The Nothing: A Book of the Between (22 page)

“Treachery, you think?” Zee’s eyes remained on the closed door, and he made no move to get dressed.

“Does it matter?”

He snorted. “Every one of them has more lies than an anthill has ants. Might not be her real name.”

“At the least, I don’t think she wants you dead, although I suspect she’d be happy to get me out of the way.”

Vivian felt shy about being naked, all at once, but her clothes were across the room and she felt the sense of urgency. The vision of an unclad Zee with a sword stirred all sorts of other possibilities in her as well, and internally she cursed all of the Sorcieri into the depths of hell as she pushed back the covers and aimed for her clothes.

“Do we have to go?”

She felt his eyes on her, her skin glowing with the consciousness of his gaze, heat rising, but she pushed it back.

“I think so.”

“So unjust,” he said, still watching her. Her eyes met his, clung there, reading desire and love and so many things. He grinned, all at once, the grin that would always be lopsided now because of the scars on his face. His body had responded to hers, and she could barely drag her eyes away from the visible indication of his desire.

“Dear God,” she said. “Please, for the love of all things holy, put some pants on. We really have to go.”

“You are a cruel mistress, Dreamshifter.”

“Don’t make me throw cold water on you.”

“You might have to.” He sighed, put down the sword, and started pulling on his pants.

Vivian finished getting dressed, ran her fingers through her tangled hair as best she could, and splashed water on her face from the basin on a low dresser. She wanted a comb, clean clothes, a toothbrush. Maybe even makeup. None of which was immediately forthcoming.

And then Zee was behind her, his arms around her waist, his cheek pressing against her hair. It was beyond her strength to totally resist and she turned in his arms and wrapped her own around him, her hands settling on the muscles of his back, lips reaching up for a kiss which left her gasping.

“And the Between fell to the Nothing while the Dreamshifter and the Warrior lost themselves in love,” she murmured, tracing his scarred cheek with a fingertip. “Let’s go do our jobs, Zee.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You and me both.”

Now that she was fully awake, awareness of the magic had returned. There was a disruption in the flow, a sense of urgency that had not been there last night. Something had changed.

“We need to hurry,” she said. “You remember the way?”

“I think so.”

She let him go first, even knowing that the sword would be no use against the Sorcieri, that they could turn his mind in upon itself in an endless loop if they so desired. But he was the Warrior, and this was the way of things. She followed, trying to open herself more to the magic so that she could see and understand enough to maybe have some control.

It was like trying to alter the course of a river or redirect rain. It flowed all around her; she could feel it, trace it, but her movement and her will had very little effect on what it decided to do.

Her mind fully on the magic, what waited in the great hall took her so by surprise that she stumbled over her own feet and would have fallen if Zee hadn’t steadied her.

It was no longer empty and echoing. A silent throng waited in the shadows, unspeaking, scarcely moving, only the sound of collective breath marking them as alive. The Master sat once again on the wooden throne on the dais, Kalina kneeling beside him. In front of the throne stood a group of Giants. Five of them, four males, one female. Sandwiched between two of the Giants, back hunched, head bowed, was a man. His unwashed dark hair straggled down onto the collar of stained and ill-fitting clothes.

Vivian’s brain flickered over him, briefly, wondering if he were hostage or companion and guessing the former. And then moved on to the overwhelming reality of a group of Giants all in one place. The only Giant she’d been close to was Callyn. In a group like this, they were overwhelming, like carved statues come to life. Huge, dangerous, with a roughhewn magic of their own. Again she could sense it, but it was even farther beyond her understanding than what the Sorcieri had.

Still, the room was charged with tension.

Clearly, the Master had not expected them, and one unguarded flicker of his eyes let Vivian know that her presence here, now, was far from welcome. One of the Giants followed that gaze, turning first his head and then his ponderous body to size up the newcomers.

“You are the Dreamshifter.” Where he had been standing to face the Master as an equal, he now dropped to one knee and bowed his head. The other Giants turned to face her and followed suit. The man remained where he was, facing the Master’s throne.

Vivian’s pulse sped with alarm. She felt Zee tense beside her and put her hand on his arm to warn him. A sword drawn here would be like a match to gasoline.

Her eyes met the Master’s and she realized, with dismay, how she would need to play this. Ignoring the kneeling Giants, she let her voice ring out clearly across the hall.

“A courteous greeting at last. Quite different from what I was offered in this hall last night. Will you still cast us out to wander and die amid your enchantments at first morning light?”

She braced herself for retaliation, reaching out with all of her senses to monitor the flow of magic. It tightened, but nothing moved. The Master’s face gave nothing away. He looked remote, untouchable, ancient beyond comprehension.

But the Giant, still on his knees, looked down on her, his face grave. “Dreamshifter. We hoped to find you here. I am Kraal, emissary from her Highness, Alara, Queen of the Giants. We beg of you, stop the death of the Dreamworlds.”

“I came here in search of knowledge to do that very thing, but the Master refuses to speak with me. Perhaps he will grant your request where he has denied mine.” She pitched her voice to carry.

Kraal lumbered to his feet and turned to the throne. “She speaks truth?”

The Master shrugged. “As it appears you are here to take counsel with each other, perhaps you could take this conversation elsewhere.”

Kraal did not acknowledge the rude dismissal, rising to his towering height and offering a courtly bow toward the throne. “Queen Alara has sent gifts to honor our contract with the Sorcieri.”

He made a gesture with a hand that was bigger than Vivian’s whole head, and one of the other Giants stepped toward the throne bearing a cloth-wrapped bundle about the size and shape of a small child.

“With your permission?” She set the thing down at the base of the steps and glanced up at the Master.

He nodded, still displaying no emotion other than boredom.

The Giant removed the swaddling cloths to reveal a faceted crystal fully four feet high. It was shaped like a flame and burned at its core with a scarlet glow that lit every facet and cast sparks of light like a fountain. It had magical properties, of that Vivian had no doubt. She felt a shift in the room at its revealing, heat, warmth, an amplification of her own power.

Her dragon blood stirred a little, restless, and the itch in her brain intensified. She wanted to put her hands on the stone.

“Cover it.” The Master no longer reclined lazily in his chair. He sat fully erect, face drawn, lips compressed. A thin sheen of perspiration shone on his forehead, red like blood in the light of the stone.

The Giant complied at once, and the Master sagged back into the throne, breathing harshly. Kalina, who had been nearly invisible in the shadows behind the throne, emerged at his side with a flagon of liquid, which he took with shaking hands. Drinking seemed to recover him.

“Master, my apologies and those of the Queen. To our magic the crystal amplifies, strengthens—”

The sorcerer gestured for silence. “I am weary and will investigate its properties later. You have drawn me from my bed and I am an old man, as you may have forgotten. My people as well would like to be back in their beds.” He gestured again, and the shadowed throng murmured an assent.

Kraal bowed. “So be it, then. One last thing, if you would indulge me. Queen Alara has also sent a gift for the Dreamshifter.” He snapped his fingers. The man slumped beside the Giants jerked as though he’d been struck. Vivian had all but forgotten him, but now a dark foreboding made her suck in a breath.

“Turn and face your new mistress,” Kraal ordered, his big hands enforcing his command. But the man bent his head and covered his face instead. The movement, the shape of the hands, was familiar.

Zee cursed under his breath.

“Don’t be difficult,” Kraal said, with a smack on the back that nearly sent the prisoner sprawling. The man’s hands flung out for balance, revealing a face she knew, dreaming and waking, once full of entitlement and self-satisfaction. It had looked down on her, twisted with hate and lust. Somewhere in the distant past, it had been gentler, wearing an expression of what she’d taken for love.

Always it had been the sort of face that drew feminine eyes and held them. Now it was bruised and dirty. Blood smeared the cheekbones. And where the eyes should have been, there was blank green stone.

“Your Queen miscalculated,” she said, even as her heart twisted with conflicting hate and pity. “What value could I hold for such a thing?”

Jared’s chin lifted at the sound of her voice, his face swiveled toward her. One hand reached out in supplication. “Vivian. Help me.”

She could neither move nor speak, for a moment, her heart warring in conflicting vengeance, pity, and guilt. And fear.

Jared had named her, openly, in a place where magic could use a name for all sorts of binding. Glancing at the Master, she saw him smile for the first time, and the smile was more dangerous than his frowns.

“Truly, this gift may be more to my benefit than to that of the Dreamshifter,” he said.

Guided by some sense, maybe her breathing or a lock on the sound of her voice, Jared began to shuffle toward her, both hands outstretched. His right leg moved differently from his left, and a torn pant leg revealed that below the knee, the flesh was missing. The bones and tendons were encased in a clear resin that rippled as he moved, flexing, straightening; she could see the waves travel through it.

All the while, the face turned side to side, questing, the flat stone eyes in the living flesh making her own flesh shudder. Closer and closer. She could smell his unwashed flesh, the fear, the blood that stiffened his shirt and crusted his hair. If that hand touched her, it would surely brand some horror on her that she would carry to the grave. Poe hissed. His neck snaked out, his wings lifted, and he darted in to peck at Jared’s feet, making the blind man stumble about in a grotesque dance.

“Shall I kill him?” Zee asked. “It would be a kindness.”

Vivian turned to the Giant who had identified himself as Kraal. “What do you take me for, that you bring him to me tortured and mutilated? As if I would want a slave.”

“The Giants see things differently, Dreamshifter. The Queen holds him at great value.”

“I hold him at little value, but still he is a human being. Not to be owned by another or subjected to torture.”

“He said he was bound to you by an oath of marriage.”

She expelled her breath in a sharp hiss. “Marriage? You brought him here to me with this wild tale?”

“They were coming anyway.” Jared’s face had gone sullen. “Vivian, please. You’re my only hope.”

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Zee muttered. “I left you safe in Surmise. Care to tell me how you turn up in the company of Giants? No? Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.”

“He is a guest in my hall,” the Master said. “There are laws governing such behaviors. Not that I object to his death. Or that of any of you. Just that I want you to step outside to die.”

“He is under my bond,” Kraal said. “You kill him, and I must kill you.”

“Or die trying.”

Vivian recognized Zee’s tone, the way he seemed to have relaxed, the smile on his face. He must be itching for a battle he could actually fight, an opportunity to take action that wasn’t hampered by magic. Killing Jared, helpless as he was, would offer no satisfaction. But a fight with a Giant was another thing.

“His death can wait.” The authority in her own voice startled her, but she kept her face impassive. “You say Alara values him, then?”

“She values the eyes she took from him. His presence here is a gesture of good faith. Tell her what you see, Jared.”

Jared’s battered face tightened in a grimace, as if he might resist, but he thought better of it. “A library, I think. Many books on wooden shelves. A polished table with a scroll half open. I cannot read the words; they are in a language unknown to me.”

Kraal nodded. “The library. Is there anybody with her?”

“Not that I can see. She’s looking at books now. I still do not recognize the language.”

“Not much use, since he doesn’t know how to tell us what he sees,” the Master said, dismissively. “Although perhaps this—Dreamshifter—might find another use for him.”

Kraal turned back to Vivian. “If we have misjudged and this man is of no value to you, how may we entice you to save our world and all the others?”

“I don’t need an incentive. That’s why I came. The Master has refused to help.”

Kraal turned away from Vivian and approached the Master, the floor shaking with every step he took. “Would you so easily dismiss the long treaty between us, then?”

The master spread his hands. “There is little I can do.”

“You lie. Always the Sorcieri have despised the rest of the worlds. Despite the fact that a power bent on destruction now is deep in the heart of the Forever. Do you think that even your kingdom will stand if the Forever is destroyed? You know what lies there and how it shapes us all. Aidan has returned there and I am certain she means nothing good.”

“And how did Aidan reach the Forever? Only the One can open the Gates,” the Master said with a cruel little smile. “She who is Dreamshifter, dragon, and Sorcieri. Is that not true, Kraal, and what was once agreed upon and put into place by the Giants and the Sorcieri?”