Wintertide (25 page)

When she first learned her magic at Tanta Bron’s side, she came up against the same problem. The old woman’s cave would seem to pulse with the power of ancient spells. In time, she’d been able to overcome that interference, even use it to her advantage.

But try as she might, there was no way she could overcome the presence of the Sorcerer now.

And he wasn’t even in residence. Of that she was sure.

“There’s nothing more I can do,” she said softly to her cat, though the comment was unnecessary. It made little difference to Nixa. She would do as Khamsin requested, out of love.

Khamsin knelt on the floor, taking the small feline into her arms.

“Now,” she whispered again, into ears as soft as an evening breeze in summer.

And they were gone.

*

She placed the cat on top of the mantle that ringed the room and, her hands now free, unlatched the clasp on her sword. It was strictly for precaution. To draw it would shed more light in the darkened room, for the moons had temporarily become obscured by a cloud. But to draw it would also signal that something of power entered the chamber, more than the dropping of her shielding or the use of her minor spells to transport herself here. And that was something she didn’t wish to do.

Besides, she knew her eyes would adjust in a few moments to the darkness. And the moons should come out, again.

Nixa high-stepped fluidly over a series of large amulets, her whiskers twitching at the pungent odor of the perfumed oils that coated their surfaces. She relayed her opinions back to Khamsin but her mistress wasn’t interested.

Not now
, she chastised silently. She followed the intricate carvings on the floor ’til she stood in the same place she had the night before when the first light of dawn filtered in, urging her return to her chamber.

But it was now a hair’s breath of two hours past midnight and hours before daybreak. And this time she had no intention of returning to her room, daybreak or not.

This much she knew: when she smashed the Orb, it would send a searing signal to any and all of the Powers. Other wizards, like Ciro, and mages and alchemists would feel it like a rent in their flesh; village Healers would start and gasp. What the Sorcerer would do, she chose not to imagine. But she accepted that at that moment, he would return to Traakhal.

But it would be too late.

Trembling slightly, Khamsin held her hands out until she felt the spellbound curtain before her. She stepped towards it.

“Kiasidira,” she said in a hushed voice. The curtain parted, closing behind her as she came inside.

*

Many hundreds of miles to the east, in the cluttered attic rooms in the top of an old warehouse, a black-cloaked figure felt the parting and stiffened. The parchment in his hands drifted to the floor.

*

Nixa stirred restlessly underneath the north window. Khamsin heard the sound but ignored it, her eyes now fixed on the churning of brilliant colors inside the Orb. She reached through the wide side opening of the cabinet, fingertips barely grazing its surface. She felt a tingling travel through her.

On either end were two large handles of wood. They weren’t attached to the cabinet but rested on a crosspiece. The Orb could be removed from the pedestal in order to facilitate its use.

Or its destruction.

She grasped the handles firmly and slowly lifted the Orb from its cradle, testing its weight and balance as she did. It was bulky but not as heavy as she expected. She wove her fingers around the thick handles. The position was awkward and cumbersome. It might slip but not break. It could roll through the protective curtain. She released the handles, but only momentarily, so as to change the position of her hands.

There. That was better. This was no more difficult than lifting a heavy laundry basket. In spite of her circumstances, or perhaps because of them, the thought struck her as oddly amusing. She rested the handles again in the crosspiece. A soft giggle rose in her throat. Then died abruptly.

A pulsation of power shot through her. She choked back a scream, her fingers flying from the handles as if they’d touched molten metal. She collapsed in half, her legs buckling.

Her world exploded inside and outside of her simultaneously. Her conscious mind reeled. She could see nothing but a swirl of colors before her eyes. A stabbing brightness, a searing brilliance. She tore her gaze from the Orb as if the translucent object itself was the source of her torture.

But it wasn’t. That much she sensed as she clung to the thick silver bars of the cabinet. Nothing was coming from the Orb, but rather was building around her, through the very air of the mage circle.

The searing energy intensified. She slid to her knees. The mind-deafening pulsations continued.

She grasped one of the pedestal’s thick wooden legs and tried to pull herself to her feet. Her fingers slid numbly down the ornate posts. Then a second wave of searingly-hot energy rolled over her and through her, tossing her like flotsam in the tide. She dropped to one knee and clung to the pedestal, fighting for air, struggling to breathe. Her head fell forward. She buried her face against her arms. But there was no protection, no cessation. The pulsations grew stronger until she felt them come to a focal point burning directly into her back.

Weakly, she knelt next to the wooden column. She’d waited too long. There was only one being, only one entity in the Land who possessed that much power, that much force that his mere presence alone was capable of crushing the strongest of men to the earth, flattening them into the very dust they came from.

That being was the Sorcerer.

The Master of Traakhal was home.

Suddenly, the incessant pinpricks against her skin disappeared. And, save for her breath that was still coming in great gasps, it was as if nothing at all had happened. She raised her face and peered through the pedestal. The stars in the dark sky outside still twinkled through the narrow window before her. The night air was still.

Then she heard the soft rustle of cloth like the sound of long robes or a cloak behind her. Trembling, she inched her body around in her crouch ’til she faced the source of the sound.

And there, clad in the night-black riding regalia of the North Land Hill Raiders, with a long black cloak secured by a platinum clasp at his throat, was Tarkir’s first born. The Sorcerer of Traakhal-Armin.

She leaned back against the pedestal and breathed a name in disbelief.

“…Rylan.”

He stepped quickly towards her, hands outstretched. An icy blade of fear ran through her body. Khamsin struggled to her feet.

“No. Stop!” Her voice, hoarse, broke as she called out the words. “Come no further or I’ll…” and she fingered the hilt of her sword but suddenly changed her mind. She wrenched the Orb from its case. She held it in front of her. It swayed in its cradle of silk.

“I’ll destroy it.” Her voice was stronger now. She adjusted her stance like a fighter, squaring off to face her enemy.

He stopped, an odd expression on his face, a mixture of anger and confusion. “Khamsin, I’m no threat to you.”

“But only if I do what you want. Bend to your will.”

“How can you believe that after…”

“Because you’re the Sorcerer. Rothal-kiarr.” Hatred burned in her voice. His own was flat by comparison when he answered.

“Yes, Kiasidira, I am.”

Still, his voice, saying her name, shocked her.

“Then you must be stopped. This,” and she held the Orb away from her body, “will tell me how.”

“It will provide you with information. But it won’t make decisions for you.”

She studied his face, so familiar in so many ways, seeking some glint of malevolence in his eyes, steeling herself against expected wrath. But she saw nothing: not hatred or suspicion or fear. He was just Rylan, dressed in black, with Hill Raiders’ daggers strapped to his thigh. A blue-white diamond, like the ones in the mage circle, glistened in his ear in place of the small gold star he’d always worn. From his belt dangled a small, familiar, favored amulet.

He was the Tinker. Yet she knew he wasn’t. Incomprehension mixed with fear.

“I’ll take what I learn back to Ciro.”

“Ciro’s dead.”

Her arms shook, the Orb momentarily feeling almost too heavy to lift.

“Why?” Her voice cracked. “Was he such a threat to you? He was just a mad old wizard, he…he…”

“I’m not the one responsible for his death. Believe me. It wasn’t my doing, nor my wish.” He took another step towards the curtain. “Khamsin…”

“No! Stay where you are or I will drop this. If I can’t use it, then you won’t, either.”

“You can use it,
we
can use it together.”

Ciro had said the Sorcerer would seek Kiasidira as an ally.

“And what is it you wish to teach me, Master Ro? How to kill innocent children, slit their throats and the throats of their mothers? How to burn villages, destroy farmlands, steal babes from their cradles?”

“Those aren’t my methods.”

“They’re Hill Raiders’ methods.” She pushed thoughts of Egan and Druke from her mind. Now was not the time to question the feasibility of her actions. She had been born for this day. She tried to focus on the charred embers of Cirrus Cove, and not on the memory of the soft smile of a man called Rylan. Nor one called Egan. “The Hill Raiders follow your commands.”

“Only the Khalar. The Magrisi pay no allegiance to me nor do the Fav’lhir. The Khalar are not wanton murderers. I wouldn’t tolerate that.”

“But the day the riders attacked the Cove, you were there. They killed my husband. They hanged him and burned my house. And you didn’t stop them!”

For the first time since he entered the room, he pulled his gaze from her and stared out at the dark slit of a far window.

“No, I didn’t stop them,” he said finally, turning back to face her. His voice held a heavy note of resignation, as if the admission pained him.

“But you could have.”

He clasped his hands behind him. “Those were Magrisi riders, under Lucial’s command. So in that sense, I had no part in his death. But I admit it served my purpose. I wanted you too much.”

She gasped in horror. “You wanted…you, you allowed death to claim an innocent man to serve your own ends?”

“Lucial sent riders after some of my people in the Nijanas, first, as a diversion. I didn’t know of the raid on Cirrus until his riders were already in the village. I did what I could to make sure Tavis and the children didn’t suffer. But I was more concerned with keeping you safe, getting you away from there.”

“Why? So I could lead you to Ciro? Is that why you sent that deformed, hell-spawned creature to the Bell Tower that night? Or the one the marsh? Your pets in the dungeons, Rothal-kiarr!”

He looked perplexed, but only slightly. “What creature in the Bell Tower?”

She almost screamed at him. “The one that called my name. Said ‘Kiasidira’ with a mouth that had no lips! And looked at me with sockets that had no eyes! Ciro saved my life that night. And even he didn’t know my name until I told him. Who else but Rothal-kiarr knew to call me Kiasidira?”

“Lucial and Melande,” he replied and his voice was quiet. “They knew.”

“You lie!”

“Ask. Place the Orb back into the pedestal and ask it.” He pointed at the translucent orb wavering in its silken cradle. “Let me show you how. It can’t lie.”

She hesitated, then: “No. You’re not interested in the truth. You’re only interested in controlling the Orb.”

“I am interested in the truth. As well as in the proper balance of power.”

“So you thought to kidnap me, is that it? In Noviiya, with all your pretty words and pretenses, to make me do what you want. You thought to deceive me. You…”

“No, Khamsin. There was no deception.”

“But you knew who I was!”

“For many years, yes. I even knew on the road outside Cirrus when you healed my horse.”

She frowned as her mind raced over past events. “What was it, m’Lord,” she asked, her voice now strangely quiet, “that kept you from claiming me on the road that day? Or in my own house? Why the game of being Rylan the Tinker? The lies? You could’ve claimed me the day…”

“I did. As you said, on the road when we met. I offered you my blessing. You accepted it.”

“You…?” She was shocked. She had no knowledge of any claiming. Just of soft words. And a chain of brightpinks wrapped around her wrist. All innocent, harmless gestures. “But I’ve come here on my own. If you’d claimed me, surely you would’ve…”

“Taken you forcefully?” He sighed. “Khamsin, you have much to learn and know nothing of the claim you received by accepting my blessing. By claiming you I placed my mark on you, so that as you learned who you are, you’d understand what you mean to the Land. And to me.

“But by claiming you I couldn’t force you to do anything against your will. If you came to me—just as you did in Noviiya—it had to be of your own volition.”

She remembered their first night in Noviiya. She’d slept alone in the small trundle bed. But not before Rylan had given her his promise.

“Do you recall what I told you?” he asked.

“Yes. No!” The memory held too much pain.

“I told you,” he said softly, “I’d never take anything from you that you weren’t first willing to give. And I’d never force you to do, or be, anything, other than what you want to be. And I said that in this, if in nothing else, you may now and forever, place your faith.”

Khamsin’s throat tightened as tears pricked the back of her eyes.

“If you also remember,” he continued, “I asked you in Noviiya to seek out your answers at Traakhal and you refused. And when I left, I again asked you to come with me. And again you refused. I didn’t force you but neither did I intend to ever stop asking. Khamsin, I hoped as you learned more, you’d…”

But he never finished his statement. There was movement in the room to his left, a wavering of light, a liquid motion. Suddenly a woman stood under the south window. Her hair was dark and fell like a glossy drape to her waist. She wore a golden gown patterned like a rich brocade, with chains of gold wound around her slim waist. At her throat was a solitary ruby, the size of a hen’s egg.