Read Queen of Song and Souls Online
Authors: C. L. Wilson
Queen of Song and Souls (23 page)
Eld ~ Boura Fell
Vadim Maur peered into the shimmering dark red liquid that filled the wide, shallow bowl of a Drogan Blood Lord's chalice. The discarded, bloodless body of an infant lay at the bottom of a small refuse cart nearby, its tiny throat slit from ear to ear, its skin a pallid gray-white. The rings of power on Vadim's hands glittered with red lights as he passed his palms over the chalice and murmured,
"Daggarta droga."
Around the mosaic-tiled confines of his private spell room, the sconces flared, and shadows danced like living silhouettes against the walls.
Within the rune-inscribed cup, the infant's still-warm blood swirled with opalescent hues. Dark red became a shimmering silver. Shimmering silver changed to a shadowy translucence in which the wavering visage of Primage Gethen Nour slowly took shape.
Or, rather, the visage Primage Nour now wore. A mortal's face — weak and without magic.
Oh, by Celierian standards, he looked fine and powerful enough. As the newly invested Lord Bolor, he was the picture of a well-dressed, sharp-eyed nobleman: handsome, fit, and clearly secure in his wealth and power. His brown hair had been powdered a deep, lustrous copper and pulled back in a queue at the nape of his neck, and his pale Mage skin had turned bronze, as if tanned by the sunlight he had rarely seen in all his centuries of life. Though his eyes were the same hard green, they bore no hint of the dark Azrahn that would have alerted the Fey in Celieria City to his presence.
Vadim leaned over the chalice, careful to keep his disfigured face concealed in the shadowy folds of his hooded cloak. "Report," he commanded his former apprentice.
Gethen's image shimmered in the cup of blood. The Primage's lips moved and his voice emerged, liquid and distorted, but still intelligible. "Our plans are progressing as scheduled, Great One. All the pamphleteers belong to us now, as do two of the more respectable news journals. One hundred lords and four of the Twenty belong to us, with another fifty lords and two Great Lords who have allied themselves with the ones we control. My
umagi
in the king's army have assembled their teams and are ready to serve when you give the command."
Vadim nodded. "Excellent. And what progress have you made with the queen?"
A telling silence lasted for several moments before Nour said, "I have made every attempt to ingratiate myself, but she has been difficult to approach. I think her volatile temperament may have something to do with this morning's revelation." Nour's visage shimmered in the Drogan chalice. "Celieria's queen—and every other Lady of a noble House — is with child. Even those who by age or physical infirmity should have been incapable of conception. It seems there was a dinner this summer —“
As the Primage spoke, Vadim recalled Kolis's report of a palace dinner where Ellysetta Baristani had spun a carnal weave so strong that every man and woman in the banquet hall had fallen upon one another in ravening lust. Apparently, that weave had contained much more than mere Spirit.
"The queen carries in her womb an infant heir to the throne of Celieria, an
umagi
is her closest companion, yet still you have not claimed her?" Irritability made Maur's voice crack like a whip. "Kolis would have had her bound and kneeling in service by now."
Nour's lip curled. "Kolis was the queen's lapdog."
"Then you'd best learn to wag your tail," the High Mage snapped. "I didn't send you to Celieria to bring me excuses. I sent you to bring me results."
The Primage lifted his chin. "And results are what you shall have, Most High," he said, "but as it happens, my delay in Marking the queen may actually have worked in our favor."
"Oh?" Vadim crossed his arms and arched a skeptical brow. "And why is that?"
"Because Manza was right. The Fey have found a way to detect Mage Marks. And the king has allowed them to begin checking his nobles—including the queen."
"The Fey? They are there in the city?"
"The Tairen Soul and his mate arrived this morning," Nour explained. "They were granted a private audience with the king, and shortly after, the king called a select group of lords into council. I regret to say none of my
umagi
were among them, and all have remained tight-lipped. I cannot tell you the specifics of what was discussed, but the king's army is preparing for deployment within the week."
Vadim didn't need specifics. He could well imagine what had been said at that meeting. His enemies knew their messages were being intercepted—both the mortal couriers and the messages sent on the Fey Warriors' Path. No doubt Rain Tairen Soul and his mate had traveled to Celieria City to pass on the information they had extracted from Vadim's old friend Zon.
No matter. When Vadim's Army of Darkness swept across the land, even the most legendary of Fey warriors would find victory a fleeting dream.
"The Fey checked each member of Dorian's war council for Mage Marks," Nour continued, "and they checked the queen, too... without her knowledge. Needless to say, she was not pleased. So, you see, Great One, it's fortunate that I haven't been able to Mark her yet. Our secret is still safe, and we can use the queen's anger to our advantage."
Vadim waved an impatient hand. Celieria's queen could wait. She wasn't half so important to Vadim as Ellysetta Baristani. "How many Fey are guarding the Tairen Soul's mate now?” Pain spiked in his belly. His next incarnation was upon him, and the mere thought of claiming Ellysetta Baristani and her extraordinary gifts made his soul rage for release from the fragile bonds of its current, rotting form. "Is the Tairen Soul with her? How many
chemar
have you managed to place near her?" He calculated rapidly. It would take three hours to get an attack force through the Well of Souls, but if he sent one of the
dahl’reisen
with them to spin that very useful invisibility
weave, they might yet achieve what Zon and his men had failed to accomplish in Orest.
Nour's silence made Vadim's eyes narrow. "Nour?"
For the first time in the conversation, Nour looked nervous. "The Tairen Soul and his mate are already gone. Most High. They left the city shortly after dusk."
"Gone." His fingers clenched tight around the stone altar top. "They were there, in the city, and you just let them go? Did you even attempt to capture the girl?"
"There wasn't time, Most High. They were not here for more than a few bells, and they brought several hundred Fey with them. Before I could make arrangements to separate her from her guard, it was too late. They must have used the same invisibility weave as the
dahl'reisen
to leave the city without being detected."
The temperature of his spell room plummeted as Vadim's ire rose. "You haven't Marked the queen and now you tell me you let Ellysetta Baristani come and go without a single attempt to bring her to me?" Vadim's teeth came together with a snap. Ellysetta Baristani should already be his, fully Marked and under his control, not running about the countryside eluding him and his Primages. "You do remember whom you replaced in Celieria and why you replaced him, do you not?"
Nour's throat bobbed as he swallowed. "Yes, Master Maur."
Sulimage Kolis Manza, who had been the High Mage's agent in Celieria before Nour, had done a much better job infiltrating the queen's inner circle and gaining her confidence. He'd done so well, in fact, that he'd turned her against her king and half her lords and used her as one of Vadim's most powerful political pawns in Celieria's royal court. Were it not for the fiasco he'd made of the attempt to capture Ellysetta Baristani, the young Sulimage would still be there.
"I will see to Ellysetta Baristani myself" Vadim bit out. "As for you, I expect significant results with the queen before your next report. Since you can no longer Mark her without running the risk of discovery, you will have to find another way. I will have the hand of Eld guiding the Celierian throne before the month is out, or you will beg me to show you one tenth the mercy you offer your own
umagi
." Even among the Eld, Nour's brutality was legend. To Vadim's grim satisfaction, the Primage went pale as milk beneath his Celierian tan. "We will speak again at this same time seven days hence. I will expect better news."
"Of course, master. It shall be—" Nour's muffled voice died abruptly as Vadim lifted the Drogan chalice and tossed its thickening contents down the spell room's drain hole.
Bah. Sending Nour to Celieria had been a foolish decision. Vadim had hoped a more seasoned Primage would be better equipped to manipulate the mortals and their minds, but despite his substantive magical gifts, Nour lacked finesse. He was a sledgehammer in a situation that clearly required a chisel. Which just went to prove that power alone wasn't the measure of a great Mage.
Well, Nour was one mistake Vadim would soon remedy. For now, however, he had a Tairen Soul to trap.
After cleansing his spell room of the Drogan Hood magic, he sent his consciousness to every umagi within four hundred miles of Celieria City. Whichever way the Fey had headed, if they dropped their invisibility weaves, he would know it. Finally, carefully, he sent a subtle seeking thread out into the darkness of night and settled in to wait with all the tireless patience of a spider in its web.
When Ellysetta Baristani lowered her defenses, he would be there.
CHAPTER TEN
Relentless warrior
Restless soul
Deadly defender
Daring foe
Fey’cha drawn
Fey magic surrounds
Battle
ready
Bravery abounds
Fey Defender,
a Fey warrior’s poem warrior's poem
Southeast
Celieria
The Fey ran hard through the first silver bells of the night, stopping only once to rest, and then but briefly. Rain flew overhead, Ellysetta seated on his back. The stars scattered the sky like plentiful diamonds, shimmering silver-bright against their backdrop of cool, black velvet.
The twin moons of Eloran reached their apex in the sky, the Daughter still nearly full, the larger Mother a waning quarter. Fatigue weighted Ellysetta's eyelids. Her lashes drooped, and she slumped in the saddle. The binding straps held her securely in place as she swayed in a boneless rocking motion to the rhythm of Rain's flight, and her thoughts began to drift like weightless feathers floating upon the cool night wind.
As she drifted, the light of the stars dimmed, and the sparkling night sky became a lightless well, cold and dank and black as pitch
. In the
silence came the susurration of fabric
drag
ging across stone, the soft pad of slippered feet. Her right palm
twitched from the sensation of cool, damp stone abrading the sensitive pads of her fingertips.
She was in a dark cavern wandering
through corridors carved
out of the
surrounding stone. Gradually, the darkness began to
ease.
Light flickered in the distance. The rough corridor opened to
a smoother hallway whose walls were tiled in a mosaic
pattern
that made her bones tingle with recognition. Whatever the pattern was, it was magic, and some port of her knew it. The flickering light came from the sconces installed along the length of the corridor. This was no simple cavern. This was a place of great
power and magic. The same part of her that recognized the pat
terns of the tiles also recognized this place.
She
turned down an adjacent hallway and walked to its end,
where another two doorways offered the only possible exits. The
first, directly in front of her, was a large wooden door with
a golden knob. The second, to her right, was a sel’dor-clad door
that shimmered with powerful magic wards. Both doorways drew her
, but the pull from the doorway on the right was over
whelming.
She turned and laid her hand upon the tingling veil of magic. Words in a language she did not know spilled from her lips, and
power flowed down her arms to her fingertips. The weave of
magic protecting the doorway began to unravel. She reached out
to turn
the knob. The door swung open.
Inside, another well-lit corridor opened to a wide room. Several tables
dominated the center of the room, each fitted with leather restraining straps. The tables were currently occupied by women in advanced stages of pregnancy. Their faces were flushed with
exertion. Sweat beaded upon their brows, and it was obvious they were giving birth.
As she drew closer, she gasped in shock, recognizing several of the faces.
These were the
Celierian noblewomen she had just visited this
morning. The women pregnant because of her carnal weave.
Attendants
scuttled around the room, moving with swift effi
ciency as they tended the laboring women. As Ellysetta watched,
one of the women strapped to the tables gave a straining grunt
that turned into a shrill wail. The attendant waiting between
her spread knees lifted a squalling newborn in triumph. Two more attendants hurried over to swiftly cut the cord and carry the baby away to a nearby table, where they washed the child
and
swaddled it tight in white linen wraps. The woman lying on
the table mumbled, "My baby . . ." but one of the attendants
was already carrying the infant away to a connecting room. The mother began to weep and struggle weakly against her bonds.