The Brush of Black Wings (14 page)

Martise put her back to the demon king and
stared hard at Silhara. “What is going on?” she demanded in a
furious whisper.

He gazed at her. “The accounts are wrong. All
of them. He was a man once, never a demon; only one who fought
them. A brother in arms to four others. The historians lied about
them, made demons of men who sacrificed themselves for the
unknowing, the uncaring, and the ungrateful.”

She gawked at him. “Are you sure?”

Silhara nodded. “We trust the tomes too much
sometimes. Remember Zafira’s story? Amunsa almost destroyed the
northern monarchs because of Berdikhan’s betrayal, but their
historians told a different tale.”

“
But you controlled him with the
sword.”

“
That’s because it’s ensorcelled
with necromantic magic stained by demon blood. I thought the
greater magic was goetic, but it’s necromantic.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the silent
Wraith King. “He’s dead?”

Silhara followed her gaze. “It would be a
mercy if he was. He’s only partially alive. A man split three ways
with one part still lost.” He turned Martise back to face him. “Do
you trust me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Always.”

He snorted at that. “You know that isn’t
true.”

Martise arched an eyebrow at him, thrilled to
see him more and more himself after the awful moments inside the
cottage. “I trust you when it counts most.”

He kissed her forehead and blew away the layer
of grit coating his lips. “A bath for us both when we return
home.”

She clasped her hands behind her back to keep
from clutching him and stopping him from drawing close to Megiddo.
Silhara’s magic was formidable, and he could easily defend himself,
but Megiddo’s sword was far more lethal than just a sharp edge
wielded by a skilled fighter.

Silhara pointed to Acseh who’d approached
cautiously, wary as a deer and ready to flee at the slightest
twitch. “Call your woman here.”

“
She isn’t mine.” Martise’s
eyebrows rose at the hint of longing in Megiddo’s voice. Mistress
of earth and heaven indeed. “And she fears me now.”

“
Not nearly as much as she fears
me. Summon her. She needs to hear this.”

Acseh refused at first, backing away and
shaking her head. Impatient with her antics, Silhara invoked a
spell that sent his rough voice booming across the gray flatlands.
“Do you want to leave here or not?”

Martise hid her smile behind her hand when
Acseh suddenly sprinted toward them, stopping just short of their
gathering to hover behind the Wraith King. Her husband’s methods
weren’t always subtle, but they were effective.

“
Kind of you to finally join us,
mistress,” Silhara snapped.

“
Kind of you not to try and kill
me, sorcerer,” Acseh shot back.

He grinned. “Not from lack of trying. Thank
your protector there.” He indicated Megiddo with a thrust of his
chin.

Both he and Martise watched as Acseh edged a
little closer to Megiddo, out of reach of the writhing robes but
close enough to demonstrate her willingness to be near him, wary
and guarded though she remained.

Silhara answered Megiddo’s earlier question.
“I can cross you both to our time.” He held up a hand at Acseh’s
sharp inhalation and turned all his attention to Megiddo. “You need
to consider this. If you end up in my time, there’s no guarantee
either of us will ever find your body.”

“
Find his body?” both Martise and
Acseh said in unison.

Silhara ignored them and continued. “Even if
we did, the magic used to construct or deconstruct a Wraith King is
Elder magic, unknown to us and inaccessible. You would live among
us as a shade, a cursed one. Sorcery in my time is plentiful, and
its adepts are powerful. If they learn of you, they won’t help you;
they’ll hunt you.”

Silence descended on their small gathering for
several moments before Megiddo spoke. “Can you send us back to our
times?”

Silhara shrugged. “I don’t know.” He looked to
Acseh. “Did you leave anything of yours behind in the place where
you were taken?”

She shook her head. “No. Nothing. I was in the
cottage when the gray plane claimed me.” She swung an arm to
encompass the flattened cottage’s smoking carcass behind
her.

The memory of history classes she’d taken at
Conclave Redoubt surfaced in Martise’s mind. She tugged on
Silhara’s sleeve. “The people of the Glimmer lands buried prayer
bowls at the four corners of a newly built house to ward off
unclean spirits. Sometimes they were buried in the ground beneath
the house.”

“
Sometimes plastered into the
walls,” he finished for her. “Sometimes both.”

She nodded. “The four bowls are connected to
each other. All we need is one in the wall, and she has her
tether.”

Neither Acseh nor Megiddo followed as Silhara
and Martise scouted the perimeter of the cottage’s remains.
Silhara’s triumphant shout sounded dull in the heavy air as he bent
over something in the rubble. “Glimming woman,” he said to Acseh.
“Your bad fortune has just turned.”

Martise joined him and spotted half of a
broken clay bowl, its curved interior etched deep with protective
runes dyed black with char. It was the only one they found in the
remains, and she prayed that meant the other three were buried in
the ground where the house once stood. If so, then Silhara might be
able to return the woman to her time.

Acseh’s hands curled into fists when Silhara
gave her the news in Glimming. “Are you certain?” she asked in a
warbling voice.

He shook his head. “No. I can’t guarantee the
exact moment you were taken, but maybe within a short frame of
years. You’ll return to where the cottage once stood, but bear in
mind, there’s a chance I send you into a time frame where something
else stands where the cottage was.” He peered into her eyes. “Do
you understand the risk that involves?”

She was silent for a long time. Martise didn’t
blame her in the least if she chose the safer route and returned
with them to Neith. Acseh nodded. “I understand.” She gave a
fleeting smile. “It’s very much worth the risk.”

“
Can I return with her?” The demon
king gazed at Acseh, his spectral gaze revealing nothing of his
thoughts.

His expressionless features didn’t alter at
Silhara’s reply. “No. She is bound to one time and one time only,
an anchor in her own right because she lives and breathes and is
whole. You on the other hand are incomplete, your body in one
place, your soul in another, your sword in a third until now. It
would be like casting a handful of dust into the wind and hoping it
all ends up in the same heap on the same shore. A cart full of
prayer bowls won’t tether you.”

“
Then I am trapped.” Martise
winced at the faint thread of dying hope in Megiddo’s
voice.

“
Maybe not.” Silhara turned his
attention back to Acseh who sidled closer to the Wraith King. “If
you trust this woman, give her the sword. I’ll ward it for her
protection. My apprentice tells me she is from your time, give or
take a decade or two. I can send her back. If she owes you a favor,
now’s the time to claim it. She can take the sword and find an
Elder mage skilled in their magic who can reunite the three beings
that are Megiddo Saruum so they become simply Megiddo.”

Megiddo’s rigid mouth relaxed into a faint
smile, and his metallic eyes took on a faraway look. “I was a monk
once.”

Martise flinched. That was the wrong thing to
say. Or so she thought.

Silhara only nodded. “I know.” He addressed
Acseh. “What say you? The quest I just described is a voluntary
one. You can accept it or lie and accept it. There is nothing to
stop you from throwing the blade into the nearest river and living
the life you were robbed of when Megiddo brought you here. His debt
to you is his trust and all the risk it entails.”

Acseh stared at him for a moment, then at
Martise and finally at Megiddo. There was no mistaking the
softening of her features when she looked upon his visage, ghastly
pale and barely human. “I hated you the first few centuries I was
trapped here.”

He chuckled softly. “In your place, I’d hate
me as well, Damkiana. I think it a greater tragedy that I captured
you by accident instead of by purpose.”

“
I don’t hate you anymore, and I’m
glad you aren’t a demon.” Acseh smiled and turned back to Silhara.
“I’ll take the sword, find one of the Elder mages and do what I can
to make him whole once more.”

Martise resisted the urge to applaud. She
believed Acseh to be sincere and admired her courage in promising
to help Megiddo. Hers would be a long and difficult road with no
promises of a successful end. Her family might eventually bury her
with Megiddo’s sword clutched in her withered hands, all hope of
him escaping the gray plane dead with her.

Silhara’s black eyes glittered, admiration in
his gaze for the woman’s resolute agreement. “And you,
Saruum
Buidu,
are you in accord?”

Megiddo sighed and shrugged. “I’ve waited this
long. What’s a few more decades?” He tossed the sheathed sword to
Silhara who caught it neatly. “My thanks, Silhara of Neith.” He
bowed to Acseh. “Good fortune favor you, Damkiana. Do not forget
me.” He faded before their eyes, man turned to mist swiftly
shredded by the ceaseless, silent wind. A whisper of his voice
remained. “I won’t forget you.”

Acseh raised a hand to clutch empty air.
“Wait,” she entreated, her dark eyes glossy with tears.
“Wait.”

Martise swallowed down her own knot of tears.
She coughed and cleared her throat. “Would you like to know what
‘Damkiana’ means now?”

The other woman wiped her eyes and nodded.
“You know what it is?”

“
Yes. It means ‘mistress of earth
and heaven.’ It’s a term of great affection given to mothers,
beloved wives and goddesses.”

Martise regretted telling her when Acseh began
to weep in earnest. She exhaled an indignant huff when Silhara
leaned to whisper in her ear “Nice helping of guilt you layered on
there to make sure she keeps her promise to him.”

“
That isn’t why I told her,” she
whispered furiously and slapped him on the arm.

He shrugged. “Accomplishes the same purpose.”
He held up the sword and scabbard. “Let’s get this thing warded for
the mistress of clouds and grass and send her on her way. I want to
go home, boil myself in a tub of hot water, have my wife comb my
hair and swive her for hours when she’s done.”

Martise gave him a gimlet stare. “How about
you comb my hair, and I swive you for hours when you’re
done?”

Silhara grinned. “I like the way you think,
apprentice. There is no loser on your battlefield. Only a crow mage
in your bed.”

“
May it always be,” she said
fervently and trekked to where a weeping Acseh grieved for a lost
soul.

EPILOGUE

A solitary crow perched on a high branch and
watched the activity below with a beady eye. A resounding boom
thundered through the winter-bare forest as a stone column crashed
to the ground, sending flumes of snow into the air.

Silhara eyed the last of the temple’s fallen
columns and dusted his gloved hands in satisfaction. Fine-tuning
magic to perform complicated ritual and delicate maneuvers was all
well and good, but it was nothing compared to slinging raw power at
heaps of stone and watching them disintegrate into rubble. And if
someone asked him why, he’d happily tell them it was a damn lot of
fun.

He waited a week after returning home before
destroying the ruin. The power it took to force open the right
portal that sent Acseh back to her time had him seeing double when
it was done. Getting himself and Martise back home had almost
emptied him of magic. Plans for long baths and longer bouts of
lovemaking were set aside in favor of death-like sleep. He and
Martise managed to stumble back to the manor from the forest, but
he couldn’t conquer the stairs. Gurn had carried him, unconscious,
to his bedchamber. He awakened three days later, still grimy and
bloody, next to his clean, sweet-smelling wife.

Her matted hair had been washed, combed and
tamed into a braid, and she lay next to him, dressed in a leine
that had managed to tangle around her legs. Silhara eased out of
bed without waking her and made his way downstairs to the
kitchen.

Gurn’s delighted expression when he spotted
him died a quick death, and his nose wrinkled.
“You smell worse
than the dog,”>>
he signed.

“
Nice to see you too, you wretch,”
he muttered before grabbing a bucket and heading for the bailey.
The cold shock from the first bucket of well water made his skin
burn, and he shuddered hard enough to knock his bones loose from
their joints. Something struck his shoulder, and he glanced down at
the boar bristle scrubber lying at his feet and then up at Gurn who
watched him from the doorway that led to the kitchen. A cake of
soap sailed through the air shortly thereafter. Silhara caught it
and lifted his hand to sign a rude gesture, but Gurn had retreated
into the warm kitchen, shutting the door behind him.