The Necromancer's Grimoire (49 page)

Massey's wicked grin reminded her of the day of Richard's murder. She could not stop the feeling of rage and despair that welled up in her heart. The necromancer felt her anger and grasped at her through the emotions he had wrung from her. As the men crouched for the melee she looked up for the sorcerer. He would use these destructive emotions against her, weakening her. Yet he cannot do this without my permission, she reminded herself.
I will not permit it
.

Around her in silence the nine men whirled, striking each other, dodging blows, leaping and ducking in their dance of death. She stood among them; the swords blew through her, the blows passed by her without raising a strand of her hair. Their sweating bodies darted to and fro while she stood firmly in the center of the destruction. One by one she saw Massey's men cut down, their blood splashed on the packed clay and sand at her feet.

Alisdair's blows severed limbs with ghastly accuracy; Garreth's ax cleaved skulls and knocked men to the ground, but her eyes were only for Montrose. He had separated Massey from the others and was forcing him against the walls of the warehouse. She winced as his sword passed through her again and again in flashing arcs. Though she did not feel the steel, she could feel his rage and satisfaction in the cold precision of his blows. He was bigger and stronger and certainly more determined than Massey. He would triumph.

Massey's eyes quickly lost their arrogance as he saw each of his men fall. He struggled with the effort of defending himself against the slashing blade that beat him backwards with every stroke. Montrose's mouth was moving; he was saying something to Massey. Nadira did not have to hear the words to know their meaning. The force of Montrose's strikes knocked Massey off balance and one more stroke sent him to the ground. She saw her lord's mouth form Richard's name as he pulled back for the deathblow. Montrose moved in to kill with the same economy of effort he displayed with his words.

The point of his sword entered Massey's throat with a splash of blood. Nadira looked away, blinking at the Mediterranean sun to cleanse her eyes from the grisly thrust. She took a deep breath and returned her eyes to Montrose as he twisted his blade with his powerful arms and shoulders, driving the steel into the ground under Massey's neck and wrenching it side to side to withdraw it again. She turned away. She did not want to see what was left of Richard's murderer, for such a wrenching thrust must surely have severed the man's head. This thought was immediately followed by the intrusive voice of the necromancer.

No. You will want to see this.

Nadira spun about, looking for the sorcerer. All she could see were the bodies of Massey's men laid out on the ground, glistening with gore. She saw Alisdair and Garreth sweating, panting, shoulders heaving with the effort to breathe. The fierce heat and thick air of Egypt was so different from their northern lands. She turned to Montrose, hoping his face had lost the vicious snarl that had made her look away from its savagery.
He has been avenged now. He should be at peace.
The snarl had disappeared, but now his face was curiously slack, surprised. The blue eyes were dark. He blinked rapidly. She took a step closer. Of course he would he overwhelmed with emotion at the moment of vengeance, but his eyes should not be so dark in this bright sunlight. They should be a vivid blue. They should glitter with triumph. Something was wrong with his eyes.

She reached out, knowing she would not be able to hold him, but perhaps he would feel her with him. The emotion of this moment must have been too much for him, for he sank to his knees beside Massey's mutilated body. Perhaps in relief, or maybe in prayer. Or his old wound pains him and he cannot breathe. But no. His sword dropped to the ground. His face was not anguished with pain or composed with relief or bright with the triumph of success. Nadira felt a slow crescendo of dread. Her ears rang with a roaring turmoil that exactly matched the feeling that flooded her heart.

Montrose blinked one more time, then the blue eyes closed and he toppled forward over Massey, his bloody hand came to rest inches from her slipper. She fell to her knees beside both bodies, trying to turn him face up. She wanted to see his eyes again. Her hands grasped at nothing and passed through his broad back. Alisdair's hands pushed through her astral body, clutching at Montrose's brigandine. He had one hand on the leather vest and another on Montrose's baldric and with a powerful heave turned him face up. Garreth's face appeared next to her as he knelt beside his lord, mutely running his hands over Montrose's brigandine, tugging at the laces that closed the sides.

Alisdair did not wait for Garreth to undo the ties. His hunting knife slashed the leather thongs and the brigandine fell away to reveal the hilt of a huge wide dagger protruding from Montrose's belly just above his thick leather belt. Bright blood oozed around the wound, welling up in a red wave that splashed his friend's hands and soaked the long braid of her dark hair that fell free from the leather armor and rolled limp to the sands. His belly rose and fell with each gasp for air. His blood splashed in rhythm with his breath.

It was a gut thrust, just above his belt and below the edge of his brigandine. The thick vessel that carried his blood from his heart to his legs was severed. Nadira's whole body went cold. She glanced down. Massey's dagger was still sheathed in the dead man's belt near her knees. The hilt in her lord's body was not Massey's.

She felt the necromancer's deep satisfaction.

Nadira warned herself that this whole scene was being created by the magus to enthrall her with fear and grief. She forced herself to see through the illusion. She hardened herself against this bloody onslaught of images.
I will not despair.

Alisdair knew better than to pull the knife from the wound, which would hasten the blood flow. Instead, his fingers curved helplessly over the hilt. Montrose's life ebbed away with every beat of his heart. Nadira put her hand over the wound, willing the blood to stop. It did not.

Montrose twitched. He made a soft gurgling sound in his throat. He would bleed to death here. Soon. It took mere minutes to drain a body of its life. His body had been opened in a place impossible to stanch, and unable to heal. Both men knew it as well. Nadira forced herself to think, knowing the necromancer was creating this lurid drama to trap her within the powerful emotions the scene generated within her.

She screamed in frustration, drew a breath and screamed again.
It is not the truth!

The necromancer appeared beside her, smiling in his triumph, but Nadira had eyes only for her lover.

Montrose's body jerked as his blood pumped through the open tear in his body and his heart struggled to send what remained of his life to his limbs. Nadira was numb. Her mind refused to believe she was watching him die.
This is not real.
Alisdair lifted his friend by the shoulders and cradled his head against his broad chest, holding him tightly against the violent spasms that heralded his death. Garreth began to pull at his blond hair, clawing his fingers into his scalp, rocking back and forth in his grief.

Montrose arched his back once more against Alisdair's arms. His long legs kicked hard and his boot heels dug deep furrows in the sand. He went limp just as suddenly. His head lolled back against Alisdair's shoulder, cradled there as gently as a mother holds her child.

Nadira sat back on her heels in shock.
This is only an image,
she reminded herself.
An illusion. My love is being used as a weapon to strike at me. Effective, very effective. But not fatal. I do not believe these images.

She closed her eyes against Evren Farshad. His lust for her grief continued to try to penetrate her defenses. She had to know the truth. She whirled what was left of her weakened energy and then cast it out in a spray of bright particles.
Find Robert's soul
, she commanded them.
Or don't.
If Robert was truly dead, his soul would be in the netherworld. If he lived, she would not find it among the spirits and shades of the dead.

Her tendrils searched the vast necropolis of the underworld for him. The one particle that touched Montrose's soul pierced her heart.

She staggered to her feet. A wall of intense emotion rose up from the depths of her being, and uncontrolled, rose swiftly up her spine to the crown of her head, cracking the illusions and bringing the images of Alexandria crashing down around her until she hung suspended alone in the Abyss. Light shot out in every direction from her body
. I have regained myself. He cannot trap me again.

So. Emotion is also the key.

Emotion, but controlled. This raw power but without the features of grief or pain, happiness or hate. The power is in the intensity without the meaning.
If it is meaningless, it can be shaped as one chooses. When the emotion is tied to an event, it is about the event. Loose the ties, it becomes pure power. This is an expensive lesson.

“
Robert!” She cried, and immediately she saw the death world of Robert Longmoor, Baron Montrose, as it formed around her, and it seemed all joy had faded from the world.

She stood on a cold and dreary moor. She knew the contents of his mind from the landscape he had created to house his soul. Mists crouched in the low rounded mountains to the east and settled low on the gray sea to the west. No shelter broke up the heather and bracken that stretched to the horizon to the north and south. No shelter. Rocks and boulders, as gray as the sea and sky, punctured the chilly landscape. He had not created a shelter for himself. He would be exposed among the stones and thorns. She looked for him among them.

“Robert, my love,” she whispered. There was no need to shout here. He would hear her. She waited but he did not appear. She cast out for the reason why and felt the presence of his shame as low warmth in the chilly mist.

“Robert. Come. You cannot hide from me.” The taunt brought him out. While Montrose would admit to shame, he would never permit her to think he would hide in fear. He stood before her, dressed
cap a pe
for war. His breastplate carried the drips of drizzle from the mist; his helmet and the strands of dark hair that emerged from under the steel edges were wet with it. Two swords hung from his sides, his broadsword for slashing and a shorter one for stabbing. Various other sharp instruments of death were tucked into his belt, his boots, everywhere she looked. He practically glittered with metal. She smiled sadly. He was armed against Death.

“How is that working for you?” She murmured to him gently.

His eyes narrowed in annoyance for just a moment before they widened with realization. A moment later he stood dressed only in his loose tunic, as though ready for bed. The white shirt flapped in the wind against his bare legs. He made a wry smile. She laughed, so happy to see him even under these conditions.

“You do not need to wear a shroud, either, my love,” she said as she fingered the loose strings that closed the neck of the tunic. “I prefer this,” and she put him in his leathers, but without weapons. She imagined his tall boots on him, the ones that covered his knees, and they were there.

But now blue eyes were guarded. He looked around him quickly before he reached for her and kissed her with a trepidation that suggested he could not trust his senses.
Understandable
. She sighed with pleasure as his rough beard scratched her chin and his breath caressed her cheek. He drew back. “How can you be so warm if you are dead?” he murmured.

“I am not dead,” she answered him. “But you are, my love.”

“Yes. I gathered as much.” He indicated the dreary landscape with a nod. “Why does hell look like Scotland?”

She embraced him tightly. “Oh, love, love. You have created this place.”

“Alisdair? Garreth?”

“They live. They grieve.”

He nodded. “And you?”

“William watches over my body.”

“The necromancer?”

She stopped.
Yes, where is the necromancer?
She stepped back, reluctant to release him. “I will have to leave you soon. He is here about, and I suspect he means to try to keep me with you in your hell. He is using you as a weapon, my lord. He knows I am content to stay with you forever.” She looked at the monochrome landscape around them. “Though, if I did stay here, my love, I would redecorate.” She smiled at him again. “My world looks like Andalusia in the spring. Would you not like that better?”

He nodded as if he understood, but she knew he did not. His sword reappeared in its scabbard and his baldric snaked across his chest and buckled itself. She saw the glint of steel materialize here and there as he armed himself again. A breastplate appeared on his chest.
These are not the weapons that will defeat the necromancer.
She looked up at him kindly.
But it is all he knows.
So be it.
She stood on her toes to beg another kiss. His hands moved to her hips and drew her close to him as he put his mouth on hers, then rubbed his cheek in her hair. His eyes were soft. “I am not afraid.”

“Never,” she agreed. But the armor and weapons spoke the truth.

“No. These ideas once frightened me.”

She nodded. “You never liked it when I traveled.”

“That was because I could not follow. Now I see. I will not let him hurt you.” He put a hand on the pommel of his sword.

“It is too late for that, my love.” She allowed him to see the hurt in her eyes. “He has slain you. The cut in your belly was a cut at my heart. It was his dagger buried in your body, but the cut was at my soul. His dagger opened you and spilled your blood upon the sands in Alexandria. He has succeeded in wounding me and you could not stop him.”

He set his jaw. His voice was harsh. “Like Richard. Once more I have failed to protect the one I love.” His clothing and armor disappeared and he stood before her, dejected, naked in the cold. His arms hung listless at his side. A frigid wind from the sea began to blow. It lifted the strands of his wet hair and lashed his face with them. Chill bumps raised on his flesh and an icy sleet pelted him.