Sourcethief (Book 3) (56 page)

"No," he admitted. Tiiba took two steps
and leapt over the railing.

Juliana gasped. For all his recent timidity, she had
never known him to be fearful of heights.
His fear of dying before killing
Brannis, that had to have been it
. He must have realized she would follow.
She would have hated to disappoint him.

Juliana bounded over the railing after him.

She had been down only the previous day, and her
memory of the larger branches on the way down played to her advantage. She saw
Tiiba in the aether, plummeting ahead of her, but he slowed himself each time
he had to kick off against one of the street-sized offshoots littering the path
to the ground.

Juliana continued to draw on the way down. The heart
of Podawei Wood was a wellspring of aether, each tree with its own draconic
Source. She watched as she overtook Tiiba, large branches delaying his fall. She
landed on the ground with the force of a lighting sparrow, the cushioning spell
for her landing costing just a tiny fraction of the aether she had stored.

She saw Tiiba fall and timed his landing.

The blade-priest had barely touched the mossy ground
when he was lifted from his feet by yet another arc of Juliana's black
lightning. He flopped against an oversized root and puddled to the forest
floor, moaning. It was the only sign besides the flicker of a still-burning
Source that told he was still alive.

Shielding spell intact, Juliana risked approaching
him. The mighty warrior lay face down, struggling to rise. She kicked the
rune-blade out of his enfeebled grasp.

"Any last words? They're truly the last this
time, unless you are tripletborn or something."

"I love you, Soria," Tiiba whispered.

"Then why did you cut my heart out?"
Juliana asked.

She closed her eyes, not looking in either the
aether or the light, as she hit him with a final aether bolt, one he was
helpless to avoid. She heard a crunch as the blast struck Tiiba's body, and
winced. She breathed deeply, calming herself. She had thought that the woody
smell of Podawei might comfort her, but the smoky scent of Tiiba's death
overpowered it. Peeking down, she saw that the body was slowly sinking into the
soft earth. She scurried back, watching rapt as the forest itself consumed him.
In but a moment, the ground sealed itself above the spot where Tiiba once lay.

Juliana swallowed. The immediacy of the threat Tiiba
offered was gone, leaving her with nothing but worry for Brannis. There was
little she could think to do, so that little was what she meant to try. She
broke into a run in the direction of the immortals' enclave.

Kyrus awoke shivering, with a taste of bile in his
mouth. His first thought was to find the chamber pot, into which he emptied his
stomach. He felt the burning, searing agony that Brannis had suffered, and
tried to will it away. He pulled up his night clothes, and inspected his own
stomach, just to reassure himself that he was, indeed, whole.

A corner shelf held several decanters of wine. He
tore the stopper from one and filled his mouth, swishing it about to try to
burn clear the awful taste that threatened to overwhelm him again. He spat the
wine onto the floor. The temptation was great to drink his fill and calm his
nerves, but there was too much at stake to go at it with less than a clear
head. His hands still shook as he dressed himself.

On a whim, he rummaged in one of his desk drawers,
taking up something from beneath piled papers. It was his Expert's Medallion,
his only keepsake from Tellurak. He slipped the chain over his neck, and tucked
the quill-and-"S" symbol under his tunic.

Kyrus drew.

The wards around his bedroom flickered and gave way.
He thrust open his door and stalked down the empty halls. It was early morning.
A nagging question about eastern distance and differences in the rotational
angles of Tellurak and Veydrus played about in his head, but he brushed them
aside—distractions.

It was the first day of summer, and Kyrus's age-day.
Emperor Sommick was to be wed, but Kyrus had little intention of being there to
witness the ceremony. Nevertheless, that was the direction his steps carried
him.

Servants fled before him. Even without a sense of
the aether, they still could sense the enormous force of Kyrus's continued draw
clawing at them, trying to drag their living Source toward him. Kyrus found his
path clear.

He eased his draw as he approached the palace
courtyard where a throng was already gathered. Even though he was still within
the palace walls, and those walls bore wards of all sorts, he could still see
thousands of Sources. Kyrus had paid little attention to the details of Celia's
arrangements for the day, but it seemed that starting early was a wise plan for
what must have been scheduled as an all-day affair. He shut his eyes, focusing
solely on the aether. There were powerful Sources aplenty, mixed in among the
more mundane Sources of the nobility—the Imperial Circle, and likely the whole
of the Inner Circle as well. Scanning further, he was able to make out Heavens
Cry, and the empty void in the aether that marked Rashan.

"Brannis, there you are!" Celia shouted
after him as he made his way for the doors.

He turned to look at her, and her eyes widened.
There must have been something in his manner, his look, that told more than
Kyrus meant to let on. Celia said nothing further, but turned and fled. It was
a problem for another time; he had more important matters to worry about.

Kyrus made an effort to keep his expression neutral.
He exited into the courtyard, wading in among the guests who had not yet
settled into their seats. There were rows upon rows of benches arranged for all
those gathered. It had apparently been deemed an event too long to force nobles
to stand through. It was all Kyrus could manage to force himself to skirt the
periphery of the gallery, rather than flinging the benches and their occupants
from his path.

Folk called greetings to him, tried to introduce
themselves, to engage him in idle conversation. Kyrus caught sight of Rashan,
and all else faded from his vision and hearing. He offended his way through the
crowd, ignoring everyone.

"Brannis, fair morning," Rashan greeted
him. The demon was too perceptive to have overlooked the glare that Kyrus
stabbed him with.

Kyrus stood directly beside the demon, elbowing his
way past a pair of over-preened noble girls who would soon both call themselves
"empress," and one of the misbegotten blood scholars who was about to
perform the deed. "We need to speak—in private," Kyrus muttered
through gritted teeth, trying to keep his lips still.

"Something bothering—" Rashan began to
ask, but Kyrus took him by the arm and led him away from the terrace where the
ceremony preparations were being finalized.

Few folk were of a mind to intercede on the demon's
behalf, and if those few were present, the thought of chastising Sir Brannis
Solaran was enough to stay their tongues. There were a few gasps of surprise,
or indignant shock, but not one spoke a word to stop him, and certainly no one
tried to bar his path.

One of the great glass doors boomed shut behind
them, offering a modicum of privacy.

"Oh, this is going to be interesting, I can
already tell," Rashan said. He was wide eyed, but the look did not convey
any fear or surprise, just a manic curiosity.

"I need your help," Kyrus began.
"Brannis is dying, mortally wounded."

"I am sorry to hear that," Rashan said.
Kyrus could have believed it had he not trusted the murderous Rakashi's word over
the master liar that stood before him. "But I know nothing of healing
magics. Too akin to necromancy, and though I eschew convention when—"

"Shut up!" Kyrus snapped. "You have a
solution, and I want it. I have worked out nearly every detail. I need you to
supply the rest."

"The rest of what?" Rashan dangled the
question like a turkey leg held above a starving dog.

"Immortality. I can save Brannis the same way
you saved a dying Agga," Kyrus said, leaping at the bait.

Rashan paused a moment, put a hand to his chin.

With the other hand, Rashan drew Heavens Cry, and
was upon him instantly.

Kyrus was shocked. A blast of aether struck him,
just where that wicked blade was about to strike. It was all Kyrus's shield
could do to withstand both blows in such close concert—but it did. Rashan hung
in mid-air, straining, struggling to push the blade a hairsbreadth further, to
drive the blade through his shield and into his heart.

Rashan continued his struggles as he floated back,
caught in a clenched fist of Kyrus's magic. The demon's feet tucked up, knees
jammed into his chest, head bowed. Kyrus did not even try to take Heavens Cry
from Rashan's grasp, but forced the blade against him as he pressed.

"Why?" Kyrus asked, dumbfounded.

"You would have struck first had I said
'no,'" Rashan replied, straining to speak as he was being crushed.

"This is simple. Tell me how you did it. If
what you tell me fits what I already know for certain, I spare you. If not
..." Kyrus said. He tightened his telekinesis spell around the demon.
There was a popping and a crack. The demon's Source was a slippery thing; he
was harder to hold than Dolvaen had been, but always before Kyrus had been
mindful of harming his captives. The temptation to simply squeeze until the
demon stopped moving was undeniable, but there was still a bargain to be had.

"You think ... this will be ... so
...easy?" Rashan asked. Kyrus felt the demon straining against his hold,
slamming aether about inside himself like a man trying to capsize a rowboat.
Kyrus struggled to compensate, and realized he could not hold Rashan much
longer.

Instead of fighting to maintain a hold, Kyrus opened
a gap in it. The demon shot forth like a cannonball, striking the wall above
the glass doors to the terrace, and passing through the warded stone in a
shower of black marble. The wall shuddered, but stood; the glass in the doors
shattered. A discordant choir sang out in screams, as the imperial warlock was
jettisoned amid the guests.

Kyrus found himself seething, breathing through his
teeth. The edges of his vision grew hazy, as he saw only a path to his
murderer. Kyrus swept his hands out to the sides, and the debris—and a goodly
chunk of the remaining wall—parted before him. He drew in earnest, preparing to
put to the test all that he had read in Lord Harwick's notes, through Brannis's
eyes. He strolled out onto the terrace to see where Rashan had landed.

The scene outside was one of confusion. Some
ingrained propriety in the gathered crowd kept a mass panic from spreading. No
one was quite sure what was going on, and the chance that they might be fleeing
before some pre-arranged spectacle kept most in their seats. Those nearest
Rashan seemed most concerned, but least inclined to run.

"Stop him, he's gone mad." Rashan's high
voice carried over the shouts and mutterings of the guests.

The Imperial Circle were all guests of honor at the
imperial wedding, seated near the front of the crowd, just behind the noble
families of the sixteen brides. Not every one of them leapt to heed the demon's
call, but there was enough loyalty among them that fire and lightning lanced in
Kyrus's direction the moment the demon called them to action. Kyrus winced, and
threw his hands up to shield himself, but those instinctive reactions did
nothing compared to the shielding spell that wrapped him like a mountain
fortress.

"Brannis, what are you doing?" Aloisha
called out from among them.

"Get out of here!" Kyrus shouted back.
"This is between me and that demon!"

Somewhere amid the crowd, the demon was gathering
his strength. Kyrus had never felt Rashan draw in anger, and was impressed ...
and unimpressed. Rashan was the strongest sorcerer whose draw he had ever felt,
but he knew then that he overmatched the warlock. He also knew that Rashan knew
far better than he what to do with his draw and all the aether that he could
gather. Kyrus took no chance on losing his main advantage. With renewed fervor,
he grasped at the aether, not so much inviting it into him as taking a
tornado's breath of it, demanding it disappear into the endless depths of his
own Source, and not Rashan's.

Kyrus stalked the crowd, picking his way over and
around the bodies of those whose Sources had not withstood his call. He heard
the sounds of the periphery of the crowd, shrieking in terror as they found
themselves caught in a battle likely to grace the histories, if any should
survive to record it.

A blast of aether caught Kyrus from behind,
distracting him from where he saw that Rashan must be hiding—the center of a
circle of Sourceless corpses. Kyrus whirled, threw a wave of hellfire behind
him, and resumed his search for the demon.

"You've gone mad," Rashan called out,
rising unsteadily from the piles of bodies. He looked whole, if not unharmed.
Even as Kyrus watched, the demon's body sorted itself out. Rashan shook limbs
back into shape as a man might work loose a stiffened joint.

"YOU HAD ME KILLED!" Kyrus shouted,
careless of who might hear him. "And now you either help me before it's
too late, or your immortality ends today."

"Look behind you!" Rashan called back.
Kyrus thought it such a numb-minded taunt, the sort of trick that children
learn to ignore. But he heard the crackling fires, smelled the smoke; the
aether behind him was a blur.

He did turn, and the wall of fury he had built up to
steel him in his purpose nearly toppled. Nothing was left. The Inner Circle,
the brides, their families, the blood scholars ... gone. Burnt skeletons
littered the courtyard and the terrace; the palace itself was ablaze.

The wedding party and the whole of the Inner
Circle—save for Rashan—were gone. Juliana's father was dead, and likely her
mother as well, seated in the fore of the guests. He could not help but think
back to passages Juliana had read him from
The Peace of Tallax
, wherein
the mighty sorcerer was plagued by nightmares of the horrors he had caused and
the countless lives he had ended.

It had been so easy. The path of Tallax lay before
him, paved in corpses. He needed a focus for his spinning thoughts before he
broke out sobbing.
The demon.

Kyrus turned back to face Rashan. "This is your
fault, all of it," Kyrus shouted over the sound of the flames. The sounds
of fleeing wedding guests faded, as the few survivors got to safer distances.

"My fault?" Rashan said. "I was not
the one who did
that
!" Rashan retorted. A bolt of aether shot forth
from the demon's hand. It was a thin, focused ray that stabbed against Kyrus's
shield, but did little.

"This is what I've feared from you," Kyrus
said. He began to walk toward Rashan, flinging Source-dead corpses from his
path. "Not your magic, but the destruction you leave wherever you go. They
all warned me you would turn on me: Dolvaen, Caladris, Axterion. They all
assumed I was unfit to face you though—too much a firehurler, too little a
warlock. The demons? They're more worried that I'll become Tallax's heir, but
they want you dead. I think this may be a day that ends with no one
satisfied."

Rashan did not respond by words. He held his ground
as Kyrus approached. Somehow, he had kept Heavens Cry in hand. He rushed at
Kyrus. Despite his bluster, Kyrus was shocked at the demon's rage. Again his
reflexes betrayed him, and he raised his arms to ward away the blows, rather
than just trusting to his shielding magics.

Kyrus took a deep breath as blow after blow rained
down upon him. He relaxed himself and drew a gentler current of aether from
farther away. The vicinity of the palace was as dry as Farren's Plain, but
Kadris held the largest population in the human world. The city was a shallow
ocean of aether. Kyrus rebuilt his shielding spell faster than Rashan could
wear it down.