The Sacred Hunt Duology (44 page)

Zoraban's face grew troubled. He cast his hands wide, curling his fingers into his palms as if grasping at something invisible.

“What is it?” Stephen asked, raising his voice to be heard, although there was no other sound.

“I don't know,” Zoraban said. He motioned for silence, his lips growing thin as the seconds passed.

And then, the mists exploded outward, fraying into air and nothingness. Above them, instead of endless gray, was a flat, stone ceiling; around them were those fine, well crafted chairs. Lady Elseth sat slightly forward in hers, and Zareth Kahn was likewise tense.

“Stephen, Gilliam!” She relaxed.

Zareth Kahn did not.

Without pause to greet them, Zoraban raced across the room and stopped only when he towered over Lady Elseth. “Lady, you carried a pendant with you to the King's City. Where is it?”

Her brows furrowed, and her eyes widened as she glanced at his face; his tone was not one she was used to hearing. But it was clear that worry drove him. “I have it with me,” she replied, and sank her hands into the folds of her skirt. “Here.”

Zoraban stared at the pendant as if transfixed, and then his eyes caught fire. Burning with the heat of liquid gold, they flared so brightly that all in the room saw it.

The obsidian that formed the pendant's heart began to melt. Lady Elseth gave a cry and dropped the chain, but it was not pain that moved her; the platinum remained cool against her fingers. “What are you doing?”

“Destroying a beacon,” the mage replied gravely. “I was careless; I was too absorbed with your question and not with your plight. I pray that I've not been too slow to act.” He drew his hand across his brow.

The door to his chambers buckled.

The wood warped in, as if some strange force had turned it to a thick, heavy liquid. For a moment, a fist far too large for a human hand could be seen pressing against the fabric that the door had become.

“Lady's frown,” Zareth Kahn whispered. He rose, toppling his chair, and gripped the medallion of the Order in his right hand. His left weaved a complicated pattern in the air, his fingers deft, deliberate.

Zoraban joined him, although he wore no medallion.

Gilliam and Stephen rose as well, unsheathing their swords and waiting. Their movements were so dissimilar it was hard to see that the same hand had trained them, for Stephen was graceful, economical, and elegant; Gilliam wrenched his sword free with so much force, he stumbled back a step. But they acted in unison.

Even the girl fell to the ground in a low crouch, a feral growl in her throat.

“We—have the door.” Zareth Kahn spoke through gritted teeth. “Lady, you might wish to move to the far wall.”

Lady Elseth rose and drew a dagger. “If you have the door, it shouldn't be a—”

The stones around the door suddenly cracked. An unseen hand pushed against a part of the wall, hard; it fell forward into the room. Shadow, although there was no light to cast it, began to spill in through the hole.

“I see,” Lady Elseth said. She moved. Quickly.

Something stepped into the hole in the wall. The shadows fell away from her, settling around her knees as if in homage. All that remained lingered against her body, supple, living raiment. Her hair was darker than the shadows, her eyes completely black. But her skin was pale and perfect, her chin a delicate point, her lips, unlined and full. She was not tall, yet even so there was nothing diminutive about her.

Before anyone could react, she lifted her hands, and the walls that framed her melted away, joining the darkness in velvet silence. Only the door, crackling blue, remained standing beside her, and it was not a fit companion.

“Zoraban,” she said, inclining her head gently. “You are known for your wisdom and your learning, even in my circles.” She smiled, and although there was no light upon her, her teeth glinted. “I bid you show it now. We have no interest in your Order, or any of your business. We want only the girl and her two companions.”

“I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you,” Zoraban replied. His eyes flashed, the rippling of almost liquid gold, and he added, “Giver of gentle death. Succubus.”

A perfect brow rose in a perfect line, and she inclined her head in approval.
“But perhaps, Zoraban, that choice should not be yours.” She looked at Stephen, and her smile deepened, becoming at once full and soft.

Although only her face moved, Stephen felt a sudden lurch; he was at the core of her attention, her focus; everyone else in the room seemed to vanish. The shadows that curled around her feet and slid up her calves no longer seemed menacing; they were velvet, they were a midnight of promise and mystery. She stood at their heart, waiting. He knew then that he had never seen—and would never see again—so beautiful a woman.

His lips moved; he shook his head, as if in denial, but the sibilance of the single syllable shook the air. He knew, then, that he must look away; knew it, but could not bring himself to lose sight of her face, her eyes.

“Stephen!”

Lady Elseth's voice came to him at a great distance; he stopped walking, aware then that he did so, but did not look back. The woman of the shadows raised one hand, palm up, and then raised her second, cupping them together as if she held something precious. He wanted to lower his face into those hands and rest there.

At his side, he felt a sudden flare of magic; the tingling, the uncomfortable ache, passed quickly, melting into the distance, just as Lady Elseth's voice had.

“Stephen!”

It was a male voice this time—one he did not recognize. Distracted, he brushed it aside, lifting his hand in a gesture of annoyed impatience. He was almost there.

• • •

“Do something!” Lady Elseth said, her voice shaking. Mist left her lips; the tower was full of Winter night air, although the season would not come for months.

Zareth Kahn raised his hands in gesture, and once again, a crackle of blue light snapped against Stephen's side, only to be swallowed by the darkness.

“Zareth,” Zoraban said. “Leave it be. She has called, and he has come.”

“What?” The outrage in the younger mage's voice was unconcealed.

“The lore of the summoned,” Zoraban continued, his eyes glinting. “He has ceded some part of himself to her keeping. Only he can disentangle it.”

Zareth Kahn turned his attention upon the Master of the Order. Something passed between them then, and the younger mage bowed his dark head. “As you will it, Master,” he said, but each word scraped against his throat.

“Gilliam?” Elsabet said, turning away from the mages.

“I can't,” Gilliam whispered, his face pale, his sword shaking. “I can't reach him.”

The shadows in the room grew thicker at the base of the wall, but they came up against a barrier a mere foot away. If Zareth Kahn and Zoraban were powerless to act in Stephen's defense, they nonetheless had power. They used it now.

Light limned the walls not shadow-claimed, sealing out the darkness, sealing in what little warmth remained. It flared, brilliant and harsh, as it sought to take the walls and failed.

“There are others,” Zareth Kahn said softly.

“Are there? My power does not see them. How many?”

“Only one.”

Zoraban sagged against the nearest wall. “Its shape?”

The younger man's brow creased as he concentrated. “I do not know it,” he said at last. “But this is its echo.” And he gestured, drawing light into a spiral that began to twist, ever faster, in the air before him. Like water draining into a deep hole, it swirled faster, and faster still, but instead of vanishing, it took shape; something hard and strange. It had arms and legs, and a head of sorts, but these were obscured by the spines that covered its body. Even its round, flat face was ridged with small, precise blades. Where fingers might have been, there were daggers or small swords.

“A blade-demon,” Zoraban said, and closed his eyes. “What does it do?”

“Nothing. I assume it's waiting.”

“Don't. Guard the walls well, if you've the power for it. Mine is spent.” He turned wearily and offered Lady Elseth a pained smile. “It's not easy to enter the half-world,” he said, and that was all the explanation he offered.

• • •

“Come, Stephen. Rest. If you serve me, I will protect you; if you surrender unto me all things that I claim, I will even give you a measure of peace. Come.” She had not moved from her place in the wall, but now the shadow framed her, clothing that had almost, but not quite, fallen aside. He felt it, thick and cold, at his feet.

Run, run, huntbrother.

He was trying to. She was close. But each step was harder to take; he had almost forgotten the feel of his feet as they moved, one in front of the other, like leaden, awkward things.

But her hands were close. Only a foot more, an inch more.

Run!

Yes. He drifted into the shadows; felt them sting him with their icy, invisible teeth. He didn't care. Very gently, and with infinite satisfaction, he rested his chin in the cup of her palms.

“Very good,” she said, and her voice was a benediction that kept the cold at bay. She shifted her fingers, tracing his chin softly and gently with the sharp edges of her hands. Then, still holding his face, she lifted her left hand. Blood—where had it come from?—trickled down her forefinger.

“Shall you serve me? I am Sor na Shannen. I will be your master.”

He tried to nod, but he could not move his head; tried to speak, but found his tongue heavy and swollen. There was only Sor na Shannen. There was only her.

And her smile, beatific, languorous, was the most beautiful thing in the world. She brought her finger down upon his forehead and began to trace a sigil there, with his blood as bond.

He heard her scream.

He screamed as well as a golden flash of light struck his face and sent him hurtling back across the room.

“It's not possible!” The demon shouted, lifting her arms in fury. She snarled, and for a moment, although she was still beautiful in a way that only immortals can be, the glamour, with all its heavy sensuality, was gone.
“Oath-bound!”

Zoraban's eyes widened and he turned to stare at Stephen's crumpled body. “Oath-bound?” His voice was a whisper. “That's it!” And his eyes were like the sun suddenly stripped of clouds by a strong wind; they shone bright, completely eclipsing all memory of gray or night.

They were the last words that he ever spoke.

For although Sor na Shannen was succubus, she had not raised her arms for show; shadow limned them suddenly, and with shadow came an arc of icy blue. Mage-power, focused and tightly drawn, flared from her hands, thrown like expertly wielded daggers that left a bright trail across the air.

They took the Master of the Order in the eyes.

• • •

Stephen rose in time to hear Zoraban's electric scream. He shook his head, clutching at his ears as if to halt the flow of noise.

Stephen!

Gilliam's voice, carried by bond and urgency, jerked Stephen to the side as the walls shattered. Chunks of stone crashed to the floor; shards, thin and hard, embedded themselves into the wood. Stephen looked up and saw nightmare standing beside the woman who had almost been his death. He saw her clearly; she was still strikingly beautiful, still unearthly in her glory. But her glory was shadow and darkness, and in three dreams he had seen what these forces, twinned, had wrought.

At her side was a creature that not even Stephen could mistake for anything other than demon-kin. It was tall, and covered in what appeared to be shadow-tipped blades. Frantic, Stephen reached for his sword—and then saw it. It lay, only yards away, at the feet of Sor na Shannen; already shadow was rolling over it like mist in the lowlands. He could not remember dropping it, and as the blade-demon tensed to leap, he stopped trying.

It was almost unthinkable that something so large could move so quickly or so gracefully. But the demon-kin were not bound by the laws and the forms of the mortal; Stephen felt his jacket, shirt, and skin give way to three steel tines as they whistled past, brushing his back. He clamped down on a cry and reached for his dagger, staggering and turning on the same pivot.

The shortest of the creature's fingers, if fingers they could be called, were double the length of Stephen's dagger; as the demon flexed his hands, those blades rippled, incredibly supple although they must have been heavy. It leaped, Stephen dodged—and this time, the blades pierced his left shoulder.

Someone screamed in the distance. The demon stiffened before it could leap again, and then threw both of its arms back, exposing its chest. Stephen found no opening there, no way to attack—his dagger did not have the reach of the blades that bristled, more effective than plate armor, across the creature's midsection.

He threw himself back as the arms came round again, reaching for him. Blood glistened on the blades that were fingers, and Stephen wasn't sure whether or not it was his. He fell to the ground as the creature drove its fist through the wall. Rolled, as it kicked out, attempting to separate Stephen's head from his shoulders.

• • •

Zareth Kahn's forehead was beaded with sweat and human endeavor. His dark eyes were narrowed; the muscles along his thin jaw could be counted as they stood out in relief. He knew the “Givers of gentle death,” or knew of them, better than any of the order here would have guessed.

And he knew that this one, this Sor na Shannen, was no ordinary succubus. Her ability to wield magic, her uncanny threading of shadows and blue mage-fire, even the demon-lords did not always possess.

He had not acted in time to save Zoraban, and later—if there was one—he would mourn. He pressed his barriers, hard. They shimmered as he struggled to make them solid, more sure. Light crackled, describing their surface; shadows huddled, deeper and darker with each passing second, just at their edge. But through both of these, the light and the dark, he could see her eyes clearly.