King of Sword and Sky (18 page)

Nour gave a quiet cough to clear his throat. "Master?"

"You will take Kolis's place in Celieria." He eyed the younger man critically. Nour wasn't half as pretty as Kolis had been, but his body was tall and firm, his features appealing enough that he had no shortage of willing bed partners. His hair was thick and dark, his eyes a shrewd forest green. That was a plus. Queen Annoura preferred brunettes, the better to set off her own fair beauty. "Kolis's
umagi
in the court will smooth your path into the queen's inner circle."

"Forgive me, master," Nour ventured cautiously, "but I thought the Fey had left Celieria City and our plans there were uncovered."

"We suffered a setback, yes, but our work in Celieria City is not done. Dorian still sits on the throne, and after all these years, it appears he's finally grown steel in his spine. He is arming the keeps along the borders. That doesn't suit my plans. I'll take Celieria by force if I must, but I prefer to save our strength and resources for the Fey."

The Primage bowed his head. "Of course, master. When do you wish me to depart?"

"Tonight. Kolis's
umagi
will gain you entrance to the court and access to the queen. Dorian must be controlled, rendered ineffective, or removed. One way or another, I want the hand of Eld guiding Celieria's throne four months hence, before the night of the new moons."

"I will not fail you, master."

"If you do, you will do so only once." Vadim's left hand began to tremble again. The Mage rose to his feet and clasped the shaking hand behind his back. "There is one other thing, Nour."

Gethen's face settled into an expression of mild curiosity. "Master?"

"You will find a way to bring the Tairen Soul's truemate to me. Alive.
Before
she completes the matebond with him."

The Primage's jaw went slack, and for one brief moment alarm flashed openly in his eyes. He tried to rally, dropping his gaze and covering his gape with a forced cough. "Forgive me, master, but every Mage in Boura Fell knows the Fey have taken the girl through the Faering Mists. No Mage can reach her now. Such a feat is beyond even your vast power, Great One."

"We will see about that," Vadim snapped. He took a breath and forcibly calmed his temper. "I am not asking you to reach her in the Fading Lands, Nour. I'm telling you to find a way to draw her out. The girl's family has still not been found. They've not entered Orest, but the same scouts who spotted the Tairen Soul reported a powerful redirection weave spun around the Garreval. I find myself wondering why the Fey would trouble to spin such a weave if they were just passing through to the Fading Lands."

"You think the girl's family is there?"

"I think something is there, and I want to know what." Vadim opened a drawer by his desk and pulled out the black velvet bag of
chemar
left by Fezaiina Rael. "Here. I want these planted around the Garreval, inside whatever is hidden behind that redirection weave. They are like
selkahr
but have no magical signature. Leave them where they will be most useful as gateways for invading forces. If Ellysetta Baristani's family
is
there by the Garreval, find a way to bring them to me."

Nour picked up the bag and glanced inside before depositing the pouch in the pocket of his robe. "Yes, master."

"You will take my newest
umagi
with you. He knew Ellysetta Baristani and her mortal family, and he has a few scores he wishes to settle. He is eager to help you find them, and he has many ties among the rabble that may come in useful." A door opened to Vadim's left, and the thick-muscled, brutishly handsome Celierian stepped into the room.

Despite the debatable wisdom of claiming Den Brodson, Vadim Maur still felt a surge of pride at the sight of him. It took a very powerful Mage to deliver six full-strength Marks in six days, but it also took a very strong
umagi
to survive the process. Brodson had, though not easily. The Celierian's ruddy face was pale beneath its tan, his dark hair now streaked with white, and his thick muscles were still twitching from the memory of his torment and subjugation.

"This is Master Nour,
umagi.
You will serve him as you would me." Vadim held Den Brodson's gaze and summoned the icy, dark sweetness of Azrahn. "Do not disappoint me, mortal. As you know, I deal harshly with those who fail me."

Brodson's face blanched three shades whiter, and a muscle in his jaw began a rapid tic. He bowed and moved to Nour's side like an obedient dog.

"Go. You depart at nightfall. You will use Kolis's entrance to the inn. Have his
umagi
bring a sacrifice for the guardians of the Well. There must be no hint of Azrahn to alert anyone to your presence."

"Understood, master. It shall be as you command." Gethen bowed, snapped his fingers in a wordless command for the Celierian to follow, and exited the room.

When the two men were gone, the High Mage lifted his trembling hands and examined them. The shaking had grown worse again, despite Elfeya's obediently diligent efforts to heal him, and much as he wanted to, he could no longer deny the truth.

The tremors hadn't started because he'd spent too much energy claiming Den Brodson's soul. They hadn't started because Shannisorran v'En Celay landed a lucky blow. He'd been weakening steadily since the night two weeks ago when he'd found Ellysetta Baristani in the realm of dreams and tried to force his second Mark upon her. She'd fought back with a ferocity he hadn't anticipated. The Fire she'd summoned had reached across the barriers of the dreamworld and scorched him in the physical realm.

And mixed in with that Fire had been something else. Something that struck deeper than a few layers of scorched flesh.

Despite his multiple visits to Elfeya v'En Celay and the daily ministrations of her healing hands, he had yet to completely recover. He was finally coming to realize he never would … at least, not in this form.

Age was finally outpacing magic. The time of his next incarnation—so long postponed by Elfeya v'En Celay's impressive talents—could no longer be held in abeyance.

Death was drawing near.

Shadows rot Kolis's soul!
The Sulimage's ineptitude in Celieria City had cost Vadim dearly—the price far more than Celieria's discovery of Eld's secret aggression and the loss of a valuable Fey captive.

A Mage, when the time of incarnation came upon him, needed a new vessel to house his soul. Only the strongest, most magically gifted vessel would do, because though a Mage's memories and knowledge transferred to his new body during the incarnation, his powers did not.

Over the millennia, more than one High Mage had ousted his most dangerous rival not through direct combat, but rather by waiting for the time of his enemy's incarnation, stealing his chosen vessel, and replacing it with one of the rival's powerless mortal
umagi.
Once reincarnated, the Mage's helpless new form could then be effortlessly mined for all its centuries of precious knowledge before the pitiful living husk that remained was left to wither and die in the obscurity of captive servitude.

The greatest High Mage ever to rule Eld had no intention of meeting such a fate. Long ago, before the Mage Wars, before the scorching of the world, the germ of his grand idea had formed and taken strong root. Since that moment, every day of his life had been spent in pursuit of his dream.

Ellysetta Baristani was Vadim's greatest creation, the culmination of all his long, painstaking centuries of experimentation. She was his child, born of Fey flesh but tied to pure power through Vadim's most skillful manipulation of Azrahn's darkest secrets.

She was the Tairen Soul vessel whose birth he had engineered to house the next incarnation of his soul.

Through her, he could have what no other Mage before him had ever had: the pure, limitless power and destructive force of a tairen and—best of all—the immortality of the Fey.

And Kolis had let her slip through his fingers.

Vadim's hand was trembling again, but this time from fury. He forced himself to calm. He was the High Mage, a man who mastered adversity rather than succumbing to it. He would continue with his efforts to recapture Ellysetta Baristani—she was the ideal candidate to serve as his vessel—but Vadim had always been too wise a Mage to hold all his coin in one purse.

He had succeeded with Ellysetta Baristani. He could succeed again.

The Fading Lands
~
Eastern Desert

As the Great Sun began its descent towards the western horizon, Ellysetta caught sight of a city rising from the flatness of the distant desert.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing.

"That is Lissilin, light of the east," Rain said. "Our destination for tonight."

Lissilin, which they reached before twilight cast the Rhakis into shadow, was another abandoned city of the Fey. Like Elverial, there was a haunting beauty to the place, the otherworldly grace of the immortal Fey evident in every curving archway and artistically carved stone wall. Unlike Elverial, however, there was no sense of a sleeping city waiting for its inhabitants to return. Life had left Lissilin. Its gardens were parched plots of sand, its buildings and fountains the dry, sunbaked bones of a dead city.

Ellsyetta felt a deep sense of sadness as she walked through the empty, sand-blown streets. "How many Fey once lived here?" It must have been many. Lissilin was no mere village.

"Twenty thousand," Dax supplied the number.

She winced. "Where are those people now?"

They had reached the center of the city. Five thoroughfares converged on a pentagon-shaped center dominated by a large, dry fountain filled with a half a dozen stone tairen. Once, no doubt, this had been a beautiful, lush park as lovely as the cherry-tree orchard at the base of Teleon.

Rain met her gaze, his own bleak. "Gone."

"Dead?"

"Most. The rest moved to Dharsa when they realized Lissilin was fading."

Ellysetta glanced around at the dry, abandoned buildings. So much beauty lost. What a terrible, sad waste. "Of all the cities in the Fading Lands, how many are still inhabited?"

He drew a deep breath and let it back out as a heavy sigh. "A few Fey still live in Tehlas and Blade's Point, and a few live alone, but only Dharsa still thrives."

Only Dharsa. In all the vast kingdom of the Fey, only Dharsa was still populous.

Rain gestured to a beautiful rose-stone building on the left where graceful, columned arches led to a brightly tiled inner courtyard.
"Shei'tani,
you and Marissya can wait there while Dax and I hunt. That building holds a few rooms still kept up for travelers. I'll fill the fountain so you will have water to wash and drink." He turned to the tairen fountain and spun a cool, blue weave of Water magic. Moments later, clear water spouted from the mouths of the stone tairen and rapidly began to fill the fountain's large pool.

Ellysetta frowned in bewilderment. His weave had not been powerful enough to create that much water from nothing. He'd merely summoned it from beneath the sands. "I don't understand. If there's still water here, why did the city die?"

Rain didn't answer immediately. Instead, he gathered a handful of sand, spun it into a small cup, and filled it from one of the streams pouring out of the tairen mouth. He handed the cup to Ellysetta. "Taste it."

She took a tentative sip. Cool, sweet water touched her tongue. "It's just water."

"Precisely." Rain spun another cup for Marissya as Ellysetta quenched her thirst. "It's just water. But this fountain is—or was—Lissilin's Source."

Her eyes widened. She looked at the tairen fountain with dawning dismay. There was no crisp tingle of
faerilas
magic in the water pouring from those stone mouths. There was nothing but…water.

"It isn't lack of water that made the city die, Ellysetta. The magic of Lissilin died too."

For the first time she began to truly understand just how desperate the plight of the Fey really was. They were living in the shadow of extinction in every possible way. The death of the tairen, the decline of their numbers, even the slow eradication of their magic.

"Do you think everything could somehow be related?"

Rain took a drink of the magicless water, then poured the rest out onto the sand. "The tairen are sickening in the egg, the Fey are childless, and the magic of the Fading Lands is slowly dying. Do I think they're all related?
Aiyah.
I am certain of it. But what's causing it all is the question we have yet to answer."

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Accompanied by half a dozen servants, Vadim Maur walked down the corridor that housed the luxurious cells reserved for his most magically gifted female captives.

For many years, Elfeya v'En Celay had resided here, garbed in delicate silks and left to await his pleasure as he sought to mate his great mastery of Elden magic with her countless Fey gifts. That attempt had come to naught, except that he'd discovered truemated Fey did not breed with any but their bound mates.

That limitation was not true for unmated Fey. Though the unmated Fey females he'd captured during the Wars had been too fragile to survive more than a few decades in captivity, the males were both hardy and fertile. Over the centuries, his captive Fey and
dahl'reisen
males had successfully impregnated thousands of Celierian and Elden females, and in an effort to bring additional magic into the bloodlines, he'd even released a number of their offspring back into the Celierian populations in the magic-infused lands near the borders.