Oathen (48 page)

“Why?” Geret asked.

“A red herring, and a bargaining
chip.”

Geret looked up into Salvor’s cold hazel eyes
and shook his head. He followed the man’s logic easily enough.
“You’re really quite despicable,” he growled.

“It’s true, I am,” Salvor agreed, pulling him
off the crushed barrels and onto his feet. “But only for the glory
of Vint.”

Geret looked over Salvor’s shoulder and saw
the golem engaged in combat with the others, several large chunks
missing from his limbs and club. “What happened?”

“You blanked out, and the golem slapped you
over here with his club. You don’t look like you have a scratch on
you,” the nobleman admitted. “Shall we continue?” he asked, with a
nod toward the stone behemoth.

“After you, O Despicable One,” Geret
responded.

The golem had finally noticed the tiny human
on his back and was reaching up with his free hand to crush her.
Ruel and Geret both lunged for his arm, their fiery swords
outstretched. But Rhona beat them both, grasping the handle of her
lodged sword and slicing it through the golem, gashing his head and
lopping off his arm above the elbow. It crashed to the ground, and
Ruel somersaulted over it, rolling back to his feet.

“A little more warning next time,” Ruel
called.

Rhona laughed, but the golem’s club swung
toward her again, and she had to fling herself to the floor. She
landed badly, her leg twisting beneath her, and Ruel helped her out
of the golem’s range.

Narjin had been holding her fire in reserve
while Rhona was on the creature’s back, but now she let loose at it
with a blue fireburst that left its torso glowing with fervent
heat.

Possessing at least some intelligence, the
creature lunged forward toward the nearest target: Geret. Narjin
gasped, eyes wide, at the extra weapon she’d handed the
golem.

Ahm thrust out his hands, fingers splayed, and
dozens of small metal balls appeared around the golem’s feet. As
the monster stepped toward Geret, its foot rolled on them. It lost
its balance, stumbling heavily to its rocky knees and bringing its
molten chest down to Geret’s eye level. Salvor leaped forward and
shoved Geret to the side.

The nobleman held his sword aloft and slashed
the creature’s neck, his sword trailing blue fire like a silken
streamer. With a single blow, he lifted the golem’s massive stone
head from its shoulders. As he finished the cut, he turned and
stepped toward Geret, chin high. Behind him, the golem crashed
forward, cracking and melting onto the stone floor. Its neck stump
landed mere inches from Salvor’s heels.

Salvor flicked his fiery blade as if examining
it for damage. Narjin’s eyes were wide, and Ahm’s mouth hung open
for a moment.

“Awful shiny for a dirtwalker,” Ruel said with
a grin.

Geret grimaced. “Show-off.”

Salvor flicked his eyebrows up.

As they hurried back toward the main corridor
that led below, a nearly-opaque dove flew toward them.

“It’s Scion,” Ahm said, forestalling Salvor’s
slice. The cell leader held out a hand, and the dove landed. Its
beak opened, and a man’s voice issued out.

“Ahm, need your help. Pinned down near
the—”

The bird imploded from the impact of a slender
streak of yellow lightning, and Ahm grunted, jerking his hand back.
Everyone looked ahead toward the source of the attack. At the
corner of the corridor stood a pair of cultists. The slender one
had his hand outstretched, filled with more of the same lightning.
At his side stood a stockier, shorter man. Behind them stood more
than twenty Enforcers. Narjin’s hands flared with blue
fire.

“Our new master will have his way,” the first
man intoned, a manic gleam in his eyes. “Your efforts are as dust
beneath our feet.”

New master?
Geret had a moment to
wonder.

The walls of the hallway rippled and extruded
shiny black skeletal arms whose wicked talons clawed at them. They
ripped Ruel’s and Geret’s magical swords out of their hands and
crumpled them until their magic failed and they winked out of
existence. More hands stretched up from the floor and held the
group’s legs fast.

Salvor slashed at them, hacking off fingers.
Rhona shouted for Ahm to duck as she reached high and lopped an arm
off the ceiling. Geret yanked out his other sword and tried to fend
off a ceilingful of stone claws.

The cultists in the main hallway laughed, and
their echoing voices reached the Scions just before the Enforcers
did.

~~~

The
Tome
’s yellow essence swirled in
Oolat’s mind with whorls of confidence. The ritual chamber was
prepared. The Scions were being delayed and destroyed on the upper
three levels of the stronghold. That meant the thief and her
light-slinging sidekick were steadily venturing farther from any
potential help.

It was time to act.

Oolat was horrified as the
Tome
’s plan
washed over his cramped, impotent consciousness.
No! You can’t
possibly!
he ranted at the malevolence that controlled his
body.
She must suffer for her deeds! She could be an endless
source of bloodmagic! Please, anything but this!

The
Tome
took no notice of the
squeakings of its avatar’s mind. Such chatter was not only
irrelevant to its purpose, but useless and mortal-minded as
well.

It gathered Oolat’s darkness like a shroud,
then winked its avatar away, leaving the ancient book on the
lectern.

~~~

Sanych and Meena were lost.

“I told you,” Meena said, her clipped tones
revealing her irritation. “They change the entire labyrinth down
here every century or so. It’s never been the same
twice.”

“We’re wasting all this time,” Sanych said,
gesturing to the hallway. It was dressed in dark stone, lined with
green torches, and identical to many others they had been down in
the last fifteen minutes. “There can’t be many more levels below
us, can there?”

“This place is like an ants’ nest; more
vertical than horizontal. Who knows?”

“I do,” Oolat said, popping into existence
inside Sanych’s invisibility barrier.

Sanych staggered back a step, light flaring in
her palms.
How did he find us?

Before she could raise her hands and attack,
Oolat lunged for Meena, a predatory grimace on his lips.

Meena thrust her sword forward, catching Oolat
along the ribs. He didn’t seem to notice. His hands flared blackly
on either side of her head, and she screamed.

Sanych’s palms rose toward Oolat’s back, but
she hesitated. Her thoughts were frantic:
If Meena can cut him,
will my magic work against him? And if it doesn’t, will it bounce
back in this narrow corridor and kill me?

Meena’s eyes rolled up in her head. As she
started to collapse, Oolat’s arms swept around her like a lover,
cradling her head against his chest. His eyes flicked to Sanych, a
wicked fire gleaming in his white irises. Then he winked out of
existence, taking Meena with him.

Sanych reacted with instinct: she needed to
see, to understand, if she was ever to find Meena again. Time
slowed to a honeyed flow all around her, and she saw a thin black
line shooting away down the middle of the corridor. She threw
herself after it. It felt different than
blinking
; she
didn’t know her destination. It was more like tracing. Behind her,
her own bright trail—the tail end of the magic that encompassed
her—whipped around corners and down stairwells. The black line grew
thicker ahead.

A triumphant smile spread across her face.
Nothing is faster than light.

On a wide and ornate spiral staircase carved
from living rock, she passed an Enforcer who had both feet
suspended off the floor. He moved so slowly, he appeared
immobile.

Down a long hallway, up a few steps, toward
the open doors—

A barrier of blackness snapped into place,
enclosing her completely. All light died. There was no sensation,
no input. She couldn’t feel the floor beneath her feet. Her hands
touched nothing. She lit her skin from within, but the blackness
siphoned it away.

Oolat had her. Encapsulated by the
light-mirroring darkness, her magic was rendered
useless.

Then she remembered her trail. Sanych looked
over her shoulder and saw that the tiniest thread of light still
trailed behind her. It connected her to the light in the hallways,
but it was flowing to catch up with her. She
blinked
backward, ratcheting up to full speed, frantic to escape the
silent, enclosing darkness.

She found herself at the top of three stone
steps, in the light of the ubiquitous green torches, right where
she’d wanted to be. She gasped in relief, panting and trembling at
her close call.

As she stared in consternation at the black
barrier that blocked her from the doors beyond, she felt Geret’s
concern mushroom into defensive rage at her frantic worry for Meena
and fear of Oolat’s power.

“No, Geret!” she cried aloud, her voice
echoing in the hallway. She knew he was trying to break free from
his own battle to come help her. His determination was steel in her
mind; everything else fell away. He was going to come to her aid or
die trying. She needed another way to reach Meena, and she needed
it now, before Geret left everyone behind. His relative
invulnerability was one of his allies’ best assets.

Her salvation blossomed full-formed into her
mind, and she bit her lip with a grin. Reaching the one man who
could help her was risky. It might even kill her, despite the Oath.
But she had no choice. Oolat was about to kill Meena, without whom
the
Dire Tome
could not be destroyed. She took a deep breath
and held it, willing Geret a few moments of patience, and
blinked
away.

~~~

Meena woke to the scent of charring herbs.
Their smoke hung thickly, incense-like, in the air. A hard surface
pressed against the right side of her head, and she realized she
was lying on the floor. Black stone, it was; mere inches from her
eyes lay the curve of an embedded ring of gemstones, their
multicolored facets winking in the pale green light.

Meena tried to bolt to her feet, but her
wrists were manacled to the floor, and she wrenched her shoulder,
collapsing back to her knees. Her eyes darted around the room;
eleven circles of gemstones lined the curving wall, as they had
four hundred years ago. Her breathing quickened.

“Your Oathen is not here to save you this
time. Is he.” Oolat’s voice was oddly toneless.

Meena looked back at the Dzur i’Oth leader.
His thick black robe was open, revealing a bare chest gleaming with
perspiration even in the coolness of the underground chamber. His
white eyes stared at her with deathly purpose. Behind him on the
black carven lectern sat the
Dire Tome
, its pages rustling
in anticipation.

“This body does not wish the ritual to go
forward,” he said.

Meena frowned in confusion.

He ambled toward the gemstone ring at the
other end of the room. “It wishes for you to remain an everlasting
font for bloodmagic. Not the worst plan. Yet there is far more
benefit than that in my plan for you. Though your body took the
blessings intended for my loyal worshippers so long ago, I see this
now as the hand of Fate. For only now, at my release back into the
world, may I truly grasp the power that has been intended for me
all along.”

Fighting down her fear, Meena raised her chin
and replied, “That power was never
intended
for anyone. Your
predecessors just decided to take it.”

“Those who can, should,” Oolat said, raising
his arms and turning to face her. Behind her, the book’s thick
pages turned of their own accord.

“Don’t you need another ten people to kill
me?” Meena blurted, wondering if there remained a magic spell in
the entire world that was powerful enough to bring about her
death.

“I am not going to kill you. I am going to
inhabit you.”

“What?” she gasped.

“I took this flesh because it was willing at
the time. Even then, I spilled much blood to complete the spell. To
claim you, I will perform the ritual of Binding—my consciousness to
your body—and inhabit your immortal flesh forever. I am the
Great and Dire Tome of Ages
. Once I leave this mortal flesh
behind,” he slapped his bare chest with a hand, “I will be truly
invincible, and all will grovel before me in worship and
despair!”

Meena’s throat let slip an anguished cry. Of
all the horrors in the world, this was an unforeseen and
nearly-inconceivable one. To be twisted and used by the very evil
she sought to destroy, to be made its helpless pawn, to live
eternally, abetting its domination and reign of terror—the prospect
left Meena horrified.

Oolat began to chant. Meena began to
scream.

~~~

The realization that Sanych had just
blinked
outside the Dragon Temple nearly cost Geret an ear
as one of the Enforcers swiped at his head with a serrated sword.
Geret got his own blade in the way just in time, then kicked the
man’s knee with his free foot, dropping his opponent to the floor.
Geret’s other leg remained in the viselike grip of a stone
hand.