Oathen (32 page)

Nohm shoved Rhona and Salvor into an empty pod
and instructed them to put their hands on the pillar.

“Hold onto your hair, outlanders,” he said,
touching the pillar. “We need a pit stop before we reach the
Emerald. This is going to be a blas—”

A black bolt of magic wormed along the ceiling
and into the pod. It struck down at Nohm before the Scion could
react, exploding his torso all over Rhona. A heartbeat later, the
pod activated, and everything vanished in a white blaze of
power.

~~~

Bailik had full confidence in his Enforcers’
ability to hack, blast, and slash their way to victory over the
Scions. However, he had no intention of letting them ruin his
carefully constructed plan. No longer did he believe that the
recovery of the thief’s key was his ticket to stealing the
leadership of Dzur i’Oth from Onix Oolat’s wrinkled brown hands.
Today, he would use Oolat’s paranoia against him, and wrench
control of the cult from him in full sight of dozens of
witnesses.

Still, he had to keep up appearances. He
flicked his black lightning, and it struck a few of the fleeing
Scions. They blew apart messily, including one or two in the
chambers, and he grinned at the resultant screams of horror.
That’s the trouble with getting attached to people
, he
thought as he strode past the Enforcers.
They detach so
easily
.

The yellow light began to flash, and his eyes
widened. Self-destruct implosion spells were thought to have been
eradicated two generations ago. For the Scions to be using them
again…

Behind him, his borrowed minions cried out and
began crowding through the puzzle door, trampling the still-cooling
embers of the fire as they fled for their lives.

Bailik approached the blinking light.
No. I
will not go like this.
He reached his hands toward the yellow
light, bared his teeth and let loose the power of his newest magic.
It was weak because it was not his own, but decades of experience
with shifting ability from one gift to another allowed him to
bolster its effects. Sweat beaded on his brow as he strove to
render inert all the magic that had been poured into the
light.

The light winked out.

Bailik huffed an exhausted laugh, panting, and
wiped his brow on his sleeve. Relief swirled through him, followed
quickly by the thrill of anticipation. Now, not only had he spared
his own life, but he’d preserved the pods and their magical traces
for further examination. It would be a simple matter to determine
which one the thief had used, and where it had transported
her.

Pulling on another stolen magic, he created a
small fiery globe near his head, lighting the chamber once more.
Boots clunking across the stone floor, he began to approach the
thief’s pod.

One last step, and five spots of hot agony
burst upon his chest as his flesh was pierced by the silvery claws
of the Hand of Power. Bailik slapped away his master’s metallic
gauntlet, leaving deep slices in his own skin. His fiery globe
guttered, nearly extinguishing itself as he struggled to focus. He
staggered a short distance away, panting, and slammed his new magic
against Oolat. The man didn’t seem to notice.

“Bailik. Your actions betray you.”

“Dragonscat. You wouldn’t be here, on my raid,
unless you were paranoid enough to think I’d done something to
merit my death.”

Oolat stared at him for a long moment. Bailik
realized he’d spoken his true feelings to his master for the first
time in his life. He smiled; a breathless chuckle escaped his lips.
Freedom of speech was a heady drug.

“What have you done, Bailik?” Oolat made no
move to attack.

The rents in his flesh stung and throbbed;
Bailik focused the small amount of healing he had, beginning to
repair the wounds. “I’ve made myself anew, Master. Though I should
stop calling you that now. You’re nothing but a crazy old man whose
foolish games have prevented Dzur i’Oth from reaching its glorious
potential. That stops now.”

Oolat flung his arms at Bailik. But that was
all that happened. Bailik crowed with laughter.

The old man tried his magic again.

“You should stop now,” Bailik told him. “You
look pathetic.”

With a flick of his finger, Bailik sent a
shock wave toward Oolat. The old man was hurled across the length
of the room, skidding to a halt near a row of pods.

With a jolt, Bailik recalled why the Scion
he’d killed for this power had been considered a dud: his magic had
a frightfully small range. Trying to look vengeful rather than
concerned, he stalked across the floor toward Oolat, who was just
picking himself up off the floor.

He never made it. An invisible force grasped
his torso and held him in place.

“That’s close enough, I think.” Oolat dusted
his dark robes, then crossed his arms. “Dzur i’Oth thanks you for
your years of service, Bailik. Your gifts will continue to bring us
glory. But you are no longer required.”

The force that gripped Bailik tilted suddenly,
and his head cracked against the red stone floor. He thought that
was the end of him until he regained consciousness to find Oolat
kneeling beside him in the light of a dozen white hovering orbs,
his silvered hand resting over the half-mended cuts on Bailik’s
chest.

Oolat’s white eyes glimmered with their
reflections. “Your death has always been mine to give,” he said,
sliding his claws through Bailik’s flesh, gently grasping his
beating heart.

“You’re a f-fool,” Bailik stammered, jaw
trembling in pain. “You will bring the end of Dzur
i’Oth.”

Oolat’s lip curled. His silvery hand clenched,
shredding Bailik’s heart into fleshy ribbons.

In the grip of final agony, Bailik saw the
world fade from his sight.

~~~

Oolat stood over the corpse, letting the blood
pool around his boots. Better that it waste in here than for anyone
else to share in its gifts. He lapped some of the fluid off his
silvered palm, then sighed in satisfaction.

“M-master?” came a tremulous voice from the
puzzle door.

Oolat’s head whipped around. Several of the
spellcasters and Enforcers who had been assigned to Bailik had
returned. Had witnessed. He turned to face them, and they dropped
to the floor and prostrated themselves in obeisance.

Oolat bade them all enter, made sure every
single one of them was present. Once they were assembled and
waiting before him, he reversed what Bailik had done to the
self-destruct spell, then vanished before their eyes.

Reappearing outside in the shade of the nearby
trees, Oolat watched as the hidden chamber of the Scion stronghold
imploded, taking all evidence of Oolat’s weakness with it. It
wasn’t an unalloyed victory, he had to admit. The thief was still
free, for the moment, and he didn’t know where she’d gone. Yet. But
his vision for Shanal’s future required a single, driving
force.

And there was no way that he would ever allow
that driving force to belong to anyone else.

Rhona staggered back against the pod’s wall, drenched with
red. “Gods…gods…what…” she stammered, looking at her
once-light-blue sleeves, now soaked with little bits of
Nohm.

“Folly’s pisspot,” Salvor swore, whipping his
tunic off and wiping her face and arms clean, trying to stand
between her and the half-a-corpse that had made the trip with
them.

“What happened?” she asked, trying to shove
him out of her line of sight.

“Rhona, don’t,” he began, but she had already
peered around his arm.

“Gods below in all their fury. I can even
taste him.” She turned and dropped into a crouch by the wall,
vomiting. Salvor squatted next to her.

“Nothing you could do, Rhona,” he said in a
quiet voice, dropping his tunic and putting a hand on her shoulder.
“He got hit just as we moved.”

Rhona vomited again, a dry heave that wrenched
her guts and stopped her breath until she coughed away the spasm.
Tears streaked her blood-smeared cheeks. “Cheating, that was. How
was he supposed to fight that? Gods’ folly, that could have been
me.”

“Let’s find Meena,” Salvor said. He helped her
up, and they stepped over the remains of the Scion who had died
saving their lives.

But he stepped into a silent stone room, with
a single yellow light on a metal stand in its center.

The other chambers, on either side of the one
they had exited, were empty.

He looked around for an exit, and saw none.
Worry clenched his stomach. Had something gone wrong? Where was
everyone?

Where was
Geret
?

“Folly’s bastards,” he swore, his voice rough
with frustration.

Movement caught his eye, and he looked up at
the low ceiling.
Lower than the other room; looks like we’re
somewhere else, at least.

A series of stone wedges descended from the
right side of the ceiling, hovering in sequence, forming a
levitating staircase that reached to the floor. Three people
descended in a hurry, then stopped abruptly at the sight of him and
his shaky, blood-soaked companion.

“Who are you?” a middle-aged man asked,
bringing a fiery spear into being and preparing to launch it at
them. He eyed the corpse in the chamber. “And who is
that?”

“I’m Salvor Thelios, of Vint. This is Rhona.
That’s Nohm, or what’s left of him. Ahm’s lodge has been
discovered. The cult sent people to try and take the Shanallar and
retrieve the key. We escaped, but we’ve been split up
somehow.”

The man frowned, noting Salvor’s thick accent.
“That’s how it works, lad. The pods send everyone to a different
location, ensuring some of us will survive in case the cult is
trying to attack multiple locations at once. You’ve come here to
the chamber beneath our dairy. Did Ahm survive? And,” he added
after a pause, “did you say…the
Shanallar
?”

“That I did.”

With stunned expressions, the man, Daym, and
his wife and sister took Salvor and Rhona upstairs into the main
level of their concealed building, and quieted in amazement when
Salvor confirmed that Meena had returned to destroy the
Dire
Tome
once and for all.

“By the dragon’s crest,” Daym said, “we’ve
lived to see The Day. Let’s not be caught unready.” He told the
newcomers that they’d been transported to one of the most isolated
cells.

His sister brought Rhona a clean cream tunic,
a warm basin of water, and some towels. The pirate stepped into the
next room to clean up. The woman returned a moment later with a
fresh green tunic for Salvor, who thanked her.

“Where will the Shanallar be?” Daym
asked.

“Nohm mentioned ‘the Emerald’, but I’m not
sure where he meant,” Salvor said as he pulled the clean-smelling
cloth over his head.

“That’s a long river. Why did she want to go
there?”

“Something about Sanych,” Rhona murmured from
around the wall, wringing out a cloth above the basin. “Magic
training.”

Daym’s expression cleared. “Ah, then I know
the place. She’s going to see the Hermit.”

“I’ll let everyone know,” his wife said,
hurrying out of the room.

“Our cell will be ready to go in a couple
hours,” Daym said, his voice both confident and eager. “And my wife
will alert the other cells as well. This time, we can’t
lose.”

“I don’t want to wait two hours,” Salvor said,
thinking of both Meena and Geret. “Can you give us directions and a
couple of horses?”

“Yes. But you should let us come with you;
protection in numbers.”

“The cult’s not after me, or Rhona,” Salvor
said. “If we wait for you, we’ll draw unwanted
attention.”

Daym relented. “All right. But it’s two days’
hard ride from this side of the valley. I know a safe place you can
stay tomorrow night. It’s run by another cell.”

Rhona met Daym and Salvor at the front door of
the dairy, sporting a clean cream tunic, damp hair, and a sober
expression. Through the tail end of twilight, a boy led two horses
from the stables.

“You be careful out there on the roads,” Daym
said, as a chill breeze swept by. “It’s near to summer, but we’ve
had naught of spring yet, and the wild predators are getting
desperate.”

“Always,” Salvor replied, watching Rhona
settle a dark blue hooded cloak around her shoulders. “Thank you
for all your help. I look forward to seeing you in two
days.”

~~~

Anjoya pushed the mounted warrior’s wheels
along the wooden tracks until its lance collided with Addan’s
warrior. The little wooden man fell from his carved saddle, and
Addan, sprawled on the floor, smiled and picked him back
up.

“Geret.” He marched the man along the rug,
making his little sword wave back and forth.

“You miss your cousin, don’t you?”

Addan nodded.

“Shall I tell you one of his adventure stories
again?”