins, causing her body to respond as if to a lover’s touch. No! she thought, struggling to resist the tide of unnatural pleasure, horrified by the thought of responding to his abusive touch. I will not allow this! But his sorcery had taken control of her flesh, and she had no choice but to respond. His hand reached up to cup one breast, squeezing it hard enough to cause pain, and she felt a moan of pleasure rise to her lips, her body arching against him of its own accord. No! She bit herself so hard in struggling to suppress the sound that she tasted blood on her lips, while wave after wave of false pleasure shook her flesh, bringing tears of frustration and shame to her eyes. Don’t do this!
And then it ended. She hung limply from her shackles, grateful for the sweat that covered her face because it would disguise her tears. Lazaroth watched her for a moment, then took hold of her hair and pulled her head back, hard enough that her wrists were pulled hard against the shackles, drawing fresh blood. Leaning down close to her ear, he paused for a moment, then whispered, in mockery of a lover’s tone, “What makes you think you are the only one, Kamala?” He paused. “Or even that you are the first?”
Slowly he walked around her, until he stood in her full view once more. “What makes you so sure there are no other women who have the power? Who have taken on men’s bodies, perhaps, and who live men’s lives in order to be able to wield their power openly? Abandoning the identity that nature provided them, to claim the one that men control?
Reaching up his hands to the collar of his robe, he jerked it open. Beneath it he was naked. His body was hard and lean, with a thin line of black hair leading down his chest to the thick patch of curls at his loins. Then, as Kamala watched in fascinated horror, his male parts shrank and disappeared. The hair on his chest faded. His body grew soft and took on curves. Breasts with dark nipples swelled to fullness on his chest, while his face . . . that hardly changed at all. The hair grew longer, the jawline perhaps a bit narrower, but the eyes remained the same. Hard and cold.
Numbed by the drugs, Kamala could barely process what she was seeing. “You are . . . a woman?”
“So it would appear,” Lazaroth said. His voice had been altered as well—her voice—to suit her new appearance.
The shock of it was just beginning to sink in. “Others . . . are there others?”
“Other women who have the power, you mean? Who have taken on men’s bodies and lived men’s lives in order to call themselves Magisters? There may be. But if so, they guard their secret closely. There is no ‘secret sisterhood,’ if that’s what you’re asking.” The dark eyes narrowed. “Now, perhaps, you comprehend my politics.”
Kamala shook her head. “Siderea hates all Magisters,” she whispered.
“She hates the ones who betrayed her. The ones who played at being her lovers while using her like a cheap whore, and then left her to die when her usefulness expired.” The black eyes glittered dangerously. “Don’t you think they deserve to die for that, Kamala? Wouldn’t you hate them if they did that to you?”
The room spun about her head. It was all too much to absorb. “Why me?” she gasped. “I’m not your enemy.”
Lazaroth’s expression darkened. “Aside from the fact that you invaded my territory? Threatened my masquerade? Wound up on the wrong side of a war that I’m committed to winning?”
She walked up to Kamala and took her face in one hand. Her fingernails had become long and sharp, and they dug into her cheek hard enough to draw blood.
“I have spent three hundred years living a lie. Three hundred years! Not by choice, but because that’s what I had to do to become a Magister. And then you come along, strutting your wares like a cat in heat, proclaiming to one and all that the sacred, immutable laws of our brotherhood have never been more than a crock of shit. Three hundred years, Kamala! What is my lie worth now? My sacrifice? I buried my true identity so deeply that it would take another three centuries to dig it out. What did I do that for?”
Her body began to transform once more: thickening, lengthening, sprouting hair. His voice dropped in pitch with each word. “Would it have been so very hard for you to do the same?” he demanded. “Make yourself a cock, put on a bit of beard stubble, and no man need be the wiser. It’s not hard to do. The structure of the thing is simple enough.” He gestured down at his own emerging organ. “But no, it’s far more important that you strut like a whore among these men. Shattering the masquerade that protects us all, Very well, then,” he growled. “Play the whore, Kamala. I will help you.”
He grabbed her arm and spun her around, yanking her hard against her chains. Pain shot through her arms, and the room began to spin about her as he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her back against him, hard.
“So how do you want it?” he whispered in her ear. A lover’s tone. “With pleasure? With pain? Because I can go either way, Kamala.”
“Fuck you,” she whispered.
“All right, then.” She could feel him nod. “Pain it is.”
Shadows shrink along the canyon floor as the sun rises higher into the heavens, until only a thin line of darkness lies at the foot of the eastern wall. And then that too is gone. The sun is directly overhead now, and golden light floods down into the canyon, banishing all but the most tenacious shadows.
In a shallow crevice, the polished edge of a golden talisman catches the sunlight at last. Power sparks to life, shimmering about the precious metal. Drawing substance from the sunlight, it expands out into the canyon. Strands of power, bound to an unnamed purpose.
In another shallow crevice, another talisman activates.
And another.
And another.
The strands begin to weave complex patterns about Tefilat, a webwork of power that no human eye can see. Sometimes a strand will falter as it encounters the turbulent currents of Tefilat, but for each one that fails, another takes its place. A gleaming tapestry of power is being woven, its patterns as fine as lacework, its design drawn from a hundred ancient cultures. A scholar of sorcery might read meaning into its patterning if he studied it long enough, but interpretation would not come quickly. Perhaps he might even figure out what it was meant to do, if he worked at it hard enough. And long enough. And concentrated on nothing else . . . .
Footsteps. Steady but rapid. Lazaroth returning? Kamala tried not to cringe at the thought.
Light flooded the room as th
e door opened, seemingly from all directions at once. After the hours she had spent in near-darkness—perhaps days?—it was blinding. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could not block out the light entirely. Spots of fire danced behind her lids.
She trembled as she heard footsteps approach her. Hating herself for her weakness, and for letting that weakness show. But exhaustion had finally broken down the barriers that physical abuse alone could not. She would have sold her soul to a demon for a chance to lie down and sleep. Just for an hour.
“Well. This situation becomes more interesting by the moment.”
The voice was startling in its familiarity. Opening her eyes, she squinted against the light, trying to bring the figure before her into focus.
Ramirus.
He was dressed in a manner she had never seen before, in a jacket and breeches not unlike Colivar’s usual attire. His white beard no longer flowed down to his waist but had been clipped closer to his face. The style drew focus to his eyes, which seemed a darker blue than usual. Or perhaps she was hallucinating. Perhaps his beard and clothing were all normal, and her feverish mind could no longer process reality.
Or perhaps it was not him at all.
He looked her up and down, taking in all the details of her condition with the impersonal interest of a surgeon, then reached up to her shackles, summoning sorcery as he did so. It took a moment for him to get the power to do what he wanted, but then the iron bonds shattered in his hands, and she was free. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and she crumpled to the floor like a broken doll. For a moment she just lay there, stunned, barely able to process what was happening to her. Was this real, or was she dreaming?
Ramirus crouched down by her side, looking at the broken bits of iron in his hand with curiosity. “These are not magical. How did they hold you?”