75
The passes are clear,” Durzo said. “The magae are going to march tomorrow.”
Kylar had known there was something different in his master’s attitude as they’d sparred today. They sat together on a table in the practice room of Durzo’s house, each holding a towel and blotting the sweat from their faces. Durzo didn’t make eye contact. “You’re leaving,” Kylar said.
“If you can believe it, Uly’s kicking me out the door,” Durzo said ruefully.
“I thought you were getting along great.”
“She’s worried about her mom. Says I should have gone to her first.”
“I think Uly’s smarter than both of us put together,” Kylar said lightly, though his heart was lead. Durzo was leaving him again, and if for the first time Durzo was letting him know about it beforehand, it didn’t make it much easier.
“Watch out for women smarter than you, kid. By which—”
“You mean all of them, I know.” Kylar shared a grin with his master.
“Guess I need to give you your gear,” Durzo said. “You going with the magae?”
“If I go, Elene will go, and she’ll die. I’m steering clear of this fight.”
Durzo examined his fingernails. “I told you that’s not how it works. She can fall in a puddle and drown as easily as take a sword in the guts. Death won’t be cheated, not in this.”
Kylar took it like a shot in stomach. He said quietly, “I won’t let her die. I won’t let anyone take her away. Not Death, not the Wolf, not God himself.”
“Kid, remember your first time in the Antechamber of the Mystery? Was there one door or two? It wasn’t Death or the Wolf or the boogeyman that made you immortal. This was your own damn choice.”
“I became immortal so I could save Elene, not so I could kill her.”
“You want her to live forever? Go ahead. See if you can make another deal with the Wolf so someone else will die in her place. Maybe you can choose which one of the other people you care about dies. Won’t that be fun? Maybe then you can get a ka’kari for Elene, so she won’t age. But be glad that the other ka’karis’ immortality isn’t like our own. She won’t age, but she can still be killed. And be glad for that too. Because when she becomes a monster, corrupted by the very gift you sold your soul to give her, you’ll be the one who has to do something about it.”
Durzo’s anger was too focused, his description too detailed. “You did that?” Kylar asked.
His master didn’t answer him, wouldn’t even look at him. He opened the bureau, released the bottom drawer and pulled it out. He lifted Retribution, skinned black with the ka’kari, from the false bottom.
“I can’t let Elene die for me,” Kylar said.
“You haven’t got any goddam choice. You’ve had a few months to get used to the idea. That’s more than the Wolf ever gave me. Be grateful. Now take your shit and get out.” Durzo tossed the big black sword to Kylar.
As soon as the ka’kari touched his skin, it began shrilling. ~Why didn’t you listen! I tried to tell you! It’s gone. Three months gone. Stolen!~
Dumbfounded, Kylar stared at the sword. Frustrated at his stupidity, the ka’kari sought to sink into his skin of his hand and he let it, forgetting that it would destroy his disguise. As the black metal rushed into him, it revealed a pitted, half-devoured sword blade. Retribution was gone, replaced with a counterfeit that Kylar hadn’t noticed when they’d hidden the blade. It was impossible, but someone had stolen his sword before he hid it here, probably when he’d first been gawking like an idiot on the crowded sidewalks of Vestacchi.
Durzo was aghast. “Kid, you have no idea what that sword is. You have to get it back.”
Then Kylar felt Vi through his bond. She’d been nervous since yesterday, and now he could feel her starting guiltily as she felt his emotions. Vi knew, and she was hiding in the Chantry, certain he wouldn’t go there. For all his help, the Sisters had stabbed him in the back. They’d stolen Retribution.
“I know where it is,” Kylar said.
The closer Kylar got to the Chantry, the more his anger grew. He became more and more certain from Vi’s guilt that Elene was somehow involved too, and that lit a fire in him. He thought he could read her. Yesterday afternoon he’d gotten her note that said she had some things she needed to work on in the Chantry, and she still wasn’t back. The timing seemed strange, but there was no doubting Vi’s guilt as he came closer. Having the vastness of the Chantry against him blew his rage to a flame. They wanted him passive, tame, emasculated, obedient. He was sick and tired of it. Sick of being worked on by vast, remote powers he couldn’t understand or counter. The Chantry was like fate, like the Wolf, like Death itself, working inexorably on the world, on Kylar, and turning a deaf ear to his pleas.
When he stepped out of the punt onto one of the Chantry’s docks, two dozen pairs of eyes turned to him, scandalized. Some he recognized from Vi’s training sessions; others were more hostile. A Sister was lecturing a class of teens on the workings of the punts. Others were doing maintenance magic on the little bay itself, reworking the rain shield overhead. He ignored them and strode toward the double doors that led inside.
A white robed woman stepped forward, “Sir, no men are allowed here.”
He walked past her.
Before he could touch the double doors, magic bonds latched onto him arm and leg. “Please, sir, we don’t wish to harm you—”
Kylar shrugged the bonds off as easily as he might shoo a fly. He turned and looked at the faces of the two Sisters tasked with guarding the door. They were stunned. One of them was readying a lash of magic.
“Don’t,” Kylar said, staring her in the eye. As he held her gaze, something in his eyes turned her resolve to water. The weaves slipped away. He threw the doors open.
Vi was in a panic upstairs. Good.
Kylar walked straight down a long hall to a set of huge double doors three times a man’s height. Doors along the length of the hall opened and Kylar heard cries of alarm. The smaller door inset in the double doors slammed shut by magic and a young maja yelped. The scraping of metal on wood told him that the double doors had been barred. Kylar didn’t slow; he didn’t turn to the right or to the left. He gathered power to his hands.
~I’ve seen stupider things, but it’s been centuries.~
The voice was the buzzing of a gnat. There was something beautiful in this simplicity. Someone had stolen Kylar’s birthright. He was getting it back. This door was in his way.
Kylar’s open hands shot into the doors. They bowed and then crashed open. One half of the timber that had barred the door shot across the floor toward dozens of tables. Perhaps two hundred magae were seated in the great hall, enjoying lunch. The splintered timber skimmed down one aisle at great speed, shooting between a Sister’s legs and finally crashing against the first step of a great curving staircase.
As Kylar stepped through in a shower of kindling, the other great door sagged on its remaining hinge. Every eye turned to him.
Sisters began standing all around the room and shields blossomed everywhere, but the first woman on her feet was Sister Ariel. She moved faster than Kylar had ever seen her move, coming straight at him. “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted.
“Where’s the Speaker? She’s stolen from me,” Kylar said.
“You will go no further!” Sister Ariel shouted. She was purple.
“Stop me,” Kylar said. He could see that his smirk infuriated her.
Faster than he thought possible, she did. Giant chains of magic lashed his arms to his body, clamped his legs together. Magae around her openly gaped at her sheer power.
~You deserved that. Take it, apologize, and come back later.~
Kylar had had enough of taking it, apologizing, and coming back when it was convenient for someone else. He was sick of being trapped. He felt something mighty rising within him.
Fear flickered over Sister Ariel’s face at whatever she saw. Kylar sucked in a great breath and flexed, tensing every muscle in his body, physical and magical. He felt suddenly gigantic, his body a tiny vessel for a giant soul. As he strained, a groan deeper than Kylar’s voice came from his lips.
His chains shattered, blew apart with a magical concussion that swept through the room. The tables didn’t move, the air didn’t stir, but everything magical was flattened. Every nimbus in the room winked out. Only a few held for an instant before popping and blowing away.
A dozen of the standing magae simply folded and dropped to sit on their benches or the floor. No one else moved, not even Sister Ariel. “What are you?” she whispered. The question was mirrored in every eye.
“Out of my way,” Kylar said. He strode forward. They got out of his way.