The Ritual (38 page)

His eyes were aghast as he stared at me. “But… but you said you didn’t love me,” he stammered.

I couldn’t help it, I had to smile, and lifted my other hand to cup his face. “Well… guess what, Black Eyes?” I said softly, “I lied.” I pressed my lips on his, then drew away before I could give in to my desperate desire to wrap my arms around him and never let go.

As I stepped back his eyes turned determined. “
Fine, you’ve proven your point,” he said. “Azerev, I won’t fight you anymore. Take me as you originally intended and let her leave.”

I drew a breath, but Azerev spoke before I could. “Oh, this mutual sacrificing is all very touching, but I don’t have the time to stand here and listen to it all day. I’ve already accepted her offer and that of her sister, and I have no intention to keep switching. Besides, I don’t trust the two of you. Leave, you are no longer required.” He gave the by now familiar flick of his fingers, and Zash began to walk away from me. Mior let go of Shani and started walking too, but my eyes were on Zash only.

“No, wait, please!” he called. I could see how he fought the compulsion, but it availed him nothing. “Rin, no! Don’t do this, he’ll never let us go!” he shouted as he reached the door, clamping his fingers around the doorframe, but his legs simply kept walking and I smiled sadly at him as he had to let go.

Maybe he won’t, but at least you’ll still be alive,
I thought. Mior went quietly, his head drooping, but I could hear Zash screaming all the way down the corridor, until Azerev moved to the door and clicked it shut.

“You
didn’t pay them,” I said as he turned around again, and he raised an amused eyebrow at me.

“Y
ou should have made that one of your stipulations then, shouldn’t you? I’m letting them live, is that not enough?”

“And the marks?”

“All in good time. You can hardly expect me to take it off them now, when I can still feel them fighting it. The ritual comes first.”

Zash, you fool, flee
, I thought, but there was nothing more I could do for him now. I walked over to Shani, who lay crumpled on the floor, sobbing hysterically, and gently tried to pull her upright while Azerev started taking items out of Mior’s backpack.

“Courage, Shani,” I whispered to her. “We’ll see them again, on the right side of Eternity.”

“There’s got to be something else we can do!” she wailed, clinging to me. Then her eyes narrowed as she looked at Azerev, and I quickly grabbed her wrist before she could do anything silly.

“Shani, don’t. Don’t attack him again. He’s still got them bound, and whatever we do he can take out on them. We’ve done everything we could do by making sure they live.” She gave me an angry look, but then the fire went out of her eyes and she nodded with resignation.

“Well, the items seem in order,” Azerev said conversationally as he lined them up neatly on his workbench. He walked around and picked up a fifth item – a long, slim dagger, simple in design but with a big sapphire set in the pommel.

“What do you intend to do with this ritual anyway?” I asked, curious despite myself. “Is that dagger the link?” Then I remembered who the dagger had been stolen from, and my eyes widened at what this could mean.

Azerev looked at me and smiled beatifically. “What do I intend to do? Oh, it’s very simple. I’m going to kill the king.”

For a few moments the words hung in the air, then Shani breathed, “You’re insane!”

“Am I?” he snapped, glaring at her. “Is it insane to want to rid this country of the worst king it’s ever had? Is it insane to want to improve the lot of all half-elves in Arlennis? You silly girls with your notions of love, only thinking of how cruel I am to part you from your wonderful lovers, you have no idea! Absolutely no idea!” He was pacing now, gesticulating wildly with spittle flying from his lips. “Yes, I’m using sacrifices, but it’s all for the greater good! What value is there in the needs of the two of you compared to the needs of all half-elves alive? I’m doing this country a favour!” He slammed his fist on the table as he finished, and I could see the fire of fanaticism in his eyes. Whatever we could say would not sway him, but I tried anyway.

“Do you really think it’s that easy?” I began. “Do you really think all this country’s problems will simply be solved if you kill the king? The elves will still be in charge, and
they
won’t thank you for killing their monarch!”

“Not just that,” Shani added. “They’ll trace the magic to here. What do you think it’ll do to the popularity of half-elves when it’s discovered that one of us assassinated the king?”

“As if I’d stay here and wait for them,” Azerev sneered. “I’ll be long gone by the time they reach this place.”

“But it doesn’t matter!” I exploded. “They’ll blame us anyway! They always blame us for everything! Don’t you see? Killing Sovander will solve absolutely nothing! You’ll just make things worse!”

“Oh, you’re starting to bore me,” Azerev said, and with another casual wave of his fingers I felt the binding ward close itself around me again, and this time it also covered my mouth so I could no longer speak. Despair overcame me – we would die and it would all be for nothing, because all half-elves would be hunted to extinction. I closed my eyes and willed Zash and Mior to run, to flee far away and stay safe, but then Azerev spoke again and a shock went through me.

“Siander!” he called, and I watched in disbelief as the elf entered the room from a side-door. He sent a nervous look my way, then approached the sorcerer.

“Yes?” he asked, and Azerev whirled around to face him.

“Call me Master!” he screamed. “How many times have I not told you this before? I am your master!”

“Yes, master,” Siander said, wincing. “What is your wish, master?”

“It is time to set up the ritual,” Azerev snapped. “Today is the perfect day for it, with the king in full view at the spectacle. Everyone will witness the wrath of the Gods as he is struck down!”

Except they’ll soon find out it was the wrath of one lone, lunatic sorcerer, especially if he leaves Siander alive to tell the tale,
I thought, but with the gag around my mouth I couldn’t voice it. I wondered then whether Siander was bound as well, and figured that he must be, or he would never grovel and pander so to a half-elf.

I watched in mute helplessness as Siander quickly put down four low pedestals in a square. Azerev followed after him, watching him intently and issuing quiet instructions if the placement wasn’t exactly to his liking. The pedestals had shallow indentations in the top, and they covered the four corners of a square of metal strips set into the floor. I saw several more strips which created a pattern – two strips connected the opposite corners of the square, making a cross in the middle, and there were two triangles attached to opposite sides of the square, with big stone pillars at the tips. Siander carried over a fifth pedestal, slightly taller than the first four, which he placed in the middle of the square, right where the metal strips crossed each other. I didn’t notice the shackles dangling from the big pillars until Siander took hold of Shani, pulled her over to one of them and chained her to it, so that her arms were raised and wrapped around the stone and her body was pressed tightly against it. Then he did the same to me with the other pillar.

“I’ll be going after your precious boyfriend, you bitch,” he whispered in my ear as he locked my wrists in the shackles. “Don’t think that I won’t find him, don’t think that he’ll survive you long.”

I glared at him, wanting to tell him that Zash could kill him with one arm tied behind his back, that he wouldn’t even waste any time on a pathetic loser like him, but this too was prevented by the magical gag. The body ward was gone though, in order to allow me to walk, so I kicked out instead and grinned in satisfaction when my foot connected with his knee.

Siander cursed and raised his fist, but Azerev made a shooing motion at him. “Away with you now, I have no further need of you during this. Leave the room.”

My suspicions about his binding were as good as confirmed when he swiped at me, but still limped off and disappeared out the side-door. Then I turned my attention to Azerev, who had picked up the Heartstone diamond and placed it on the first pedestal.

“This isn’t magical, but it is so precious and unique that it will function just as well as a power source,” he said to the room in general. “The only alternative would have been the scale of a stone elemental, but they live too deep underground to be reached.”

At the second pedestal he cast a spell over it before carefully taking the bottle of dragon flame and pouring out the fire into the shallow bowl, where it sloshed around like water for a moment before settling and burning steadily. “Dragons,” he breathed. “The most magical creatures in existence. What else but magic could keep such bulk aloft, and have it breathe fire of such intensity? It was the only possible choice for this element.”

I sought Shani’s eyes, wondering why he was telling us all this, and although her eyes mirrored my question she gave a shrug. Azerev, meanwhile, cast another spell over the third pedestal, then gingerly removed the wind sprite feather from its wooden box and dropped it into the bowl. “I admire you for having caught a sprite,” he said. “Such speed, such agility. Again, the only possible choice for this element. No one before has ever truly seen one, do you know that? They never stay still long enough to observe.”

“Well aren’t I the lucky one then?” Shani sneered. “Next time you’re welcome to the little bastards. I only wish I could see them pinch and bite you to shreds.”

“Such venom,” Azerev murmured. “You still do not see the need for this?”

“Oh, just get on with it,” Shani said, and he was quiet when he poured the healing water into the bowl on the fourth pedestal. It received no spell, and I suspected that the other two spells had been small wards to contain the items.

For the fifth pedestal Azerev brought the dagger over and reverentially placed it on the top. “This is Sovander’s favourite dagger,” he said. “Rumour has it that he used it to kill his own father, when he got bored of waiting to inherit the throne.”

It seemed likely enough, but it hardly mattered to me. The ward had dropped from my mouth, and since I had nothing else to do I tried again to appeal to his saner side and said, “I still don’t know what you hope to achieve with this.”

“A better world,” he said, almost dreamily. He walked over to me and ran his fingers across my cheek until I pulled my head away and glared at him. He seemed not to notice but smiled at me gently. “You, young lady, should appreciate what benefit there would be in a better world, a world where our kind isn’t treated like vermin. A world where we are allowed to be anything we can be.”

“Well, your way will hardly do
me
any good, will it?” I countered.

“Ah, but does it not comfort you that your death will better the fate of so many? Your death, and yours,” he whirled to face my sister and gestured expansively, “will lead in a new era, an era of enlightenment, an era of benefit to our kind!”

“An era of heightened persecution, more like,” Shani snapped. “Spare me the proselytising. I’m here to save Mior, not to be converted to your crazy crew.”

Azerev stiffened, then strode over to her. “I am
not crazy!
” he screamed, his face a scant inch away from hers. Shani closed her eyes and leaned away from him, and for a few heartbeats he just stood there, panting heavily.

“I did not want to use unwilling victims, you know,” he eventually said, sounding calmer. “I was trying to find volunteers. But then they turned up, your precious lovers, and I realised how much more powerful my ritual would be if I used twins. It means I can perform it from here, rather than having to be close to the king.

“You’re all blind to the good this will bring, the hurts it will heal. Still, no matter. You have volunteered, and you will serve beautifully.” He ran a caressing hand over Shani’s hair which she tried to avoid like I had avoided his fingers.

“Mental strength from you, from your sorcerous mind,” he murmured. “Physical strength from your passionate sister, and both inexorably bound by blood. There is no stronger bond than that between identical twins. This ritual will be perfect.” Then he whirled around, so suddenly that we both startled, and raised his arms dramatically. “Be ready, my sacrifices, it’s time to start!” he shouted, then lowered his arms again slowly as he began an incantation.

When his hands hovered only just above the dagger a silvery glow appeared, surrounding it like an inverted bowl, and Azerev moved away to the corner pedestal that held the Heartstone. Once there he performed a similar action, though the incantation sounded different even to my untrained ear. The glow that appeared above the diamond was a luminescent green, giving the Heartstone a murky brown appearance.

Onward he moved, bringing up a bright red glow above the dragon flame, a golden yellow above the sprite feather and a bright cerulean blue above the water. Then he stepped back to the middle and began a new litany in a singsong voice, though the words remained unintelligible.

The glow increased, or the room became darker, I wasn’t sure. Then the colours started to swirl and rotate and move upwards and inwards, twining together like an ethereal rope above the pedestal that held the dagger. Azerev spread his arms towards me and Shani, and his chant changed, becoming more insistent.