“Well, then,” Hern said, “let’s not waste any more time.”
He clapped his hands and then thrust them apart, and every stick of furniture in the room suddenly slid back to the tower walls, leaving a large, open space at the center of the room. Hern, the blue fire still flickering on his fingers, took up position on the far end, while Miranda stepped up to stand opposite, Durn hovering over her. They stood for a moment, studying each other, and then, sick of waiting, Miranda attacked.
Durn launched forward on her signal, skidding across the floor in a wave of spiked stone straight for Hern. The Spiritualist flicked his finger, and vines, the same vines that had trapped Miranda earlier, exploded across the rock spirit’s surface. Durn’s charge ground to a halt as the plants doubled and tripled, trapping him beneath a swirling nest of woody growth. But Miranda was already moving. She crooked her left thumb where Kirik’s ruby flashed. At her signal, the stone glowed like a forge and crackling heat poured off of her hands. A moment later, Durn, and the vines tying him down, burst into a pillar of orange flame that blackened the tower’s peaked stone roof. The vines fell away instantly, shriveling in a cloud
of resinous black smoke and tiny screams before pouring back into the deep green stone on Hern’s middle finger. Hern paid them no attention, raising a large blue-green stone on his opposite hand that began to flash blue-silver as he whispered to it.
Miranda jerked Kirik’s fire away just in time, as a massive torrent if icy water drenched the place where the pillar of fire had been. The fire poured back into her ring, but Durn, now free from the vine trap, ignored the water that was raising great clouds of steam from his scorched surface and went straight for Hern. Just before the enormous, enraged rock pile reached him, Hern grabbed a heavy crystal hanging from his neck and shouted a name Miranda couldn’t make out. As the word left his lips, the entire tower shook, and the stone wall behind Hern burst open, punched open by a great stone fist. Miranda could only stare in amazed horror as she realized what it was. That hand belonged to the stone spirit that was wrapped around Hern’s tower. With amazing speed, the enormous stone hand grabbed Durn midcharge and lifted him in a crushing grip. Durn cried out as the hand tightened and chunks of him began to crumble and fall to the ground.
Miranda thrust out her hand, calling the rock spirit frantically back, but as she moved to help him, Hern made a throwing motion with both hands, and a ring of blue fire roared up around her. Miranda shrank back from the blistering heat and shouted for her wind spirit. Almost before she’d said his name, Eril burst from his pendant and hit the fire full force. He spun in a circle, crushing the flames under a roaring wall of wind so that Miranda could jump out. As she jumped, a cool mist flowed out of the round sapphire on her ring finger. The mist fell like a
blanket, smothering the blue fire in an oppressive curtain of water. By the time Miranda landed, the inferno was nothing but a circle of scorch marks on the floor. Panting, she whirled to face Hern, bringing her right hand up. Skarest, her lightning bolt, was already crackling. But as she prepared to launch him, Hern snapped his fingers and a wall of water sprang up in front of him.
Miranda hesitated. Striking water was dangerous for her lightning. At best, it would be horribly painful for the spirit; at worst, it could diffuse Skarest permanently.
Hern caught her hesitation and seized the opportunity. “Enough!” he said. “With that lightning bolt, you’re out of spirits, unless you’re going to bring your little moss spirit into the fight. I, on the other hand, am just getting started. I’ve already shown I can counter everything you throw at me. If we keep going, I’m going to have to start breaking your spirits one by one, beginning with that pile of rocks.”
As he spoke, the enormous fist holding Durn tightened, and the rock spirit made a gritty, pained sound. Miranda clenched her teeth, but did not lower her hand or stop the arcs of lightning crackling over it. From behind his wall of water, Hern arched an eyebrow at her.
“Fire at me,” he said, “and your little lightning spirit will fizzle before he gets ten paces.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You know that, and so for all your posturing, you won’t shoot. I’m calling your bluff, Miranda Lyonette. The day of your trial, you were willing to throw away everything to save your spirits. You wouldn’t risk killing one of them now, just to get to me. Lower your hands and I’ll let the rock spirit live.”
“Don’t do it, mistress!” Durn cried, struggling against
the larger stone spirit’s grip. “You fought for us; we’ll fight for you!”
“The rock is right,” Skarest crackled. “You came for us like we knew you would. We’re not going to be the ones to let you down. Shoot me.”
“No,” Miranda whispered. “Hern’s right; you’ll die. We’ll find another way.”
“We don’t need another way,” the lightning snapped back. “Look at the water. The spirit he’s using as a shield is trembling. For all hitting the water will hurt me, it’ll hurt the water twice as much.”
Miranda glanced at Hern’s water shield. Sure enough, its surface was trembling, warping Hern’s smug face behind a lattice of terrified ripples. Her hand crackled. Skarest was gathering power, obliviously intending to shoot whether she gave the order or not, and so Miranda decided to trust him. She focused on her lightning spirit, letting her power flow through their connection until his arcs were painfully bright. Hern must have felt the power building, for his smug expression began to fall, but it was too late. With an enormous burst of blinding light and terrible power, Miranda let Skarest fly.
What happened next was almost too fast to see. Skarest arced toward Hern, flying in a thousand branches of spidering, flashing bolts. Hern raised his hands to brace the water, but then, a moment before the lightning struck his spirit shield, the wall of water vanished. It fell away in a terrified rush, leaving Hern open, unprotected. He had no time to raise another spirit, no time to get out of the way, no time to do anything but stare unbelieving at the white-hot arc before Skarest struck him square in the chest.
There was a tremendous crack, and Hern flew backward, slamming into the stone wall behind him. Deafening thunder clapped a split second after as Skarest returned to Miranda. Now that Hern’s power was interrupted, Durn broke away from the great stone hand that held him, smashing the enormous grip to rubble as he fought free and went to stand beside Miranda.
Thus, flanked by her spirits, Miranda stood her ground and watched Hern’s slumped body. But the other Spiritualist didn’t move. All around them, the tower was shaking as the stone shell fell away, and a stream of sand returned to the crystal around Hern’s neck. But still, he did not move.
“Did you kill him?” Miranda whispered, looking down at her lightning bolt.
“No,” Skarest sounded very smug. “But he won’t be getting up for a while.”
Miranda let out a breath and cautiously walked over to Hern. She knelt down beside him and, very gently, turned him over. His chest was burned, but not badly. His hair, however, the long blond tresses he prized so highly, was singed beyond recognition.
Miranda stifled a giggle, covering her nose against the stench of burned hair. “How did you know the water would move?”
“Easy,” Skarest crackled. “From the very beginning Hern was a peacock, a liar, and a coward. I knew that a wizard like that couldn’t possibly have a bound spirit willing to take a real killing blow from me on his behalf.”
“Good guess,” Miranda said, standing up.
“Guess nothing,” Skarest said. “If I’ve learned anything from you dragging us to the Spirit Court, it’s that
bound spirits take after their Spiritualist. If the wizard’s good for nothing, the spirits won’t be either, doesn’t matter how big or how many.”
Miranda shook her head. She was endlessly amazed at how her spirits could still surprise her. But before she could start giving orders to secure Hern, there was a horrible clatter from the floor below. Miranda jumped and fell into a defensive position, visions of Hern trapping some sort of vindictive, wild spirit to avenge him if he went down running through her head. He was narcissistic enough to do something like that, she thought, gritting her teeth as she turned to face the top of the stairs, which the whatever-it-was was climbing with astonishing speed. But what popped out of the stairwell wasn’t a vindictive spirit, or at least not one of Hern’s. It was Gin, and he burst into the room in a flurry of shifting fur and claws.
“Are you all right?” he snapped, looking her over, then looking at Hern. “Oh, good, you did win. I thought you had when the rock barrier went down, but I had to be sure.”
“What, so you tore all the way up here?” Miranda winced, imagining the beautiful, decorated halls smashed to pieces in Gin’s frantic wake.
Gin gave her a sharp look. “See if I come to help you again.”
Miranda just laughed and shook her head. “Sorry, sorry, I’m very happy to see you. Now”—she shoved her arms under Hern’s shoulders—“help me get this idiot secured.”
Together they got Hern into one of his chairs and tied him tight with a curtain pull. Once he was secure, Miranda plucked off every bit of his jewelry. It was quite a pile, ten
rings, five bracelets, and a half dozen necklaces, all humming with power. These she put in the bucket that she’d thrown at him earlier and gave them to Durn.
“Watch him,” she said, giving the rock spirit a firm look. “If he starts to wake up again, club him, but gently; don’t crack his skull. Just keep him asleep, away from his rings, and out of trouble.”
“Very well, mistress,” Durn said. “Where are you going?”
Miranda looked out through the enormous gaping hole in the side of Hern’s tower, where the city of Gaol lay dark, silent, and frozen under the Enslavement. “I’m going to make sure that thief keeps his promise.”
Durn bowed, and Miranda climbed onto Gin’s back. As soon as she was on, he leaped through the hole in the wall, landing neatly on the roof of the house next door. The moment his feet hit the rain-soaked tiles, he was running, jumping along the roofs toward the citadel.
D
uke Edward stood soaked and alone on the battlements of his citadel. His guards were gone; so were his servants. He didn’t know where and he didn’t care. He had larger problems. He stood very still, his eyes closed, his face twitching in a concentration deeper than any he’d ever had to maintain. Below him, spread out in a dark grid, was the city, his city, and every spirit, every speck of stone, cowered in homage to him. Their fear bled through the raging spread of his own spirit, making him feel ill and weak, but he did not loosen his grip. Such unpleasantness was necessary if he was to preserve the perfection he’d worked his whole life to achieve. This was just another test, and though he’d never been pushed to Enslavement before, he’d always been ready to do what he had to do. Perfection was not something that could be achieved through half-measures.
Out on the edge of his control, he could feel the sea spirit that had taken over his river surging. It was
gathering water from farther upstream, increasing its size and power. It had doubled since he began the Enslavement, swollen with water until he could no longer feel the Spiritualist girl’s hold on it. Maybe she had died, or maybe the water spirit had grown too large for her and broken away. Whatever the case, Hern’s idea of catching and forcing her to remove her spirit had never been an efficient option. The river was growing too quickly. In another ten minutes it would have enough water to flood the whole city, an outcome that could break his already tenuous hold on his spirits and ruin his town, neither of which was an option he was willing to consider. No, his path was clear. Reestablishing control meant getting the sea spirit out of his river, and Edward was going to do just that, even if it meant destroying the water.
He reached out, his focus sliding across the cowering city to the warehouses on the northern stretch of the river, where he kept his tanneries. Long ago, when he was just a boy, he’d brought the river to heel by threatening to dump the tannery waste into its waters. Now, forty years later, he made good on that threat. With a great thrust of his spirit, the side of the tannery burst open, and five enormous metal barrels of stinking hide soak, their tops frothy with flies and decay, toppled into the river’s newly clear water. He grinned when he felt the Great Spirit’s power shudder and cringe as hundreds of gallons of rancid, black-green sludge slithered across its surface.
Still, it wasn’t enough. The river surged beneath the layer of poison, denying Edward’s control of the area, refusing to retreat. He needed something more drastic, but he was already panting from the effort of controlling spirits so far away. Fortunately, the next step was easy.
Even Enslaved, fire needed little encouragement to burn. All he had to do was nudge one of the fallen torches that lay on the docks, dropped by his retreating army, and the flame leaped into the polluted water.
The sludge caught instantly, and the night lit up as hot red fire streaked across the river’s surface. The water screamed and churned, raising great waves as it tried to break the surface film of floating sludge and smother the flames, but all it managed was to fan them higher. The duke smiled in triumph, but never let his control waver. Even this might not be enough to drive the invading spirit out.
“My lord?” a small voice whispered beside him. It was plaintive and hoarse, as if it had been calling a long time. He would have ignored it, but if a spirit had gotten up the courage to interrupt him under these circumstances, it was probably important.