War of Shadows (42 page)

“As you wish,” Quintrel said with a shrug. “I don’t think I’ll require his help with the next piece.”

“You’re not going to continue, are you?” Guran said, staring at Quintrel in horror.

But Quintrel was already using the wooden tongs to select a new artifact from among the pile. “Of course I am,” he replied
as if the question was irrelevant. “Who knows what we might discover?”

That was entirely the point, but Carensa knew it was useless to argue, and she had no desire to draw Quintrel’s ire. Sickened as she was to be a spectator, she forced herself to feel nothing, allowing cold rage to settle into her bones, closing off her heart, deadening her feelings.
I must remember
, she thought.
I must record what happens here, as a witness to these deaths, so that someone knows what took place
.

This time, Quintrel removed a steel-and-silver gauntlet and vambrace from the pile. It was a fearsome piece of armor in itself, with a vambrace to encircle the forearm and hinged plates in the gauntlet that covered the individual fingers, ending in short, sharp knives.

“That one,” Quintrel said to another of the
talishte
, pointing to one of the captives who was huddled, weeping. “Take him.”

Once again, a
talishte
guard removed the blindfold of his victim, compelled him to rise against his will, and loosed his bonds. “Fit this on his right arm,” Quintrel directed, and the
talishte
complied, as the mage captive looked on in terror but unable to resist.

When the captive was again within the warded space, Quintrel nodded to the
talishte
, who ordered the prisoner to speak the artifact into action. For a moment, the mage’s terrified gaze locked onto Carensa’s, and she saw that he knew he was going to die.

The vambrace and gauntlet took on a silver glow, and the mage stiffened, then moaned in pain. As Carensa watched in fascinated horror, the vambrace melded with the man’s arm, encasing the skin in steel, molding itself to the hand, wrist, and fingers. The mage relaxed, and flexed his hand, twisting his
wrist and moving his forearm to see just how maneuverable the artifact was. The steel fit like skin itself, and the knife-edged fingertips had grown longer into talons. For a moment, all was well.

Carensa felt the magic around them fluctuate. That was not unusual since the magic had been restored, but imperfectly. It was part of the brittleness that made the ‘new’ magic so unstable and dangerous, something mages like Carensa and her fellow scholars feared. Magic interrupted was often deadly to the mage who cast it.

The vambrace’s silvery glow reddened, and the mage in the warded circle shouted in alarm, trying to tear the vambrace and gauntlet free. It clung to his skin, warming to a dull red, and the mage tore at it, leaving bloody tracks down his upper arm as he tried and failed to get his fingers under the armor to rip it away.

Quintrel made no move to end the test. The smell of roasting flesh was unmistakable as the vambrace burned into the mage’s arm and the man began to scream. Inside the warded circle, the desperate mage cast one spell after another, chanting words of power, all in vain.

A few moments later, the vambrace slid off, leaving behind charred bone, and the mage collapsed, sobbing and trembling. His hand and forearm were blackened like that of a corpse on a pyre, and the wound was cauterized below the elbow. Yet the gauntlet and vambrace still glowed, brighter now than before. Carensa could hear the man’s sobbing pleas for death, even from inside the circle’s wardings.

“If he wishes for death so badly, let him activate the piece once more,” Quintrel said diffidently. “Do it.”

The
talishte
made a gesture, and the prisoner stared at the cursed artifact as if looking into the maw of Raka itself. Then
against his will, the mage began to call the armor to him, and in the middle of the call, Carensa sensed that the mage gave up resisting, realizing that he was about to gain the death he coveted.

Carensa saw understanding dawn on the mage as he stared at the gauntlet and vambrace, realizing that it had gained power by consuming his flesh and that he could command it, but only at the cost of his skin and sinew.

“Come,” he ordered the cursed armor, and the vambrace skittered over to him, using its metallic fingers to move it across the floor. The mage held out his blackened arm. “Fit,” he said, and the armor backed itself onto his arm, adjusting itself to the lack of flesh and muscle, becoming a metal hand and arm.

“How long can the piece remain like that?” Guran asked, curious despite his revulsion. “That level of magic has to take a toll.”

“That would be good to know,” Quintrel mused, as if the question had not already occurred to him. “A warrior might be willing to forfeit an arm for a better replacement. But I wonder how hard a bargain the piece drives?”

Within fifteen minutes, the captive had begun to go gray in the face. Another ten minutes, and his breathing became ragged. Gradually, his face grew gaunt, and as Carensa stared in sickened fascination, she realized that little by little, the mage was growing thinner.

“It’s consuming him,” she murmured.

Guran nodded. “It’s meant for onetime use, I wager. A desperation weapon, when the warrior knows he’ll die one way or the other and just wants to take the enemy down with him.”

“Can he release it? Would that change anything?” Carensa asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The dying mage heard her, locked his gaze with hers, and she saw that he had no desire
to release his spell when death and freedom were quite literally within his grasp.

“Probably not,” Guran replied. “Even if he wanted to.”

Carensa had seen bodies charred by flames after the Great Fire. In the tombs and caves where she and Quintrel had hidden as he took her to refuge in Valshoa, she had looked on the mummified corpses of the long dead. The mage in the warded circle reminded her of those corpses as his cheeks hollowed and his skin wrinkled over shrunken limbs. His eyes were sunken, and the flesh of his face pulled tight and thin over bone.

With a final moan, the mage fell back, and the skin withered like leaves in a fire until all that remained was blackened bone, and the gauntlet and vambrace clattered to the stone, empty and sated.

Quintrel released the warding, and used the wooden tongs to remove the deadly armor. “A pity,” he said. “The curse limits its usefulness.” He set the piece to the side. “I’ll inform Rostivan not to waste his best men on it.”

At Quintrel’s nod, the same
talishte
guard removed the mage’s skeleton, and stepped back with the other undead soldiers. Quintrel returned to the table of artifacts, and returned with an amulet of brass on a braided leather strap. He gestured toward the next mage to become a victim of the artifacts, and once again a
talishte
guard removed the blindfold, glamoured the mage, and released his bonds.

“I suspect that I know what this artifact does,” Quintrel said. “Just not its limits.” He shook his head as the
talishte
began to herd the captive toward the warded circle.

“No need for that, not this time. But I would like two of you to hold him, one on each arm,” Quintrel said. He dangled the amulet in front of the lead
talishte
. “Take this and fasten it around his neck,” he instructed.

He clucked his tongue when the
talishte
hung back. “You’re undead. This particular amulet has no power over you.” The
talishte
gave him a skeptical look, then took the piece by its leather straps and fastened it around the prisoner’s neck. Despite the compulsion, the captive mage looked terrified, having heard if not seen what happened to his former companions.

“Hold his arms out,” Quintrel ordered. “And hold him tightly.” The two
talishte
soldiers each took a wrist and stretched the mage’s arms out, holding him open and vulnerable.

Quintrel looked to the lead guard again. “Run him through.”

The
talishte
raised an eyebrow, then drew his sword. Carensa gasped as the soldier plunged his blade deep into the mage’s belly, tearing through skin and organs, ripping through to the other side.

“Vigus, no!” Carensa cried out despite herself as the mage sagged in the hold of his captors, blood streaming from the wound.

“Watch,” Quintrel said.

Carensa felt bile rise in her throat as she stared at the mortally wounded mage. The brass amulet glowed amber, and as Carensa watched, the flow of blood stopped and the skin began to knit itself back together.

“Again, in two places this time,” Quintrel ordered, and the soldier sprang forward, driving his sword through the man’s naval and out through his spine, then withdrawing his bloody blade and sliding it cleanly through the ribs and heart.

The mage’s body jerked in spasms. He screamed in pain, his legs useless beneath him, his ragged clothing sodden with blood. Once more, a heartbeat later, the amulet glowed again, stronger now, bathing the man’s body in its amber light. Strength returned to his legs, and as Carensa listened with her magic, beneath the rapidly healing skin, the ravaged heart returned to its steady beat.

“You’ve proven your point, Vigus,” Guran growled.

Quintrel regarded him with disappointment. “It’s not enough to know a weapon’s strengths and capabilities,” he said archly. “One must also know its point of failure.”

“Cleave him shoulder to hip,” Quintrel ordered. Carensa turned to hide her face against Guran’s chest, and Guran wrapped his arms around her, shielding her from having to watch as the
talishte
brought his sword down with undead strength and the terrified mage screamed in panic. Carensa winced as the cry was cut short, struggling not to launch herself at Quintrel in a futile gesture of fury.

This time, it took the amulet longer. “He’s healing,” Guran murmured. “It’s like it never happened.”

Carensa drew a ragged breath and let it out again, calling on all her limited magic to sustain her and strengthen her. She gently shook off Guran’s protective embrace with a nod of thanks, and turned to see the captive mage begin to breathe again, regaining his footing, still held in the iron grip of the two impassive
talishte
guards.

“Interesting,” Quintrel mused. “Take off his head.”

The
talishte
hesitated. “Even we cannot withstand such a blow,” he warned Quintrel.

Quintrel shrugged. “The Dark Gift is just one type of magic. Let’s see what the talisman can do.”

“As you wish.” The
talishte
strode forward, and the mage attempted to stand to his full height, awaiting and accepting his executioner. With one clean stroke, the
talishte
swung his sword in a silver blur, and the captive’s head fell backward as his body sagged forward, blood spurting from the severed artery, spraying his blood-soaked captors with gore.

“Quickly,” Quintrel ordered. “Lay him down and put the head back into place.”

The
talishte
did as they were ordered, arranging the headless body on the floor and laying the severed skull atop the ruined neck. The amulet hung in place, blood-soaked and dull, its amber glow gone. They waited for several minutes, but the amulet appeared to be as dead as the mage himself.

“Well,” Quintrel said with a shrug. “At least we know its limits.”

Carensa glanced toward the table and then to the one remaining mage. As if he guessed her thoughts, Quintrel chuckled. “There’s no need to test the other artifacts,” he said. “Several of them have no magic at all now, whether or not they had power previously. The others hold a trifling amount, not worth the risk of using for what little benefit they might present.”

“What do you mean to do with him?” Guran asked, with a nod toward the last captive mage. The man had curled into a fetal position, sobbing quietly, trembling so hard Carensa could see the shaking from where she stood.

“Don’t worry,” Quintrel assured Guran. “He has a purpose.” At his nod, the
talishte
soldiers hauled the last mage to his feet.

“Bring him here,” Quintrel instructed them when they had removed the blindfold and glamoured the captive. Under the
talishtes’
compulsion, the prisoner walked on his own to where Quintrel stood next to the large
divi
orb.

“Kneel,” Quintrel ordered, and the man fell to his knees, so that his head was on level with the sphere with its monstrous, withered hand.

“Open your eyes wide,” Quintrel instructed the prisoner. “And behold.”

“What are you doing, Vigus?” Carensa asked, afraid of the answer.

“Giving him his freedom,” Quintrel replied as if the answer were obvious.

The large orb flared, and so did the smaller sphere on its
strap at Quintrel’s throat. Carensa saw their light reflected in her master’s eyes, or perhaps, shining through them from inside, where the
divi
’s rot had taken hold. The kneeling prisoner’s body went rigid, bathed in a foxfire glow, and hoarse screams tore from the man’s throat.

Quintrel stepped back, and Carensa saw that the light shone on the prisoner’s whole form, which had begun to shimmer and waver. The screaming stopped. The captive’s body grew less solid, flattening as if it were a drawing on parchment, stretching and narrowing so that soon it was a pulsating column of light.

The
divi
orb surrounding the withered hand receded, and the light streamed in, absorbed by the severed bone and withered skin, feeding the
divi
with the mage’s death. Satisfied, the crystal swelled to encase the hand once more in its solid orb, and the light winked out and the captive mage was gone.

Guran took Carensa’s hand, lending her his strength and support. She could feel the stiffness in his muscles, and knew he reined in the same deadly anger she strained to control.

Not yet, but soon
. Carensa was not sure whether the thought was her own or whether Guran was able to send his thoughts to her through their clasped hands, but she nodded her understanding.

Once and for all
, Carensa vowed.
For these deaths and all the others, no matter the cost, I will find a way to stop Vigus and make him pay
.