Call Down the Mighty Waters

By C.M.J. Wallace

Ten years have passed since the Battle of Arnaulden Keep, and once again Carvel is under attack by covert forces intent on her destruction. A coordinated strike’s fury and power point to a single conclusion: one of Torvia’s sorcerers is behind it. As the investigation continues, the search for the truth pits Carvel’s sorcerers against one another, and each successive revelation leads to an inevitable possibility: the most likely suspect is Andrin Sethuel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.M.J. Wallace
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780985914080

C.M.J. Wallace

C.M.J. Wallace is the author of the Rift series and is also a medical editor. She received her bachelor of science degree with honors from Michigan State University and, being a lover of English and not laboratory work, promptly started editing instead. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and is currently working on another novel in the series.The first four books of Rift are completed and available as e-books, and the first three are available in print through Amazon; This Strange Magic will soon follow in their footsteps.Sing the Midnight Stars, book 1 of the Rift series, is a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree.

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Prologue

The fist slammed into Levallion Pentra like a battering ram, a measured rocklike assiduousness insisting that he give his torturers what they wanted. It landed in the same place repeatedly as if the man who was inflicting the punishment had eagerly anticipated the rendezvous and practiced diligently to perfect his aim, a testament to his brutal craftsmanship. He outweighed his captive by six stone at a minimum and he used it to advantage as he landed clout after clout with calm assurance.

Blood trickled from Levallion’s split lip and ravaged face, as red as the rage that burned furnace-hot inside him. He raised his head slowly, and contempt hurled from him like a javelin. The fist answered his disdain so well that the chair the duke’s son was bound to scooted back several feet, uttering a screech while it slid across the floor as if voicing the one that its occupant suppressed. But when the bastard clamped Levallion’s tongue with ridged pincers, stretched it out as far as possible, and knocked his jaw shut so that his teeth bit deep into the tender organ, he cried out despite stomping down on the pain, despite the admonition that circled in his head like a vulture homing in on a feast of carrion: If you show weakness, you’re dead.

He tried to ignore the conviction that told him his demise might be a foregone conclusion.

I suggest you respond to my question, Lord Pentra. Regent Tobian Dellacroft’s easy, amiable manner was a jarring dissonance to the bestial exploits of the torturer, implying a congenial respectful discourse between colleagues. This reticence simply won’t do; you’re taxing my patience. And Errik’s.

Levallion spat a bloody gobbet that narrowly missed splattering onto his tormentor’s boot. Errik smiled amiably and drew back that uncompromising fist. Like immutable destiny, it hammered into Levallion, a relentless force as absolute as a pile driver. Nausea ballooned in his gullet and the resulting emesis burned his wounded tongue, gushing onto his legs in an acid spume and mingling there with droplets of blood from his torn face. He slumped against the leather cords that wrapped around his chest and trussed him to the chair, their counterparts biting into his ankles and wrists as they took his weight.

Errik buried his fingers in Levallion’s hair and wrenched his head upright, giving him the same affable smile.

He’ll never tire, Tobian remarked. Never. Whether he continues his endeavors, however, depends on what you say next. So I’ll ask you once more: What are you doing here?

Levallion looked straight at the regent and grinned, his bruised, swollen eyelids squeezing into slits. Sightseeing.

As punishment for the impertinence, Errik doled out punches whose pace was as rhythmic and methodical as clockwork until Tobian signed for him to stop. I must say that I admire your fortitude, Lord Pentra, but I’m in grave doubt of your good sense. I have the king’s blessing to use any manner of persuasion on you, and Errik is skilled and imaginative, as you’re beginning to realize. He gestured indolently at the impassive henchman, who, rising to the challenge, proceeded to demonstrate his novel conversance with his craft.

When it was over, Levallion’s vision was blurred. He groaned as the edges of a broken rib ground together. Blood ran toward his eye from a cut on his forehead and he shook it away, the motion igniting a headache that thudded as painfully as Errik’s fists had. His lungs grated when he breathed, and the sour smell of vomit melded with the throbbing of his wounds and head, nearly inducing another bout of emesis.

Tobian moved closer to Levallion, looking regretfully at the fine mosaic that decorated the opulent chamber’s floor, its intricate patterns sullied beneath the prisoner’s chair as a result of Errik’s unremitting ministrations. If I’d had any inkling of the stubbornness you’re capable of, I’d have chosen a less civilized venue for our chat. Ah, well. The servants will see to the cleaning. As priggishly as if he were addressing the king, he said, Perhaps you’d be amenable to answering a different query so that we can avoid any further unpleasantness; that is, until our inevitable return to the distasteful task of extracting a reply from you about what you’re doing here. Were you working alone?

Levallion stared up the windows as if he were deaf or the regent hadn’t spoken. He thought of a woman he’d loved, dead now for years, and he thought of friends who’d been killed in wars. Their shades were fitting companions here in this damnable chamber, its elegance an ill-fitting mask for the grim deeds carried out within it.

Tobian sighed and folded his arms across his chest, his posture that of a schoolmaster about to deliver a stern lecture to a recalcitrant pupil. Hasn’t it occurred to you that my men found you rather effortlessly, Lord Pentra?

Uncertainty made its first tentative appearance in Levallion’s considerations, and his gaze drifted down to Tobian’s like a leaf severing acquaintance with a tree at fall’s end, succumbing to the deep icy bite of impending winter. Tendrils of the suspicion he’d been harboring since his capture coiled around his confidence, growing swiftly and soon choking it. He’d been discovered as handily as if he were still a raw recruit in the Torvian Guard, not the captain of the elite Torvian Watch. As readily as if his captors had had foreknowledge of his whereabouts.

They’d been told.

The regent didn’t know about the rest of Levallion’s forces, despite what he might have surmised; his adamant resolve to extort evidence of their existence was proof of that. They hadn’t been near when their captain had been ambushed because they’d been mounting a reconnaissance by order of the only other man who’d been captured on this mission, the only one who could have betrayed Levallion.

Andrin Sethuel.

Chapter 1

Several Months Earlier

The conspirators had planned it for two years, each step as skillfully executed as a pas de deux performed by dancers long accustomed to the choreography. They’d begun as soon as they were certain that what they sought lay in Carvel, in Torvia, and they’d left nothing to chance: not the ones chosen to carry out their goals, not the night they’d designated to birth it in blood and pain.

And not the wizard who would help bring their plans to fruition.

In a further touch of irony, the explosive powders they were going to use had been created by a Torvian, a warrior who had been a spy in Mistrin for nearly twenty years. He’d not kept the secret of his novel weaponry long; war in all its forms was an explorer, an avid conqueror ever greedy for new and fertile ground, thirsty for new blood. Powders in similar formulations were soon being made in other parts of the country. And the world.

But now the powder had come home again to do the unimaginable: to turn against its own creators.

An hour’s fervid work saw the thing done. They looked at their timepieces, synchronized earlier that night by spell work to defeat the distances between their targets. Everything else should be in place now, set to perfect the devastation simultaneously.

The cloaked and hooded figures made one last check of their flawless toil and, satisfied with its excellence, quit the building and dissolved into the still summer twilight like a breeze in the night, unremarked and unseen.

All but one.

He waited, listened. The cantrip he spoke filled the air like a rush of birds’ wings, simple, elegant, and easily accomplished. But at its core was raw chaos.

An errant draft through the open window swept across the wizard and ruffled his long black hair. He shook it back, wishing he’d braided it as he usually did. Then he mouthed another enchantment. At its quiet suggestion of release, he too vanished, leaving the night as empty as if the dark arms of the evening wind had never caressed him.

Much later, in the quiet reaches of the deserted chamber, a wisp of light as green as poison uncoiled slowly like a viper roused to anger. It sought an escape from its prison of metal and powder and found none. The luminance redoubled its sinuous efforts, the puissance of the spell increasing in direct proportion to the verdancy’s ceaseless searching. Again and again it tested its confines, each foray goading the enchantment into renewed fervor, as its maker had intended. And at last, finding no other liberation, the cantrip flowed across the powder in unknowing obedience to its architect to compress and liquefy the substance. The glowing pool slumped to the bottom of the iron sphere like molten steel defeated by heat. Changed by it.

Strengthened by it.

And then the wizard’s engine of desolation subsided into deceptive quiescence, poised to leap outward with the destructive force of a hurricane.

Torvia’s fate was sealed.

• • •

At the end of a long crooked cul-de-sac as dark as if twilight had descended upon it loomed a trio of huge, roofless, four-story buildings yoked by virtue of a shared end wall each. Their windows and all but one thick door in the central edifice were bricked over. It was locked, and its handle had long since departed, leaving only a rusting spindle in its wake. Wild grapevines crept in a tangled mass over the structures and bound them together in a green net of leaves and tendrils. The few bricks the grapes hadn’t overrun sported dense mats of springy moss like old men’s beards.

Mina the Mouse spoke a short enchantment and the door yielded to her, opening onto an anomaly that no one in the Beggars’ Retreat—no one else at all, in fact—was aware of: the wizard’s garden. She’d taken over the vacant buildings under a pseudonym and begun the cultivating almost two years ago.

Soon after Selisse Reeviner had come to Arnaulden Keep.

So much had changed in the years since the Rondural had called Mina to the Hall of Bakaythus and shown Andrin that she was a wizard. As she’d matured, so had her friendship with Benj Slatar, gradually becoming something more, something significant, without either of them realizing it. But the transformation began to reveal itself in the way he talked to her, the provocative undertone of his gentle teasing, the way his touch became hesitant and hopeful.

The way he looked at her.

Then, the night of her sixteenth birthday, instead of kissing her cheek as he always had on such occasions, he’d kissed her lips. He’d brushed them so softly, the gossamer touch asking a question that she’d answered unequivocally with kisses of her own. They’d sat on the battlement above the massive bronze gate of Arnaulden Keep and talked the whole night, hands and hearts entwining, and as naturally as moonset unfolds into sunrise a deeper relationship had dawned, revealing boundless horizons opening before them like the unexplored reaches of a far and beckoning country.

The next day another wizard had come to the keep: Selisse. Talented, alluring Selisse, the first enchanter they’d encountered since Valicia Caleth and Pel Darba had sought out Andrin and been killed by the Malefica on that terrible night years ago.

Her arrival had brought about many changes. She’d changed Andrin’s growing belief that there would be no more wizards, that he and his apprentices were the only ones. She’d changed the way they studied and performed their enchantments. She’d changed the dynamics of the magic among the sorcerers of the wizards’ haven.

And she’d changed Benj.

Mina had started her garden as a pale replacement of the fledgling love whose wings had been clipped so precipitately, imbuing the diminutive park with the fertile richness of her sorrow as if its green and thriving vibrancy could supplant the loss she mourned. Sometimes she used spell work to coax the flora and sculptures into being, sometimes not, depending on the disposition of her spirit. The result was always beautiful.

The centerpiece of her refuge was a reflecting pool, a long rectangle that echoed the shape of the garden proper. In honor of the armillary sphere at Seastrom Hold that had fascinated her when she was a child, Mina had installed a large brass replica at the center of the pond. Water lilies in bright profusion lifted their pads to the astronomical instrument and their heads to the cloudless sky, and tall plants that edged the pool dipped their roots tentatively into its crystalline depths as if thinking of wading there. A grassy path that invited bare feet to sink into it meandered through the grounds, skirting fruit trees flanked by flowering shrubs, bronze statuary of woodland creatures that seemed to prance through the sunny clearings or peek out shyly from dappled groves, and an enormous golden eagle perched atop a hillock that afforded him a commanding view of his domain.

An arching elm shaded the south side of the garden, and Mina settled under it, slouching against its trunk and watching an unwary rat foraging between the eagle’s talons. The tawny bird’s cruel claws made her think of Selisse. And the rat made her think of Benj. The comparison evoked an acerbic smile that died like a plant blighted by frost at the waning of the year.

Somehow it was easier to let her contemplations drift to the two wizards here in this peaceful emerald sanctuary that was a solace for her heart and a balm for her soul. Easier to bear. Easier to let go.

Or try to at any rate.

There hadn’t been anyone else for her since the ephemeral night with Benj. And there hadn’t been anyone else for him but Selisse. The woman’s hold on him was absolute and unyielding, permanent. Like death. Mina laughed bitterly at the thought, but tears underlay the brief sound and swiftly drowned it. He’d promised her once that he would always come back, and yet he hadn’t. Her grief was futile, as always, and every bit as sharp as it had been at the beginning.

Today, though, it galled her like shoes that were too tight, outgrown but stubbornly clung to because their cost had been high. Impatient with herself, she huffed in annoyance.

Enough of this, Mina. Enough.

She stood, slapped the leaves and grass from her leggings, and lifted her face to the sun, absorbing it with her head back and her arms out as if she were part of the greenery, preparing to awaken to a new day. Its heat infused her, burning away her bleak reflections like a torch chasing the darkness from a murky room. When at length its enveloping touch drew a smile from her, she was ready.

The wizard left the garden and her musings behind and ambled through the Retreat until late afternoon. Then, hungry and judging herself fit for company, she aimed for the Alchemists’ Gate and the delorim’s quarter, where an altogether different type of sanctuary awaited her: the warm acceptance of unstinting friendship.

The iron gate was the only break in the expanse of the high, blank, white wall of the Alchemists’ Quarter. Mina put her hand over the dark-blue indentation by the gatepost on the right and spoke a cantrip, the name that the delorim had given to Andrin when he was a child: de Na’aluian.

As the gate swung shut behind her, two delorim greeted her with cheerful waves and one of them wished her a pleasant birthday. Several more called to her as she strolled deeper into the quarter. The wizard was a familiar sight here; she visited often to help Aleph Delorim Larisse de Norville and her Second, Sabrin de Toth, with decoctions and kelder slaking or to consult them about the practical side of wizardry, the spell-craft of potion making.

But mainly she came to see Tadwin de Landren, one of Larisse’s apprentices. He was a year older than Mina, and they’d been comrades since they were small and had discovered that they had the gift of effortlessly unearthing plenty of trouble, an aptitude they’d whetted diligently, to Larisse’s great consternation.

And since Benj’s defection, Tadwin had become her best friend.

She threaded her way through the narrow dirt streets to the Aleph’s house, distinguishable from those abutting it only because of the bright green sigil on its door. Like all the other dwellings in the Alchemists’ Quarter, it was a two-story rectangle of sand-colored brick and tall slender windows, with a pair of chimneys flanking the front and back like bookends, a crenellated flat roof, and a wing at the rear that connected the laboratory to the living space.

When Andrin had first taken her there, he’d told her that in aggregate the delorim’s houses looked like a huge castle whose hallways—the roads of the quarter—were open to the sky. She’d thought so too and fallen in love with it at once.

Mina touched the sigil and said Tadwin’s name. Light steps hurried to the door, and when the tall delorim flung it open the wizard was reminded of clear autumn days replete with warm, strong sunlight. His eyes and hair were brown, both with golden hints, and his skin was the color of a ripe acorn, deeply tanned from his love of the outdoors and his relentless pursuit of novel decoction ingredients from the meadows and woods of Carvel.

Mina! He picked her up, whirled her around, and set her on her feet. Bussing her right hand and then her left, he bestowed an extra caress on the pinkie that had been abbreviated in a childhood knife fight. She laughed as he buried his hands in her hair to trap her and kissed her cheeks and nose in quick succession, repeating the pattern and making loud, rude sucking sounds whenever his lips landed on her. Happy birthday, Mouse. As he pulled her to the kitchen, he prattled about the unusual mushrooms he’d found that day in Arnaulden Forest near Seastrom Hold, launching into a detailed description of their amazing color and texture and what he thought he might be able to do with them.

When they entered the room, Larisse looked up from the large cake she’d just frosted, smiled at them, and remarked to her apprentice, Sometimes it’s hard to believe that you were mute for nearly half a year when you were a child, dearest, or that you used to be shy. I think you’ve been making up for both ever since.

Tadwin laughed and didn’t deny it.

Mina kissed Larisse’s vastly wrinkled brow and sat at the table. That cake looks fabulous. Did you bake it?

The tiny, ugly woman beamed. Indeed I did, but Tadwin made the frosting with his own little hands. It’s for you, darling. We were going to surprise you but you showed up early.

Ah, but this way I get to lick the bowl. Mina laughed when Tadwin plunked said container down in front of her, nudging the handle of the mixing spoon toward her, lifting one eyebrow, and smiling wickedly as if enticing her to indulge in forbidden delights. She tasted the frosting and said, It would be a crime to keep something this good to myself. Get another spoon.

Tadwin obliged. He sat next to Mina, propping his feet on the edge of her chair while he scooped some of the frosting out of the bowl. Licking the glob off the spoon in a fell swoop, he said thickly, Are they doing anything at Arnaulden Keep tonight for your birthday?

Andrin and Cloelle took me to the Torvian Alehouse yesterday for dinner because they’re going out of town today.

Uh-huh. Did he even remember?

You can say his name, Tadwin. And I doubt that Benj remembered, so I’m all yours.

Suits me, the delorim said with a wink.

Larisse had cooked a birthday feast whose highlights were roasted capon, wild rice with mushrooms in a mild pepper gravy, asparagus tips, and chewy brown bread as dense as a roast. Tadwin stole a pinch of the heavy loaf and the Aleph lightly slapped his hand. Shame on you. What will our guest think?

That I’m starving and it was either the bread or a chunk of her arm. She should thank me.

Mina cackled and dug out a morsel for herself. Mmm. If the bread tastes this good, I can’t wait to try everything else.

Then dig in, both of you, Larisse urged with a smile.

Did I tell you Bess Preva’s been trying to recruit me as a liaison to the rat runners? Mina sliced a healthy piece off the loaf and handed it to the Aleph.

She still isn’t having any luck with them? Tadwin asked. And I can see why she’d ask you; you practically live in the Beggars’ Retreat.

We never trusted anyone but Andrin. Mina said it with a hint of irritation as if the reasons should have been obvious, and she said it disdainfully as if she were still a runner and had no tolerance for outsiders’ ignorance.

Tadwin smiled to himself.

The wizard slathered butter on her bread, tore a hunk of meat from the large piece she’d put on her plate, wrapped it in the slice, and took a giant bite. A bit unintelligibly, she continued, He was one of us, or as good as. Most of us felt that way. Bess is just another Aleph Sinistranus, not to be depended on or confided in. That won’t change. After a noisy gulp that disposed of the food, she forked a mound of rice into her mouth, followed immediately by a few asparagus heads that she’d dipped into a rich sauce Larisse had made for the vegetable. Without delay, she skewered a piece of baked fish and scooped up some mashed potatoes with it, shoveled it in with the rest, and started the laborious task of trying to chew the incredible mouthful.

Tadwin shook his head and laughed. I never get used to watching you eat, Mina. If anyone ever doubted that you were a rat runner, just one meal with you would clinch the dispute.

She would have stuck her tongue out at him, but there was little chance that the strained organ could move, much less unearth itself from the mass that lay atop it.

Are you going to take her up on the offer, dear? Larisse asked, licking her fingers after making an expedition into the asparagus and sauce.

I think I’ll have to. She’ll never leave me alone otherwise, Mina managed to say once she’d worked through the implausible mouthful of food.

Larisse stopped eating and stared at the table, one hand fluttering to her chest and the other grasping at the tablecloth.

Tadwin frowned at her. Are you all right?

The Aleph’s smile was as tight as a bud in the deep of the winter. Relaxing her grip painstakingly, she said, Quite. I swallowed wrong, that’s all, and it made my chest ache.

Her apprentice gave her a hard look but didn’t press her, and they finished the meal without another word about it.

After they’d made decent inroads on the cake, Larisse announced, I have some errands to run; I need bottles and I’m running out of paper cones. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to get another pestle for the small mortar. It’s cracked.

I’ll go, Larisse, Tadwin said.

He started to get up, but the old delorim said, No, dear, you stay here with Mina. It would be rude to abandon her on her birthday. Besides, it’s a beautiful evening and I’ll enjoy the walk. She took her cloak from a peg and fastened it as proof against the evening chill.

Are you sure?

Positive. I’ll be back in an hour or two. Have fun.

When he and Mina had set the kitchen back in order, Tadwin said, How about going up to the rooftop to watch the stars come out?

Mina smiled. Just as long as no acrobatics are involved. Leaping from building to close-set building in the Alchemists’ Quarter had been one of their favorite games when they were children.

None, I promise. We’ll be as staid and sedate as a couple of old fogies. But first… With a flourish, he produced a small box that bore the seal of the Aleph Stonemage, a representation of the bracelet Tawn a’Rifette used to imbue kelders and turbals with power. The tiny wafer depicted the bangle in meticulous detail: a series of turquoise cabochons surrounded by thin circles of onyx and gold, with one gemless hollow. The only deviation from the actual piece of jewelry was that the empty depression on the box was engraved with a single word: Stones. It was all the advertising the Aleph ever needed to do.

Mina pecked Tadwin’s cheek. Thanks, Tad.

Don’t thank me yet. Open it first and see whether you like it.

I’m bound to like it just because you gave it to me, she assured him mischievously as she removed the lid. Just name once when I snubbed anything you— The wizard inhaled softly and reached into the box to run her fingers across what lay on a bed of cotton in the center of the package. From a thin gold chain was suspended an exquisitely rendered miniature of the Rondural, made of jet with veins of pearl inlay. Oh, wow.

I tried to think of what you love the most and came up with the Rondural. You’ve been buddies with it since you were little, so I figured I couldn’t miss. Here, I’ll fasten that for you. The delorim spun her and pushed her hair aside, took the necklace from her and secured its clasp, and tugged her around to face him. "Now you can thank me."

Mina reached up and cupped his cheek. What a perfect gift, Tad. Pulling his head down, she bussed his forehead and held his face as she looked at him. But instead of letting him go, she pressed her lips gently to his and drew back to survey him once more. And she kissed him yet again before she released him, a warm, lingering, undemanding expression of gratitude.

Hmm. Maybe I should give you matching earrings too, he said lightly, but his banter directly opposed his incisive gaze.

She laughed. Sorry. I really like my present.

I can tell.

Let’s go for a walk instead of stargazing, Mina suggested. Coyly she added, It’ll give me a chance to show off my new necklace.

All right, Mouse. I’ll leave a note for Larisse.

They held hands while they walked, something they’d done since they were small, and headed nowhere in particular. Their aimless ramble took them through the Slavers’ Quarter and down its tree-lined avenues boasting elegant, extravagant mansions ablaze with light as if soirees were in progress; past the Royal Quarter and its somber stone residences, where many of the courtiers and members of the Aleph Congress lived; and eventually into the Merchants’ Quarter, whose denizens were doing a lively business in the cool of the early evening.

Can I say something, Mina? They were in the dusky light between lampposts and his face was shadowed and somber.

Since when have you ever had to ask whether you could say something? The problem is getting you to be quiet, she said, bumping him playfully.

Since I decided to say it about Benj.

Mina dropped Tadwin’s hand and stopped in the middle of the crowded sidewalk to stare at him, nearly tripping a man heavily laden with a tall pile of parcels that all but blocked his view. He stumbled back, directed a huffy remark at the wizard, and veered around her, his stack of goods listing like a breached ship about to go under.

She was tempted to tell the delorim to mind his own business, tempted to walk away. But this was Tadwin, her friend. And she did need to talk about it. She hadn’t said a word to anyone, although she didn’t delude herself into thinking that no one was aware of how she felt about Benj; Andrin almost certainly knew. Maybe discussing it would lead to the catharsis that had so far eluded her. So she took his hand and they resumed their leisurely journey. Striving for a degree of insouciance, she remarked, It must be important if you’d risk a wizard’s wrath, so you’d better go ahead and say it.

This time it was Tadwin who stopped, making her look at him before he spoke. They paused in front of a large stone building the Guard commonly used for drills. Tonight Torvian Guard were inside, along with a number of Home Guard, and the ringing clash of their swords through an open window underscored Tadwin’s sure pronouncement like a call to arms. Benj is a fool. He said it as if he’d suffered each wound the wizard had inflicted on Mina, as if he’d undergone each humiliation. As if he knew her heart and were its guardian. And he said it with the force of utter conviction.

The Guard’s practice impinged a little too enthusiastically, and Tadwin guided Mina to the other side of the broad avenue.

She pretended interest in the wares on a haberdasher’s sidewalk display rack so she wouldn’t have to look at him, studiously fingering a cloak’s rich fabric while she presented her explanation as if it were a justification of the indefensible. Selisse seduced him.

As I said: a fool.

The edifice where the Guard were conducting their exercises exploded with a crump and a blast of overpressure that flattened its facade. Stones flew outward like startled birds and hurtled through adjacent buildings or over their roofs to crash into the street beyond, deadly missiles that chopped several passersby to the ground and bludgeoned a team of workhorses whose death screams rent the air. The shops on either side of the target structure fragmented and caved in, throwing choking clouds of dust and debris upward, and the roof blew off in a unified slab and disintegrated in the renewed blasts that came in quick succession like a stutter of determined trebuchet fire against a doomed city gate.

In the brief silence that blanketed the aftermath of the destruction, glass shards fell like malign hail, landing with a delicate tinkling grossly at odds with the thunderous fists of sound that had preceded it, and the crackling of ravenous flames predicted the demise of many a building that had escaped the detonations. Then the wails of the injured and the cries of the bereft rose as eerily as specters from unquiet graves and mingled in a disconsolate chorus, an inharmonious song of loss.

Tadwin lay draped across the sill of the display window, blood trailing in crooked lines from his mouth and nose like a map of the outrage that had been perpetrated against him. Mina looked vaguely at the delorim without marking him, her gaze drifting past his inert form as her vision faded. The last thing she saw through the acrid pall of smoke was a Guard’s disembodied arm lying on a pile of rubble, the hand still clutching a sword as if in defiance of the egregious act that had ripped the man limb from limb and torn Torvia from her peaceful innocence.

• • •

Someone started in on another lusty, raucous tune, and soon the Tesseroth Guard’s mess hall rang with it, verse after bawdy verse. The bardelains and sinistranus were a little freer tonight, a little less inclined to watch what they said and did. The Aleph and Second Sinistranus had taken a select force to carry out some king’s business, and the remaining Guard felt like naughty children who’d escaped the watchful eye of their schoolmasters.

Have we worked up a thirst yet? a young woman yelled as the last off-key notes ended in clapping and laughter. Cheers of affirmation said that they had. Then uncork your ale, pour out a dram, and we’ll drink to the health of our Aleph and Second.

The small bottles of beer had been delivered that morning with a note from Bess Preva that lauded the work of her Guard and charged them to toast the success of the mission. Her men and women intended to comply strictly with that instruction.

A flurry of small popping noises induced another bout of mirth, and the Guard filled their glasses with the dark, rich brew. They raised them more or less in unison, and after a beat of silence, a soldier called, To Aleph Preva.

May she go on many more quests and issue similar stern orders, another Guard quipped, to more hilarity.

Hear, hear!

They drank deeply.

A Guard coughed as if he’d swallowed wrong, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and looked in disbelief at the blood smeared on it. Then he collapsed and sprawled onto the table, knocking his glass and plate to the floor.

Hacking and coughing resounded as each Guard met the same fate, and within minutes the mess hall was a charnel house.

• • •

Aleph Sinistranus Bess Preva held up one clenched fist to signal her Tesseroth Guard to halt while she examined the narrow trail that sliced through the Labissian Pass. The only sounds besides the wind through the desolate access were the snorting and blowing of the restless horses and the creak of tack. She’d hand picked the century of Guard who waited at her back, and she was confident that they were more than enough to put down the rogue Malefica, who were preying on people as they had done before. Her Second, Markel Haywold, had received word about the foul creatures from a caravan of Ardualan merchants who’d survived an attack by these thieves of the quintessence, these stealers of the very soul.

Bess would have preferred more daylight for the job and longer to prepare, but the message had also said that a large cavalcade of traders would reach the pass within the week, and there was no way to warn them. She and her Tesseroths had ridden hard for the mountain cut as soon as they’d provisioned their saddlebags. But despite their haste, they’d gained their objective a mere half day before the merchant convoy was slated to enter the south end of the Labissian Pass. Time had run out.

Markel let his horse sidle closer to hers. There’s not a lot of room in there. Should we go in single file or by pairs?

Bess weighed the sparse options. Moving in singly would give her forces more room to fight, which conferred a measure of security, but paired combatants often were more effective, an intrinsic protection. The choice was essentially made for her, however, because the Malefica tended to group when they assaulted their victims: safety lay in numbers. Two by two. Take the rear, Markel. If the vanguard and rear guard are split by the Malefica, I’ll need you to captain the latter. The separation of Aleph and Second into twain leadership was a classic defensive tactic that had always served the Guard well when the terrain threatened a division of forces.

Aleph Sinistranus. Markel touched his forehead in salute and rode down the line to take his place with his detachment.

At another signal from Bess, the Guard drew their swords and started cautiously into the gorge. Presently, they approached the depths of the canyon. Here the evening shadows had already lengthened into sinister shapes that skulked near the mouths of the caves the Malefica reportedly inhabited once more. The caverns riddled the immense stone walls, and their mouths were as dark as the hollow orbs of skulls, shrouded in twilit gloom. It was impossible to see very far into the murky recesses.

Bess signed the column to a standstill. The nervous Guard darted anxious glances toward the caverns and one another, and more than one high-strung warhorse pranced and hauled against the reins.

A rumbling began, subliminal and visceral, as oppressive as a storm gathering in the distance. As its volume swelled and the ground started to quake, horses voiced their burgeoning fear with strident neighs that caromed through the defile, and their riders girded to meet the threat while they strained to catch a glimpse of it emerging from the dimness of the caves.

But the caverns were quite empty. The danger crouched above.

The first intimation of it was a sifting of grit that covered the Tesseroths like fine snow. Pebbles rained down, smacking into a few of the soldiers and pattering onto the trail, a presage of what was to come. And then rocks began to drop in earnest as if they’d been peremptorily summoned by an impatient master. Bess screamed an order and the Guard wheeled, lashing their mounts to urgent speed.

But they were too late.

High above the fleeing Torvians, the walls of the Labissian Pass shuddered and groaned, rippling as they broke apart like calving icebergs. Monstrous chunks plunged earthward in lethal masses that hammered into the ground with a roar that shook the canyon, and vast gouts of dust billowed upward in answer. The stones cracked and rocked as they settled on the floor of the gorge, obliterating the track, the cave entrances, all that had lain at the base of the defile.

And everyone who had been within it.

• • •

King Danielen Rothdragon handed the message to Andrin. I know the seal’s right. Can you tell anything else about it?

The wizard examined the wax stamp of the Aleph Sinistranus and read the short letter, recognizing Bess’s tidy handwriting from her days as his subordinate. The Aleph seems to have written this, Danni, he said, directing a spell into the parchment, and there’s no sign of magic on it. I think it’s genuine, but that doesn’t mean she knew about the poison; someone could have urged her to send it and tampered with the beer after she ordered it. Maybe one of you can discern the remnants of a cantrip. He gave the scroll to Cloelle.

The Malefica sniffed it tentatively as if about to taste it and passed it down the table. No, nothing.

The king had convened an immediate council of his wizards and astromancers, as well as the Malefica, after he’d received the horrendous tidings in quick succession late the previous night. Runners had delivered the news about the Guard at Tesseroth and the disaster in the Merchants’ Quarter, and an obsidian darter had arrived with a rapidly scribbled tale from a detail of Torvian Guard on roving duty who’d heard the catastrophe at the Labissian Pass and gone to investigate. Danni had ridden to the quarter and Tesseroth to see the carnage firsthand. And he still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

How many did we lose? Prince Coridan Rothdragon asked.

The count for those poisoned in the mess hall stands at about eighty, Andrin said, and there were a hundred with the Aleph Sinistranus, so close to a quarter of the entire Tesseroth Guard were killed. The worst loss in terms of sheer numbers was in the Merchants’ Quarter because some Home Guard were drilling with the Torvian Guard, which is unusual. About a tenth of the Torvian were killed, two hundred fifty or so, and an unknown number of Home. No fewer than fifty, probably. As far as we know, no Bakaythus Guard were killed.

So the attacks might not have been against all the Guard in general? Kurgin Veshred asked.

I’d say they were definitely against every branch of the Guard, Selisse replied to the astromancer. There aren’t that many Bakaythus in the first place; maybe they weren’t important to whoever did this. Or maybe whoever did it isn’t done. Then again, what happened to Bess Preva and the others could have been an accident.

I agree that this was aimed against each division of the Guard despite that the Bakaythus Guard remained unscathed, Andrin said, but I’m sure we’ll find that the collapse at the Labissian Pass was no mishap.

Cloelle, do you think the Maleficus was involved at the gorge? Danni asked.

Abaddon slaughtering Tesseroth Guard? I doubt it, particularly not now that the existence of the Malefica is not as occult as it was a decade ago; he wouldn’t want the notoriety. If those deaths really were orchestrated by Malefica, it was the rebels. The Maleficus would never ally with them. What purpose would it serve, in any event? He has no use for the doings of humans, no need for conquest or for what men regard as power. I truly don’t think the rogue Malefica would do this either, though. It’s not their way, and they’d be killing the source of the quintessence. Again, what purpose would it serve?

Benj gave Cloelle a sidelong look and remarked, It might be wise to check.

The Malefica smiled serenely at him. Undoubtedly. To Danni she said, I’ll do it myself if you like.

Thanks. If anything’s afoot in Acheron, we’ll need as much warning as we can get. And every bit of your help, Cloelle.

Two servants brought in large trays of pastries, rolls, jam and butter, and tea, and talk ceased until they left the chamber. The king gestured at the food. It’s going to be a long day. Eat while you can.

Ynala Alazeth took a pastry. On our way to Westinell tonight, Kurgin and I heard a rumor that some of the Tesseroth Guard as part of a training exercise were investigating staged crimes in the Merchants’ Quarter near the building that exploded, so more of them might have been killed than we thought. The astromancer bit into the food and added, That’s an easy claim to test, I suppose: Muster the Guard and do a roll call.

Andrin toyed with his teacup and looked at the steaming liquid inside it as if answers floated there, and he responded from his long experience as Aleph Sinistranus. It may not be that simple. Sometimes assignments are changed at the last minute. Bardelains and sinistranus switch tasks with others if they have a good reason, and they need only verbal permission from a superior to do so. Guard may have taken ill and not be where they were expected to be. Any number of things such as that. There are—were—about eight hundred Tesseroths, and there are thousands of Torvian and Home Guard. Most likely, it’ll be weeks before the actual death toll is certain.

What about Mistrin? Benj asked. Could they be behind it?

I spoke with Captain Tayore right after I heard the news last night, Cor said. We discussed that very scenario, and he denied hearing anything that would lead him to that conclusion. And Andrin told me the same thing before the rest of you got here.

Danni sipped his tea. We’ve been at peace with the Mistrins for a decade, been trading with them. Carvellian coin has greatly enriched the emperor’s coffers, and he’d be unwise to throw that away no matter his agenda; he’d surely see the imprudence of renewing hostilities. It’s oxymoronic: it takes money to wage a war from across an ocean, and he’d be cutting off a prime source of capital.

This doesn’t have the flavor of war, not in the traditional sense, anyway, Andrin said. Aside from the obvious fact that there are no clear combatants, something’s off. There’s a sneaking, cowardly quality to it, and the violence of the attacks doesn’t change that. It’s almost as if someone wants a war without actually being engaged in it.

"If the events at the Labissian Pass were part of it, Selisse reiterated. How could anyone have done that, bring down the walls of the pass, or at least parts of them if that message from the Torvian Guard is accurate? It sounds more like an earthquake to me."

Those on roving duty aren’t known for either exaggeration or carelessness, Cloelle said firmly, "and they said it wasn’t an earthquake; it was localized to that section of the pass. The roving soldiers are chosen specifically because they pay attention and are able to report what they observe in detail, and I mean detail. When I was Second Sinistranus and needed someone to dig up information, they were the only Guard I used; I never once had to correct any part of a report they’d contributed to. I don’t know of a rover in either the Tesseroth or Torvian Guard who doesn’t excel at the craft, and there are even some Home Guard who are brilliant at it. She smiled and finished, And the Bakaythus Guard were apparently born with the skill. I don’t know how my grandfather recruited them or how Harmon Telle does, but the Aleph Tome Wards manage to get the cream of the crop."

Andrin drank the last of his cold tea and poured a fresh cupful. Kit Tammin has been working on explosive devices for decades. Don’t read anything into this, Danni, but he probably would know how to wreak havoc on a scale like that at the Labissian Pass.

That’s something to find out, isn’t it? the king remarked mildly. It’ll be sunrise soon. Andrin and Cloelle, I want you to go to the Merchants’ Quarter and start your search there. If you need bardelains or sinistranus, appropriate them. Benj and Selisse, get to Tesseroth and find out everything you can. At this stage, try it without help from any Tesseroth Guard, though, because of the potential for bias. Also, they’re understandably a little raw about the mass murder and they might not be circumspect. Interview anyone who was in the fortress when the Guard were killed and establish who was there during the past week.

Every single person who was there? Benj asked with a shade too much incredulousness.

The king looked steadily at the wizard. Petitioners, bardelains, sinistranus, prisoners, friends, acquaintances. Everyone, Benj.

The young man blushed and cut his eyes at Selisse.

Ynala and Kurgin, I want you to ride to the Labissian Pass, if you’d be so kind, Danni continued. "I don’t know how much good it will do, considering the magnitude of the destruction, but there might be something there that will help us. Find the Guard on roving duty who were there and speak with them. Get their impressions. As Cloelle said, they’re trained to observe, and they may have seen something important.

And where in the world is Mina, Andrin? I want her to work with you. I sent a runner to fetch her but he couldn’t find her and neither could the other two I sent later.

She might be in the Alchemists’ Quarter, the wizard said. She often works with Larisse, so there’s a good chance she stayed there last night. I can imagine that it would be difficult for the runners to track her down; she’s rarely at Arnaulden Keep these days unless she’s doing research or working with the Rondural.

Benj twitched and the set of Selisse’s mouth hinted at smugness.

I’ll send for her by star kelder. Andrin pulled out the small diamond and wended a thought to the girl. Where are you, sweetheart? The king expected you to be here and he’s not very happy with you, or with me because of you, for that matter. Meet Cloelle and me in the Merchants’ Quarter.

I’d like a word with you, please, Andrin, Danni said. Cor, you too.

At the implied dismissal, the others left to begin their investigations.

I’ll wait for you outside, Cloelle told her husband, trailing her hand across Andrin’s shoulders as she passed. She dipped her head to the Rothdragon brothers. Your Highnesses.

Wizard, king, and prince sipped their tea in silence for a while, Danni because he didn’t want to say what had to be said, Andrin and Cor because they didn’t want to hear it.

But with the inevitability of the end of all things, Danni set down his cup and looked at his court wizard. This is bad.

Are all kings trained in the art of understatement or are you just particularly good at it? Andrin tried a smile, but it felt like a sham.

"The Aleph Congress has called an emergency session, and I haven’t got an inkling of what I’m going to tell them. We’re at war and