War of Shadows (46 page)

Snow fell harder than before, and the wind sent icy gusts, reducing visibility a few inches. It was unlikely either side could prevail in these conditions. Blaine heard Lysander’s commanders call retreat.

“Hold your ground!” Blaine ordered, and the command echoed down the line. “Hold steady!”

It was a fool’s bargain to keep on fighting in this storm, and both Blaine and Lysander knew it. They would each lose as many men to exposure as to battle, and with no ability to see farther than the hand on one’s arm, no strategy could suffice. Blaine had no doubt that Lysander and his men would return just as soon as the weather cleared.

“Are we certain mages can’t affect the weather?” Kestel asked, riding up to join him.

Blaine shrugged. “So we’ve been told. If the storms really are a reaction to the old magic, then let’s hope no one’s foolish enough to add to the problem.”

“I doubt this storm, at least, was sent by either side,” Piran agreed. “After all, who benefited? Not Lysander—he was forced to retreat. Not us—we might have won the day if it hadn’t started storming.” He shook his head. “All the same, the sooner you get the magic straightened out, the happier we’ll all be—and the longer we’re likely to live.”

H
OW WILL YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE?” CONNOR
looked around the ritual chamber at Mirdalur and shook his head.

No one would mistake the large underground chamber for anything but a mage’s lair. Torches in sconces along the walls lit the huge, windowless room. In the center of the open space, an elaborate labyrinth had been set into the rock, a twisting pathway that took up most of the area, leaving a narrow path along the outside.

The labyrinth had wider areas at intervals along its route: thirteen of them, Connor counted. The spaces would be just wide enough for a man to stand and a candle to burn. Along the walls of the chamber, sigils were marked into the stone, and Connor was certain that each marking had a match with one of the thirteen obsidian disks held by the Lords of the Blood.

“We can’t be completely certain until McFadden walks the path and attempts to call down the magic onto his chosen Lords of the Blood,” Dolan replied. “But the magic is no longer wild like what McFadden encountered on his first, unfortunate attempt.”

Connor had heard the details of that attempt, and knew how close Blaine and the others had come to dying. Whoever created the Mirdalur ritual chamber did not want interlopers.

“What is it you want of us?” Connor’s voice asked the question, but Dolan recognized the Wraith Lord’s presence.

“You were one of the thirteen Lords,” Dolan answered, meaning Kierken Vandholt, the man who became the Wraith Lord. “With Connor’s help, you will participate again. You’re the only one who has walked this labyrinth as a Lord of the Blood—other than McFadden—and the only survivor of the old ritual.” He paused. “I would ask you to walk to your place in the path—just walk—and tell me what you feel.”

The Wraith Lord chuckled. “Anxious to rid yourself of me, Dolan?”

Dolan looked aghast. “No, m’lord. And for safety’s sake, you’ll carry neither presence-crystal nor your disk. Our mages have walked the path and felt very little stirring of power. We fear we will only get one opportunity, and we have a minimum of information on which to draw.”

Are you willing?
The Wraith Lord asked in Connor’s mind.
Since I require your body to comply with the request
.

So long as we don’t get burned to a cinder or blown apart, I’m willing
, Connor replied.
I didn’t come this far to let Blaine fail
.

Connor had recovered from his battle wounds. As the Wraith Lord and Penhallow had promised him, his recovery was much faster than before Penhallow strengthened the
kruvgaldur. Then again, the injuries were that much worse, because I was able to withstand them
, Connor thought. Prudently, the Wraith Lord did not comment.

“What precautions have you taken?” Penhallow asked. He gave Connor a cautionary glance.

When Connor had staggered back after the battle, more
dead than alive, Penhallow had just been rising from his crypt. He had looked on worriedly as the healers labored, but Connor had declined more of Penhallow’s blood since the wounds were serious but not mortal. Connor was still trying to decide whether, when the day eventually came that his injuries were beyond healing, he would accept Penhallow’s offer of immortality. So far, he had thought no, but he was well aware the decision might look different when the moment was finally upon him.

“We’ve worked with extreme caution,” Dolan assured him. “Mortal and
talishte
mages have warded the chamber inside and the structure outside. We have validated the translations of the manuscripts we seized from Quintrel, as well as those we took from the crypts beneath Quillarth Castle and the Citadel.”

Penhallow nodded. “Very well. What of the presence-crystals? We believe Quintrel has been affected by a corrupted artifact. Are you sure, Dolan, that none of that taint affects the crystals?” He looked toward the crystals, which lay in a row on a narrow worktable in the rear of the chamber. Even from this distance, Connor could see a faint, pulsing glow.

Dolan hesitated. “We’ve tested to the best of our ability,” he said. “But it’s worrisome that Quintrel acquired a
divi
just at the time the crystals came to light.”

“What’s a
divi
?” Connor asked, pushing himself to the forefront of his consciousness for a moment.

Penhallow frowned. “
Talishte
are not the only immortals—nor are we the most dangerous, no matter what you may think.
Divis
are old spirits, perhaps old enough to have walked this world when it was formless and barren.”

He seemed to carefully weigh his words before continuing. “They’re not evil… not the way you would mean the word. They just don’t care about anything that gets in their way. Power
is what they crave. Valuing the lives of mortals—and even those of
talishte
—doesn’t factor into their thinking.” He met Connor’s gaze.

“When you go for a walk, do you intend to step on small insects, crush the life out of plants? Does that give you joy?” he asked.

“Of course not!” Connor retorted.

Penhallow nodded. “Now imagine being the insect. Your intent—the fact that you didn’t leave home looking forward to killing the insect and that you weren’t going to enjoy it—wouldn’t matter, would it?”

Connor took a moment to think about it, then shook his head. “No. I suppose not.”

“To the
divis
, we are the insects, the beetle accidentally trodden underfoot on the way to achieving control. No harm meant does not mean no harm done,” Penhallow replied.

“Is Quintrel strong enough to bind such a spirit?” Connor asked, eyes widening.

Penhallow gave a shrug, and even the Wraith Lord did not seem to know. “Doubtful,” Penhallow said. “More likely, the
divi
has bound Quintrel without him knowing it. I would not be surprised that the old Valshoans had knowledge of many things lost to us now.”

“They did,” Dolan said, breaking his silence. “And they dabbled in things mortals—and perhaps immortals—ought not to touch. I thought that my Knights had destroyed or hidden those things.” He grimaced. “Obviously, we did not succeed.”

Penhallow shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself. When a spirit such as a
divi
wishes to be found, it will arrange for it to happen.
Divis
are conscious and sentient, and the effects of their actions on ‘weaker’ creatures do not concern them.”

Connor shuddered. The thought that the
divis
were powerful
enough to group
talishte
and mortals together in their view of ‘weak’ was something he did not want to dwell on.

“Could a
divi
mislead a mage of Dolan’s strength?” Connor asked.

Dolan gave a shrug. “It’s possible. It would be quite presumptuous to declare myself too experienced to be fooled. It’s certain that a
divi
misled Quintrel, because I doubt even he would give himself over to such a spirit if he knew the true cost.”

Connor felt a chill go down his back. “Which is?” he asked.

Dolan met his gaze. “
Divis
feed on the energy of a soul. They’re parasites. Quintrel is being consumed, little by little. No bargain is worth that.”

Connor agreed, but he wondered if Quintrel himself would consider any cost too high. “What does Quintrel get out of the deal?” he asked.

Dolan grimaced. “When we left Valshoa, Quintrel planned to have his mages put a geas on Rostivan to assure that he would do Quintrel’s bidding.”

“Which would give Quintrel his own army,” Penhallow replied. “And it appears to have worked.”

The Wraith Lord directed Connor’s attention to the presence-crystals. “Quintrel declared the crystals to be the solution to anchoring the magic,” he said, “but how?”

“The crystals are the ‘connection,’ so to speak, between the power that flows through the nodes and meridians in the ground and the ‘instructions’ to bind the power that’s contained in the disks,” Dolan replied, gesturing toward the crystals. “We believe that each time the power has been bound, other objects have formed that connection. Perhaps the ritual destroys the connecting objects; we don’t know what was used before.”

“Carved stone wands,” the Wraith Lord replied. “That’s what
we carried four centuries ago when the working was done. I did not make the association with the crystals until now.”

The Wraith Lord directed Connor to point toward the labyrinth. “We each had a thick agate ‘wand’ with runes carved into it,” he recalled. “They cracked top to bottom when the magic was bound, and since they were no use after that, I assume they were discarded.”

Dolan nodded. “Thank you. That confirms what I suspected.”

Are you ready?
the Wraith Lord asked Connor, who nodded. “Let’s take that walk into the labyrinth now,” he said to Dolan. “Since only McFadden and I are tied by bloodline to the prior workings, what say I return to the spot I filled the last time?”

For your safety, let me remain in control
, the Wraith Lord warned Connor.
I don’t trust Quintrel
.

Neither do I
.

The Wraith Lord chuckled.
Then we are agreed
.

The Wraith Lord walked to the opening of the labyrinth and paused. He took a deep breath, letting it steady Connor’s nerves. While the Wraith Lord might not have needed the breath, Connor certainly did. Carefully, the Wraith Lord entered the labyrinth, watching his steps so that he did not tread outside of the pathway.

I feel magic building
, Connor thought.

Just a fraction of what will happen when the ritual is worked
, the Wraith Lord replied.
But dangerous, nonetheless
.

He paused each time the path widened, and in those spots, Connor could see sigils etched into the rock. They matched the marking on the wall behind that spot, and he was certain there would be corresponding marks on each Lord’s obsidian disk.

With every step that took them deeper into the labyrinth, Connor felt magic like a heavy blanket around him. No chanting or drumming sounded, no candles burned along the
pathway, no ritual was enacted, and yet power was undeniable. Connor was relieved when they halted halfway into the labyrinth.

“This is the spot,” the Wraith Lord said.

“Can you feel power rising?” Dolan asked. Nidhud and Dagur had joined Dolan.

“Yes. Don’t let more mages enter; I fear it would feed the energy,” the Wraith Lord cautioned. Dolan turned toward the door and shook his head. Connor guessed that other mages had gathered, hoping to see what transpired.

“Can you sense anything about the power?” Dolan questioned. “You’re the only eyewitness we’ve got.”

“It was a long time ago,” the Wraith Lord replied.

Dolan nodded. “Yes. But please think: Does the power ‘feel’ right to you?”

The Wraith Lord held Connor completely still, every mortal sense on alert as well as the Wraith Lord’s heightened
talishte
senses. Connor could hear his heart beating, and his breath seemed to echo in the stone chamber. Yet as he ‘listened’ to the power, as he focused his attention on it, he realized something was off.

“No,” the Wraith Lord said. “It doesn’t. I’m getting Connor out of here right now.”

Even from a distance, Connor could see that one of the crystals pulsed more quickly than the others as it lay on the worktable. Twelve of the crystals glowed a muted golden. One throbbed a crimson color that began the shade of fresh blood and was growing deeper by the instant.

Can’t we turn back?
Connor asked, doing his best to remain calm.

That’s not how the labyrinth works
, the Wraith Lord replied.
Moving inward winds the power up. Moving outward releases the
power. Even though this isn’t the real working, power has been called and power must be dispelled. Otherwise…

The Wraith Lord did not finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. Connor understood that the outcome would not be to his liking.

On the way into the labyrinth, the path had not seemed narrow. Now that the Wraith Lord was trying to navigate it quickly and without error, Connor felt as if it had become almost heel-to-toe, though the stone had not changed. Connor gave himself over to the
talishte
reflexes and dexterity of the Wraith Lord. Even so, he moved with caution; faster than a mortal, but hardly at full
talishte
speed.

Connor felt magic tingle on his skin, raising the hair on his arms and prickling on the back of his neck. Even with the Wraith Lord’s presence, the farther into the labyrinth they went, the harder it was to walk, like trudging through hip-deep water. Connor labored to breathe, and his heart thudded in his throat. The temperature in the chamber plummeted, until Connor’s nose and fingertips were numb.

Hurry!
he urged the Wraith Lord.

I am endeavoring to do so
.

The area outside the labyrinth had become blurred, as if Connor were looking through fogged glass. Still, he could tell that Dolan and the other mages huddled around the presence-crystals.

One of the crystals has been corrupted
, the Wraith Lord said.