World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (24 page)

“How generous of you, master,” Xizix replied, his sarcasm dripping ichor. He stepped closer, until he loomed over Kyrus.

Kyrus looked up into those eyes with their pale red glow. “Why the show? You worry for your people, your children. Protect them, and leave the rest of the world to its own ends.”

“There are more than those three, you know,” Bvatrain remarked.

“I know of twelve,” Kyrus replied.

“There are more than twelve,” said Bvatrain with a smile white as starlight.

Kyrus shrugged. “Whoever wrote the books only cared about twelve.”

“Books?” Illiardra asked. “What books?”

Kyrus held up his palms before him and a stack of six books appeared in each. “Twelve books, too. I can’t say whether it’s coincidental. I have no idea who wrote them, but they were meant for interworld travelers who needed to work with local materials. It’s … a survival guide of sorts for exmundiates.”

“Exmundiates?” Bvatrain asked.

Kyrus gave an abashed smirk. “What else would you call people living on a world besides their own?”

“Pilgrims?” Illiardra offered.

“Observers,” said Bvatrain.

“Invaders,” said Xizix.

“You’re welcome to these,” Kyrus said, holding them out. “These are copies I’ve made, faithful to the smallest detail. I have no idea what the material is, but I was able to duplicate it.”

Illiardra held out a hand, and the books floated toward her single file. Bvatrain picked one from the air and opened it. Other immortals followed suit until Illiardra was left with a single volume. Pages turned and immortal eyes devoured the information contained within.

“This changes nothing,” Xizix said. He had taken none of Kyrus’s books. “You think you can buy our compliance?”

“I’m buying you off with a bone to chew on. Sate your curiosity—maybe not you personally—but the rest of you, enjoy the worlds out there. Or don’t. Just leave the mortals in peace, or in war, or whatever they choose for themselves.”

“How is your Juliana?” Illiardra asked.

“The same,” Kyrus replied. “And I credit you for more subtlety than this one.” He pointed over his shoulder to the red-eyed demon. “But don’t think you can threaten her. She is fine. I shared the secret with her, and we plan on spending our eternity together. She has been a great help in resisting the lure of Tallax’s folly. It would be a shame for all of us if I were to lose her strength and support. A great, great shame.”

“I understand,” Illiardra replied.

“I mean no harm to any of you,” Kyrus said. He looked to Xizix pointedly. “To any of you. I expect that in a thousand years; you may be the only link to my origins. Some of us may even become friends.”

“Unlikely,” Xizix replied. The towering demon vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Kyrus sniffed. “Tawdry theatrics.” Then he was simply gone.

Sleeping Dragon
felt like a willow switch in his hand. Danilaesis whipped the blade through the air with a
whoosh
at each pass. The hilt was solid, comfortable, the leather-wrapped grip conforming to his hand as he had grown up with it. It gave the impression that it was weightless, or nearly so, but the business end would fell trees and bite into stone. He worked through the same set of slashes and thrusts he always did, the practice routine that his swordmaster had created just for this one weapon. Practicing with plain steel or even wooden weapons was good for both his combat reflexes and his fighting instincts. Fighting without using magic for anything but personal safety built muscle on his frame and expanded his lungs. Now though, on the eve of war, it was time to reacquaint himself with the weapon and style he would use when lives were for the taking.

Arrogant old bastard. Thinks he doesn’t need my help.
The sword swished through an imaginary Megrenn soldier and his comrade.
When the bloody part of the war smacks him in the face, I’ll be the one picking up the army and carrying on.
He leaped and brought his blade down in an overhead chop that split a giant stripecat’s head down the center; phantom gore splattered him.
Just watch. He’s not going to be able to do it. He’ll come out here making excuses, saying how it’s only because of his vast skill and experience that he wasn’t blown to pieces.
Danilaesis leaped, cresting the top of a city wall cutting through two merlons to kill the archers cowering behind them.
Won’t be long now.
Before gravity pulled him back to the ground, he formed a small aether construct, just a flat spot anchored firmly in mid-air. He kicked off against it, flying backward. He made no flip or spin; Uncle Rashan had warned him against vanity in fighting. Arcing to the ground, he held
Sleeping Dragon
before him to shield himself from arrow fire. He hit the turf on one knee, panting, and steadied himself with a hand as he caught his breath.

The
Daggerstrike
was only a few paces away. The whole area was cordoned off by imperial soldiers, though their orders contained no provision against the crowd that gathered to watch Danilaesis practice. He smirked to himself but did not acknowledge them.
Let them look. They all wish they could be me. When we go to war, they’ll sleep better knowing that I’m on their side.
If any sorcerers were watching, they would have been far more interested in the esoteric events taking place in the ship’s interior. From the outside, only the most aether-sensitive of commoners would even have been aware that great magic was taking place within the hold. The peasantry liked the glamor, the flash of a warlock. They always had.

Historians had hated his uncle Rashan. For over a hundred winters, the warlock had been absent from the empire, gone off to learn how to be immortal, Danilaesis always supposed. He had never asked about the details of his sabbatical. But during those hundred and two years, Rashan Solaran had been believed dead, and the historical accounts of his life and deeds clucked their tongues over his bloody rampage across the continent of Koriah, carving a larger empire out of the lands of Kadrin’s neighbors. “Too many enemies,” they said. “He created the threat that the Grand Necromancer came to rid the world of.” Danilaesis knew better. His uncle had protected the empire, expanded it at the behest of his emperors. Grand Necromancer Loramar had been his greatest foe, an avenger of the people Rashan had conquered. In the end, he was all that stopped Loramar from destroying the Kadrin empire and turning every one of them into dead monsters. Rashan Solaran was a hero, and the people of the time had to have known it. Danilaesis would be the same, once he was rid of Anzik Fehr. Admittedly the boy was no Loramar, but he
had
used necromancy. All the reports said so.
Like father, like son.

“Water,” Danilaesis called out, addressing no one in particular. It didn’t matter. He trusted that someone would get him a drink. One of the soldiers would see that someone fetched him one, or even go to find a flask himself. It was one of the privileges of rank.

The crowd gave off a constant, low stream of aether. Even if Axterion would not take his help directly, Dan wanted the ship badly enough that he wanted the old sorcerer to have the best chance to empower it for him. Drawing fresh Sources to the area was the best he could think of without being obvious.

The
Daggerstrike
was looking better. Switching momentarily to aether-vision, Danilaesis could see the aether oozing into the wards, rune by rune. He hadn’t gone around the ship counting them, but there had to have been thousands. Brannis had snuck Juliana out of the city on the
Daggerstrike
the night it was completed. They had both been at Emperor Sommick’s coronation, along with half the city, and before the procession had returned to the palace, she had been gone. Considering walking time down to the docks, Brannis must have empowered the runes in moments; Danilaesis suspected it was even less time than that. Axterion had been prodding at the runes with aether all morning, and looked to have managed a third of them thus far.

Danilaesis missed him. Missed both of them. Why had Rashan and Brannis destroyed one another? Was it that cooperation between two sorcerers of such power could not last?
Like me and grandfather
, he realized.
Will it come down to a battle between us, one day
? He watched the runes fill, his grandfather’s Source obscured but visible among the progress he had made.
Slow, patient, wearing away at it. He is earth and water. I’ve got the wind and fire that faded in him a long time ago.
It was an interesting thought to occupy his idle mind. There was little else to do while he waited for one of those oafish clods to bring him some water. Well, there was one thing.

Danilaesis walked over and sat on the edge of the gangplank, halfway up, letting his feet dangle over the edge. It was a drydock, so there was no water beneath him; the
Daggerstrike
might have been shaped like a ship, but slits for archers and the drawbridge-like side gates kept it from being watertight. For all his thought of bringing the peasantry close to watch, so that Axterion would have more aether in the area, Danilaesis had been using it up himself in his sword practice.

Eventually one of the soldiers came back with a pitcher of water and a silver goblet, like Danilaesis was some foppish noble son. He drank anyway, but gave no thought to thanking the soldier or taking note of his name. Sitting there on the gangplank, Danilaesis let his own Source spill its aether unhindered. Let Axterion have
all
the help he could offer, and not just what was convenient.

Danilaesis clung to the rigging of the
Mountain’s Breath
, leaning out over the bow and watched the Ghelkan countryside drift by far below. The wind whistling across his ears drowned out most of the noise of the crew, and save for the creak of the mast and spars he could imagine that he was alone and aboard a far different vessel.

In the end, Axterion had failed. It had been two days aboard his consolation ship, flown by air sailors, not by Danilaesis. It took a skilled hand to steer a ship by the air currents, a task doubly hard compared to travel on the sea, where the gusts and crosswinds were not so dangerous. Danilaesis had always wanted to fly an airship himself, and though he could have ordered the captain to relinquish the wheel, he knew that he had no hope of controlling an airship properly. Even Madlin’s airships were complicated beasts, piled full of levers and wheels, little needles that twitched back and forth, pointing to numbers. He wanted the
Daggerstrike
, a ship made by a sorcerer
for
a sorcerer. It needed just one person to do everything, and it took only hands on the captain’s wheel, activating the right runes. That was the sort of ship for him.

But Axterion had failed, and Danilaesis rode aboard a lesser vessel. Due to the High Sorcerer’s supreme skill and utter mastery of the aether, that failure had been unspectacular, with the runes rejecting the partially infused aether, but not detonating. He had not even had the satisfaction of his grandfather making a fool of himself; that would have been something, at least, if he could not have the airship.

His uncle had always clung to the rigging when he flew. The view from atop the bowsprit was spectacular. Clinging to a rope with one hand, he had no fear of falling. The worst that would happen would be the ship would have to come pick him back up. His magic made the fall a trivial hazard. Besides, he had a strong grip, and fearing a personal failing made it more likely to occur. He leaned to the side, his arm stretched out straight, and looked straight down.