Chapter 29
I stared through weary eyes as the servant led me through one room after another, each more magnificent than the previous one. Rooms cloaked in ivory, marble, amber and even one coated in a thin layer of gold leaf. Rooms where blue tiled fountains splashed water that was as changing as the sky and glimmered softly as if it were underwater. Corridors as wide as any main street where I could have raced carriages down its marble tiled length. At the end of such a hallway, stood two huge ten foot high, eight foot wide hammered brass doors. The sculpted relief on the doors were wizards’ symbols and figures of demons. As I watched, the figures slowly moved to stare back at me. Several lifted their fingers, and others bared their teeth. Tails whipped and wings flapped, all in slow motion. The servant shuddered and backed away. His first words to me were, “you open it.”
Demons and doors that were alive did not scare me as much as disobedience or the collar. As my hand touched the metal push plates, a sort of electrical field extended from the doors, touched me briefly and the door swung open at the slightest touch. A face formed near mine and snarled in Valesch, “Lucky human.” I know it wasn’t me to whom he was referring but the servant. Had he touched the door, he would have died.
I stepped inside and the doors closed with a snap shutting out the view from behind. I walked forward into a master wizard’s workroom–a vast cavern of room that held everything imaginable for a sorcerer’s use. Or a torturer’s heaven. I sniffed the air, blood sacrifices had been done here.
I knew better than to wander. I remained just two steps inside the door’s swing should it open again. I had a suspicion that it could also smash itself against the wall, crushing an unwary entrant between its massive weight and the stone walls.
Huge silver candelabras lit the room but struggled against the heavy darkness. Hanging wagon wheels laden with candles hovered over worktables built of sturdy elder, oak and satiny hawthorn. An owl watched from atop a hutch pregnant with manuscripts and tomes.
I shifted from one foot to the other as the hairs on the back of my neck lifted. Out of the feeble light, a form approached me, its eyes gleaming red in the darkness. I relaxed when I saw that it was only a female–a young girl about thirteen with a dark collar on her throat. She wore a one-piece shift that did nothing to conceal her stick-thin prepubescent body. Her skin was an unhealthy gray and her face slack. Even her eyes showed no spark being filmy. At first, I thought she was blind until I looked at her through my other sense to realize she had no heartbeat, no blood and no heat to her. She was–not living. An animate corpse. Only then did I see that what I thought was a thin collar on her neck was a wound that had killed her.
“The master says to follow me,” she spoke in a flat voice devoid of any emotion. With a shudder, I obeyed staying one-step behind her with my hand on my sword.
We found him in the farthest corner at a table cleared of everything but a bowl of water and maps. Maps of Ehrenberg and the Emperor’s Palace.
“Ah, Reuven. Sit and keep yourself quiet while I conjure. Lithbet, this is Reuven. Reuven, Lithbet. She is the most perfect servant I have. She serves me in all I ask.”
“She’s dead,” I said flatly.
“Why, yes. She was killed as a sacrifice many years ago to power the Mist behind the Border Wall. That spell needed fresh young maidens’ blood so thousands of your kind were sacrificed to erect it. I was lucky enough to find her bones and reanimate them.”
“You’re a necromancer, too.”
“A wizard of many coats. I can raise demons and bind them into objects and a host of other magic actions. Things that were lost before our time began. Things that belonged to the world of the Ice City, Reyjadsk.”
“You know its name.”
“Yes, why shouldn’t I? I came from there,” he said carelessly.
“But you’re Elassai,” I said stupidly.
“Elassai, Newlander, Borderlander, Oldlander. We are all the same peoples, all descendants of the few that survived the Fracture. All that is different between them is a mindset, nothing more.”
“But the Elassai are all tall with purple eyes! Irises that are catlike, we look nothing like you!” I protested.
“Changes that occurred because of the limited gene pool. Not because they’re evolving into a separate species.” His eyes flashed. “Now, be quiet so I can work.”
I shut my mouth. He reached out, picked up the dead girl’s arm and sliced off a thin piece of her flesh, leaving a gaping wound that did not bleed. This, he burned over the bowl of water producing a thick cloud of noxious smoke that made me gag and brought a smile of derision from Connacher. I held my lips closed as a child did when told to zip it by his mother.
Images appeared in the bowl of water–scenes from a battle. I could see a vast army of the Emperor’s forces tackling the gate with everything they had only to fall back as the massive vault doors sat silent and implacable. Bolts of magic energies smashed against it next, only to bounce off and hit Blackfin’s ranks. Hundreds died from their own blasts yet they kept trying.
“This is your first task, Reuven. Open the gates and bring me the man called Janic Ricomb.”
“The Director of the City.”
“I did not give you leave to speak,” he said and I bowed my head.
“Master, I–”
“Reuven. Silence.” I shut my mouth and stepped backwards, my hands going to the collar. I trembled in anticipation of the pain yet he held it back from me. “You are lucky that I am in a forgiving mood, Reuven and that the energies of the collar cannot compete with those of the water scrying. You will not speak unless I allow it. Do you understand?” I looked up and nodded. “Answer.”
“Yes, master,” I said barely above a whisper.
“Lithbet will show you where to sleep. In the morning, you will take a condorla to the battlefield with a company of Rangers. You will take them inside the gate, find Ricbom and bring him to me.” Again, I nodded. He dismissed me to the care of the dead girl.