Queen of Song and Souls (49 page)

"It's clear, Rain " Bel and Gaelen said simultaneously. The other warriors agreed more slowly—and more grudgingly— but they agreed nonetheless.

That left only Ellysetta.

"
Shei’tani
?" Rain prompted.

Her lips compressed and for a moment he thought she would spit defiance in his face. But then she nodded and looked away.

Melliandra pushed open the door of the cell housing Lord Death's mate and stepped inside.

The red-haired Fey woman lay frail and broken on the black stone of her cell. A large wound gaped grotesquely in the center of her pale, motionless chest, and scarlet blood ran across her ashen skin to gather in a dark, glistening pool beneath her body. Vadim Maur's
umagi
had struck a death blow and left the corpse to be hauled away by the refuse collectors.

Fortunately for the red-hair, Melliandra was the refuse collector for the lower five levels of Boura Fell... and she had tended the red-hair's mate enough to know not to come alone.

Beside her, the rag-shrouded Fey gave a gasp and began babbling in her native tongue.

"Hush!" Melliandra hissed. She rushed to close the cell door and spun around to glare at the Fey. "Keep your voice down, dim-skull! They'll hear you!"

But the woman had fallen to her knees beside the red-hair, and she was rocking and weeping and chanting in a broken voice,
"Elfeya falla, Elfeya falla. . . ."
The imprisoned
shei'dalin's
shaking hands hovered over the dying Fey's body. For a moment, Melliandra could have sworn she saw a weak golden glow around the healer's hands, but then the woman cried out and snatched her hands back to her chest.

"Ninnywit. You can't weave with those bands on," Melliandra chided. Not even the red-hair—who was as powerful a healer as any ever seen in Boura Fell—could work the sort of significant healing magic required to snatch a life back from the jaws of death when bound by so much
sel'dor
.

As she hurried to the woman's side, she dug a grimy hand into one of the hidden pockets she'd sewn in the folds of her skirt. Questing fingers brushed across a hard wad of bundled fabric. She pulled the bundle free and quickly unwrapped the layers of cloth to reveal a selection of crudely cut metal keys strung on a strip of braided leather.

The keys were copies of the ones she'd lifted from the
umagi
guards in charge of Master Maur's most important prisoners in the lower levels. A bit of somulus powder blown into one of the guards' face while he was sleeping had enabled her to relieve him of his key ring. She'd made an impression of the keys in a small clay tablet and returned the originals to his keeping before he woke from the drug's trance.

For weeks, she'd used every opportunity to scrape and file bits of broken blades and dinner knives into keys that matched the impressions she'd made, taking care to tuck all thoughts and memories of her activity in that part of her mind she'd learned to shield from the Mages. She hadn't finished copying all the keys yet, but she had managed to complete the one used for most of the lockable prisoner restraints.

Luckily for this newest
shei'dalin
prisoner, Master Maur had chained her in a set of those manacles rather than the magic-soldered ones that could not be removed by any means but Mage weaves.

"Let's hope this works," she muttered to herself as she fitted the crudely carved key into the keyhole and twisted.

For one tense moment, the key didn't turn, but after a bit of jiggling, the manacle on the
shei'dalin's
left wrist gave a quiet snick. The shei'dalin hissed as long, sharp spikes of
sel'dor
slid out of her wrists, leaving round, ugly boreholes that filled rapidly with blood when Melliandra removed the black metal bands.

The same key worked to release the
shei'dalin's
ankle restraints as well, but none of the ones on the strip of leather fit the collar around the woman's neck.

Melliandra cast a quick, grim glance at the body of Lord Death's mate. She'd seen death before, too many times to count, and she knew the red-hair's soul had already slipped free of her body. A few moments more and only the gods would be able to call her back in anything but demon form. "We're out of time. You'll have to weave with that on."

The dark-haired
shei’dalin
didn't waste time on conversation. She simply dropped to her knees and laid her palms on the dead woman's chest. Her hands began to glow.

Melliandra knew the effect
sel'dor
had on those of Fey blood. There was enough Fey in her own bloodline that she couldn't touch
sel'dor
for long without feeling her skin begin to burn. And she knew that for pureblood Fey, the black metal's touch felt like boiling, corrosive acid poured over their flesh. The sensation was even worse when they spun magic.

Despite the heavy
sel'dor
collar that must have felt like a yoke of fire around her neck, the dark-haired
shei'dalin
merely clenched her jaw and kept weaving until the weak glow Melliandra thought she had seen became a plainly visible orb of warm, shining, golden light.

«
Her mate holds her to the Light, but she is passing through the
Veil
.» The
shei'dalin's
voice tolled in Melliandra's head, powerful, resonant. She was speaking Feyan, but Melliandra had spent enough time around Master Maur's Feyan captives to understand her. «
She has descended too for into the Well for me
to
follow. I cannot save her
.»

"But you must!" Melliandra protested. "If she dies, he dies. And I need him. He's my only hope."

Desperate, unthinking, she grabbed the
shei'dalin's
hands and held them against the gaping wound on the dead woman's bloody chest.

"Save her!" she commanded. "You must save her! You will!"

Without warning, the world shifted beneath Melliandra's feet. Energy shot up from her belly and roared through her veins, throwing her so off balance she nearly toppled face-first onto the hard, cold stone floor of the cell. Almost instantly, a familiar sentience turned her way.

"He knows we're here!" Melliandra snatched her hands back from Lord Death's mate, grabbed the other healer by the shoulders, and flung her towards the shadowy corner of the cell. "Don't move! Don't speak!" She threw herself in the opposite direction, turning quickly so that her eyes were focused on the rough, carved surface of the black,
sel'dor
-veined walls. She raced to stuff the memories of her plans and activities behind the invisible barriers in her mind. She barely managed to shove the last thought into hiding before she became aware of the oily darkness, the oppressive pressure of another will bearing down upon her own.

She stared at the black wall and filled her mind with dull, lifeless thoughts of drudgery and subservience.

"What are you up to,
umagi
?»

The question surprised her. Usually, when the High Mage's mind scoured hers, his will felt like a thousand prying fingers, poking, prodding, ransacking her mind. This time, however, he felt much weaker. Perhaps Lord Death had been more successful than she'd thought.

As quickly as the thought bloomed, she buried it. «
I was sent to collect a corpse, my lord.»

«
Something happened, umagi. Show me.»
The press of that icy black mind grew heavier, more insistent. Weaker or not, the Mage was still a powerful force, and she could not resist his will.

She turned slowly, keeping her eyes lowered, and let her gaze drift up the red-hair's body until it came to rest on the faint rise and fall of the woman's bloody chest, where the gaping wound from the executioner's blade was already beginning to close.

«
I was sent to collect this woman's body,»
Melliandra repeated, «
but she isn't dead. Master Maur
.»

E
ld - Boura Fell

"Enough." Vadim Maur gave the healer kneeling at his feet a shove and pushed himself to his feet. Tremors shuddered through his frame. Lord Death's scorching had nearly killed him, and the magic he'd expended to save his own skin had almost finished the job.

A large, loyal brute of an
umagi
stood like an obedient dog beside the chair the High Mage had just vacated. "Lord Death's mate is alive. Take this healer to her now." The words came out garbled. His lips had burned away in Lord Death's fire.

The brute bowed and grabbed the healer's arm in one meaty paw.

When they were gone, he turned to the other four
umagi
in the room, slaves of his since birth, nurtured carefully. Devoid of magic, of course, but utterly, irrevocably his. Standing docilely beside them was a powerfully gifted twenty-year-old novice Mage, one of several Vadim had bred and groomed to be his vessel in the event his plans to incarnate into a Tairen Soul did not come to fruition.

Vadim held out his hands. Hunks of rotting flesh had fallen or burned away, revealing glimpses of the ivory bone beneath. The
umagi
gathered around him and began wrapping perfumed linen around his putrefying flesh. He observed their efforts with detachment.

He could no longer put off the inevitable. Not even his great will could keep life pumping in this ruined body much longer. The end of this incarnation was upon him.

Word would have already raced through the corridors of the Mage halls. Primages with their eyes on the dark throne of Eld would be plotting to steal his chosen vessel and force him to incarnate into some worthless
umagi
devoid of magic so they could plumb his mind for all his vast stores of knowledge and leave him to die in a decaying mortal shell. But Vadim didn't intend such an ignominious end to his glorious life.

"It is time," he said. He reached for the fresh purple velvet robe his
umagi
had brought to him. "You, ready the incarnation room. You two, take the vessel to be cleansed and prepared. And you"—he turned to the last
umagi
—"you know what to do."

The four
umagi
and the vessel departed. Three of them headed down to the well-guarded, heavily warded incarnation room Vadim Maur had prepared in the bowels of Boura Fell. The fourth
umagi
set out for the laundry with the High Mage's soiled robe. When they were out of earshot of Vadim Maur's chambers, all four
umagi
were stopped, their hoods yanked back to verify their identities. Ten chimes later, the purple-shrouded figure of the High Mage exited the chamber as well, turning down a different tunnel. As Vadim had anticipated, dark figures darted out, clinging to the shadows as they followed.

They waited until their quarry had entered the incarnation chamber to spring. But when they yanked back the purple hood shrouding the High Mage's face, it was not the rotting visage of Vadim Maur they found, but the face of his
umagi
servant.

Deep in the bowels of the earth beneath the forests of Eld, Vadim Maur stepped from the Well of Souls into the doorless chamber he had carved out of solid
sel'dor
ore several weeks ago, when it had become clear to him that his incarnation could no longer be avoided. He tossed the unused
chemar
he'd carried with him on the floor and, with a grunt of disgust, shed the scratchy woolen folds of the
umagi
robe he'd donned after his first transport through the Well from his chambers to the laundry. There, he'd exchanged places with the
umagi
carrying his soiled robe, and used a second
chemar
to bring himself here, to his true incarnation chamber.

The room was lit only by a dim illumination weave. Fingers of light fell upon the ashen face of the barely conscious man bound to the
sel'dor
table. Vadim's most trusted
umagi
stood beside the table, cutting away the remains of the bound man's once-elegant Celierian garb. He cleansed the man's body with herbal soap, then anointed it with fragrant oil.

Vadim's examined his vessel. There wasn't a single mark on the man's youthful, well-tended body. His torture—though agonizing enough to drive its victim quite mad—had been achieved completely through the use of Spirit weaves and Azrahn, destroying the mind, but leaving the body—and all its powers—completely intact.

"I expected such great things from you, Nour. Your bloodlines were impeccable, your gifts exceptional. But you didn't have the wit to use your talents to their best advantage. You've been a terrible disappointment to me." He leaned over the Primage's limp body and gripped his jaw with one bandaged hand. Bloody drool from his lipless mouth dropped onto Nour's cheek. "At last, I've found the perfect use for you."

Elvia ~ Navahele

Strangely compelling music woke Ellysetta from sleep, a melody she'd never heard before yet somehow recognized

She sat up and turned her head to gaze down upon Rain sleeping beside her. He lay tangled in the silken sheets, his limbs shining silver in the dimly lit confines of their bower. Love swelled in her heart, but she was aware of it in an oddly detached way, as if the emotion belonged to someone else.

The music in her mind grew louder, more insistent. She rose from the bed. The sheets slid from her body without a sound. She reached for an Elvish robe draped across the back of a chair and pulled it on as her feet moved soundlessly across the cool wooden floor.

The door to the small bower opened, and she passed through, stepping into the chill enchantment of the autumn night. The air was redolent with the aromas of night-blooming flowers, crisp fall dew, the earthy scents of the forest, and the unmistakable tang of magic.