The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2) (42 page)

Tiron rubbed at his jaw and stepped away. "Perhaps. But you heard of the oath the emperor swore. How would you convince him to recant it?"

"I don't know. I'll have to discuss that step with Ylisa. Soon."

Tiron grimaced. "The sooner the better. I thought at first the guards in the hall and below the balcony were to keep us in. Now I see they might genuinely be there to protect us."

Iskra nodded and stretched, a wave of exhaustion passing through her. "We need to be wise with our resources, including ourselves. I am going to bathe and rest. With luck, the emperor will summon us this evening to either meet or dine. If we can survive until then and find a moment to converse with Ylisa, we have a chance."

Tiron bowed. "I shall do everything in my power to ensure that, my lady."

Iskra smiled at him. She felt a sense of loss that events had prevented her from having even a moment alone with Tiron, to address his strange formality, his stiff propriety. Their eyes met, and she saw an awareness in their dark depths, a response. She smiled.

"I know, ser knight," she told him quietly. "It is why I chose you above all others to accompany me on this venture."

Tiron's head jerked back as if she'd slapped him. He stood smartly at attention then gave her a stiff bow. "Any knight of yours would do the same. Good evening, my lady." So saying, he turned and marched out onto the balcony.

Iskra stared after him. What had she said? Had she given offense? Perhaps she had misread him, had mistaken his loyalty for affection. Was she a fool to think he could forget his wife and son? The grief that had sustained him over the long years in that cell beneath Kyferin Castle?

Iskra retired to her chamber and closed the door gently. Now was not the time to divine the truth behind Tiron's coldness, but if he wished for formality then she could provide that in ample quantities. She turned to face the steaming bath and with an effort put all thought of Se Tiron from her mind. If given the chance, the emperor would see her this evening. She would not present herself as a determined adventurer but as the most elegant and poised of Sigean ladies. This was a battle she knew how to fight, and though her skills hadn't been used in decades, she had been raised from birth for just such a contest.

Iskra let her clothing slip from her shoulders and sighed as she stepped into the hot water. This contest was just beginning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Audsley took a deep breath and stepped to the edge of the ledge. The twin honeycomb walls extended back toward the airshaft's tunnel that lay before him, marsh-fire green and ghostly. The air was heavy and still. Aedelbert was sitting to one side, shaking his wings out nervously. Audsley didn't blame him. This was the height of foolishness. Who was he to go to war? Who was he to pick up the instruments of battle, infernal as they might be, and hunt down a demon in the depths of its own home?

Madness! But such were the times. He wished he could retreat back into the lab for a glass of honeyed milk and some biscuits, to think this over, perhaps read a little more of the manuals he had discovered, but alas, the time for indecision was long gone. Now was the time for fell-handed action.

"I go, Aedelbert." Audsley gazed out into the darkness. "I go in search, most likely, of my death. But this is the service I have sworn!"

Aedelbert canted his head to one side and chirped nervously.

"I know, I know, I must look a fool. But judge a book not by its gorgeous leather-bound cover, I've always said. Now, no more prevarications. There is an entire stonecloud to scour. Wish me luck."

Audsley reached up and lowered the goggles that had been sitting on his forehead over his eyes. They were bulky and covered the upper half of his face in a manner that made him feel almost claustrophobic; the polished black lenses were encased within a framework of thick metal wires and black leather, and their power was astounding.

Audsley blinked, and the darkness before him drained to gray. The depths became apparent, and he could see the thin strip of ground far below, where the two walls narrowed almost to touching.

A heavy presence in his mind stirred, coming to life, awareness filling its dark corpus as it noticed Audsley. The demon in the goggles. Audsley had been fascinated to discover that they were not all alike; some were lively and sharp, others ponderous, like an incipient landslide. He quickly dropped bars of light around the demon, encaged it completely and set it aside.

That done, he bent down and picked up the gauntlet. He did so carefully, wincing as he slipped his hand inside its bulky shape. The metal glove molded to his hand, and immediately the runes began to burn and smolder along its edge. Audsley gulped and raised his hand, palm extended into the void, and cried out the name of the rune.

Flame roared out in a terrifying gout, blank white in his vision, scalding his eyes and splitting the night, extending to a reach of ten yards before he clenched his fist and cut it off.

Enjoy my power
, whispered the second demon to enter his mind.
It is yours.

What worried Audsley was that the gauntlet's demon was no longer making any attempt to attack him, to take control of his mind. It had become biddable, pleased to be of service, a servility that Audsley trusted not at all. He dropped a cage of light around it as well, sensing the demon's amusement as he did so, and shoved it next to the first in the corner of his mind.

There is no need, but I understand your caution
, said the demon.
In time, you will find me your greatest ally. In time, you will learn to trust me above all others
.

Audsley didn't bother answering.

He'd never attempted what he was about to do next, had never pushed himself so far. Turning, he reached for his last tool, his final weapon. It was embedded at the helm of the platform: the black blade itself. He gripped it with his left hand and welcomed the presence trapped within its depths.

Where do you wish to go?

A third and final set of luminous bars formed around the third demon. Audsley took a moment to simply focus, to maintain his concentration. Within his mind now he visualized three distinct cages of light. He allowed the image to imprint itself on his consciousness. Could he maintain them while engaged with the world? He was about to find out.

He addressed the third demon.
Nowhere, yet. I claim you as mine. Release this platform.

There was a startled silence, and then Audsley gritted his jaw and pulled the blade free. It slid out reluctantly at first, then faster, till it slipped free smoothly at the last and Audsley staggered and almost fell.

He held the blade before him. Runes of fire burned down the sword's length, demonic twins to those that smoldered along the gauntlet's edge. He knew nothing about swordplay. He would be likely to cut off his own leg should he swing the wicked thing, but that was not his goal, not his purpose.

Fly
, he commanded the demon, and felt its power envelop him like a cocoon. His feet left the ledge as he rose into the air. Heart pounding, sweating liberally, he clutched at the sword like a drowning man might a branch. Aedelbert leaped into the air as well and began to circle him with powerful beats of his wings, clearly astounded.

A fierce joy arose within Audsley. This was the stuff of his childhood dreams. He gazed at the wonders that surrounded him, the impossibilities that he held, and gazed out over the edge and down at the distant ground. Did he dare? Grinning like a fool, terrified and exhilarated, he pointed the sword and flew out into nothingness.

It was like nothing he could have dreamed. He flew slowly, in fits and starts, recalling that as a child he'd grown adept at reading books while walking to classes or back home, navigating streets with his nose between pages, stepping adroitly over obstacles and climbing up stairs without looking. This felt similar. Each time the bars of light around a demon began to grow vague, he would turn his attention to it and snap the bars back into vivid clarity. His hope was that with time and practice this would become an autonomous process, but for now, during his virgin voyage, he wasn't taking any chances.

Aedelbert swooped past him, flew below, then came up on the other side, clearly enjoying himself tremendously. Audsley grinned again. The insanity of what he was doing kept broadsiding him. He was flying with his firecat – a dream come true.

"Now I know why you've always felt so superior!" he called out. "At long last!"

Aedelbert flew in a tight corkscrew, spinning as he tumbled down twenty yards, then flared his wings out to catch himself in a glide. Throat constricting, Audsley pointed the blade down and immediately dropped. His stomach lurched, his gorge rose, and he swung the blade back up, fighting back a scream. The bars of the cages nearly vanished, and he stopped flying, came to a hover, and established them once more. Breathing deeply, he hung in the void, terribly aware of the space beneath him.

All Noussians learned to swim before they could walk, diving off balconies into the surging waves, exploring the sunken rooms, leaping off the sides of boats. The ocean was as much their element as the white towers. And yet Audsley had always felt a sense of awe and fear at the hidden depths that lurked beneath the waves. One of his favorite pastimes had been to swim down and then simply drift, gazing into the blackness that hid who knew what monsters and wonders in its depths. Champion divers would swim and crawl down the outside of the towers, descending hundreds of feet into the gloom, but Audsley had never dared. That darkness had seemed sanctified by mystery, inviolate. He would gaze into the abyss, but never venture down.

Flying high above the floor below, he felt again that tightening of his stomach, that sense of being a speck of dust above the vastness of creation. It didn't matter that he could descend to the bottom now without fear. There was something still about the distances involved, the nature of flight and the magic of his ability to do so that imbued a sense of reverence in him... and fear. Pointing the sword at the far entrance tunnel, he resumed his flight. He would leave the corkscrew dives to Aedelbert.

He had spent hours pondering how best to hunt a demon. If that calcified statue had been the demon in some state of slumber, then it stood to reason that it had chosen the top floor as its place to rest for a reason. The visuals, perhaps? The sense of superiority that came from being where it had never been allowed before to rest? But something told Audsley that the demon would not return to that great chamber of windows and rushing streams, not while it still had prey to hunt. It was possible that the demon was shadowing him, that it had remained close to their group all this time, but that didn't seem likely to Audsley; these demons were sentient, intelligent and cruel. How interested could they be in their prey while they read books for hours or slept?

No, most likely the demon had indulged itself in other pastimes and had returned to terrorize their group when the fancy had seized it. Thus it was mostly likely out there somewhere in the remote vastness of Starkadr, engaged in demonic activity of some kind.

What did demons do with their free time? Audsley thought of asking the three demons trapped within his mind, but shied away from engaging them in conversation; familiarity led to a lessening of fear, which in turn would lead to disaster. He would ask them when he was out of alternatives.

Instead, he decided to visit the bowels of Starkadr, where he had read the demons were imprisoned, the engines that flew the stonecloud. If this demon had been trapped below for who knew how long before being freed, and if legions of its brothers were still trapped down there, then perhaps it would seek their company, or the company of its bitterness over how it had been treated by the Sin Casters. That, and Audsley was curious. Just what, exactly, was down there?

He flew into the tunnel, the moaning cry of the airshaft growing stronger, and with trepidation proceeded out into its great verticality. The winds buffeted him, smacked him from side to side, and he almost panicked, almost fled back into the safety of the passage. Instead he pointed the sword down, gripping it with the gauntlet as well now, and dropped. Down he flew, feet-first, eyes wide as he swayed and buoyed from side to side, past one great side tunnel and then another. The goggles revealed the details that had been hidden before: he saw that there were massive carved bands along the walls of the airshaft beside each tunnel entrance, something between a mural and language.