The Thousand Names (68 page)

The young assassin Marcus had last seen in the colonel’s quarters stepped between two of the statues. He had another dagger, which he tossed idly from hand to hand. Apart from a loose pair of shorts, he was naked, his shaved head gleaming with oil. His chest was striped with bright red welts, as though he’d been whipped.

Marcus didn’t spare the time to think. He grabbed for the pistol, brought it up, and fired. The assassin didn’t even break his stride, skipping gently to one side as if dancing, and Marcus heard the ball
ping
uselessly somewhere out in the darkness. He was already scrambling to his feet, clawing for the sword where he’d dropped it, as the young man advanced on him and Jen.

“Idiot,” Jen said from behind him. “Get out of the way!”

She gave him a sideways shove, sending him stumbling drunkenly against a statue. The assassin whipped the other dagger at her, bright steel blurring into a line too fast to see. Jen brought her left hand up, fingers splayed, and something sparked in front of her like caged lightning. The knife glanced away as though it had struck a stone wall, and went ringing and clattering off into the cavern.

The young man’s face clouded.

“You are
abh-naathem
,” he said in Khandarai. “A minion of Orlanko. We have expected your coming.”

Jen let out a long breath. A grin spread across her face, a savage joy that Marcus had never seen on her before. She let her arms dangle in front of her, fingers working like a violinist limbering up.

“You pestilential goat-fuckers,” she said, in perfect Khandarai. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“You think you are the first to come in search of the Names? We have held them for four thousand years.”

“Until today.” Jen brought one hand up and made a double circle over her chest, the traditional ward against evil.
“Ahdon ivahnt vi, ignahta sempria.”

He blurred into motion, covering the distance between them with the horrible, inhuman speed Marcus remembered from Ashe-Katarion. Jen’s hand came up, palm out, and the Khandarai crashed into a wall of brilliant silver sparks just before he reached her. He’d been moving so fast he
bounced
, twisting nimbly in midair to land on his feet. His next attack was more circumspect, circling Jen and feinting a few jabs to test the limit of her defense. She faded backward, raising her right hand above her head.

The assassin guessed what was coming, or else had access to some sense that Marcus lacked, and he dove sideways as she brought her hand down. There was an enormous ripping sound, as though the air itself were being torn, and something flashed out from Jen in a vertical wave. It hit a statue behind where the Khandarai had been standing, a snake-headed thing with tree-trunk limbs, and cut it cleanly in half from top to bottom with a billow of dust. The separated pieces fell to the ground in a cacophony of shattering stone.

Demon.
There was no doubt in Marcus’ mind, not anymore. Janus had warned him the Concordat was after the Thousand Names, but he’d never mentioned anything like
this
.

He levered himself to his feet and looked around for the colonel. Janus was staring after Jen as she followed the retreating creature. He didn’t seem surprised so much as in awe. That wasn’t quite right, either, though. Marcus was reminded of the very first time he’d seen the man, holding up a venomous scorpion and watching it twist with the same raw admiration a patron of the arts might show for a masterpiece painting or symphony.

“The Panoply Invisible,” he muttered. “Borracio said it passed into Church hands, but . . .” He shook his head slowly. “I never thought to see such a thing.”

“Sir,” Marcus said. When Janus took no notice, he grabbed the colonel’s arm. “
Sir!
We have to get out of here.”

“What?” The deep gray eyes blinked and seemed to focus once again on the here and now. Another shower of sparks lit up the clouds of dust flowing away from the battle, accompanied by a screech like a glassmaker’s knife across a windowpane.

“Come on,” Marcus said, tugging the colonel’s arm.

Together they stumbled into motion, heading away from the little campsite and toward the center of the room, where the Seventh Company had made their stand. Janus soon recovered enough to set the pace, and before long Marcus was fighting for breath. Another of the tearing sounds sent them both diving for cover, and more statues exploded behind them.

“What
is
she?” Marcus wheezed, rolling over and putting his back to a stone plinth.

“Concordat,” Janus said grimly. “But matters have gone further than I thought. I’ve underestimated Orlanko’s allies.”

“Is she really a demon?”

“Someone who has summoned and contracted one, yes.
Ignahta sempria
, the Penitent Damned. She works for the Pontifex of the Black.”

“There hasn’t been a Pontifex of the Black for a hundred years!”

Janus gave him a grim look, but said nothing. Marcus risked a glance around the corner of the plinth. With the dust of ancient statues, the white gas from the corpses, and the powder smoke, the cavern was full of an unpleasant miasma that made it hard to see much. The air reeked of saltpeter and blood, mixed with the gritty taste of blasted masonry. He couldn’t see either of the supernatural combatants at first. A curl of smoke off to his left disgorged Jen, peering around with an unsatisfied expression. She caught sight of Marcus at the same moment, before he could duck back, and an ugly smile spread across her face.

“I wondered where you’d gotten to,” she said. “Marcus, if you sit down and wait quietly until all this is over, I guarantee things will go well for you afterward. I owe you that much, for everything we had.”

“Everything we had?” Marcus used the plinth to pull himself to his feet, breathing hard. “You’re not even human!”

“That depends on your point of view,” she said. “But I’ll spare you the metaphysics. Just step aside, please.”

He gritted his teeth. “I won’t.”

“Idiot,” Jen sighed. She raised her right hand—

The assassin emerged from the smoke like a shark from the depths, hurtling horizontally at an incredible speed. Jen turned to meet him barely in time, and the wall of sparks flared between them. His bare feet scraped for purchase on the stone floor as he leaned against her with all his inhuman strength, fingers flexing to try to tear the intangible shield that guarded her.

Marcus grabbed for Janus again, dragging him back to his feet and away from the statue. He was just lumbering into a run when Jen noticed. Her frustrated scream melded weirdly with the nails-on-glass sound of flashing magic.

Her right hand came around in a fast horizontal swipe. Another ripple tore out, and Marcus threw himself to the floor, dragging Janus down with him. He heard shattering rock behind him as the wave hit a statue, and then the ominous groan and crack of shifting stone. On blind instinct, he rolled sideways, and a moment later bits of rock were crashing down all around him, small fragments pattering off his coat and pinging away across the floor.

When it was over, he raised his head. His blue uniform was coated in a thick layer of pale dust, which cascaded off him as he rose. Chips and fragments of stone lay all around. The main body of the statue, an armored figure with the head of a chimpanzee, had fallen near where he and Janus had been lying. Marcus hurried around it to find that the colonel had thrown himself mostly clear. One of the ape’s outstretched arms had crashed down on his leg, leaving him pinned under its weight.

“Colonel!”

Marcus knelt and tried to get his fingers under the statue, then gave it his best heave. The mass of stone barely shifted.

“Leave it,” Janus said. His voice was still calm, but Marcus could see the strain in those deep gray eyes. “My leg appears to be broken in any case.” He pushed himself up on his elbows, shivered, and lay back down. “Yes. Definitely broken. Get out of here, Captain.”

“But—”

Janus turned his head, fixing Marcus with an implacable stare. “What are you planning to do? You can’t stop her. The whole regiment might not be able to stop her.” Janus gave a cough as the clouds of dust swirled past. “I suggest you go along with her. For the sake of your career, not to mention your life.”

“I can’t just leave you with her!”

“Go, Marcus,” the colonel spat. “Now. That is an order.”

“Damn it, Marcus!” Jen’s voice drifted through the smoke. Sparks flared again, and Marcus turned and ran.

WINTER

Feor collapsed all at once, as though every bone in her body had turned to jelly. One moment she was scurrying along at Winter’s side, the next she was dangling from Winter’s hand like a corpse.

At the same instant, distant light flared, cutting through the miasma of smoke and dust that choked the ancient temple. The sound that accompanied it set Winter’s teeth on edge, a high-pitched scraping whine that seemed to bypass the ears and resonate directly in her gut. She stumbled under Feor’s sudden deadweight, then managed to drag the girl a few more feet and prop her against the base of a nearby statue.

“Feor!” Winter bent over her worriedly. Feor’s eyes fluttered open, but she seemed to be having difficulty focusing. “Feor? Can you hear me?”

“I . . . can.” Feor blinked.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“I felt . . .” She sucked in a breath, then coughed. “Power. So much power . . .”

“Is it Onvidaer?”

“No,” Feor said. “I have felt his
naath
many times. He is here, but this is different.” She looked up, fear suddenly showing in her face. “I think it is your leader. The
abh-naathem
, the sorcerer. He has finally shown himself.”

“The colonel?” Winter frowned.
Maybe he doesn’t need rescuing after all.
“Come on. We’ve got to see what’s going on.”

They took a circuitous route, bypassing the mounds of formerly animated corpses where the Seventh’s square had been. There were more flashes of light in the distance, and a sound like a giant ripping sailcloth. Feor flinched each time, though she didn’t collapse again.

Hurrying around another of the weird, misshapen statues, Winter caught the gleam of distant light on dull metal. Feor pulled up short, dragging Winter to a halt. They had reached one of the walls of the cavern, and leaning against the dressed stone was a long row of enormous steel slabs, each taller than Winter and several inches thick. Their surface was covered with the densely packed curls of strange script incised deeply into the metal.

Feor sucked in her breath. “The Thousand Names,” she said, very quietly. “We have guarded it since the time of the kings of Khandar. The
naath
are inscribed there, to be read by the faithful when Mother judges them worthy.” There was a touch of awe in her voice. “I have only seen it once before, when I read my own
naath
.”

“Where was that?”

“Another cave, in Ashe-Katarion. Even among the priesthood, few knew of it. The Redeemers tried to find it, but could not.” She sounded uncertain. “Mother must have brought it here from the city.”

Winter remembered a heavy cart rumbling toward the city gate on the day of the great fire, and nodded grimly.

“She warned us that the Church would stop at nothing to gain it,” Feor said. “The minions of Orlanko have schemed against us for decades, and the Black Priests for centuries. They would take the power of the Names for themselves.”

“I thought there were no more Black Priests,” Winter muttered.

“They are hidden,” Feor said, with dogmatic certainty. “But still powerful.”

Something flashed nearby with another horrible glass-cutting whine. Feor spun.

“Onvi!”

She ran into the smoke, forcing Winter to hurry to keep close behind her. Statues loomed to either side, wraithlike and monstrous. Ahead, light flared, and as the mists parted, Winter grabbed Feor by the collar to keep her from sprinting right into the open.

Onvidaer stood in a fighting crouch, shifting his weight, ready to spring. Opposite him was a young woman it took Winter a moment to recognize—Jen Alhundt, the Ministry of Information liaison.
What the hell is
she
doing here?
Everything she’d heard about Alhundt, in spite of her title, said that she was a nonentity. And that she was sleeping with Captain d’Ivoire, though that hardly seemed relevant. But . . .

She was smiling, a toothy wolf’s grin. And Onvidaer seemed wary. He feinted one way, then the other, then jumped almost straight up in a catlike pounce that took him over Alhundt’s head. She slashed her right hand vertically, and a wave of distortion fanned out, passing through space like a ripple across the surface of still water but with a sound like it was tearing the air apart. Onvidaer somehow
twisted
in midair, and the surface of the thing missed him by inches. He reached for her, and Alhundt’s other hand came up, palm out. A wall of sizzling white sparks crackled into being where the two were almost touching.

Some trick of momentum held them there for an instant, a perfect still life in the wildly shifting light of the effervescent pinpricks. Then Onvidaer was hurled away. He struck one of the statues hard, his momentum tilting the stone giant into a slow but unstoppable fall. Onvidaer bounced away before it hit the ground, vanishing amidst the grinding crunch of stone and clouds of billowing dust.