Wintertide (15 page)

Long arms covered with slime-matted hair reached out for her. Webbed-fingers flexed, beckoning. She angled the sword in its direction.

“Cease, Creature of Hell! By the Powers of Ixari I command thee, that thine eyes that see and thine ears that hear, now obey.
T’cahra fie diraheira
.” She recited the ancient words. “
T’cahra fie diraheira, fie daremai
!”

The Beast wavered, but only slightly. For four heartbeats it stood, facing her, less than two sword-lengths away.

“
I t’cahra chimour s’fai a raima, s’fai a fi
.” Khamsin began the chant that would unleash the power of the sword, her voice hushed to a whisper. “
I t’cahra…”
she started again but never finished. The Demon lunged, its huge, hulking form suddenly all she saw.

It was mostly instinct; instinct and training from her childhood days at the Cove that made Khamsin drop to her knees. She folded herself into a ball and rolled to one side as the Demon lunged for her. Its clawed hands barely missed her face. She felt the intense heat from its body as it plunged past her. Its stench was overpowering. Her stomach spasmed. She tasted bile, but fought to keep herself under control.

Instantly, she was on her feet again, her sword grasped securely as she faced the creature. It lashed out towards her with a frenzy. She countered its attack with the sword. The upper floor of the tower was showered in blue sparks every time the Demon’s claws grazed the spellbound metal. Again, it came at her, lunging lower this time, compensating for her diminutive stature. She struck out and down, feeling a sickening thump as metal met flesh. The Demon screamed a terrifying, earsplitting shriek. It wrenched itself away, leaving a large clump of matted flesh dangling from the tip of her sword. She shook it free, disgust evident on her face.

But its wound was simply an irritation that healed before her eyes. It moved on all fours, swaying then darting, first to her left, then to her right. It tried to force her towards the rope shaft in the center of the room.

Khamsin longed for enough space, enough time to release one hand from the sword and barrage the Demon with elementals. Not fire, but water, Holy Water gathered from the mists of the moons. But the creature gave her no peace, lunging with its powerful hind legs.

She backed up, very aware of her proximity to the shaft. She slashed out again. The Demon skittered back. But only just short of her reach.

Then, she heard a word she’d heard only once before, in Tanta Bron’s cave, heavily warded with spells of protection. A word she’d read only on one page of the Book. And dreaded the next time it was spoken.

“Ki-a-sid-ir-a”, the Demon breathed.

Khamsin shuddered.

“No.” She shook her head, as if she could deny the name
he
would call her by.

“Ki-a-sid-ir-a.”

‘No!” She screamed. She lashed out blindly with her sword.
He
would not get her, would not claim her, as long as there was a breath left in her body. She felt the sword strike something. For a moment all was still, frozen. Then, all was movement. The sword was ripped from her hands and sent plunging down the shaft, out of her reach. She fell backwards, one leg caught beneath the other, her hands scraping raw against the rough stone floor.

The Demon sprang. She closed her eyes and screamed.

Then there was silence. Only the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears told Khamsin she was still alive.

She opened her eyes. In the misty darkness that floats through the air just before dawn, she saw the smoldering ashes of the creature sprawled across the floor next to her, tendrils of acrid smoke curling white in the air.

“You should never have let go of the sword, young lady.” A voice said. A man’s voice, with the crackle and huskiness of age.

Khamsin sat upright. Her heart pounded, her skin cold and clammy. She stared into pale silver eyes set deeply into a thin, lined face. White hair curled in wispy ringlets to bony shoulders. Equally as bony elbows and knees poked through a dark red robe woven of a rich fabric. A gnarled hand held her sword. The old man sitting on the top step didn’t look strong enough to make it up the stairs of the Bell Tower, let alone vanquish a Demon. And he looked far too affable to be the Sorcerer. She took several breaths before speaking.

“What happened?” she stammered.

“It appears you had a rather unpleasant encounter with a demon.”

Unpleasant?” She was still gulping air. “And you killed it.”

“Killed it? No, no, no, dear child. One does not
kill
demons.” He patted the floor then motioned for her to join him on the step. “One simply returns them to the nearest available hell.”

“Yes, m’Lord, I realize that.” Cautiously, she joined him on the stairs. “But what I meant was…”

“I know, I know what you meant. Allow an old man his meanderings, will you?” He smiled, the tip of his long nose turning downwards. “And this ‘m’Lord’ business. ’Tis nonsense. The name’s Ciro. Just Ciro. Been good enough for four-hundred and fifty years. Should do fine now.”

“Ciro!” His name burst from her lips with more exuberance than she intended. She blushed. “I’m, I’m sorry, m’Lord. It’s just that I’ve been looking for you!”

“Which is what I thought, but one can never be too sure.” He waggled a knobby finger in her face.

“Then, why did you wait to send that thing,” and she gestured towards the cooling pile of ashes, “back to where it came from? Was this some kind of test?”

“Do you mean did I conjure that demon? By love of Ixari, no! But had to make sure just whose side you’re on. Your response to it gave me my answer.”

“Whose side I’m on?”

“You’ve been asking questions about me in the Old Quarter. I have to be careful. Lots of trickery abounds now, these days. Tarkir’s children are misbehaving again.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. I’m a Healer. I’ve been seeking a teacher. Your name appeared in my mage circle.”

“’Twas my name you saw, eh? I’m flattered, young lady, young lady…now, what did your fiery companion say your name was?”

“He called me, well, that’s not my name. My name’s Khamsin. Khamsin of Cirrus Cove.”

The Wizard stood and handed the sword back to her. He brushed invisible specks of dust from his long robes. “Come along, little Khamsin. We have much to accomplish. You couldn’t have gotten here a little sooner, could you? I was about to die of starvation!”

“Starvation?”

“Of course! Can’t survive on one meal a day of crusts of dry bread and some cheese, now can I?” He held his hands up comically before her in his best imitation of the bedraggled brown dog she’d befriended.

*

Ciro’s rooms were in the loft of a warehouse in the Old Quarter, not far from the Bell Tower. At one time, the warehouse was a luxurious residence and he lived on the top floor as was befitting his status as High Priest of the Temple of Ixari. But that was two hundred and fifty years ago, shortly after the Sorcerer was born and Ciro and Ixari had quarreled. In fact, Ixari spoke to no one for a long time and the Temple fell to ruins.

So, in fact, did Ciro’s residence. A wealthy land baron finally renovated it into a warehouse and Ciro was forced to move into the attic. Much of the ornately carved furnishings that graced the chambers of his former residence were now crammed into the top floor that was sectioned off into three small chambers and one large great room. Paintings were stacked haphazardly in several corners; odd bits of statuary served as paperweights, bookmarks and, in the case of a particularly large piece depicting a forest animal with multi-flanged antlers, a clothes valet.

Interspersed with the artworks were jars and vials filled with brightly colored liquids, pouches of crumpled herbs and several well-worn leather-bound volumes with gold runes etched in their bindings. A large mage circle was carved into the floor before the hearth with a solitary candle, unlit, at the center. The embers in the fireplace, however, still glowed warmly, diminishing the chill that threatened to seep in through the windows. A half-empty bottle of wine sat on the table nearby. Evidently, the fire was sometimes not enough to create the illusion of warmth.

The cold dampness that flowed over the Old Quarter from the Great Sea wasn’t the only problem with Ciro’s residence. There was the problem of gaining entry. The attic-loft of the warehouse was simply a space between the roof and the ceiling of the two-story building; there were no stairs leading up, as the building’s sole occupant had no need for stairs. So Khamsin’s first lesson involved dematerializing herself and her cat and reappearing in Ciro’s attic.

She listened closely to his instructions and got it right on the first try.

“Flashy little trick. Comes in handy at boring government parties.” Ciro handed a slice of cheese to Khamsin, who just appeared by the long table in the center of the room. “You seem to have an affinity for this stuff. Never cared either way, myself. All cheeses taste the same to me. Now, a meat pie…” He licked his thin lips and suddenly a hurt expression crossed his face. “You never did bring me a meat pie, you know. Don’t you know dogs like meat?”

Khamsin flipped her palm up, down, then up again and a small, brown-crusted pastry appeared. She handed it to Ciro. “Just baked.”

“Where’d you steal this from?”

“The bakery across the street.”

“Hmpf!” He nibbled on the crust, pulling off a piece to throw to Nixa, who was preening herself on top of a stack of books in the corner. “When you can pull this off the table of the Governor himself, then I’ll be impressed.”

But all her lessons were not so frivolous nor quite so easy. Ciro, for all his light retorts, was a stern taskmaster, stopping her in the middle of a complicated incantation, pulling her abruptly and painfully out of her trance because the inflection of one syllable in a word was not perfect.

“Not ‘ay-neel-la la-sa-rah’!” he would bellow, his bushy white brows drawn into a frown.
“Le
sa-rah!
Le
sa-rah!”

Tired and aching, she had repeated the spell again.

Later, he handed her a glass of deep red wine. She sipped it slowly, and feeling its warmth throughout her body, she thought of Rylan the Tinker. It had been more than three weeks since he left. Fool’s Eve had passed. She doubted now that she would see him again. Perhaps there was a wife waiting for him in Browner’s Grove, though her discreet inquiries to Master Verney when she informed the innkeeper she’d no longer need the room revealed nothing. She left word with the balding man, though, lest the Tinker return. He could contact her through Queenie, in the Old Quarter. She didn’t think he’d believe her if she said her new residence was in an abandoned warehouse.

Ciro rapped on the table with the pestle he used to grind herbs. It caught her attention and she turned away from the west window.

“You’re looking pensive, again. Thoughts, Khamsin?”

She shrugged. “Past.”

“Hmpf. Too much in the present to worry about. Past. Past.”

He explained the present to her during her first lessons, describing the ongoing battle. This ‘infernal, eternal war’, he called it, between Tarkir’s children, the man she called ‘The Sorcerer,’ who reigned from Traakhal-Armin and his siblings: Lucial, the Wizard and Melande, the Witch. They were the ones meddling with the volatile Hill people, using them to steal infants from which to mold their armies of demons.

Khamsin shuddered and thought of Rina’s last child, Willar, who she helped bring into the world. His cradle was empty.

Now, other questions came to mind.

“Ciro, why didn’t Ixari summon the Healers together when all this started happening, two hundred years ago? Surely, their combined magics could have halted this ‘war?’”

“What, the more the merrier, Khamsin?” Ciro shook his head. “No, child. That’s not the way it all works. A hundred Healers casting the wrong spell are not more powerful than one Healer casting the wrong spell. It’s still the wrong spell.”

She regarded him patiently. Ciro rarely answered any question with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

“Any more than a locked door can be better opened by one hundred of the wrong keys,” he continued, pulling out another obscure example. “A handful of wrong keys is still a handful of wrong keys. But the right key, ah, that’s the one! And only one. Do you understand?”

She stared out the window again for a long time before answering. In an odd way, she did. She heard echoes of Tanta Bron in Ciro’s words. “Yes. But, is there only one proper key?”

“In this matter, yes. But it’s one thing to be the proper key to the door. It’s another to have the power to understand the knowledge that lies behind it. Then again...” and he shrugged. “I only know what the runes have foretold. That a girl child would be born in the midst of a storm. And that the signs upon her birth would confirm that she was a chosen one.”

He looked at her, his gaze suddenly sharp and penetrating. “But then, I’m sure you’ve heard this before.”

She took a sip of wine. Its warmth coated the slight frisson of fear that went through her at his words. She was raised with Tanta Bron’s stories. With her warnings. But that was Tanta Bron, who was always telling her to be careful about this or that.

And the dreaded Assignation. That never happened, did it? She was visited by much terror this past year, but not by the Sorcerer.

Yet here was Ciro, a stranger, albeit a Wizard, saying the same words that Tanta Bron had. The child born in the midst of the storm. The child
he
would want.

“You know who I am?” she asked timidly.

He nodded. “I know what I’ve sensed in you from the first time we met. You’ve been marked by powers much greater than mine. The hand of Ixari lays surely upon your shoulders. But the strength of the Khal is there as well.”

“Tanta Bron insisted I place Tarkir’s stone as primary in all my circles.”

“Wise woman. She protected you well. Well enough that even I couldn’t discern who you are, Khamsin. Only that you walk a path that only a chosen one could walk.”