Reign of Ash (32 page)

Illarion gave the heavy door a push. Inside was completely dark, and Blaine guessed that the shrine lacked even the shuttered windows of the library. Illarion stepped into the room, holding the lantern aloft.

The corridor had been much colder than the library, but the shrine was colder still. The lantern’s light did not reach to the four corners of the room. It was enough to see a darkened altar, the melted remnants of candles, and a shadowy sculpture that loomed against the far wall.

Blaine’s head throbbed harder, and he reeled. Kestel reached out to steady him, and he could see concern in her features. “Are you all right?”

Blaine grimaced. “I’ve been better. Let’s be done with this so I can go back to the library and sleep off this headache.”

Another step into the shrine revealed a room that might be able to accommodate about twenty-five people. Ornate boxes of metal and wood had windowed panels displaying yellowed bones.

“Looks as if we found those relics you were talking about,” Kestel murmured with a nod toward the boxes.

Against the far wall was a full-sized figure of a robed skeleton holding a scythe in one hand and an astrolabe in the other. The wall behind the figure was painted in brightly colored symbols.

“Look at what the skeleton is wearing,” Kestel whispered to Blaine. He moved a step closer for a better look in the dim light. Nearly hidden by the figure’s robes, an obsidian disk on a leather strap hung on the bony rib cage.

“Do you see?” Blaine whispered to Zaryae.

She nodded but touched his arm in warning as he reached toward the skeleton. “We must ask the goddess’s permission. She takes a dim view of those who desecrate her holy places.”

Whispered voices seemed just beyond the threshold of Blaine’s hearing, and he inclined his head to listen better, but the voices were too distant to make out.

“This is all wrong,” Kestel murmured. “Torven is the harvester of souls. But the color of the robe is green, Esthrane’s color.”

“Esthrane rules the Unseen Realm, where the wandering souls reside,” Zaryae replied in a hushed voice. “Look at the symbols in the background. Sheaves of wheat. Herd animals.” She pointed toward the wall behind the skeletal figure. “And Esthrane’s constellation. This is Mother Esthrane,” Zaryae said. “But I’ve never seen her shown this way before.”

All around them in the darkened shrine, Blaine could hear voices whispering. They were louder now, but still indistinct. He felt the skin prickle at the back of his neck.

“Here’s a taper,” Kestel said. “Let’s light some candles and get a better look at the mural behind the figure.” She lit several candles and turned to Zaryae. “What do you make of it?”

The mural behind the skeletal statue began on the right with figures of the mage-scholars at work in the fields and going about their daily business, milling wheat, baking bread, tending herds. Over them all, in the sky, were symbols of Esthrane’s protection: hawks, crows, and falcons.

In the next panel, directly behind the death-mother figure, the mage-scholars were at their books, studying and teaching or venerating Esthrane with prayer and offerings.

“Look there,” Zaryae said quietly, pointing to the third panel. A gray-green sky replaced the bright blue of the first panel. The birds of protection had been replaced by ravens, owls, and vultures. A faint green ribbon of light could be seen in the gray sky, and a skeletal hand protruding from a burgundy robe hovered, as if to hold the image fixed. Below that, translucent images of men milled about on the banks of a black river. Unlike the first two panels, there was nothing to suggest their purpose or how they passed their time, no daily chores, no study or worship.

“The Unseen Realm,” Zaryae murmured. “The place of restless souls.”

“And for some reason, the mages believed that was their fate,” Kestel said, drawing closer to the mural and leaning forward for a better look. “See – the faces of the ghosts are the same faces of the mages in the first two murals.”

“Why would they believe that they would linger in the Unseen Realm instead of passing to the Sea of Souls?” Kestel murmured. “Or worse, to Raka if they had done something to anger the gods?”

Blaine’s fever flared, and he felt the blood leave his head in a rush. He fell, vaguely aware of Kestel’s cry and Zaryae’s shout. Illarion was speaking, but his voice seemed far away. In its place were the voices of the dead. The shadows surrounded Blaine, cooling his fevered skin with their touch, and their words grew clear as the living voices receded.

Lord of the Blood, you have come
, a voice said.

Our seer foretold that one remained. We awaited you, but we did not live to greet you
, added another voice.

Blaine’s body thrashed in the throes of fever, and he groaned, feeling as if he were burning from the inside out. He struggled to ask the questions he wanted to ask, fighting his failing body.

Where did you go?
he managed.
Why did you wait for me?

The voices murmured, drawing away as if in conference with each other. Blaine’s head swam.
Tell me
, he urged.

We will show you.
The world around Blaine went black, and the panicked voices of his friends receded. In their place, he saw the lyceum standing whole and undamaged, with twenty mage-scholars rising before dawn to be about their daily chores. The ground under his feet shook, and the sky seemed to split as a wide, bright-green ribbon snaked across the heavens.

He heard the scholars’ cries of fear and dismay, then saw them rally as the eldest mages called them all to shelter within the lyceum. It was as if he huddled with them in the shrine. He listened as some prayed to Esthrane for deliverance, while others tried in vain to harness the magic.

Wild magic was all around them, and as the
hasithara
slipped beyond the mages’ grasp, the rogue
visithara
seemed all the stronger. The ground beneath the lyceum trembled, and cracks appeared in the walls. The air itself crackled with unharnessed power as the ribbon passed overhead.

A mighty roar sounded above the frightened scholars, the sound of snapping beams and crumbling stone. The air was filled with the acrid tang of lightning close at hand, and billows of smoke followed quickly after as the ribbon of light burned and smashed its way through the top floor of the lyceum, overcoming the mage’s wards and protection.

Among the scholars’ ghosts, Blaine felt the loss as the mages had felt it and understood how vast a difference it had made for those who had possessed far more than just a hint of power. It felt as if his soul, his essence was being flayed from him, inch by inch, pulled out through his skin, white-hot, ripping at the sinews of his being. He screamed, raw-throated, bucking and writhing with the pain, his back arching and his hands scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor.

He saw the mages downed by the sudden disappearance of their power, helpless as their lyceum burned, frightened and in agony as their magic was stripped from them. Wild power coursed in its place, searing them from the inside, torturing them with visions and horrors.

Then, all was still. The wild power left as quickly as it came, and the harnessed magic, the
hasithara
, did not come in its place, leaving the mages empty and broken. Blaine, who possesed a minor power, had felt the loss of it keenly, but for true mages, the absence was as if someone had stripped them of sight, sound, and hearing. Blaine heard the whispers of the mages’ ghosts, and he knew that many of them had not survived the loss of the magic.

The scene shifted, and Blaine saw the mages struggling to recover, beating out the last of the flames to save the lower floors of the lyceum and daring to go outside to recover their farm animals.

A raptor’s cry split the air, and instinctively, Blaine flinched. He knew that cry. He had heard it on the bridge as the gryps attacked. It sounded all around him, around the scholars, as their sky filled with the beating of leathery wings and gryps attacked the mages who were tending their crops and herds.

Just nine of the original twenty mages survived the first attack, and Blaine felt the ghosts’ sorrow as keenly as if it were his own. Other images filled his mind, of magic storms and the monsters conjured by rifts in the fabric of the world torn by the wild
visithara
magic. Blaine saw the survivors try to go about their lives, tending the animals, working on the mural that told the story of the lyceum. One by one, they fell to the gryps. Finally, only one old man remained, and his heart failed him as he fled from the winged predators.

The loss of the mages was keen, overwhelming Blaine. A familiar image filled his mind, and he recognized it as the ceiling mural and floor design from the lyceum’s entranceway. Blaine felt as if he hung suspended between the two, belonging to neither land nor sky. Ghostly figures moved at the edge of his vision, then one of the shadows stepped forward.
Lord of the Blood, you have come
, the voice repeated.
Yet you are almost one of the dead.

Tell me how to save the magic
, Blaine begged.

When we saw that you had come, and we knew it to be you, we brought a manuscript to your attention
, the ghost replied.
The mage you seek took refuge among us. He spoke little of his plans, but he was consumed with tales of Valshoa. Take the manuscript and the disk. Continue his search.

Why Valshoa? Does it really exist?
 

For a few seconds, the voices were silent.
Valshoa is a place of great power, a crossroads of the meridians
, the voice answered finally.
Find it, and you may find him.

Blaine’s life force was fading with the poison of the gryp’s talons, and as it did, he felt his bond with the ghosts grow stronger, even as his connection with the living frayed.

Then Blaine saw a faint glow in the darkness, and as he watched it, the glow grew brighter until it became the figure of a young woman with long, dark hair. Zaryae, Blaine thought, and he realized he could hear the seer’s voice.

If you believe he can save the magic, help me save him
, Zaryae beseeched the ghosts, but Blaine could not tell whether she spoke the words aloud or whether he heard them in the same way he could hear the ghosts.
He must live for the magic to be restored in our time. I can’t raise him up without your help.

We had potions and powders that will be of use to counter the gryps’ poison. We will show you where they are hidden and how to use them
, one of the ghosts said.

Fever raged through Blaine’s body, alternating with chills so intense that his muscles seized painfully and it was hard, so hard, to breathe. Far away, Blaine could hear a woman crying. There were other voices, men’s voices, some shouting, others arguing. And farther away, at the edge of his senses, Blaine could hear Geir’s urgent warnings that they needed to go below to take cover from the magic storm.

Illarion forced Blaine’s jaws open, and Zaryae poured a bitter elixir into his mouth, stroking his throat to make him swallow. “He’s burning up,” Zaryae murmured. “The wounds have gone bad. It’s poisoned his blood. He’s dying.”

“Do something!” Kestel begged. “Please don’t let him die.”

“The spirits are thick around us,” Zaryae said. “I’ve asked them for their help. I’ve done all I know to do.”

Voices chanted. Time stood still. Power raged. In the maelstrom, Blaine felt as if the bonds that tied his soul to his flesh loosened so that he was hovering, caught between the frantic efforts of the living and the prayers of the dead. Torn between worlds, Blaine saw his friends kneeling around his still form at the feet of the skeletal goddess, hands linked, eyes closed.

In the gray vale of the Unseen Realm, Blaine heard the chant of scholars as the ghosts drew near, their shadows gathering around the mortals in the shrine, surrounding him. Once more, Illarion pried Blaine’s mouth open and forced a vile mixture down his throat. Kestel and Zaryae gentled Blaine out of his clothing so that Zaryae could dress the wounds with a new poultice. Distantly, Blaine heard Zaryae muttering, perhaps to herself, perhaps to the spirits that gathered around them.

Zaryae rose from where she knelt next to Blaine. In the candlelight, he saw her move from one relic box to the next, stopping in front of each to make a shallow bow. “Please,” she begged. “Show me how to hold on to him. I’m losing him. The elixirs need time to work. I need to delay his spirit’s passage until his body can heal.”

Zaryae returned and laid her hands on Blaine’s wounds, one on his thigh and one on his shoulder. She began to chant. Blaine felt the press of spirits grow thick around him. One by one, the relic boxes took on a faint glow, and the air in the shrine grew even colder. Power stirred around Blaine, and he knew he was in the presence of the dead. Illarion and Kestel must have felt the ghosts’ presence as well, because Blaine heard them cry out.

Blaine watched his body convulse, and he felt the bonds that tied his soul to his body grow slack. He looked around and saw dozens of ghosts filling the shrine. They formed an unbroken ring around him, and he knew he could not break through their cordon.

“The spirits have come,” Zaryae said. “They will keep his soul from passing over.”

Abruptly Blaine plunged back into his body. The elixir was burning through him, as if red-hot pokers had been laid on his flesh. His whole body stiffened in pain as the elixir warred with the poison in his veins. Blaine felt as if he were tumbling in the airless depths of the ocean, held in the grip of the cold sea. Finally, darkness took him and he was too exhausted to wonder whether it would ever release him.

C
onsciousness returned slowly. As Blaine came around, he realized first that the terrible pounding in his head had stopped. His body ached as if he had recently done hard labor in the mines of Velant, but the fever had broken. Instead of waves of chills, he felt the cold stone beneath him, and shivered.

The voices of the shadows were silent. In their place, Blaine could hear worried whispers, and the catch of a woman’s breath as she cried. His eyes struggled open. He still lay where he had fallen, in the small shrine to Esthrane. Torches now lit the enclosure as well as the candles that circled the feet of the skeleton statue. The crackle of power that had filled the air was gone.

“How do you feel?” The voice was Kestel’s, and it sounded as if her throat was raw. Blaine looked up and saw that her face was tearstained, and her eyes were red from crying. She managed a self-conscious half smile and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“Pretty awful,” Blaine admitted.

Kestel leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re back,” she murmured. “You gave us all a scare.”

“What happened after I blacked out?” Blaine’s mouth was dry, and his tongue felt thick. He was exhausted and sore and hungry, but his forearm and thigh where the gryp had gashed him no longer burned, and he realized that he did not feel the slow poison of the wounds in his blood.

Kestel was kneeling next to him, and she smoothed back his sweat-soaked hair. “We got hit with a magic storm, on top of the snowstorm we already had,” she said. “And I’m not completely sure, but I think Zaryae received a vision from the ghosts that helped her use the mages’ potions to heal you.”

“A magic storm,” Blaine repeated. “But we’re not belowground.”

“It came up fast,” Kestel said. “Geir got Piran, Verran, Borya, and Desya into the cellars. But we didn’t dare try to move you. So we rode it out here.” She shrugged. “The lyceum’s survived magic storms before – what’s one more?”

“You could have all been killed,” Blaine murmured.

“Zaryae was in the middle of a vision,” Kestel replied, touching his cheek gently. “We couldn’t get the potions we needed if we went below. And you were busy dying.”

Blaine met her eyes. “I felt… as if the fever took over completely.”

Kestel nodded, and Blaine could see her eyes well up once more. “You collapsed. It was so cold, but you were burning up. You started raving about the shadows, and then you went into convulsions. While Zaryae was trying to heal you, you stopped breathing.” Her voice caught, and she touched his face lightly with her fingertips, as if to reassure herself that the worst had passed.

“You saw and heard things in those moments,” Zaryae said. She leaned against the wall near the skeleton statue, and even in the torchlight, Blaine thought Zaryae looked haggard. She had bound back her long, dark hair, and her eyes were shadowed as if from lack of sleep.

“Thank you,” Blaine said quietly. Zaryae inclined her head in acknowledgement. Blaine tried to shift positions but realized he still felt too weak to sit up.

“You don’t need to move. The danger has passed,” Illarion said. He paused. “I’d very much like to know what it is you saw right before —”

“Right before I died?” Blaine finished for him. “Ghosts. I saw ghosts.”

Zaryae nodded. “It’s not uncommon for the dying to see the dead. You were the one all along to see the shadows moving, when the rest did not.”

“You knew they were there,” Blaine said.

Once more, Zaryae nodded. “Yes. Before the magic failed, seeing the spirits was part of my gift. Now, I can only sense them when the wild magic is very strong. I could feel the storm coming, and I hoped it would help me communicate with the mage spirits and the ghosts who were bound to the relics. I gambled that it might be enough to save your life, and that the thick rock walls might protect the rest of us.”

“Too dangerous,” Blaine murmured. “You should have gotten to the cellars.”

“And let you die? I don’t think so,” Kestel said. She reached for his hand and squeezed it hard. “After all, you’re the last Lord of the Blood. We’ve got to take care of you.” Her tone was joking, but the look in her eyes was not.

“What did the ghosts show you?” Illarion asked.

“The scholars knew Quintrel,” Blaine said. “He came here. That’s why the ghosts made sure we found that book. He left the map, and that disk,” he said, with a nod toward the statue. “We have their blessing to take both items, plus the book. The ghosts told me that if we find Valshoa, I’m likely to find Quintrel.”

“I think we’d better study that book carefully,” Kestel said, “as well as the murals in the entranceway.”

They looked up at the sound of footsteps in the corridor, then Geir and the others appeared in the doorway.

“The storm has passed,” Geir said. “It’s nearly dawn. I’ll need to head into the cellars, but I wanted to make sure that you had all survived.”

“Glad to see you made it,” Verran said, the note of cheer in his voice masking his worry. “We’ve got the fire going again in the library and brought in food enough for breakfast.” He looked to Geir. “What about you? You’re not feeling peckish, are you?”

Geir smiled. “There are rats enough in the cellars to sustain me.” Distaste colored his voice. “It’s not my preferred meal, but I’ve made do many a time on worse.”

Kestel looked at Geir. “The ghosts of the scholars came to Blaine. They confirmed that Quintrel was here – and that he was interested in Valshoa. That’s where they think he’s gone.”

Geir grimaced. “That would be great news – assuming the coordinates we’ve found for Valshoa are accurate.” He paused. “Now that the storm has passed, I’ll copy the drawings of the sky and land in the entranceway. Best we get that done before anything else happens.”

“Never tempt a thief with a hidden treasure,” Verran said with a grin. “It’s going to take us a bit to dig our way out with the snow. And when I’m not digging, I fully intend to be studying those maps. We’ll find it.”

“Don’t forget Pollard and Reese,” Blaine said quietly, still exhausted from his ordeal. “They’re likely to be hot on the trail as well. And if any of the men who attacked us were bonded to Reese, he may already know their attempt failed.”

Verran shrugged. “All in a day’s work. After all, any treasure worth stealing means someone else wants to steal it from you.” He grinned. “Stick with me, and I’ll make proper thieves of the lot of you.”

Zaryae had hung back, leaning quietly against the wall near the statue. Blaine looked to her. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Zaryae gave a tired smile and nodded. “Thank the goddess. I was just the vessel.”

Blaine made it back to the library, supported between Verran and Illarion. Geir, who could have easily carried him, refrained for the sake of Blaine’s dignity and instead hung back in case Blaine collapsed. Zaryae leaned heavily on Kestel, exhausted but otherwise undamaged. The few feet of corridor seemed endless, but they arrived at the library, and Blaine gratefully accepted the bed that had been fixed for him from the scavenged materials of the scholars’ dormitory rooms.

Geir took shelter from the day, but the others remained awake long enough to eat something to replenish them after the events of the night before. Tonight, Blaine would join the others to force the manuscript to give up its secrets. Today, he wanted nothing more than sleep.

The torches in the library had been extinguished, as had the lanterns. The gray light of dawn filled the room, muting its colors. Someone had banked the fire. Everyone except Desya, who had the first watch, had found a place on the floor to make a bed for the day. Even the shadows did not move, and Blaine wondered if, after what happened in the shrine, the shadows would speak to them again. For now, they were silent.

Kestel had moved her bedroll next to his. Blaine managed a weak grin. “So now you’re my nurse?” he bantered shakily.

She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “Bodyguard, if you prefer.” Her expression grew serious. “You almost died, Mick. It was too close. Dammit! Why didn’t you tell us something was wrong?”

“Didn’t seem to be much purpose in worrying anyone, when the poison was going to have to run its course,” Blaine said.

“You wouldn’t have made it if the ghosts hadn’t told Zaryae where to find the herbs for the potions, and if she hadn’t asked the relics’ spirits to keep your soul from crossing to the gods before the elixir could work.” She shivered. “I thought we were going to lose both of you.”

Blaine reached out to take her hand. “Thank you for staying with me.”

Kestel managed a half smile. “Don’t push your luck like that again.” She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Now that you’re back from the dead,” she said quietly, “don’t be afraid to go after what you really want.”

Blaine met her eyes, then brought a hand up to cup her head, tangling his fingers in her red hair, drawing her back down for another, longer kiss. Kestel did not pull away, and she returned the kiss with gentle interest.

When they finally separated, Blaine looked at her in slightly dazed wonder. “If I’d known I needed to die to get your attention,” he joked weakly, “I would have done it before this.” He was still holding her hand, and he lifted their twined fingers to his lips. “I love you, Kestel.”

She squeezed his hand. “I love you too, Mick,” she said in a voice low enough that only he could hear. “I think we’ve both been figuring out how to say it for a while now.”

Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm Blaine. “Don’t go,” he murmured. He let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her, guiding her to settle down against him. “Stay close, please.”

Kestel nestled closer. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere without you.”