The Queen of Wolves (35 page)

The priests lunged at me, and I willed myself to shift into a burning swarm of wasps, swirling around them, and through them, feeling their thoughts as my wasp forms bit their flesh, while they swatted at me—I felt among them for Ghorien, for I sensed the winds of their minds, and moved through them to find their master. He was not among them. It pained me to be the small creatures, and I could not shift again to another form quickly. I found cracks in the walls, and went through them and in the courtyards flew down, and had to re-form swiftly into my own body again, for the cold would have killed the insects I had manifested in but a few moments.

I shifted again, and brought much pain into myself as I sought out my new disguise. I had not expected to suffer from the shapeshifting, but I was sore as I re-formed myself, and my skin seemed to unravel as I did this. In seconds, I became the figure of a White Robe, feeling the slickness of rotting flesh on a form of shadow, and thus dressed, passed by many guards and the commotion raised by Corentin’s alarm. Within, I felt jabs and stings, as if I had abused this new sorcery and demanded too much of it.

Many more guards had come to Taranis-Hir since the weeks of my journey had passed. Mortals were fooled by the false piety of the White Robes, and by the magnetism of the Nahhashim staff that Enora held close to her. Their sorcery blinded men, and tempted them with rewards. The courtyards and the tribunes and the steps up to the battlements teemed with soldiers at the ready, and hundreds of squires held horses for their knights, who sought blessing among the chapels of the Disk. Soon, a new alarm sounded as men shouted from the towers that there was an intruder within the city walls. Horsemen rode by, fully armored, their vigilance wasted as I walked by them in disguise. New blasts of horns sounded along the towers, and shrieks of the Morns pierced the night. I saw three of the creatures soar above, then a howling of the wolf-women began out beyond the castle walls.

The streets were empty of all but guards, and each nodded to me as I passed, for they revered these foul White Robes as emissaries from the Virgin of Shadows. I pitied them in their ignorance at the doom they had brought upon their own kind. Many of these soldiers would fall in battle, and would serve as vessels to the Asyrr and their warriors. Many were young men from distant lands who had come because the plague of the Disk dream had taken them over. I saw the Disks hanging by thin straps about their throats or dangling from their wrists, or wrapped about their scabbards. Pitied them, yes, but I could not save them from what hell would come to them that night.

They had willingly walked into shadows and abandoned their own kings and queens and lands and gods to follow a plague dream’s command. There had been those who did not love this city, and did not revere its baroness as a “Queen of Wastelands,” a blessed saint. But these soldiers and knights had come, as had the alchemists and foundrymen who worked the furnaces and the laboratorium, and assisted Artephius in his tortures and experiments.

I would have hunted for Pythia among the white towers where she might be feted as a foreign princess for her grand betrayal...but I knew that it was to Artephius she would return.

So, as a Myrrydanai priest, I sought out my father’s workshop.

6

Despite the noise and cry above, the Barrow-Depths of the city were nearly silent, interrupted only by the dripping and gurgling of the vaulted rooms between the canals that ran below the city itself.

I followed the slender low corridors, through the vaults and passageways, across the laboratorium floor that had been abandoned by its workers. I closed my eyes, seeking the stream, for even Artephius existed within it, an immortal who did not have the breath of the Sacred Kiss within him. I followed along the niches and passed the foundries, and finally reached the study where I had been taken and bled one night during the arena games.

I touched the arched wooden door, and in the stream’s vibration, I felt him, like a colony of termites in the wood of the door itself. Locked was the door, but as I brought the staff to its keyhole, I heard the
click
and turn of the mechanism, for no lock could keep out the one who held the Nahhashim.

I entered the alchemist’s study with the Myrrydanai hood drawn down to conceal my features.

At the room’s threshold, I shifted again to myself, the rotting skin and shadow giving way to the solid flesh, staff held beneath my robes, and hand on the grip of the Nameless should I need it.

The armored man stood near a bellows and a fire, while two grimy assistants—one wearing the Phrygian cap that was popular among alchemists of the time, and the other a skullcap—worked the flames as red liquid shot through a clay trough, and spilled down into a fat round crucible that sat upon a wooden tripod. Skullcap turned and saw me first, and called out to his master. Phrygian Cap dropped his crucible full of green liquid, and as it crashed to the floor, a vapor came up from it that seemed nearly in the shape of a small beautiful woman—a spirit that dissolved in the air.

Artephius turned from the high table where he pored over pages of his grimoire. I knew this book well, for its scrolls had once been buried in an urn, and when broken, the words had escaped and found Merod Al Kamr. I had no doubt that all of Artephius’s power was generated by this grimoire. If I had it in my possession, I would destroy it.

His visor was closed, and I could not see his eyes through the slits of the metal of his helm. He dismissed his workers quickly, admonishing them to return to the furnaces for their continued labors. “You will tell no one of this,” he said to them brusquely. “Or you will be back in the foundries working with the ashlings again.”

After they had passed by me at the door, he said, “You will want to shut the door behind you, my son. You risk much to come here.”

7

“I do not have much time, for many search the towers and streets,” I said, as I drew the staff out from beneath my cloak.

“Ah,” he gasped, and reached his gloved hand forward as if he might touch it from across the room. He held his palm facing outward. “I feel the power of the gray priests of Nahhash in its warmth. This is fresh-cut, not the old staff Enora keeps at her side.”

“It is from the earth of Myrryd, a place you know well,” I said.

“How did you keep the swarms from tearing your flesh?” he asked. “For when I walked in that garden, I was much abused by the Akhnetur. They guard the bones of the gray Nahhashim with their lives. Yes, Maz-Sherah, I saw much in the red city.” He waved his hand toward the thick, rough-bound book. “But did not learn of its secret until I spent many years studying the scrolls. It has been too long since I visited the temples and palaces. The tombs of the Asyrr. The Asmodh Well.”

“You have been in the Asmodh depths?” I asked, for I did not believe it. Artephius was someone who allowed others to suffer that he might find his knowledge. Though he himself had lost his youth and humanity over many centuries, still I did not believe he had suffered in the way that he had made others writhe in pain.

He did not answer my question, but took a step toward me, his hands upraised as if feeling for some invisible field between us. “You have the Serpent in you now. I can smell him.” He seemed to take in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “You stink of the Asmodh, as if you still are there beneath the flood.”

“From those depths to these, I have drawn great sorcery.”

“Yes. Yes,” he said, as if confirming some suspicion. “For you were born to this. You are Maz-Sherah.” Again he pointed to the grimoire, and whispered a few words in a secret language, and the old book began to flip its pages, unfolding ragged edges of skinlike paper. “It is written on her flesh, the words of blood. If you would read what is there, you will understand much, little falcon. It is for you I have spent these years in study, seeking the marvels above the Earth, and the prophecies of the ancients. It tells of your future as well as your past.”

A page ripped out of the book, its paper yellowed and veined, and stained with the brown of old blood. It flew on an invisible wind, as if carried by some unseen demon, to float between us. Upon it, a thin line of fire scorched words of the old language. When the fire went out, the blackened words became the image of the sword of fire, and around it, a hand gripped it, and from this hand, an arm grew, and from the arm, a body, and a face. I did not have much trouble recognizing myself in the art that he had conjured.

Suddenly, the arm tore from the body. Almost instinctively, I clutched my arm as if it were mine that tore from its socket.

The page burned away, dissolving in a flash of flame, becoming blackened bits that floated downward to the floor, and yet the torn bit with the arm and the sword remained intact and flew swiftly to Artephius’s hand.

“I know of this sword,” he said as he glanced down at the bit of paper. “If you explored the Asmodh Well, it must have called to you. It has known your name since it was first thrust into the Serpent’s temple by Queen Medhya herself.”

I drew my robe to the side, to show him the Nameless in its sheath. “It has found its master,” I said.

“The treasure of the Asmodh, falcon. It has more than one master,” he said, but in his tone I detected a shift, as if he had not expected the sword to be in my possession. “Medhya once wielded this, and she will call to it if you do not grasp it tight. Have you read the words at its hilt?”

“They are in the ancient languages, and I do not understand them,” I said.

“
Ba-yil-ir set-isil
,”
he said, as if from memory. “It means ‘In Veil, I burn.’ For cursed is the one who grasps the Asmodh blade. Medhya was cursed, for she held it too long. How many nights have you kept it at your hip, little falcon? Has it brought you its dreams of the Asmodh terrors? For they were not benign sorcerers who delved and forged in the subterranean climes. They cursed the Great Serpent, and Medhya, and any to whom the blade calls. These ancient weapons were a damnation for the world above.”

“Let me be damned to Hell then,” I said. “The Nameless has had few masters. But all have had great power.” I drew it out with my left hand, holding it in the air, parallel to the staff in my right. “If I were to thrust it into your plating, alchemist, no sorcery would keep it from burning your heart. Will it hurt, I wonder, as much as the Red Scorpion does? Or will this burn too fast, and will your suffering be too short?”

“In the scrolls of Medhya, this Nameless is spoken of,” he said, no fear in his voice. Was he tempting me to attack him? I wondered. Did he wish for me to come closer that he might use some magick of the grimoire to trap me? Still, I stepped forward, the broken blade pointed at his chest.

“Have you studied the art of the Nameless?” he asked.

“Its art is in my blood,” I said.

He laughed, and in scorn said, “It is not merely fire at its broken hilt. Do you understand what it can become?”

“The Great Serpent guides me in this weapon of the Asmodh,” I said.

“Then you don’t need the Medhyic grimoire,” he said, contempt in his voice. “Though within the bound book lie recipes and rituals for making another master of the blade. There have been many Maz-Sherah, and many that have failed. You have not—yet. But you may fail, my son. You may, and then another will take the Nameless as his own. For, was not the Nahhashim staff cut for you? And yet, who owns it—a mortal woman, a new queen, hailed by many for the staff has ordained her, as have the White Robes.”

“A Queen of Wolves, she is, like Medhya,” I said.

“Will you use the sword of fire against her?” he asked, almost a challenge. “For you must wish to see what it can do to mortal flesh.”

“I would test its metal now,” I said, and lunged toward him. He did not step back, nor did he tremble in his armor. He held no fear of the blade. “In all your torments of my tribe, in all your plans for my birth...did you ever think there would come a moment when your own son would come to send you to the Veil itself?”

“Show me its flame,” he said, a whisper that echoed from the chamber of his visored helm. “For I long to see it.”

I heard labored breathing beneath the visor, and felt his excitement as I stepped forward, toward him, and drew out the sacred fire from the sword. It grew straightforward, thickening at the tip, and separating there into a trident of burning.

“Do you control this yet, or does the sword decide its form?” he asked, his hands nearly approaching the flame itself as he sought its warmth.

“From my thought it comes, though it takes its own path.”

“After all these centuries on this Earth, to go where the fire would take me,” he said. “It has been my greatest desire, to explore the Veil—to seek that place of the exiled gods, where such creatures exist. You do not understand even now, my son. You have fulfilled more than prophecy. You have fulfilled every dream of my deepest soul. For I spent lifetimes learning the Asmodh ritual. I baptized myself in the filth of its underworld sea. To its gods, I gave worship and paid the tribute of a thousand human sacrifices—children and maidens and beautiful sun-kissed youths who had never yet stained their souls with lust or lies—in that lonely deep where the spirits of the Asmodh moaned and roared. In my seed, they brought you—in my loins you were formed from the prophecies of Medhya, and from the sorceries of the Asmodh. And to your mother I came, a knight in armor to the lowliest hovel, in the filthiest marsh, for that was prophecy. But she was a daughter of the Druid priests, a priestess of nature and of hidden talent, whose knowledge came from the upper world, and was not of Asmodh. Into her, I brought the Asmodh prophecy, and from her, a son was born with the instincts of his mother’s tribes, and the destiny of his father’s desire. You have become everything—
everything
—I have lived for during these centuries. And all this—the torn Veil—is from your existence. If you were to stab me with that Asmodh blade, I would go to the Veil and leave this wretched world to my son. And to Medhya and her shadow priests, for I have spent too long a time in this wasteland of the small and foolish mortal mind that has no memory beyond its puny lifetime. To you and me, my son, the mortal realm is a vast colony of vermin, and the monsters of the Veil would be a blessing here.”