Mage's Blood (85 page)

‘Just open the door and all will be well,’ he whispered to her, but Jamil didn’t wait; though he was looking at her curiously, as if she had just surprised him, he took Ramita’s wrist and placed her hand on the security ward.

Her teeth sank into his hand and he recoiled in shock and pain. She screamed something in Rondian and Kazim almost lost his grip. He seized her to him, hard, dragging her away as Jamil whirled and words began to crackle from his mouth.

‘Don’t hurt her!’ Kazim bellowed, shielding Ramita with his own body – then a huge cracking sound shredded the night and the door of Meiros’ quarters blasted open, splintering into a hundred shards of carved wood that flew outwards, impaling the crossbow-wielding assassin in front. The Hadishah was torn apart in a gory spray as he was thrown backwards.

A crossbow
thwacked
, launching a bolt into the black passageway, but it disintegrated as it flew. Another Hadishah sprang to the side of the door, raising a blade, and Kazim pulled Ramita away again as Meiros appeared. The assassin beside the door fell to his knees, reversed his dagger and buried it in his own heart, falling sideways like a sack of flour. A second crossbowman fired, but the bolt shattered in blue sparks above Meiros, and then that assassin too was howling, jerking spasmodically as his heart burst. Jamil bellowed a warcry and thrust his sword. The blade struck shields of force and Jamil flew backwards, hammering into the pillars on the far side of the courtyard.

Meiros turned on Kazim and something gripped the inside of his skull with a force like a vice. He cried for Ahm as he fell to his knees, losing his grip on Ramita. Darkness drilled into his mind, tearing his vision apart as he collapsed, screaming.

Then Rashid gestured and Ramita was ripped through the air into his arms. The attack on Kazim ceased instantly as Meiros spun to confront the man holding his wife. The emir pulled off his mask. ‘Stop or I’ll kill her!’ he shouted, and his dagger scored Ramita’s throat.

Kazim saw Meiros clearly now, not decrepit, but tall and formidable, clad only in bed-robes, and his face ablaze with fury. For a dreadful second he thought the old man didn’t care, that in his rage he would condemn Ramita. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Jamil trying to stand, but his left leg was buckling. The blade in his own hand spun, aligning with his left breast, and he fought it silently, without hope, knowing only the training he’d absorbed from Rashid was keeping the steel from plunging into his heart.

‘No! Husband, no,’ Ramita called imploringly, her eyes on the dagger at Kazim’s chest. She was on her knees now, Rashid crouched above her, his dagger at the back of her head.

‘I will plunge this straight into her brain, Meiros,’ Rashid snarled. ‘You can’t get to me the way you can these others. I can kill her before you get to me, and she and your children will die—’

Kazim’s mind was abruptly free and he sobbed in relief as his dagger fell to the marble floor. All about them, the servants were gathering, watching helplessly as this drama played out in front of them. He saw Huriya in the shadows, frozen with terror.
Sister, run
, he thought with all his might.

‘Rashid Mubarak,’ the old man rasped, ‘unhand my wife and I will let you live to stand trial.’

Rashid lifted his head proudly. ‘No, Meiros: tonight, you die, or she does.’ Rashid poised the tip of the blade at her neck and twisted it, ready to thrust. Kazim almost screamed as her eyes popped and her body went rigid. She clasped her belly, tears streaming silently down her face. ‘Choose, Meiros: a few more miserable years before one of us gets to you, or children to bear your name and blood.’

Kazim’s eyes flew between these two terrible men, his heart in his mouth.

*

Ramita’s knees were grazed, her blood smearing the marble as she knelt at the feet of Rashid Mubarak. She was pinned and helpless, his dagger a promise of death, but somehow she could sense the glacial steel of the two magi’s minds: it was like being caught between two great boulders. But the concealed might of her husband dwarfed the emir, and they both knew it. Meiros could break him in a few moments – but in those moments, Ramita and her unborn children would perish.

<
Ramita
,> Meiros’ dry, gentle voice whispered in her mind.

She quivered in shock to hear him. Intuitively she shaped a return thought: <
Husband, what am I to do?
> He heard her, she could sense the contact. Hope flared unbidden.

<
You have found your gnosis, my magnificent wife. I am so proud – but my dear, you must hide it for now. Bury it deep
.> Aloud, he said, ‘What surety will you give me, Rashid, that you will not kill her and the unborn the moment I am dead?’

<
I don’t know how to use it
,> she wailed inside. <
If only it had come sooner
—>

‘Why would we do that?’ Rashid replied levelly, then suddenly his voice cracked like a bullwhip, ‘Stop that, old man – don’t you touch my mind!’ His blade gouged Ramita’s skin and blood sprang from the shallow cut and burned down her neck.

She heard Kazim gasp, and Meiros raised a placating hand. ‘I’ve stopped – don’t harm her.’ <
I am sorry, my dear girl. I had to try
.>

Rashid’s face was carved from flint. His next words sounded rehearsed, his victory speech: ‘There is no reason for us to harm either mother or children. She is an innocent, dragged here against her will by your misbegotten scheming and perverted lusts. I will take her under my protection. The children will know their heritage, and why you had to die. They will bear your name, even as they grow to hate you and all you did. They will serve Ahm as their talents and desires dictate. This I also swear.’

Meiros looked down at Ramita, his expression unreadable, but she could feel his pain. <
I am sorry, my child. I see no way out of this
.>

<
No – please, let them kill me. You can go on and
—>

<
No, child, what I sought has come about: I have fathered the children I foresaw. The rest is up to you
.>

<
But
—>

<
Child, I ruined your life when I married you. I did it to save my creation – perhaps I love it too much, but I saw the great good it did before the Crusades and I did what I did to bring those times again. Please, forgive me
.>

<
Please, do something –
kill
him
—>

<
I can’t risk it. Rashid is too quick, too strong – you would be dead before I could intervene. It must be as he says: you or me
.> His mental voice was resigned, like a funerary oration. <
My divinations led me to you and to a world made safe. They did not promise that I would live to see it
.>

She felt fresh tears spring to her eyes. <
Please forgive me, for being such a poor wife
.>

<
You have been magnificent, my dear: the greatest gift of my elder years. You found it within you to care for an old man, when most would have been revolted and horrified. I love you more dearly than I love anything else, even the Leviathan Bridge. And maybe this way, I can save you both
.>

He looked at Rashid calmly and lowered his hands. ‘Very well, I accept. You will protect Ramita and our children as if she were your own wife and they your children. Do you accept?’

Rashid smiled triumphantly. ‘I accept, old man.’ His eyes never left Meiros. ‘Kazim, kill him.’

Kazim climbed to his feet and retrieved his dagger.
There can be no pity for the infidel
. And he felt no pity, not for this perverted old goat. It was fitting that he should die in his bed-robes, pathetic, dishonoured. He felt his strength return in body and will.

I have crossed the deserts, survived the raiders. I have trained, I have purified myself. I have deceived him and lain with his wife. I will go down in history as the slayer of Antonin Meiros
.

The old man’s pale, rheumy eyes turned to him, and focused on him with burning intensity. ‘So, you are the Kazim she spoke of. You have come a long way, boy.’

‘Shut up, jadugara,’ he snarled. He heard Ramita whimper, saw
Rashid stiffen. He felt an urge to rail at Meiros, to berate him for all the ruin his kidnapping of Ramita had wrought – but their lives hung by too thin a thread. There was time for only one taunt, one extra blade to twist. ‘The babies in her belly are mine,’ he whispered and rammed the dagger up under his chin into his brain. ‘She always belonged to me.’

The ancient mage slid to the ground like a pole-axed bull.

He bent over the body. A puff of smoke, bluish-grey, barely visible, formed at the man’s open lips and Kazim inhaled. Something entered him, something strong, and he felt his body begin to react. His skin flushed, his muscles quivered and the fires in his heart flared up inside him.

We are not like the magi
, Sabele had told him.
The first soul we drink defines our capacity to absorb energy, and therefore our gnostic power. And your first kill will be the greatest mage in history
.

You will be as a god to us
.

Someone screamed, a howl of desolate grief that tore at his soul, and he turned and saw it was Ramita, kneeling at Rashid’s feet, her face a study in agony. He stared in puzzlement, then went to her – but she looked up at him, and her hatred and despair drove him backwards like a force of nature.

Then something else hit him like a flying wall: the life and memories and powers of an Ascendant mage. They smashed his awareness apart like broken glass.

Antonin Meiros fell, and Ramita’s world fell apart. Her grief burst from her like the roar of a tiger. When Kazim looked up, she saw him as a vile rakas-demon, a prince of Shaitan, hideous triumph written across his face, and in that moment all of her love of him turned to hate. She wanted them all dead, for their cold manipulations and stage-managed seductions; for their delight in murder. She hated Huriya for coldly playing with Jos Stein, then slaying him. She hated Kazim, for using her naïveté to destroy all she loved. And above all she hated Rashid, the puppet-master of this bloody shadowplay.

She tried to stand and reach for a fallen weapon, anything to lash
out with, even as Kazim stiffened, then collapsed, clutching his skull. But Rashid turned on her and seized her forehead in his hand. ‘No you don’t, you base-born bitch,’ he snarled, and darkness crackled from his palm, searing her forehead with agony, and oblivion blossomed. The world fell away.

Brochena, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia
Junesse 928
1 month until the Moontide

<
Meiros is DEAD?
> Elena almost lost contact with the mind of the mage she was linked to. Faid was a half-blood Hebb, an Ordo Costruo mage stationed at Krak di Condotiori.

<
Yes, Mistress Anborn
.> Faid’s mental voice was shaky, as though he could scarce believe the news he imparted. <
Murdered in his house, with his wife. Their bodies were taken out into the market place and dismembered. The city has gone insane
.>

Elena blinked, her mind working furiously. Antonin Meiros
dead
? It was inconceivable; the man was an Ascendant, one of the original Blessed, the last one still breathing. He’d been with Corineus at the very beginning, six hundred years ago. He was as much part of the landscape as Mount Tigrat.

<
Faid, who has taken his place?
> she asked, struggling to believe his news.

<
No one, Mistress. The Ordo Costruo is holding together under the joint leadership of Magister Cardien and Rashid Mubarak. They have issued a statement saying they will continue Meiros’ work. My colleagues and I must return to Hebusalim to attend a special council next week
.>

Elena bit her lip. When Faid left Krak, she would be cut off from all news – and it would leave the Krak without the magi who were the main reason it was considered impregnable. The Ordo Costruo contracts to guard the mountain fortress had been in place for sixty years; they were a cornerstone of Javon’s security.

<
Faid, Cera has sent Lorenzo di Kestria to the Krak. She wants Solinde returned to her
.>

She sensed Faid’s curiosity. <
When will Seir Lorenzo arrive?
>

<
In days. How does Solinde fare?
>

<
Withdrawn and silent. She is a mystery to us. At times she babbles in Rondian
.>

<
In Rondian?
> Elena bit her lip. <
But she knows no Rondian
.>

She sensed Faid considering. <
As I said, Mistress Anborn: she is a mystery
.>

<
Please await Lorenzo before leaving, Faid. Then secure yourself. These are the worst of times
.>

She broke the contact and sat staring at the bowl of water, wondering what to make of it all.

‘It’s hard to believe,’ Cera whispered. ‘Meiros is really dead?’

Elena had finally managed to speak to Cera again, though it was an enforced meeting, for they were in the blood-tower together. With the day’s papers signed, they had been relaxing with a goblet of red wine each, a rich scarlo from Riban. Cera had been distant, but this news had shaken her.

‘Everyone dies eventually,’ Elena said at last. ‘It is a miracle that a man so hated lived as long as he did, Ascendant Mage or not. You must not lose heart, Cera.’

Cera looked at her frostily. ‘I have not lost heart.’