Authors: Carol Berg
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Fantasy fiction
The Soul Mirror (74 page)
I sank to the ground, hands over my ears.
So we stop it
, said Dante, and he drained the molten murder from my veins into the nireal, melting the silver sphere with its work only half done.
, said Dante, and he drained the molten murder from my veins into the nireal, melting the silver sphere with its work only half done.
When the screaming stopped, the Aspirant lay still—the shape of his body entirely wrong. I averted my eyes.
Hurry.
Dante’s voice was faint, or perhaps my inner hearing had been deafened by the screaming or perhaps it was the swelling mindstorm . . . fury . . . hunger . . . lust . . . hatred . . . anger. . . .
We must destroy the lens. But Portier first. I cannot maintain—Hurry!
Dante’s voice was faint, or perhaps my inner hearing had been deafened by the screaming or perhaps it was the swelling mindstorm . . . fury . . . hunger . . . lust . . . hatred . . . anger. . . .
We must destroy the lens. But Portier first. I cannot maintain—Hurry!
I needed no spur. I rolled Kajetan out of his cloak. Holding tight to the zahkri, I sped to the second circle, where my father lay slumped like a discarded rug. His heart was beating, faint and uneven, the wound in his breast seeping slowly. I wadded his ragged tunic over the wound and used the leather leash to tie it in place. Then I tucked Kajetan’s cloak around him, and with a kiss and a promise moved on to Portier. Angels’ grace that they had not laid the stone lid over him.
I splashed into the frigid water, ducked under, and wrenched away the chains that held him down. Once he was free of the chains, the water supported his upper body as I reached under his shoulders and lifted his face above the surface. Spirits, he was cold. The water might have flowed straight off a glacier. I searched in vain for breath or heartbeat.
“You are n-not dead,” I said through chattering teeth, tugging him toward the steps. “N-not dead. Not dead.” I sat on the steps, hauling him up one step, then backing up to the next, and hauling him up again. Eventually he was out of the water far enough that his sodden frame became too heavy to drag farther. Just as well. Another step and the exposed bone of his leg would scrape on the lowest step. Even if he was dead, I couldn’t do that to him.
The wind howled. One by one the flames atop the pillars winked out. Night had swallowed the floating lights.
I’ve got him
, I said through the raging mindstorm,
but I’ve no idea if he’s alive
.
I’ve got him
, I said through the raging mindstorm,
but I’ve no idea if he’s alive
.
Needs warmth. Make a fire. Use my staff.
I started laughing. Drenched, freezing, clinging to a corpse, for all I knew, and Dante was asking me to work magic again. I could scarcely pump breath in and out.
I’ll need you for that. Let me get you out of there.
I’ll need you for that. Let me get you out of there.
No time to play with locks. Just do as I say. Hurry . . .
The last was pleading . . . strained . . . as if he were holding up the roof of the sky.
The last was pleading . . . strained . . . as if he were holding up the roof of the sky.
Perhaps he was. Above my head an inky blackness rippled, shivered, and bulged as if someone pushed on it from the other side.
Babbling apologies, I left Portier and retraced my steps through the wind-blasted dark. Dante’s staff had been left near the principal’s pillar in the second circle. I felt my way, one pillar and then another and another. I tripped on a discarded urn and barely missed crashing my head on the pillar. But wood clattered on the stone just in front of my nose. I hesitated . . .
Don’t be afraid.
Patient. Controlled.
A handspan—a bit more than your handspan—from the top, you’ll find a carved triangle with a smooth depression in its center. Touch it . . .
Patient. Controlled.
A handspan—a bit more than your handspan—from the top, you’ll find a carved triangle with a smooth depression in its center. Touch it . . .
A cool, soft wave rippled through my center and through my finger into the stick. White flame popped from the staff. Only a touch was required to ignite the wood piled in the bonfire scar. And then it was a matter of hauling Duplais and my father close to it. With weeping apology, I used Kajetan’s cloak to drag them near and covered them both with its ragged remnants.
Now for you, my friend. And then poor Eugenie.
Wearily I climbed the steps to the bronze trapdoor and shoved the metal plate aside, exposing the grate. I should have done that first thing. At least now he could get the reflected light from the bonfire.
Take heart; it’s almost dawn.
Wearily I climbed the steps to the bronze trapdoor and shoved the metal plate aside, exposing the grate. I should have done that first thing. At least now he could get the reflected light from the bonfire.
Take heart; it’s almost dawn.
Not a nice dawn. A livid glow now illuminated the pillar circles. Not enough to push back the inky void of the rift. Not enough to show me Dante through the bronze grate.
I doubt it’s dawn you see. We’ve work yet to do before dealing with locks. They’re coming.
Eyes bleared with weariness and wind tears, head bulging with voices and cries I could not begin to hold back, I glanced up. My mouth dropped open. Though I believed myself incapable of another emotion, pity and horror filled my heart.
A gaping hollow in the night was jammed with colorless shapes . . . men, women, children surging forward, crowding against an unseen barrier. Emaciated, eye sockets of solid gray, yearning, starving . . .
They don’t belong here
, said Dante.
They’re but spectres . . . phantasms . . . not souls. I need you to help me close the way.
, said Dante.
They’re but spectres . . . phantasms . . . not souls. I need you to help me close the way.
How did he know? Was she there . . . my sister? I couldn’t just slam the door on her without a word.
Wait!
Wait!
My frozen fingers clasped her pendant still hung about my neck.
We won, Nel. We followed your clues and found the shitheels who hounded you to death
.
I’ve found Papa.
We won, Nel. We followed your clues and found the shitheels who hounded you to death
.
I’ve found Papa.
The little nireal flared a brilliant silver, an echo of the fiery sunset over the pinnacles, and stung my enveloping palm with the winter frost. The scent of dead leaves flooded my nostrils. Cold dry air . . . desolation . . . threaded my skin and bone.
Help us, Ani! Don’t leave us here. It’s all wrong. . . . Can you see? Trapped . . . souls leached away . . . Your friend can tell you.
Help us, Ani! Don’t leave us here. It’s all wrong. . . . Can you see? Trapped . . . souls leached away . . . Your friend can tell you.
“Nel?” I stared up at the surging mass of hunger. She was not one of them, but somewhere else . . . behind them . . . hidden.
Gods, hurry . . . can’t hold . . .
Dante’s plea was a knife in my temple.
Dante’s plea was a knife in my temple.
I had no choice. We had nothing left to help my sister, even if I knew how. This night had to end. I let go of the nireal, thinking of Roussel and his whims that had caused so much death and misery . . . and his ancestors and mine whose lust for knowledge had conspired to create this horror. Smoldering fury and hatred caught fire again, and I closed my eyes.
The shimmering structures of the Mondragon spells lay in ruins, the great spires and arcs collapsed or vanished altogether, the colors dulled. Only a great wheel remained, glittering like faceted glass, spinning. The lens, the opening to Ixtador.
Take it
, I said.
All I have . . .
, I said.
All I have . . .
And in a surge of destruction worthy of the world’s end, Dante harnessed the remnants of his cold, dark river and my fiery flood, and shattered the wheel, destroying the hole in the sky.
I sank to the stone, sobbing, as if we’d murdered Lianelle and all the others yet again.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. I needed to find the key to unlock Dante’s cell, and see to Eugenie and Portier and Papa . . .
“ANI. ARE YOU WOUNDED? SO much blood on you. Come, Ani. Wake up and tell me.”
The slap on my cheeks was going to get the soft-voiced man’s head removed. Half of me was freezing and half burning. All I wanted was to sleep, and he was shining blazing fire in my eyes and dribbling wine into my arid mouth.
“Ani, please. They need to ask you some questions.”
“We’ve settled with the villains in the caves,” said a different voice, filled with gravel. “Saved the king the trouble. Once he sees what was done to his men and that woman down there, he would have bricked up the lot of them and let them eat one another. If he ever gets a hint of what we found under that tree, he might do for us all. It’s good the chevalier got us here first.”
The king . . . the chevalier . . . I needed to wake up. I had important things to do. “I’m not injured,” I croaked.
I sat bolt upright, bumping heads with the man bent over me, the one who’d called me Ani. But when I glimpsed his grim face, every other thought left my muddled head. My hand flew to my mouth as my gaze encompassed the rangy young man, clean and unwounded, dressed in fine leathers, with a sword sheathed at his waist. I burst into tears.
“Spirits, Ani, what’s happened here?” His thin hand, marked with a zahkri and myriad scars, jerked away when I reached for it. “Don’t—”
But my arms flew around my brother. “I thought you were dead . . . that they’d bled you.”
He suffered my embrace, rigid as the stone column behind him until my arms dropped away.
“That was the intent. But your friends kept a watch on the Spindle. When I was dragged out, the chevalier came after us. Killed the lot of them. Convinced me he was your friend. He hid me at his house. Gave me a weapon and promised I’d get to use it. Swore not to tell anyone where I was until this was over. Or ever, if I wanted.”
The chevalier . . . my friends . . .
Anxious, I peered over his shoulder. A scarecrow huddled under a clean blanket beside the raging bonfire. As he slept, a mustached man, my brother’s gravel-voiced confidant, was dressing a wound on his arm. Beyond the two, a slender man with short, dark hair was propped up by one of Ianne’s pillars, looking very ill. At the sick man’s side knelt another swordsman, dressed all in black, tall and thin, hair like flax—the chevalier.
Never had I felt so depleted. Names rattled in my empty skull like dried peas. Anxiety tried to match them with bodies. Ambrose. Papa. Duplais. Captain de Santo. Ilario. Eugenie . . . Sweet angels! “The queen?”
“Naught but frightened and groggy, so says the chevalier. Here, lean back. The king wants to speak with you, Ani, to find out where the villains have got off to.”
I could scarce comprehend the question, much less an answer. “I need to be up. I’m not hurt.” An unnamed urgency drove me to the sick man. He ought to be dead. And others . . .
“Says she’s not hurt, lord,” said Ambrose, keeping me from tripping over my own feet. “But she won’t stay down.”
“Anne!” The flaxen-haired man beamed. “Saints’ grace to see you awake and whole, and basking in the embrace of this sturdy young
cousin
. That
unidentified man
there”—his widened eyes flicked to my sleeping father—“insists
he
will be perfectly well if he can but see the angel who holds him in her wings.”
cousin
. That
unidentified man
there”—his widened eyes flicked to my sleeping father—“insists
he
will be perfectly well if he can but see the angel who holds him in her wings.”
Even in my empty state, his warnings were clear.
I touched Papa in passing, but sank to my knees beside the other sick man. I needed him to tell me what was missing.
He was coughing and shivering. No wonder that, as he was soaking wet. Pain had ground terrible lines in his thin face. Some deeper hurt had left its mark as well. His eyes were closed.
“We could use a physician’s skills just now,” whispered the swordsman in black . . . Ilario. “Alas, you surely know we found poor Roussel, what was left of him. And we know who did for him. Found this.” He picked up a leather mask and tossed it back to the ground.
Memories of the night trickled back . . . the blood on my hands and gown . . . Kajetan . . . the leather-faced Aspirant . . . “No! Roussel
was
the Aspirant.”
was
the Aspirant.”
“Roussel!” I could not answer Ilario’s sputtering disbelief.
“Yes.” Why was it I wanted so much to weep? “We won. We stopped it.”
Though his chin rested heavy on his chest, the sick man’s hand—Duplais’ hand—reached for me.
I enfolded his thin, cold fingers. “You live,” I said softly.
He lifted his eyes, such an unfathomable gaze as to shiver my blood. “It would seem so.” A wan smile eased my disturbance. “Thanks to you and—”
Memory concussed head and heart. “Dante!”
“Where is the cursed villain?” called Ilario and de Santo, instantly alert.
But I was racing into the dark second circle and up the platform steps. I hammered on the trapdoor and wrenched at the recessed locking bolt.
“I’m here!” I called through the grate. “I passed out and they’ve come for us, and I’ve only just come out of it with a head like an empty wine vat. Portier lives. And my—the other victim lives . . . and, holy saints, why can I not get this open? Somebody help me! Tell me you’re all right.” I couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t feel him in the surging current of the aether.
It was Captain de Santo who located some kind of lever and snapped the bolt. I raced down the steep steps into the dank pit, Ambrose and Ilario on my heels, weapons drawn and calling for a light.
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