Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) (50 page)

The Master’s bespectacled eyes lit up. “Oh no,” he said, rising from his chair. “Of course not! Come in, dear. I hardly recognized you, it’s been so long.”

Nakvin entered the stark room and caught the scent of wine beneath the tea’s aroma.
Some habits never change,
she thought. When the Enforcer had gone and closed the door behind him, she said, “Hello, Kelgrun. How much did you sell us out for?”

The Master slumped. All the years he’d cheated seemed to weigh upon his shoulders, but his eyes still glistened when he met her gaze. “For my freedom,” he said. “What else? I might add that Shan’s murder found me out. They’re still looking for the body. Any ideas?”

Nakvin couldn’t believe how soon she’d forgotten Tharis’ heat. Longing for her cool silk robe, she undid her top three sweater buttons. “Yes, actually. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

Kelgrun’s beard failed to hide his smile. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I need a favor,” Nakvin said. “You owe me.”

“What do you need?”

Nakvin took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and exhaled. “A pass for three to the Ostrith Guild house prison. And an exit pass for four.”

Kelgrun pursed his lips. “I don’t owe you that much,” he said. “If not for me, you’d likely have permanent accommodations there.”

Only one piece of information might sway Kelgrun now, but Nakvin hesitated to use it. But her need to help Elena overruled her distrust of the Master. “I need this for my daughter.”

Kelgrun came forward and took Nakvin’s hands in his. It always surprised her how rough his fingers and palms were. “In that case,” he said, “how can I refuse?”

Nakvin felt warmth in her face, and she let herself smile. “Thank you,” she said.

“I’m glad the two of you finally realized the inevitable,” said Kelgrun.

Nakvin felt a hotter, sharper warmth. “She’s not Jaren’s. It’s complicated.”

Kelgrun shook his woolly head and sighed. “Perhaps that’s for the better.”

At nine forty-five AM on a busy Middleday, Marshal Malachi, Adept of the Fifth Degree, ascended the grand stairway leading from Steersman's Square to the main entrance of Ostrith's Guild house; late to work for perhaps the first time in his life.

Malachi approached the wide rectangular opening in the black monolith’s southwest corner. Security waved him past the babbling queue and into the cubic mile of space contained within, its interior finished in gleaming white. The Adept had long ago ceased to marvel at the sight and kept a leisurely pace during the quarter mile trek to reception.

Tardiness required even Adepts to abase themselves by checking in, but as he climbed the short flight of steps to one of the four receiving platforms, Malachi wondered why his conscience felt so clear. Many Guild house personnel arrived late from time to time. It was practically a custom on Stonedays and Firedays, but for one of his rank, strolling in forty-five minutes late in the middle of the week was a scandal. For some reason, he couldn't have cared less.

Malachi directed his eyes forward and his mind inward, but three people in the next line caught his attention. The lanky fellow in back had short, dark hair and a ruddy complexion. He wore a fashionable pinstripe suit and square spectacles. The woman had deep red hair gathered at the back of her neck. Her face was freckled, and she wore a white sweater over a brown dress.

The man at the head of the group drew most of Malachi's scrutiny. His dusky face was framed by blond hair that fell to his shoulders in shaggy layers. He wore a green hooded jacket and tan shorts. Though Malachi couldn’t place him, he seemed familiar somehow.

The receptionist was already validating Malachi’s gate pass when the short blond fellow reached the desk. It was difficult to deal with his own clerk while attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation to his right, but the Adept managed to overhear his neighbor requesting passage for three to an impound auction.

Malachi almost asked the trio for their identification, but he was late enough already. He took his pass and started for the stairs with a final backward glance.

Had he met the blond man before? Even if he had, it was too late to act on his suspicions. Malachi joined the line for the gate, resigned to the machinations of a fate in which he’d begun to place credence.

Teg knew what he was up against. The Steersmen’s mastery of the ether allowed them to link tailor-made substrata to a single access point. Like all of the Guild’s major installations, their Ostrith headquarters was merely a colossal shell built around a dimensional gate.

The Guild designed their security plans with as much cunning as the dimensional honeycombs they guarded. In the case of Ostrith's Guild house, elite customs agents armed with rods Worked to detect fashioned prana manned the single entrance. Visitors were issued pass cards granting access to a single area for a specified number of people. Gate control could seal off any substratum instantly, and security personnel could be dispatched to the problem site at a moment's notice.

Many considered breaching such a facility impossible, so Teg whistled a victory song popular at Kethan sporting events as he and his associates stepped into a long sterile corridor inside the Guild hall's prison block.

The red-haired woman next to him pressed a finger to her lips and hissed curtly. Associating her appearance with Nakvin still took a conscious act, and he silently praised Eldrid.

“Relax,” Teg told her. “I already checked the hallway. We're alone.”

“But are we in the right place?” she asked.

Teg displayed a crystal passkey and adjusted his fake glasses. “I don’t see any seized vehicles, so I'd say your contact’s card brought us where we wanted to go.”

Jaren hushed both of them. If Nakvin’s disguise was flawless, Jaren’s transformation into a towheaded waster was Eldrid’s masterpiece. “Let's get to work,” he said. “He’s in cell 89841.”

Teg motioned Nakvin forward. “After you,” he said. “And if I may say so, your hair looks lovely in that shade. I’d consider keeping it.” The redhead elbowed him lightly in the stomach as she passed. The clicking of her high heels echoed off the blank walls.

Each cell door had a five digit number etched into its dull white face. Finding the right one was as simple as counting down. A smoked crystal panel adorned the wall to the right of each door. Teg worked quickly but carefully as he inspected the cell controls, glad that he’d lifted a rod from one of the guards to check for hazardous Workings. Satisfied that the risk was minimal—it was never nonexistent—he pressed the forged card against the glass.

The darkened crystal flashed to life in a rapid sequence of gold and green lights. All three intruders stepped back to watch.

“Are you sure this will get us in?” Jaren asked.

“It got us this far,” Nakvin said.

“Maybe they let us in to save themselves the trouble of catching us,” said Teg.

“Kelgrun wouldn't send us into a trap,” said Nakvin. “I was his favorite student. He helped me escape when I was younger.”

Teg whistled again. “The man's older than
you
? He's not a Gen, is he?”

Jaren rolled his brown eyes.

“No Gen could be a Guild Master,” Nakvin said. “They dismissed him as an eccentric, but he found a way to extend his life.”

“He’s gonna have to teach me that one,” Teg said as the sequence of lights turned green. Hearing a muffled
clack
, he approached the door and subjected it to the same test he'd given the panel. “So this Kelgrun,” he said as he worked, “how did he score these cell block passes if the Guild thinks he’s nuts?”

Nakvin shrugged. “I just know he takes on a new identity every few decades.”

“I wondered about that, too,” said Jaren. “Normally I’d have looked into it, but we’ve got a pretty tight deadline.”

“That’s why I take my time on a job,” said Teg. “I can mull over pointless things—like how Eldrid disguised us in a way the Guild can’t detect.”

“What’s pointless is you wearing a disguise,” said Nakvin. “It’s not like the Guild could’ve made Sulaiman.”

“So what if I feel like being someone else now?” asked Teg.

“Eldrid calls it nexism,” Jaren cut in. “It doesn’t use prana.”

“Like Nakvin’s mind-talking?”

An uneasy silence fell over Teg’s accomplices. He decided to change the subject. “You still hearing the buzz?”

Jaren nodded wearily and asked, “Have you noticed anything else in the sound?”

“You mean like voices you can't quite make out? Yeah, I have.”

“I still say it’s connected to those stone blocks,” Nakvin said.

“You made the same promise we did,” Teg reminded her. “How come your ears aren't ringing like a debtor's sending?”

“I'm not sure. The only difference is that I was closer to Elena when the White Well bled through.” Her blue eyes seemed focused on some far distant point. “I felt…
renewed
. I don't know how else to say it.”

The foot-thick slab slid open, revealing a tiny cell molded from the same white ceramic. The air inside smelled of ammonia. A skeletal figure sat on a ledge jutting from the far wall.

“That's Vernon alright,” Jaren said. “What have they done to him?”

Vernon's head lolled as if he were deeply contemplating a spot on the floor to his left. Although the door to his cage stood open, he gave no sign of noticing it or the three people who stood outside.

Nakvin’s speckled face fell. “I think they scrubbed his mind,” she said.

Jaren pushed into the room and motioned for Teg to join him. “We've come this far,” he said, pulling Eldrid’s amethyst rod from his jacket. “Help me get him out of here.”

Malachi finished the day’s reports and sat rubbing his eyes. The dispatches contained such trivialities that he doubted it would’ve mattered had he stayed at home.

“Geara,” he sent to his assistant, “I'll be out of the office for the rest of the day. I doubt that anyone will ask to see me, but kindly deter any callers.”

Without waiting for an answer, Malachi left his desk and hurried to the gate. He descended the dais and plunged into the bustling main hall. Halfway across, he stopped.

A short blond man in a green jacket and a tall fellow in a suit supported a grey-haired invalid who hobbled toward the exit. A red-haired woman wearing a brown dress walked close beside them. Her white sweater now clothed the decrepit elder.

It was the same group who’d sought admission to the auction—except the old man hadn’t been with them before.

Malachi quickened his steps, though it was all he could do not to gather up his robes and run. He entered the checkpoint line five places behind the suspicious group. The woman and the two younger men conversed furtively, but the din of the crowd hid their words. Their features still defied recollection, though something seemed oddly familiar about them.

The doddering elder’s head lolled, revealing his face, and Malachi’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. Though his hair was iron instead of jet, the guildsman knew his prisoner.

Malachi's heart lodged in his throat. It was Peregrine! He would bet his life on it. The pair who'd come with him must be his associates: most likely the turncoat Steersman and that butcher Cross. How they'd fooled security eluded him, but who else would free a Bifron conspirator?

Malachi thought of raising the alarm. Customs would detain the intruders, and their deception would be found out. He could end their lives with a word, yet he had no desire to do so. Instead he discreetly left the line and stood back to watch.

The four fugitives reached the exit checkpoint, and Malachi held his breath as they faced the Inspectors’ scrutiny. He breathed a sigh of relief when they cleared security unmolested.

The Adept watched his nemesis leave with a key prisoner and two of the Guild’s most wanted. Not until they were lost in the teeming crowd did his lips part in a wolfish grin.

Vaun Mordechai had truly been enjoying himself since his return to the Middle Stratum. For the first time in ages, he was blessed with a surplus of raw materials and ample time in which to work. That work had been progressing splendidly, aside from his mentorship of Deim. Still, as Vaun saw it, teaching him hadn't been his idea; and the young man’s defects were no fault of his.

The necromancer reveled in the safety of his private chambers, where for once he was free to pursue his art. The Gen, the cutthroat, and the harpy had gone to Mithgar; and Vaun would count himself thrice blessed if they failed to return.

Vaun was busy wiring vertebrae when the shadows at the corners of his room suddenly deepened. He watched in fascination as the dimming work light faded to a pale, futile ember. At first Vaun suspected the kost’s return, but he discounted the notion as premature.

A high-pitched hum like an amplified tuning fork rang out in the dark. Vaun traced the sound’s source to the concrete block in which he’d hidden the white scimitar. The bright clear chime repelled him with memories of the awful purity that had prompted him to take the dead priest’s blade, and to inter it.

Suddenly, Vaun was gripped by the terrible feeling of being drawn into himself—as if he were falling into the yawning black abyss of his own soul. After several moments in free fall, he beheld a barren coal field stretching forever under an endless night. The sky was bereft of moon and stars, but the very air seemed saturated with a sallow luminance.