undying legion 01 - unbound man (34 page)

“Yes,” she said. “I’m with you.”

Chapter 13

Curse the gods if you must, but do it on your horse.

— Halonan proverb

The glowing glass sphere sat on a low wooden pedestal in Clade’s study, its gentle radiance filling the otherwise dark room with a soft, warm light. A second orb lay on a cushion beside it, this one dark, larger than the first but no less smooth. Clade perched before them on the edge of a padded chair, head bowed, his fingers laced over the hair at the back of his neck.

She called me a priest.

The memory of Sera’s words haunted him.
You’re not like the others,
she’d said, and he’d smiled, not yet seeing her true meaning. Then she’d told him.
A god that doesn’t need its followers defending it all the time — that’s a god worth following.
She’d looked up at him then, like one enlightened believer to another, inclining her head in silent gratitude for the part he’d played in opening her eyes. As if Azador was a god in truth, and he its loyal minister faithfully guiding her to her own salvation.

It made him want to scream.

Enough!
With an effort of will, Clade pressed the feeling down. He summoned walls, jamming them one against another and driving the errant emotion within. It beat against the walls of its cage, desperate for release.
No. I am master here, not you.
Slowly, grudgingly, it subsided. He straightened in his chair and took a long, slow breath.

Control. Without it, he was lost. It made no difference what Sera thought, or Estelle, or anyone else. Truth was no less true for being hidden.
You mistook me, Sera, and I regret that. Perhaps, one day, I may have opportunity to repair that error.

But not today.

He tucked the penned emotion away, ignoring its diminishing protests, and turning his attention to the orbs before him. The lightglass was a thing of beauty: a Bel Hennese piece about the size of a cannonball, its steady inner glow giving it the appearance of something otherworldly. Clade had discovered it in a corner of the building’s cellar shortly after his arrival in Anstice. The find had been unexpected, to say the least: the great walled island of Bel Henna was an entire continent away, and the Bel Hennese were notoriously close-fisted with their sorcery. How exactly it had come into the possession of the Oculus was a mystery.
And twice the mystery that it then failed to make the journey back to Zeanes.
A wry smile touched his lips. Perhaps he wasn’t the first overseer in Anstice to carry a secret.

The orb’s light glinted off the surface of its twin, a fresh piece untouched by sorcery, commissioned by Clade from one of the city’s leading glassworkers and collected the day before last. It was larger than the lightglass, and though it was hard to tell, Clade thought the glass fractionally clearer. Alike, yet different. Equivalent in substance and in craftsmanship, but differing in form. An ideal test for his redesigned binding.

He’d made several adjustments to the binding, refining some of the unfamiliar pieces whose purpose he now thought he understood, and strengthening the structural elements beneath. Comprehension of the spell as a whole continued to elude him. The means by which sorcery was made to act upon sorcery still defied his grasp, even though he himself had done it, shifting the chiller binding from one mug to another. But neither piece had emerged intact; and what truly mattered, other than the success of the spell, was the safety of the source. Only if the bound twin emerged from the process unscathed could Clade be satisfied.

Thus would he free himself of Azador’s suffocating grasp. No spiritbinder now lived who might dissolve the link directly. This spell, this transfer of a binding from one object to another, was the only way.

He slowed his breathing, clearing his mind and extending his awareness toward the lit sphere. The glass was entirely free of runes, giving no clue to the structure of the binding within. Clade pressed in, slipping past the first strands and sinking into the tight web of sorcery.

The binding flexed beneath his mind’s touch, dense and complex and strangely elegant. He chose a line at random and traced it through the elaborate weave. It mirrored the surface in a gentle arc, then dived into the binding’s heart, curling this way and that as it danced around neighbouring strands. Other lines joined it, converging on what seemed to be some sort of nexus, then flaring out in new, unexpected directions.

Clade hopped from one strand to the next, marvelling at the remarkable construction. The design was unlike anything he had encountered before: a single, irreducible whole, entirely unlike the modular, compartmentalised approach to spellcraft with which he was familiar. It was as though some unformed essence of sorcery had been mixed with liquid glass and the two materials simultaneously wrought together to craft a single, perfectly balanced object.
Is all Bel Hennese sorcery like this? Or is this simply what’s required when working with glass?

Reluctantly, Clade withdrew his awareness. The unlit globe on the floor seemed a crude thing now, dull and lifeless. He frowned, struck by the improbability of what he was trying to do. Whatever the means used to create the binding, it was part of the sphere now. One might as well try to extract a man’s bones from his body as remove the spell from the glowing ball before him.
But no, a binding is a binding. And I have done this once already.

He knelt before the spheres, settling himself on the floor, and set to work.

Last time, a piece of the mug had broken off, the apparent result of too much energy seeking to pass through too narrow a binding; so now he built a larger, wider base covering almost an entire hemisphere, adding a quartet of supporting conduits that snaked around to the far side of the orb. With the foundation securely in place, he commenced work on the spell itself, building the spur down toward the floor and the waiting globe, pausing at intervals to review his progress and assess the integrity of his work, examining both the correctness of each detail and the balance of the whole. Piece by piece it grew, curving ever downward as though tracing the path of a falling arrow, until at last it reached its end, the tip hanging invisibly to one side of the target globe.

Clade slid the lightless sphere into position… and cursed. It seemed the refined spell was not as large as he’d expected. The sorcerous spur hung half a hand’s breadth above the orb’s surface, too far to bridge with the final connection.

He reached behind him, groping blindly for something to use as a makeshift platform, but his fingers met only air and the cold stone floor. The bookshelf stood tantalisingly out of reach against the wall. He dared not go over and fetch a book. The binding was incomplete, held in place only by the proximity of his focused intent. Any movement of more than a step away would put it out of his mind’s reach and risk a potentially destructive collapse.

Ah, hells.

There was nothing else for it. Gritting his teeth, he slid his hands beneath the unlit globe, the glass cool and smooth against his skin. He lifted it from its cushion, raising it onto his fingers to give it the necessary height and fitting it into position beneath the dangling spur. Then, lips pressed in concentration, he began the final piece.

The first link was the hardest, involving a manoeuvre akin to threading a needle at arm’s length; but with that in place, the remaining links followed quickly. Soon it was done and the completed binding hung before him, a woven cable of sorcery connecting the shining sphere on the pedestal to the lifeless globe in his hands. Clade pressed his awareness against it, working his way down the binding, checking his handiwork for flaws. None were evident. The binding was sound.

This had better work.
The thought of either sphere shattering was too dire to contemplate.
One in my hands and another in my face. Perfect.
Fear tickled his stomach and he pushed it away, unable to spare the attention needed to deal with it properly.
Sitting here waiting isn’t going to achieve anything. Best just cast it and have it over with.

Clade drew a deep breath, clenched his eyes shut, and activated the spell. A series of faint clicks sounded somewhere before him and he grimaced, bracing for the worst.

After half a dozen heartbeats, he opened his eyes.

Light flickered in his hands, dim and fitful, but unmistakably there. The fresh globe seemed too large for the thin glow within; or perhaps the transition between spheres had weakened the binding. Clade set it down on the cushion, sliding his hands out from underneath, and turned his attention to the Bel Hennese orb.

The sphere was dark, empty of sorcerous illumination; and it was intact.

Excitement sparked within him. Clade pushed it down, taking the emptied orb from its stand and turning it over in his hands. The tip of his finger brushed against a raised edge and he frowned, holding the surface to the other sphere’s dim light.
That wasn’t there before.
The ridge was fine, barely noticeable, running in an uneven line a third of the way around the globe’s circumference. A second, shorter line ran roughly parallel to the first, mirroring a third along the sphere’s far side.

Superficial damage only.
Not ideal, of course, but a small enough price to pay to finally be rid of the god. Excitement welled up in earnest and he frowned again, driving it down, forcing it into a cage. This was a step on the path, nothing more. When he was free of Azador, then he would celebrate. Not before.

All the same, it was a milestone of sorts.
I need only two things to rid myself of Azador. Today, I have one.
It was good to acknowledge progress: a goal achieved, and a job well done. Soon he would do more. But today, he had done this.

And so Clade sat on the floor of his study and allowed himself to feel satisfaction.

•

The feeling faded as the afternoon progressed. Clade sat in his study, examining and re-examining his memory of the binding, heedless of the growing stacks of unattended paperwork. All Garrett’s correspondence was now being delivered to Clade, accumulating in improbable quantities like drifts of snow across his desk. Clade paid it no mind. The business of the Oculus no longer interested him. All that concerned him now was locating the golems, and that meant finding the urn.

The scribbled note found by Sera in Garrett’s room had given Clade the meeting place used by Garrett and Terrel — an unfamiliar bar known as the Red Rodent — but had failed to reveal the means by which such meetings were arranged. Lacking any other ideas, Clade had penned a message to the mercenary captain, addressing it to the Red Rodent in the hope that it would find its way to Terrel. The message was short, instructing Terrel to await Clade at the bar this evening, and concluding with an implied offer of further employment and generous compensation: sufficient inducement, he hoped, to ensure the man’s attendance.

If not, I suppose I’ll just have to do it the gull’s way. Ask around and hope for the best.

The sun was setting as Clade left his suite and made his way down the stairs. House servitors watched his passage in the sidelong manner common to servants everywhere: a compromise between the twin needs to remain unobtrusive and to be ready to respond if called for. The constant subtle attention paid him by servants and sorcerers alike had taken a while to get used to. Back on Zeanes, he had simply been another sorcerer of intermediate rank, meriting no more attention than the next man. Though his fame as Requiter had drawn a certain amount of idle interest, that name had carried no real weight, and everyone had known it.

The title of Overseer was entirely different. With it came power; limited, yes, but real nonetheless. And that was what he had become in the eyes of those beneath him; not a person, or at least not primarily so. Now he walked among them as an ever-present threat, as one who could overturn their plans at whim. And so, like reluctant worshippers, they sought to appease him with hard work and friendly manner, and hoped he would take no interest in their lives.

Just as he did with Estelle.

As though summoned by his thought, the slow tap of a walking stick sounded on wooden steps below; and with it, the dark swirl of the god. One flight below, and coming his way. Clade increased his pace, assuming an air of distracted busyness. Perhaps Estelle would let him pass without interruption if he made his preoccupation clear.

She didn’t. “Clade,” she said when he rounded the landing. “Excellent. You’ve saved me the rest of my climb.”

Ah, well. It wouldn’t have worked on me, either.
“Councillor Estelle. Forgive me, I’m just on my way out.”

“It’ll have to wait,” she said, clearing the final step to the landing and leaning heavily on her stick.

“Your pardon, Councillor, but it can’t. There’s a matter that requires my immediate attention.”

“Yes, right here.” She drew him close, lowering her voice so that he had to bend his head to hear her. “What progress in our new endeavour?”

“Some,” he said, matching her tone. “Without Garrett around —”

“How much is some?”

More than none and less than all.
Clade bit back the retort. “I assure you, Councillor, I am devoting my every waking moment to the matter. As it happens, I’m pursuing a lead right now —”

Clade clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Like an eel slipping through water, Azador slid from Estelle and settled itself around him.

Damn it.

“Very well.” Estelle stepped back, gestured down the stairs with her stick. “Go. And Clade.” He paused in mid-step. “Next time we talk, I’ll expect specifics. Understood?”

“As you say.”

He resumed his descent with the god’s foul redolence hanging around him like a cloud.
To the temple first, then. A few moments should be all that’s required.

The eventide service was already in progress when Clade arrived, passing swiftly through the thickly scented antechamber and into the domed Kefiran tabernacle. He slid quietly into a rear pew, seating himself alongside a hatchet-faced Mellespene woman who coughed at his approach, then scowled at him as though her hacking was his fault.
Don’t worry, woman,
he thought.
You’ll have the pew to yourself again soon enough.
But, as the melodious prayers wound their way toward completion, the god’s unwelcome presence persisted. A low, uneasy thrum stirred in Clade’s belly.
What is this?
Azador never endured more than a few moments in a temple. Always it left, vanishing like mist on the breeze. Yet here, today, it lingered, its fetor overpowering even the unpleasant odour of burnt flesh wafting in from the altars out the back.