The Lawkeeper of Samara (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 2) (33 page)

Sam and the Mage Lord sat side by side on the seat. They had stopped talking some time ago, and now just waited. Sam had expected that there would be some magical trick with which the Mage Lord could find their prey, but apparently there was not. It was a small disappointment. It could be a very large problem. By Serhan’s own estimate their time was running out.

He was forced to admit that it was possible that they would fail, that the city would be swept with madness and fall into chaos. He wondered what Serhan had meant when he said that he and some others would survive. Had he picked and protected certain people? Was Sam one of them? He doubted it, but he found that he didn’t want to lose his wits and die. He was trying to formulate some way of asking Serhan what he had meant without trying to sound needful when he heard the sound of running feet.

Serhan stood. Sam did the same, and in the distance they saw a figure running towards them. It was not a lawkeeper.

The Mage Lord’s hand moved to the hilt of his sword, but as the runner drew closer Sam recognised him. It was Kane, Ella Saine’s man. He ran towards them at a steady pace, and pulled up a few paces short. Serhan had still not taken his hand from his sword, and Sam remembered that there had been some trouble between Kane and the Mage Lord before the fall of the Faer Karan – a fight, he’d heard. He’d also heard that Kane had been bettered in the exchange.

Kane paused for a moment to catch his breath.

“The temple,” he said. “Councillor Saine says they’re in the temple.”

“How does she know?” Serhan demanded.

“The words the old man in the cell spoke. She recognised them. Something about the heart of the city.”

Serhan stared at Kane for a moment, as though trying to decide if Ella’s word was worth the gamble.

“We’ll go,” he said. “Kane, you wait here and direct any lawkeepers who come to follow us, unless they have found something that suggests Ella might be wrong.” He turned to Sam. “Do you know the way?”

“Yes.” It was no more than half a mile, but Sam supposed that Serhan rarely walked so far. Why would you if you could just summon up a magic portal to take you where you wished? Clearly there was a reason for not using a back door at this point.

“Show me, quickly,” Serhan said.

Sam ran. He was not a natural runner, neither fast nor strong, but he put his all into this half mile. His breath quickly failed. He ran gasping, tearing at the air, almost unaware of Serhan running beside him. It would have been better to have Kane guide him there, but Sam was the lawkeeper. It was his job, and it seemed that Serhan understood that.

They reached the temple, but it was not as straightforward as that. The site covered a lot of ground, and there was no pattern to it any more. If the men they sought were here they could be in a hundred places. Serhan climbed a mound of rubble and stood on the stump of a pillar.

“I can’t see anything,” he said. Apparently he was talking to himself. He certainly didn’t expect an answer from Sam, who had no wind to give him one. He raised his hand in the air and gestured, spoke words that Sam didn’t understand, and then, looking up at the sky, said “Do you see a way?”

There was apparently a reply, though Sam heard no other voice.

Serhan scrambled back down from his perch. “Follow me,” he said. Fortunately for Sam he did not rush off down the street again, but trotted quickly from broken pillar to broken pillar along the road until he came to one that seemed right. “Here,” he said.

Sam looked, and saw that there was a kind of path leading through the ruin. Serhan spoke more words and a light shone forth from his hand, so that they walked swiftly and confidently into the heart of the temple.

*

Arla knew it would do no good, but she let her arrow go anyway. It flashed a couple of paces towards Gadilari’s heart and then stopped. Gadilari plucked the shaft out of the air and examined it before tossing it aside. He leaned to one side and peered down the passageway at Diara.

“Just the three of you?” he asked. “I’m disappointed.”

“Traitor,” Gilan said.

Gadilari laughed at him. “You’re an oaf, Gilan,” he said.

“You saved my life in Gulltown.”

“I was saving Dorian’s life,” Gadilari told him. “The fool got caught, and I knew if you thought he was dead you’d not watch him. The last thing I wanted was him in a cell somewhere telling you all about us. I stabbed him before your archers could stick him full of arrows.”

“But you were a merchant guard,” Gilan said.

Gadilari seemed delighted by this. “You are wonderfully stupid,” he said. “I am the master Teroganat, the Lord of Pain, I have seen centuries come and go, and I possess vast wealth.” He chuckled to himself. “Merchant guard. Wonderful.”

“Now what?” Arla asked.

“Am I going to kill you?” Gadilari drew his blade. He flicked it at Arla and she felt it cut her skin on her right upper arm – a small, sharp pain. “I could,” he said. “It would be so easy just to open you up and watch you die, and another time it would give me some pleasure, but tonight? Why bother? In a few minutes you will die a more terrible death that I could devise with a mere blade.” He put his sword away. “It’s a pity Hekman isn’t here,” he said, almost wistful. “That would have been so much better.”

He turned and walked back towards the other men on the dais.

Arla felt something move behind her, and a figure pushed past. At first she thought it was Gilan, but it was smaller, and when it turned to look at her she felt a shock of hope and fear. It was the shapeshifter Borbonil.

Gadilari had not seen him, but the Faer Karani did not seem to feel that surprise was necessary.

“You are discovered,” it said. “Prepare to die.”

Gadilari turned, his blade drawn in a moment, but in the same instant he was enveloped by a sheet of flame. Arla saw surprise on his face, and fear. It gave her comfort. But as the fire faded she saw that he was still standing, though it was clear he was not entirely unharmed. His fine clothes were smouldering, and it looked as though he had been in the sun too long. His face was red and his eyes blinked rapidly. Whatever had protected him from her arrows was at least partially effective against Borbonil’s power. That was impressive.

Gadilari sprang forwards and slashed at the Faer Karani, but Borbonil did not try to avoid the blade, and it passed through him without causing apparent harm. The shapeshifter struck again, and Arla saw Gadilari throw his hand up before his face to protect himself. It seemed to work. When the fire passed he was still standing.

The advantage was with Borbonil, but it was a slender one. Gadilari retreated in the face of his power, but that was all. Arla guessed that he would be better protected closer to his comrades.

“You can’t stop them.”

Borbonil turned. “I could kill them,” he said. “But it would not serve to destroy this place. The stones are burning, and if they are not extinguished the city will fall. Little time remains.”

“Can you free us?”

“No. You are held by the stones.”

“Can you take the stones? Throw them in the sea?”

Borbonil shrugged, which looked wrong in a shapeshifter. “I cannot approach them. The stones prevent it. Anything else I might do requires time, which I do not have, but Serhan is coming. He knows.”

It was difficult to believe. The mighty lord of Ocean’s Gate was impotent in the face of this evil magic. She had been aware of his power all her life, an impossibly vast presence, a creature that could topple castles on a whim, destroy armies, heal almost any injury, and now he was helpless. But that was wrong. Borbonil was not helpless. He was probably – almost certainly – immune to the crystal magic, and he could have killed Gadilari and his friends simply by collapsing the room in which she stood, but it would not save the city and this new, coldly concerned Faer Karani was in that way greatly different from the old.

She wondered how long they had.

*

Sam followed Serhan as best he could. The Mage Lord’s light showed him the way well enough, but it was difficult ground and Serhan moved quickly over the ruined path. They came to a stair. Serhan looked back to check that Sam was still there, and then plunged downwards.

It was easier going on the stair, but Sam was already short of breath. He stumbled, and by the time he had righted himself the Mage Lord had turned a corner and was out of sight. He hurried to follow the light.

Beyond the corner he saw figures against a blue light. It seemed that Serhan had gone past them, but Sam stopped at the first. It was Diara.

“We’re trapped,” she told him. “Borbonil is here, but even he can’t do anything. Gadilari is the traitor.”

Sam was surprised. He’d liked Gadilari. He moved on, passed Gilan and Arla and came into the room itself.

Gadilari was advancing once more to meet the new threat, and Serhan had drawn his black blade and stood ready to meet him. Borbonil was standing a pace to Serhan’s right.

“You do not want to kill me,” Gadilari was saying. “Even if you could. I was here before the Faer Karan came. I saw the old mages in their pomp, the ancient kings of Samara. I am walking history. Think how much you can learn from me.”

Serhan ignored him. He turned to Borbonil instead. “How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Very little, my lord. When the stones change colour it will be seconds only,” the Faer Karani replied. “It could happen any moment.”

The Mage Lord stepped forwards and cut at Gadilari’s head. The former lawkeeper parried the blow almost casually, but clearly his magical defence failed him. His blade was knocked aside and he barely managed to keep his head on his shoulders.

“A magical blade,” Gadilari said. He launched his own attack, and skilled though he was he failed to trouble Serhan, who met his attack and deflected it with consummate skill. Sam judged them to be not that far apart in skill, though he was not an expert in such matters. The duel ebbed and flowed a little, and it seemed that Serhan was not troubled by the crystal’s trap, for he walked back and forth with equal ease.

“Serhan will win,” Gilan said. “He is less afraid. Quicker, too.”

And so it seemed. But Sam saw the other men at the table draw weapons and begin to advance. It did not seem that the Mage Lord could prevail against so many, especially if they were equally skilled.

“My lord, the stones!” Borbonil’s shout was all the more surprising because Sam did not know the Faer Karan
could
shout. He looked, and the crystals on the table were beginning to change, acquiring a red hue.

Only seconds remained, or so the Faer Karani had said. So this was the end. Even if he could walk through his enemy like so much mist Serhan could not reach the table in time.

But Serhan had one more trick up his sleeve. He spun, ducked, and struck an ineffectual blow on Gadilari’s hip with the flat of his blade. It was so weak that Gadilari made no real effort to deflect it, and a moment later Serhan was spinning away and…

He threw his sword.

*

Cal stepped into the chamber beneath the temple. It looked like a scene from a nightmare. Hooded figures chanted on a dais, his allies seemed frozen in their tracks and the whole was lit by a ghastly blue light that emanated from a table at the centre of the room. There was a smell of burnt cloth.

He stopped next to Borbonil and the creature told him what he needed to know – what had passed, the nature of the spell that held sway, the time he had in which to act. It wasn’t very long. A man advanced towards him with a blade, brightly bound up in blue. The magic was rampant here. It reached out from the blue crystals on the table and filled the chamber with bright filaments, each of which brought pain and fear with it.

He drew Soul Eater, and the blue light shrank from the black blade, just as it had in White Rock. He, at least, could fight.

He was surprised by their first exchange. Soul Eater was not his own creation. It had been made in ancient times, and intended to cut flesh, bone, stone and steel with equal ease. It did not break his assailant’s sword as he had expected, and so he missed a chance to finish the contest, for his opponent was also caught by surprise and barely blocked his first blow.

After that it became a matter of skill. It was not what he had wanted. To beat a man took time, even if only a short time. He needed to watch the way the other fought, find the weakness and exploit it. If that took a minute it might be too long, and this man was exceptionally skilful.

He looked for the easy win, a quick thrust, but the swordsman danced away and countered with his own swift attack. Nothing here was going as he had hoped.

But did he have to beat him? All this man’s strength, his life even, was a debt to the pain and suffering he had gathered over the years. He was sustained by magic, and magic was what Soul Eater had been modified to feed upon. If he was right, then he needed no more than a touch to decide the bout.

Borbonil shouted behind him. “My lord, the stones!”

Cal glanced down at the dais, and true enough the cursed things were changing colour, and the men who had stood about them were coming to their leader’s aid. It was an opportunity, and besides, all his choices were used up.