Read The Necromancer's Grimoire Online
Authors: Annmarie Banks
He got his water. On their way out of the necromancer's house, he lifted a heavy water jar and tipped it over his head, before pouring the remainder of the contents into his mouth. Nadira and William took a drink from a smaller pitcher and Assad opened a cabinet and retrieved a parcel before they set out through the garden into the night. There was no sign of any of the servants. Assad touched Nadira's arm before he disappeared into the shadows of the garden. He would go back to Persia; his apprenticeship was completed with this one final lesson.
The sound of an army of men marching through the streets carried to them in the night air. Lights were lit in the houses around them and curious citizens stood in their doorways. The less curious snapped their shutters and screens tight against the sound. Nadira saw people standing on their roofs and leaning out the windows of the second and third floors.
She turned to Montrose “The harbor is this way.”
“I don't know that we want to go to the harbor,” Montrose said, “It is heavily defended and the men there well organized. We would not get through the gates. We can hide in the cistern for now. I have hidden there before.” Montrose took Nadira's hand. “We go down.”
“Do you know where the entrances are?” She asked him as he pulled her along.
“I do. They are clearly marked if you know what to look for. They will soon be blocked if there is a search. We must hurry.”
William asked, “If the entrances will soon be blockedâ¦how will we get out again?”
Montrose answered, “Trust me; we need hide only until the storm has passed.”
The entrance was an opening in the ground between two large blocks of stone overgrown with brush. In the dark they could make out moonlit reflections on the white stone that fluttered from the shadows of the tall trees that flanked it. They ducked into the shadows of those trees as they waited to see if they had been seen. The alarm raised at the necromancer's house had drawn a group of men to the corner and one of them had a torch. It was clear that many men were headed downhill to the harbor. Others would be stationed at the gates, and even more milled about the street. They crept along the trees and disappeared through the cleft in the rock and to the dark stone stairs.
“We have no light,” she reminded them softly.
“Put your hand against the wall and be careful with your feet. Darkness is your friend, not your enemy.”
William whispered. “I cannot put my hand against the wall.” He held the book tightly to his chest.
Nadira took his elbow and moved him in front of her. “Follow the baron,” she whispered. “I will guide you down. If you stumble he will stop your fall.” She pressed him so his shoulder scraped the stones of the wall as he descended. “Go slowly.”
“How far?” He asked.
“Until your feet get wet,” Montrose answered.
They slid their hands over the rough stone and shuffled their feet in ankle-deep water to find footing in the total darkness.
“It's not deep here,” Montrose said, and his voice echoed through an immense invisible space, “But stay close to the wall just the same. The water deepens in the center.”
They followed the sounds of his movements to a stone ledge or a block waist height which promised to be a dry space. Montrose lifted Nadira up and felt around for William. She felt him being set beside her, then listened as Montrose splashed a bit before coming to rest on her other side. Even those slight sounds of flesh on stone echoed and were magnified. The dying echoes blended with the sound of dripping. Their breathing was too loud.
“Will they see us if they bring lights?” she whispered.
“We are behind a pillar, but yes. If you see lights coming down the stairs we must move, but we will see and hear them long before they become a threat.”
They stilled their breaths and listened.
She touched William, bent to him and breathed softy, “You have the
Grimoire
safe?”
Instead of answering he smoothed his hand across her body until he found hers. He lifted her hand and placed it gently on the book he held in his arms.
She leaned the other way, feeling for Montrose. He was breathing in a way she had heard before, a tentative inhale and then a slow exhale that stumbled and caught in his throat. She moved her hands over his body, light as a feather, feeling him for a wound. He was damp with the blood of his enemies and the water he had poured over his head.
The steel rings sewn into his brigandine caught at her fingers and resisted exploration. She moved her hand to his arm and felt the thick muscle to his shoulder and then to where the leather of his brigandine stopped and the warm skin of his neck began. He made a low hum in his throat, warning her to stop prodding him.
She withdrew her hand and extended a tendril instead. He stiffened as he felt it enter his chest through the leather. She was feeling him now from the inside. There was no wound. His pain was everywhere. She felt the strain in his right shoulder from the many blows the heavy sword had landed. His knee hurt. He had been struck hard in the belly and on his left shoulder. Those places throbbed. She felt his continued amazement that he had emerged unscathed. He would recover quickly with food and rest.
Sleep.
She told him, adding an insistence through the thread she knew would cause his body to obey. She waited until she felt him slump back against the rough stone wall behind them, and then withdrew her tendril and sent it into William. He, too, was unhurt. He hugged the
Grimoire
to his chest, was alert and unafraid.
Sleep.
She felt him relax and heard his breathing deepen. Carefully, she took the
Grimoire
from his arms. She opened the book and counted the pages. She put her hand on the third and closed her eyes.
What is next?
The necromancer will strike at you. He will not stop. The humiliation you have rained upon him will not dissipate.
Nadira sighed.
It is all or nothing?
It is.
How do I stop him?
The method is spelled out in my pages. He knows them too.
Nadira allowed a small glimmer of humor to warm her heart.
It is too dark to read in here.
Even with a thousand lamps, you would not understand what is written. Go to Eleusis. The priestess will know. She will teach you how to read that which is not a word.
How can we escape the city?
The book was silent. Nadira pressed her hand harder into the vellum. She became aware of a vague feeling of expectation. She was to use what she had learned to get them all through the city gates and to a ship. She took a long breath and as she exhaled she imagined a hundred tendrils as thin as hairs shooting up from the cistern and arching over the city in a canopy of light.