CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

-al spewed profanity with a vengeance as a troupe of table dealers from the gaming room downstairs battled the flames burning his suite. The blaze was under control, but it had reduced his rooms to a burnt shambles. Everything reeked of fire and ashes. d.a.m.n Caim! He had the Horned One's own luck. The sorcerer was gone as well. Good riddance to both as far as he was concerned. They could kill each other for all he cared.

As Ral paced across charred carpet, he considered Va.s.sili's papers, tucked inside his jacket. He hadn't been able to make out everything on those yellowed pages, but what he understood spelled out dire implications, not only for the Church, but for the entire country. The archpriest had been involved in dirty dealings, even by his standards. Trucking with sorcery, deviltry, regicide ... Va.s.sili hadn't just wanted to rule Nimea; he had wanted to spread the Church's influence throughout the entire world. What boldness! In the end, the archpriest's sin had not been a lack of ambition, but trust in the wrong persons. Ral wouldn't make that mistake. He didn't trust anyone, especially his new ally. But knowing what to expect from the sorcerer-secrets, lies, and eventual betrayal-was better than trust. It was a certainty upon which to base his decisions. To rule an empire. It could be done, if he was bold enough.

Ral stopped beside the sideboard table. The wooden boxes had survived the fire with a few singes, a minor miracle for which he was almost prepared to bend knee and offer a prayer of thanks. He had seen for himself the kind of power a symbol could hold over common folk. Give them a hero, especially one raised from their own ranks, and they would follow him to the gates of h.e.l.l. Everything was almost in place. When Markus returned with the prize, they could proceed to the final phase of the plan. The last throw of the dice. Ral could barely contain his excitement.

A centurion of the Sacred Brotherhood, a grizzled veteran with more gray in his hair than blond and deep lines crisscrossing his face, appeared at the door and saluted with a fist pressed to his heart.

"The surrounding streets are clear, sir. But I sent a squad after the culprit."

Ral turned over his left hand. The tower-shaped blot gleamed on his palm like a patch of wet ink. He had tried washing it with lye, brine, vinegar, and bourbon, but so far the stain proved indelible. More to boot, in the fight with Caim he could have sworn it had started to tingle, barely noticeable in the heat of the melee, but a strange sensation nonetheless.

"Recall them. Are we prepared for Master Arriston's return?"

"Yes, sir. I have Brothers posted at the Market Gate to receive him and the package."

"Good. Have them brought to Celestial Hill as soon as they arrive. We're going to the palace."

"As you command."

At the centurion's command, thirteen Sacred Brothers entered the suite. Each left carrying a wooden box. A jaunty tune played in Ral's head as he glanced down at his hand. The mark rippled with the supple contractions of his tendons. A n.o.ble mark. Perhaps he would use it in his new family crest, a black tower on a field of white. It had a touch of elegance to it.

He looked around the room for the last time. The mural of Dantos was singed beyond recognition. The hero now appeared to be disappearing into a black void, his love forever beyond his reach. Ral didn't intend to return here ever again. In fact, he would try to forget his time spent here. Rising stars had no need for memories of the earth below.

He hummed as he walked out of the suite.

There once was a man who danced with Death ...

- Levictus stepped from the shadow of a sagging oak tree and onto a carpet of soft loam. Night seeped between the boles of the ancient grove. The sweet promise of its power beckoned to him like a lover's perfume.

His cheek burned through lines of blood congealed along his jaw. He had attempted to pursue the one who injured him through the city, but finally lost the man somewhere in the labyrinthine alleyways.

With a curse, he seized one of the shadows crawling under his robe and tore it open. Its minuscule death shriek rattled the dying leaves on nearby trees as he stuffed its gelatinous body into his wound. Murmured spells halted the bleeding and set the flesh to mending. This man, Caim, was a devious foe, but only a man after all. He would be dealt with before long.

Levictus strode across the uneven ground. Moldy stones and fallen pillars of an old sacellum studded the earth under the canopy of interwoven branches. Built as a temple in Nimea's pagan past, the site also marked a fault point, a weakness in the fabric between realms. It was here, less than a league from the city walls, he had discovered his budding powers as a young man, here he taught himself how to access those abilities with sacrifices of small forest creatures and, eventually, larger victims. Later, Va.s.sill, ever the supportive mentor when he wanted something, had supplied him with proscribed texts to further his education in the black arts. Now the archpriest was dead and he, a man remade in the torture cells of the Holy Inquest, manipulated the strings of an empire.

He went to the stone altar at the temple's center, the very spot where he had made his fateful pact so many years ago. The memory of that night was seared into his brain. He had sought to avenge his family, but what he summoned in his ignorance went beyond anything he had ever imagined. He had seen things that night he couldn't forget, no matter how he tried. By the following dawn, he'd been a changed man.

He ran his hands across the weathered stone and drank in the power permeating the temple, let it fill him to completeness. He hadn't been back to this place in years, but now he needed to make contact again. It was time to unleash the full measure of his powers upon those who had tormented him.

Raising his voice to the night, he began to chant. Shadows screamed as they were consumed in the sorcery. The wound ceased to bother him. In its place arose a wave of ecstasy far beyond any earthly pleasure. It raced through his body like lightning as his paean to the forces Beyond soared into the sky.

Above the altar, a window of nothingness opened.

He braced himself as a frigid wind erupted from the rift and stood firm, resolute in the powers at his command, even as a figure appeared in the aperture. Harsh words resounded from the void. They grated on his ears like gnashing mountains, like the grinding of the world's bones.

"Levictus. Long has it been since your last communication. Is this the manner in which you pay homage to the Lords of Unrelenting Dark?"

Levictus knelt on the broken ground. "I have summoned you to-"

His voice broke into a hoa.r.s.e scream as a jet of black flames lashed out from the portal. Levictus dropped to the ground, wrapped in their searing embrace. When the flames departed, he was curled into a tight ball.

The figure leaned closer to the rift. A dark gown clung to voluptuous curves. Cascades of midnight hair framed eyes that glowed like the pits of h.e.l.l.

"Such as you do not summon us," she intoned. "You are a servant, a slave of the Shadow, to be used in whatever manner we require."

Levictus pulled himself back onto his knees. The pain was subsiding. He held his hands up to the moonlight, expecting to see a ma.s.s of charred flesh. Instead, there was only smooth, healthy skin.

He genuflected before the altar. "Forgive me, mistress."

"Tell us why you have reached across the Void this night."

"I require ... I ask ask for another infusion." for another infusion."

"You dare? You, to whom the Lords of Shadow have granted more power than any mortal in a thousand years, to whom the secrets of the Dark were laid bare? You dare to demand more?"

Levictus dared to lift his gaze. The words, so long withheld, poured out of him in a rush. "I do not demand. I merely beg for the strength to serve your will. Othir, the jewel of the empire, lies under the sun like a great, bloated wh.o.r.e, spreading her cancer to every land. I would tear down her scabrous walls and scatter her people to the four winds. I would bring the Shadow to this place and extinguish the light of Nimea forever."

The emissary's head tilted so that her hair fell across her face, hiding her dusky features. "What you desire is possible, but there is a danger."

Levictus lowered his forehead to the cool earth. "I accept the risks."

"And there is another price to be paid as well."

Levictus had feared as much when he hatched this plan. Sixteen years ago, he had been given a task to cement his original pact with the Other Side. He didn't mind at the time; it gave him a chance to experiment with his newfound powers. Now, after freeing himself from Va.s.sili's yoke, the idea of continued service enraged him, but he would have his final revenge on Othir and the man who had wounded him. Though his heart resisted, he bowed his head in a.s.sent.

He listened to the emissary's message, whispered across the Void, and all the while his chest grew heavy with dread as the Shadow's plans were divulged to him. And yet, what choice did he have? He had bound his fate to this path long ago. It was too late to break free.

When she finished, Levictus exhaled a long sigh, and then nodded once more. "I will do as you bid. When do I receive my boon?"

The figure faded from view as the window shriveled up like a dead leaf. "It comes."

The grove darkened, and black clouds gathered above to block out the moonlight. Branches scratched together as a breeze from the Other Side crept through the trees. The ground quivered under his feet. Levictus clenched his fists as the tides of magic coalesced around him, but he could not have prepared himself for the tsunami that crashed down upon his head. He gasped and shivered, helpless in the throes of power. It scoured the marrow from his bones. It pounded through his veins and swelled in his chest until he thought his heart would explode. Overhead, storm clouds crackled and spat.

Then, like the calm in the eye of a hurricane, the surge evaporated.

Levictus picked himself up from the patch of dry ground where the convulsions had thrown him. He was himself again, and yet he was changed. Things looked different. The darkness churned around him like a living, breathing thing. Glowing eyes watched him from the shadows.

The shadows.

They had changed, too. Looking upon them, he understood what had been given to him, and he accepted.

With a smile, Levictus wrapped his cloak around him. As the deep, cool blackness fell around him, his body lightened and he flew on the night winds, back to Othir to sow the seeds of destruction.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

-cold wind flogged Caim as he crouched behind the neck of his stolen steed. He pushed the animal all the way from the city, cutting cross-country between villages to save precious minutes. The moon, full and red, tracked his progress over the plains. A blood moon, the sailors called it. Night of ill omens.

The wound he'd received from the sorcerer's knife, scrawled like a streak of b.l.o.o.d.y charcoal down his forearm, burned like the blazes, but the pain was nothing next to the rage boiling in his chest. He knew where he had seen a wound like the earl's and like Mat's.

He stood in the center of the corpse-strewn courtyard. A large man slumped at his feet. Strings of red-black blood ran from the wound in his chest. A tremor ran through Caim as the corpse opened its eyes, black spheres without irises or whites. A whisper issued from blue-tinged lips.

He had been presented with an opportunity he never thought to have in a hundred lifetimes, to avenge his father's death, and he had let it slip through his fingers like wet sand. d.a.m.n Ral. It was clear the man had made some kind of deal with that creature, Levictus. But what drew them together? What plan had they hatched, and how did it involve Josey? Caim knew Ral. The man's dreams were grandiose, but teamed up with one who could conjure the shadows, how far could he go? The questions haunted Caim all during the harrowing ride.

When his first horse foundered, he sidetracked to a wayside roadhouse and stole another. The second horse proved hardier, if not so fast as the first, but after an hour of cantering the beast labored for breath. Caim felt sorry for the animal, but he didn't let up as evening approached in deepening strands of purple and blue. Nothing mattered except reaching Josey.

He reached the first stand of trees. The path was an inky band that snaked through the woods. He slowed the horse to a walk as they pa.s.sed under the roof of branches. Ral had sent people after Josey. Even now they could be at the cabin. For the hundredth time he cursed himself for not killing Ral when he had the chance. The man was a fiend, not fit to live among humanity.

The same could be said for me.

True enough, but he would gladly go to the gallows as long as Ral went before him. If anything happened to Josey, he'd never forgive himself. He should have gotten her farther away, hidden her in another city where she'd be safe. The recriminations battered at him as he peered through the forest's gloom. The cabin was not far off the path. If Kas had left a fire burning, he should see its light soon.

Caim almost pa.s.sed by the cabin before he picked out its white lines of wattle in the darkness. He yanked his mount to a halt and was running as soon as his feet hit the ground, knives drawn. The front door hung open on loose hinges. Beyond it, darkness swathed the interior. Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the forest.

Caim leaned across the entrance. His gaze darted to the corners of the front room. The place had an empty feel, devoid of life. The hearth had been allowed to go out; the dying embers were sunken beneath a bed of ashes. The few pieces of furniture were scattered about in shambles. Pieces of clay dishes littered the floor amid half-dried pools of dark scarlet. A sharp odor hung in the air. As he stepped over the threshold, Caim spotted the still mound of a body.

Kas.

Three strides took Caim across the room. A pike with a shortened shaft lay beside the old man's limp hand. Caim looked down at the man who had raised him and didn't know how to react. t.i.tanic weights pulled at his insides; conflicting emotions congested in his vital organs. The walls of the cabin closed around him, cutting him away from the night. The wind's whisper vanished like ghosts of years past as the stink of blood and burnt leather filled his head. For a moment Caim allowed himself to feel remorse for the way he had left things between them. He had loved this man, and yet hated him for not being his true father. With an effort that showed in the whites of his knuckles, he shut those feelings away and turned his mind to more immediate matters. Blood stained the weapon's point. So the old man hadn't gone down without a fight. Good for you. Good for you.

Caim knelt beside the body. The blood was sticky, not yet fully dried. The rest of the room was empty. No sign of Josey. It looked like the bulk of Ral's men had entered through the front door, and one by a broken window. What he thought was blood spattered across the sill turned out to be wine.

The door to the back room was half closed. He nudged it open. Scant moonbeams fumbled across the crude floorboards. A garment was laid over the disarrayed covers of a crude cot. An icy fist closed around Calm's heart at the sight of Josey's borrowed gown. It had been slashed to b.l.o.o.d.y strips. He flinched as identical wounds made by imaginary swords and daggers pierced his flesh.

He searched the entire cabin for the body, but found nothing. He went back outside to make a sweep of the yard. There were marks in the dirt where one or more bodies had been dragged amid a crowd of hoofprints. Caim was no tracker, but he could see they had come from the direction of Othir and returned the same way. He must have just missed them. Of course, they would stay to the main roads, secure in their numbers.

Calm's breath burned in his throat. Rage filled his thoughts, at Ral, at himself, at the G.o.ds if they existed. The Brotherhood had Josey. A thought flashed through his head. If they were riding with wounded, he might still be able to catch them.

He started toward his steed, but stopped after a few paces. The horse shuddered like it had an ague. Strings of milk white foam drooled from its mouth. The d.a.m.ned thing was blown. Useless. It wouldn't run again tonight, if ever.

Caim gave the animal what mercy remained in him. He stripped off its bridle and saddle, and dropped them on the ground. A wasted effort. It would probably drop over dead before morning. He had failed them. Josey, Kas, Mathias, his parents-they were all gone now. He was alone. Grief sliced up his insides like a river of broken gla.s.s. He wanted to scream to the heavens, but the cry lodged in his throat. He had nothing left. Then, a whisper-light touch settled on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Caim."

The words tickled his ear as Kit alighted beside him. Her inner radi ance surrounded him like the light of a thousand fireflies. He wanted her comfort, wanted it more keenly than he had ever wanted anything in his life since the day his father died, but he couldn't accept it. The rage had rendered all his tender feelings down to a lump of useless, hardened tissue.

"Where have you been?" He made no effort to temper his tone. "Out in some meadow, picking flowers and dancing with starlings?"

She floated around to face him. Tears trickled down her face like falling stars. "I was here, Caim."

"Yet you did nothing."

"I couldn't!" she cried. "I saw them kill Kas and drag the girl away, but there wasn't anything I could do."

"You could have come to find me. I could have stopped it."

"Would you have listened?"

"Of course I would-"

"No." She retreated a few steps from him. "You stopped listening to me a long time ago, and it only got worse when you met that girl."

"Her name was Josey."

"If you want to know where they took her-"

"Say her name!" he screamed.

Kit wiped at her face with the back of her hands. "Josey, okay? Her name is Josey, but she's not dead."

"I saw the dress, Kit."

"Listen, you idiot!" A deep crimson blush stained her cheeks as she propped her tiny fists on her hips. "She's still alive. They took her and rode off like a pack of demons. They left the dress so you would get all h.e.l.lfire mad and go riding after them without a thought in that wooden head of yours."

He strode through her as if she weren't there, walked up to the door of the cabin, and stood on the threshold. The emptiness within yawned before him like a great mouth.

"I never wanted this for you." She came up beside him. "Neither did your mother."

"Don't, Kit."

Her ethereal fingers brushed his face. "I was happy in my world, Caim, but I had to come when I heard your mother's call. She understood it would be hard for you in this place, born of two peoples, belonging to neither. And I knew the first time I saw you that I would love you forever. That's the curse of my people. We never forget and we never die. We love forever, even after the ones we love die and pa.s.s into the great dark."

"Kit ..." Troubled feelings rumbled in the depths of his soul. They chipped away at his resolve and made him feel weak and pathetic.

"Don't you think I mourned for your loss, Caim? Don't you think I cried myself sick after what happened to your parents? But you were a stone. You never cried."

"What good would it have done them?" But tears, hot and bitter, sprang to his eyes now as her words dredged up his past.

Kit rested her head on his arm. "We don't cry for them, Caim. We cry for ourselves. Kas understood that."

"And now he's dead, too."

"He died doing what he knew was right."

Caim thought of the b.l.o.o.d.y spear. Kas had died a hero. Would the same be said of him when his time came? The gloom inside the cabin beckoned to him.