Drawn Blades (22 page)

“Welcome to Castelle Filathalor, Aral, Slayer of Kings. Stay as long as you will. Depart in joy. Return often. While you are our guest, I am merely Kayla and bear no titles nor wait on any formality.”

“And I am Aral. Thank you for your welcome . . . Kayla.” Though I generally disliked titles and the nobles who wore them, I found it hard to treat this ancient woman as I might a mortal.

She laughed again. “Let it go, Aral. Dignity is a bauble for the young and the vain to wear, a costume they assume to hide their insecurities. The old and the powerful need it not, and I am both. I drowned my dignity in a river under mighty trees five thousand years before you were born. Do not try to wrap its corpse around my shoulders now. But come, we must collect your companions.”

She turned and started back toward the stairs. It was only as I fell out of the center of her attention that I realized that I had been half holding my breath for some time.

I think I’m in love,
sent Triss. Then, more soberly,
Trust not my judgment where it comes to Kayla Darkvelyn. She is flesh, but also a sister to shadows.

She has power over you?

Not directly, but she tastes of the everdark and has great strength of will. My mind is my own, but my soul sees her as a beloved sister long lost. I understand now how the Durkoth can twist the wits of a stone dog. The effect of the First on their allied elements is . . . intoxicating.

A heavy arm landed across my shoulders and Ash leaned down to speak softly in my ear. “Welcome to the eye of the storm, Aral.”

“I heard that,” Kayla called over her shoulder.

“You were supposed to,” he whispered back.

As we passed back through the castle on our way to the parlor above, I realized that the building no longer felt like a mere pile of stones elegantly arranged, but rather like something alive. A sleeping dragon perhaps, or an ancient power of earth. The reason was obvious. The will of the buried goddess below inhabited the place in much the way a soul inhabited a body. She might sleep in stone, but the castle breathed with her dreams. The art reflected her will as well, with the filathalor represented heavily in the sculpture and paintings.

Faran and Kelos had taken seats in opposite corners of the parlor, from which they glared at each other like two angry but exhausted cats trapped in a sea trunk. Normally, I would have expected to find their Shades somewhere in the middle, speaking civilly with each other regardless of the antipathy between their human partners. That was certainly how Triss and Zass behaved despite the fact that Devin and I hated each other’s guts. But, whatever Malthiss might wish on the topic, Ssithra had signaled her own feelings toward him back in the glade. They both rose as we entered.

“I’m surprised to find you both unmoved,” I said. Triss had swept for shadow signatures along the way, and there was no evidence that either of them had trailed us down to the roots of the castle.

“I
started
to follow you,” Faran admitted. “But then Ssithra said that the shadows were watching us and that there was zero point in attempting to hide in shadows that refused to cooperate. It sounded fishy to me, but my head still isn’t up to a real argument, so I let her have her way.”

“Malthiss agreed with Ssithra, though I didn’t understand the why until this very moment.” Kelos met Kayla’s eyes, and then very formally bowed the bow of equals meeting on the practice field. “Sister to shadow.”

“Call me Kayla, Master Kelos.” When she spoke there was none of the warmth she had shown Triss and me. Next, she inclined her head ever so slightly to the shadow at his feet. “Resshath Malthiss.”

“Just Kelos,” he said.

Kayla shook her head. “I think not, Deathwalker. You are Aral’s guest, not mine. I would no more think of addressing you so informally than I would one of Ash’s noble relatives.”

That’s a deeper cut than many might have made with a sword and clear room to swing,
sent Triss.

If he’s bleeding, he doesn’t show it.

He is still the Deathwalker. You could cut his head off and his expression wouldn’t change.

True.

Kayla turned to Faran and Ssithra, holding out her hands. “Welcome to my house, children. How shall I call you?”

“Faran’s all the name I own.” She moved forward, and, together with her shadow, took Kayla’s hands in her own.

Shadows shifted, and a dark phoenix rose to perch on Faran’s shoulder, inclining her head to the velyn woman. “Ssithra.”

Kayla smiled at them both. “So it shall be.” Then she looked up, including Ash and me in her gaze when she asked, “Are any of you hungry?”

“Famished,” I replied. “But I have things to do before I can eat.” I touched my hand to the bag hanging around my neck. “I’ll need a fire.”

“We can certainly arrange that.” Ash’s eyes went thoughtful and far away. “But let’s do it outside the bounds of the castle proper. I don’t know what your method looks like, but anything that draws the attention of the buried ones ought not take place too close to the warding below.”

“Ash, why don’t you take Kelos along with you.” Kayla drew Faran into place beside her. “If you’re willing to skip the festivities, I may have something that will help with your headaches. It would not work for most humans, but your connection to the everdark makes you something of a Kreyn by proxy.”

Before Faran could answer, Ssithra spoke. “Yes, please.”

“But what about Aral?” demanded Faran.

Ssithra flicked her wings angrily. “I’m sure that he can spend an hour or two out from under your eye without getting into too much trouble. You may fool the others, but you cannot hide your pain from me. Do not let your bravery make you stupid.”

Faran looked mulish for a beat or two, but then she nodded. “All right. I’m all yours, Kayla.”

Ash led Kelos and me down to the castle’s main stairs. These split at a massive landing ten feet above the floor of the entry hall, curving outward like wings. The twinned flights widened as they went down, defining a semi-enclosed crescent between them—a typical design, and one I had seen in several other castles.

What I had not seen previously was the row of brass sculptures that lined the curved wall from the base of one flight of stairs to the other. There must have been fifty of the things standing shoulder to shoulder. They belonged to an aesthetic that felt alien, even somewhat disturbing. Each of the figures was eight feet tall and humanoid but sexless.

Take a man, dip him in wax, and then pull him out to let it harden. Do that again and again until nothing is left of his features or individuality. Plane away every imperfection, and accent the edges so that the figure becomes as streamlined as a ship’s beak. Cast what remains in brass, polish it until it glows, and you have the sculptures of Castelle Filathalor. Faceless. Sexless. Shorn of any hint of personality, yet projecting a sort of bright, emotionless vitality.

I found them repellent on some level below conscious thought. And that was
before
Ash sang one of them awake. As we reached the base of the steps, Ash pivoted into the open-fronted crescent. Pointing to the first of the sculptures on that end he sang a quick rhyme in high Sylvani, blowing spell-light into its face with the words. It breathed in the light of magic with a great sighing noise, then stepped down from the low pedestal that held it to kneel before him. He spoke to it again in his own language, his tone that of a man giving a servant instructions, and it rose to its feet, preceding us to the gate.

There, another pair of the brass figures stepped forward to lift the bar and swing open the thick ironbound doors. The first sculpture marched through ahead of us, its long legs driving it forward with the inhuman precision of shears clacking mechanically away at a fleece. A few yards after it crossed the drawbridge, it turned. It moved nearly as fast walking as a man running, and it vanished into the thick woods that surrounded the castle within a matter of seconds.

“I’ve sent it ahead to prepare a fire.” Ash inclined his head in the direction the thing had gone as we followed it across the bridge.

“What is it?” asked Kelos—his first words since we’d departed the parlor above. “I’ve never seen the like.”

“A living spell,” replied Ash.

“I saw no light but your own,” I said.

“God-magic animates the servants of the Changer. They are very reliable if you give them specific instructions. But without the will of their mistress to guide them, they become restless if you let them go too long without a suitable task. Kayla and I crafted a spell that settles around the gem they use as a heart and binds them in sleep until we have need of their services.”

“Interesting,” said Kelos. “Will you have to put the one you raised back to sleep when it’s done with the fire?”

“No, without further reinforcement, my words of waking will last only until the next turn of the sun. When it grows sleepy, it will return automatically to its place in the great hall.”

Kelos’s one remaining eye took on a thoughtful cast. “I wonder if you could construct one using a more common sort of magery.”

Why do I not trust him to use this information for anything good?
asked Triss.

Because you don’t trust him to use
any
information for anything good?

That could be it.

While I spoke with Triss, Ash was answering the question. “Of course you can, but it’s hardly worth the effort. The spells have to be crafted and laid individually, so you can only build one at time. The things take three or four years to bring to full animation, and then they tend to run down after a bare handful of decades.” Ash looked ahead, and pointed. “There’s also that.”

We had just entered a clearing split by a small stream. The brass figure stood at the edge of the stream. As we watched, it pitched a chunk of log across the water. It landed in the midst of a loose pile of similar pieces. Before the log even finished bouncing, the thing pivoted, crossing to an old downed tree and ripping another hunk of wood free before returning to the stream to throw it amongst the others.

After three repetitions, Kelos whistled. “It’s geographically bound, isn’t it? It can’t leave the castle grounds.”

“Correct. This batch is tied to the tomb of the Changer. The ones that I made had a greater range, but even they could go no more than a mile or two from the place where they were first awakened. There is a very complex magical diagram involved in the final wakening and they are tied to that location even though the figure is actually destroyed in the process. I haven’t been able to discover the cause.”

“Too bad,” said Kelos.

We waited a few more minutes while the thing finished tearing apart the old tree and tossing it onto the pile. Then Kelos and I waded the stream and kicked the logs into a tighter mass. Ashkent remained on the same shore as his brass minion, reminding me that he was almost as bound to the environs of Castelle Filathalor—or, really, the goddess—as it was. Next, Triss shifted around behind me for a few moments while I spilled magefire from my palms onto the logs.

Once the fire was going hot and bright, I tossed the bag with the glyph stone into the center. The leather tightened instantly, shaping itself into a second skin around the stone disk. Soon, cracks began to form in the leather, and then the whole thing burst into flame. A rope of dense black smoke rose out of the fire, centered above the burning bag.

The smoke twisted and turned, looping back on itself to shape a woman’s figure—Siri’s figure. But unlike my previous encounters with her smoky avatars, this one merely hung in the air, hands together, head down.

“Now what?” asked Kelos, his voice pitched to carry across the water and so include Ash in our conversation.

“We wait for it to heat up,” I said. “The glyphs are made of iron. The Fire That Burns Underground said Siri could only be freed after they begin to glow orange.”

“That’s going to take a while.” Kelos lowered himself into a cross-legged seat on the ground.

Across the water, Ash did the same. Kelos was right, but I resisted following his example simply because he was Kelos. Instead, I stood on his blind side, just far enough back so he had to twist his whole torso if he wanted to see me. I knew it was petty, but I couldn’t help myself. Of course, if it bothered him, he didn’t show it. He simply stared into the heart of the fire and never so much as turned his head my way.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was high, so Triss and Malthiss both stayed deep down in shadow. I could feel that Triss remained awake, but he didn’t seem inclined to talk, perhaps for the same reasons that I found myself without any words.

This was the first time since the fall of the temple that I had spent more than five minutes with Kelos when we were neither in direct conflict nor threatened by nearby enemies. Without any such force to drive conversation, I found that I had no idea what to say to my old mentor. A quarter hour passed in silence, and not the companionable sort.

Then . . . “Why did you do it?” The words burst out of me without any preamble—I didn’t even know I was going to say them before I spoke. Triss tensed within my shadow, coming fully awake and alert in an instant.

Kelos went perfectly still for several long beats, but then he took a deep breath and nodded without turning to look at me. “That’s a fair question, and if I owe anyone an answer, it’s you.”

Good, he wasn’t going to do me the discourtesy of pretending he didn’t know
exactly
what I was asking.

“You fought the Kitsune?” he asked.

The Kitsune was a rogue Blade, a woman who had turned her back on Namara to kill for money, a legend who had battled the order to a standstill in a private war that lasted nearly a century. Her given name was Nuriko. She was brilliant and powerful and quite, quite mad. I had never faced a tougher enemy, and she had nearly destroyed me.

“She was your lover?” I countered.

“She was that, too, but first she was my enemy.”

“I killed her,” I replied. “You know that, right?” I kept my voice even, like it was no big deal. I wanted him to think it hadn’t really mattered to me. “Drove one of Devin’s swords into her heart.” I wanted to
hurt
him.