Soul of Skulls (Book 6) (15 page)

And what would he do if they were unable to save her?

He pushed the thought out of his mind. 

"Here," he said, taking a deep breath. The spell would need all of his skill and concentration. "Lay her upon the ground."

Mazael knelt and put Romaria upon the earth. She lay motionless, the only hint of life the faint twitching of her chest as she drew breath after ragged breath. 

Riothamus closed his eyes and drew on the staff's power. The magic flooded through him, along with the memories of the High Elderborn wizards that had left their powers within the staff. He sifted through the memories, examining the spell they used to put their brethren into hibernation.

He opened his eyes and spoke the incantation. The sigils upon the staff's bronze wood flared and pulsed with golden light. His spell grew louder, the golden light in the sigils shining brighter. The staff shivered in his hands, once, twice, three times. 

And then a twig sprouted from its side. It grew with a crackling noise, until a slender branch six inches long jutted from the staff, studded with green buds. The sapling fell loose from the staff, and Riothamus caught it. It felt delicate against his fingers, its roots like hair.

"Molly," said Riothamus, power thrumming through him. "Loosen the earth, please."

Molly nodded, produced a throwing knife, and jabbed it into the hard-packed earth of Castle Cravenlock's courtyard. Riothamus went to one knee and gently placed the tiny sapling over the torn earth. The roots slithered into the torn ground as the sapling took hold. 

"Lord Mazael," said Riothamus, standing once more, "cut your palm, and let the blood fall upon the sapling."

Mazael gave a curt nod, drew a dagger, slashed his palm, and let the drops of blood fall. The torn earth drank the blood at once, and Riothamus felt the power. Dark, raging power, like an inferno of black flame, filled Mazael's blood. Only a fool would try to steal and wield the power of the Demonsouled. But with the Guardian's staff, Riothamus could direct the power without touching it. 

He began a new incantation. A wind whipped through the courtyard, and the watching servants backed away. Riothamus lifted the staff high, drawing as much power as he could manage.

Then he struck the butt of the staff against the earth.

A thunderclap rang off the keep and the curtain walls, and the sapling grew. 

It grew with terrific speed, the ground shaking as it swelled to six feet of height, twelve feet, eighteen feet, leaves unfurling from its thickening branches. Dozens of slender roots erupted from the ground and wrapped around Romaria, slithering under her clothing and against her skin. They lifted her as they did, propping her against the trunk, and she looked as if she had fallen asleep against the tree.

Mazael staggered, his eyes going wide with sudden pain. This was the critical part, Riothamus knew. The blood in the earth would link to Mazael, drawing on his Demonsouled strength to empower the tree. If it worked, Mazael would survive, and Romaria would live.

If it failed, they both would die.

Molly caught her father's arm, and Mazael swayed for a moment. Yet after a moment he took a deep breath and caught his balance.

"Did it work?" he said, gazing at Romaria.

"Aye," said Riothamus, wiping sweat from his brow. "It did."

"What did you do?" said Mazael.

"Those roots reach into her skin, into her veins," said Riothamus. "They have put her into a deep sleep, and filter her blood to keep the poison from doing any additional harm. But so long as she is sleeping..."

"The poison will not pass from her body," said Mazael.

Riothamus nodded. "She will not need to eat or drink or relive herself...but the poison will not leave her."

"So we have bought time," said Mazael. "How long will the spell last?"

Riothamus shrugged. "I don't know. But this castle will crumble into ruin long before the spell weakens. It will last long enough. Now it is only a matter of finding the archpriest that provided the venom."

"One damned serpent," said Molly, "in the entire world. Where will we start?" 

"The poison," said Mazael. "When the San-keth kidnapped my nephew Aldane, Lord Malden's court wizard had a vial of the child's blood. With it, he could track Aldane anywhere. Could you do the same with the archpriest's poison?"

"I don't know," said Riothamus, "but we are going to find out." 

Chapter 15 - On Bladed Wings

A full day after his confrontation with Skalatan, Malaric checked over his preparations one final time. 

The interior of the ruined keep had proven an adequate shelter for his work. His spells had cleared the debris and dirt from the floor, revealing the worn flagstones. Upon the floor he had drawn an intricate ring of elaborate circles and sigils, each spiraling around the others. Malaric's power to walk through the shadows had taken him to a small village a half-day’s ride away, and he had bought out the village chandler's stock of candles, along with a few other items of importance. Dozens of candles stood atop specific sigils in his design, flickering and dancing in the breeze. 

The circle was exactly twenty-two feet in diameter. Malaric had made sure of that. 

In the center of the design stood a small brazier, its bowl filled with smoldering coals. 

Malaric took a deep breath to clear his mind. With the power of Corvad's skull and the magic of the caethweisyr, he now had the chance to repay so many debts. To revenge himself on those who had wronged him. 

Now, at last, he could begin.

He lifted his arms, the caethweisyr in his left hand, and spoke an incantation. At once a cold wind swept through the chamber, the chill soaking into Malaric's bones. Despite the wind, the candles' flames went motionless, shining with an eerie blue light. 

Power welled up in Malaric, and he drew on the Demonsouled power in Corvad's skull. Dark fire filled him, and the blue candle flames grew brighter and taller, until it seemed as if glimmering spears of blue light encircled the brazier.

Or swords, perhaps. 

Malaric shouted the final phrase of the incantation and clapped his hands. A bolt of blue lighting fell out of the darkened sky and slammed into the brazier. It erupted into ghostly white flames, the brazier melting and twisting and crumbling into ash. Yet the white fire brightened, intensifying, and Malaric felt a sense of distance, as if the fire was a doorway to another place.

The fire cleared, and the woman stood in the circle.

She was beautiful, unearthly beautiful, and had the sort of face that would inspire poets. She wore only a shirt of diamond-shaped steel scales that fell to the middle of her thighs, her arms and shoulders bare. A diadem of daggers and steel wire rested upon her brow, encircling her white hair. Her eyes burned with brilliant white flame, like sunlight falling upon fresh snow. 

And her wings stretched from one end of the circle to the other. They were not wings of flesh and feathers and bone, but sword blades, hundreds of sword blades, their edges gleaming with razor sharpness unlike any blade found in the mortal world.

Of course, she was not a mortal woman but a spirit, a creature of the spirit world. More to the point, she was a ruler of that realm, a spirit of surpassing potency and might.

And she hated Malaric. 

"Lady of Blades," said Malaric, finishing the spell. "By my power and my will, I summon you and compel you." 

The Lady's glowing eyes narrowed. "Malaric the bastard." Her eerie voice echoed and reverberated, bouncing off the keep's stone walls. "Malaric the usurper. Malaric the fool." Her eyes looked at the leather bag hanging at his belt. "And you have stolen more power. Little surprise. For you are nothing, and only by stealing the strength of your betters can you amount to anything."

"I see your tongue has lost none of its charm," said Malaric. 

She laughed at him, the sound echoing inside of his head. "Have you brought more innocents for me to slay, Malaric? Some of my brethren enjoy tormenting mortals, but I care nothing for their lives. But if they offend my dignity, they will perish." Her smile resembled a blade itself. "Does anyone still look at you with trust? Perhaps I will slay them as well."

"Silence," said Malaric. 

He had summoned the Lady of Blades before, intending to bind her power, and it had not gone well. He had executed the summoning perfectly, but his stepmother had blundered upon the scene, and tried to stop him. She crossed the boundaries of the circle, and the Lady of Blades had regarded that as an insult and killed her at once. 

After that, a furious Prince Everard banished Malaric, and the wizards’ brotherhood expelled him for practicing dark magic. Malaric had been forced to take refuge with the Skulls. True, he enjoyed working as an assassin. But he was a wizard and the eldest natural son of the Prince of Barellion. The Skulls were too limited for his ambitions. 

He wanted more.

And he would have it. 

"Why have you summoned me?" said the Lady of Blades. "You cannot compel me. Even with your stolen power, you lack the magical strength. Do you think to use me in your childish schemes?"

"You're going to guard something for me," said Malaric. "Something very precious."

Again the Lady's eerie laughter echoed inside his head. "I doubt that. You are a fool, Malaric of Barellion. You are nothing but a puppet, dancing upon strings that you lack the wit to see. Even your master Lucan Mandragon is a puppet."

"I am not a puppet," said Malaric, "and Lucan is not my master." 

“Then you are an even bigger fool than I believed. You are a puppet, and realize it not. Perhaps you will kneel before the bearer of the Glamdaigyr, or perhaps you will grovel before the lord of serpents. Or you will destroy yourself. You stole the power in that skull. You plot to steal the throne of Barellion. You mortals never understand. There is a price to wielding power to which you have no right."

"Barellion is mine by right!" said Malaric.

"By your own laws, it is not," said the Lady. "Steal that throne as you wish...but stolen power always turns upon its thief. Just as the power of the skull shall betray you." 

Malaric opened his mouth to argue...and then realized the absurdity of it. He had summoned the spirit to bind it, not to debate his plans. 

"Empty words," said Malaric. "You are a spirit, and cannot harm me unless I attack you first."

The white fire in her eyes flashed. "Cross this circle, little wizard, and you shall see the limitations of that law. But I do not care to destroy you myself, worm. You will destroy yourself. I shall merely watch and derive pleasure from your folly." 

"You will not," said Malaric. "You cannot attack me unless I first attack you, but since I summoned you, there is an exception to that law. If I cross the boundary of the summoning circle, than you may to do me as you wish." He drew on the skull's power, filling himself with Demonsouled strength. "Your chance has come."

He took a deep breath, kicked aside a candle, and stepped into the circle.

The Lady of Blades stared at him, a hint of astonishment on that immortal face. 

Then she moved in a blur. Her bladed wings coiled around him, wrapping him in a cocoon of razor-edged steel. All she needed to do was to tighten her wings and she would shred him into bloody pulp.

But before she could, Malaric plunged the caethweisyr into her right arm. 

And as he did, he felt a mental link to the Lady of Blades.

It staggered him. Controlling the runedead with the dagger had been one thing. They were nothing but empty shells, dead flesh animated by necromancy. The Lady of Blades was a living sprit, her will like a fortress of iron, her magical might like a mountain of unyielding stone. But she was a spirit, not a mortal. And that meant no matter how mighty, Malaric could command her with the caethweisyr. 

"Release me," he said.

He felt his link to the Lady tremble, like using a thread to pull a boulder.

But the thread did not break. 

The bladed wings uncoiled, the steel chiming.

"A blade of the Dark Elderborn?" said the Lady, her voice a hiss. "Again you wield power you have not the right to claim."

"Power," said Malaric, "belongs to those bold enough to seize it for their own."

"You have earned my enmity for this, Malaric of Barellion," said the Lady of Blades, her voice soft. "Before you were only an amusing annoyance. Now I shall see you destroyed."

Malaric laughed. "I doubt that."

"Do you? I am eternal. You are a worm that crawls for a little while across the face of the earth and then crumbles into dust. I am patient. I am immortal. I will see you pay for this insult, pay in ways you cannot..."

"Do shut up," said Malaric, turning his back on the Lady and stepping outside the circle. "Listen well to my command." He pointed the caethweisyr at her. "I forbid you to harm me. I forbid you to command any of your vassals and servants in the spirit world to harm me. I forbid you to plot against me, and your every action shall be devoted to my well-being and advancement. Am I understood?"

"Yes," hissed the Lady. 

"I'm glad we are of one accord," said Malaric. "Your first task is this." He reached into the leather bag and drew out Corvad's skull. "You will guard this. All your servants shall look after it, and you will not permit the slightest harm to come to it. Do you understand my commands?"

"Yes," said the Lady. "You will place the object that is the source of your strength and power, the object that holds your soul, into the hands of your most powerful enemy. A brilliant plan." 

Malaric laughed. "A powerful enemy who has no choice but to do as I command. Take the skull." The Lady held out her hand, and for just a moment, Malaric hesitated. But he knew the Lady could not challenge the power of the caethweisyr. He put Corvad's skull in her hand, and the Lady took it. 

"Return with the skull to the spirit world," said Malaric. "Guard it diligently, and come when I call. I shall have work for you soon."

Her beautiful face twisted in a sneer. "Tread carefully, fool. You meddle with powers you do not..."

"Silence," said Malaric, "and do not trouble me until I call for you."

The glowing white eyes narrowed, and the Lady of Blades vanished in a swirl of gray mist, taking the skull with her. 

Malaric stood alone in the ruined keep, the blue flames winking out one by one.

Yes, leaving the skull in the Lady of Blades' care was a risk. But it was an acceptable one. So long as Malaric kept the skull with him, he was vulnerable. A foe could discover its secret, as Skalatan had, or even destroy it by accident, as Mazael had almost done. And the Lady of Blades was a potent spirit. Few could challenge her directly...and even the strongest wizard could not work a more powerful binding than the caethweisyr. 

No, the skull was safe for now, until Malaric constructed a more suitable refuge for it. 

In the meantime, he was free to take his revenge.

To take his revenge, and claim what was rightfully his. 

He walked out of the ruined keep and set his face north. He would have used the last mistgate in Skalatan's bracer to travel there at once, but the San-keth had somehow disabled the bracer. But, no matter. His ability to walk through the shadows would take him to Barellion in a few days.

Malaric smiled once more, savoring the moment. 

He walked into the shadows, leaving the ruined keep behind.