Chapter 19

ETHANUS WAS working on deciphering a Bursan codex when the knock came on his door. At first he didn’t hear it. Daylight was fading, and the effort it took to make out the figures on the well-worn parchment required all his concentration. He could have used his power to refresh them, of course, drawing upon the memory inherent in the ancient fragments to restore them to their original condition. But where was the challenge in that? And so he didn’t hear the knocking at first. Only when it was repeated with increasing volume did he realize that that it was a signal meant for him, and not just the rapping of a hungry woodpecker in the forest outside.

Carefully putting his work aside, brushing a bit of dust from his woolen gown, he headed toward the door, wondering who on earth would be bothering him at this hour. Or at any hour. He doubted that more than one person even knew where he lived, and she would surely have better sense than to come here. The Law was not a thing to be taken lightly.

But when he opened the door, he saw that she was indeed standing there. The dying sun backlit her bright red hair, lending it a fiery aura, like that of an angel. Or a demon.

Or both, he thought.

“You fled my custody,” he admonished her. Not because he was really angry, but because dealing with the murderer of a Magister had certain requirements. “It was my duty to see that you were punished for your crime. Failing to do that, I’ve been dishonored in the eyes of all sorcerers. And now you’ve come back? For what purpose? To compromise me further? What possible reason would I have to welcome you into my home?”

“Your desire to learn the true history of the Magisters,” she said. Green eyes burning with a quiet defiance that was achingly familiar. “The name of the secret darkness that lurks within our blood. The reason that we must play a role in the war to come, or watch the entire world go up in flames. The part you must play in that war, in order for us to be successful.”

For a moment he just stared at her. Digesting her words, as though they were some foreign and unfamiliar food. Finally he decided he had done it long enough to satisfy propriety . . . or at least his own conscience.

“That’ll do it,” he said at last, nodding gruffly as he stepped aside to let her enter. “Come in.”

Night had fallen by the time Kamala came to the end of her report, but Ethanus had not yet lit the lamps. Darkness licked at the single candle flame he had set on the table between them, as if struggling to consume its light.

When she was finally done, Ethanus was silent for a long while. The candle sputtered, drowning in its own wax.

“Colivar told you all this?” he asked at last.

“He told Ramirus, Fadir, and Sulah. And invited me to overhear.”

“Did they know you were there?”

“No,” she said, tipping over the candle to drain off some of its excess wax. She felt strangely tired, as if she had just undergone some great physical exertion. “Not that I know of, anyway.”

The Magisters were really Souleaters. Or if not Souleaters themselves, then something that was not wholly human either. For some reason the revelation had seemed more reasonable to Kamala on the frozen, wind-scoured mountaintop than it did here, in these quiet surroundings. She could see her former teacher struggling to absorb it all. Finally he asked, “This information comes from . . . where?”

“Colivar said that the first Magisters used to share memories with their students, and that his teacher had given him these. I guess they originally came from the traitor who first crossed the Wrath.”

His brow furrowed. “That seems . . . odd.”

He rose from his seat, taking up what was left of the candle, and began to walk around the room, lighting the lamps. “You know that I am old,” he told her. “Not as old as Colivar, perhaps, but old enough to have heard tales of the early days from my own teacher. Stories of the days before the Law. And he never mentioned anything like that. Memory sharing? We trusted each other even less in the early days than we do now.” He shook his head. “Colivar has always been an odd one, and his relationship with his mentor may well have differed from the norm. But even so.”

”You don’t act like the part about our being Souleaters surprises you.”

He sighed heavily, then blew out the candle and put it aside. “The first Magisters believed that there was more to First Transition than learning how to steal the life-essence of others. My own teacher hinted at us being something other than human. I discounted that as part of his madness. The earliest generations of our kind were all quite mad, you know. Though in some it was more evident than in others.” He reclaimed his seat and stared down at his hands thoughtfully, as if some kind of answer could be found there. “That madness is what I came here to escape, Kamala. The madness that I saw in the eyes of my fellow Magisters when they hung over me like vultures, my final night in Ulran. It wasn’t that I feared the insanity in them, you understand, but I didn’t want to surrender to it myself. Though I never guessed what lay at the heart of it . . . .”

“You never told me all that,” she said quietly.

He shrugged “There are some things a man prefers not to speak of.”

“Isolation can no longer protect you,” she said.

He did not respond.

“If what Colivar says is true, the return of the Souleaters may awaken the monster in each of us. Distance may not matter.”

“So you’ve become a crusader now.” He chuckled darkly. “That’s quite a transformation, from what you were before.”

She could feel a flush come to her face. A half dozen edged retorts rose to her lips . . . and remained unvoiced. Was it so unreasonable for her to fear these creatures? To fear what the earth might become if they returned in force? Surely that was enough to legitimately frighten anyone.

She remembered Rhys’ funeral and the strange sense of longing she had felt, gazing down at her lover’s still form. She had never known the kind of purpose that drove him and his people, that might drive a man to risk his life for a cause. But she had felt its power at that moment, and she envied him such passion.

“Be wary in your crusade,” Ethanus warned her. “A Magister can choose to play the odds if it amuses him—even risk his life if the prize is great enough—but he doesn’t have the power to sacrifice it outright. Mortal men can cast themselves onto a funeral pyre for the sake of a greater cause, but we cannot. The moment we accept certain death, we extinguish that supernatural spark that makes it possible for us to steal the lives of others.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. A hint of defiance in her voice.

It was rare to see him startled. Rarer still that she was the one who startled him.

“Has that ever actually happened?” she pressed, leaning forward on the table. “Or is it just something we all assume is true? Like we once assumed that no woman could ever become a Magister. Do we really know that the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for a cause would sever the link with one’s consort, or are we only guessing that?”

For a moment the room was silent. So silent. You could hear the crickets chirping outside.

“No,” he said solemnly. “I know of no case where that has ever been confirmed. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, mind you. But there is no record of it that I know of.”

“So it might not even be true.”

“Yes.” He licked his lips briefly, as if tasting the strange thought. “It might not even be true. But do you want to take that chance?”

She did not answer him. A pair of pewter cups were standing on the mantle, and she summoned them to the table with a short gesture, conjuring brandy to fill them. Ethanus stared at the one in front of him for a long moment, then raised it to his lips and took a deep drink. And another. Not until the cup was empty did he put it down.

“I suppose I should be afraid of what part you’re going to ask me to play in all this,” he said.

She smiled slightly. “Nothing overtly sacrificial.”

He refilled the cup with his own sorcery. It was an uncharacteristic gesture, and an eloquent statement of just how much the night’s revelations had disconcerted him. “Speak, then.”

“I need your assistance as a scholar.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I remember you had a penchant for religious codices. Yes?”

“I have an interest in mankind’s ancient religions. And in some of the modern ones, insofar as they evolved from ancient roots. Why? Are you planning to join some god’s priesthood?”

“No. But I’ve been having strange visions, and I’m hoping you can help me interpret them. The first time was when I tried to find the Souleater queen for Colivar. And then it happened again when I searched Tefilat for him. They also come to me at night sometimes, just when I’m falling asleep. I thought that if any man alive could help me interpret them, it would be you.”

“Religious visions?”

She nodded. “I see gods. Many gods. A vast circle of them, surrounding me. I can’t see them all clearly enough to try to count them—the ones in the outer ranks are hazy, as if in fog—but the last time there were dozens that I could pick out clearly. Perhaps several hundred, all told.”

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “What are they doing in these visions?”

“Watching me. I get the sense they’re actively interested in what I’m doing, that it matters to them what choices I make. They never make any indication of that, mind you, but I just seem to know it, as certainly as I know my own name.” She shook her head. “They never say a word to me. Or move. It’s like they are . . . statues. All around me. A circle of statues, channeling some sort of spiritual energy.” She blinked. “I don’t know what to make of it. I thought you might.”

“Show me,” he said quietly.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she summoned up sufficient power to craft a vision for him. He moved their cups out of the way as it took shape over the table.

One by one her gods appeared. Tall gods. Short gods. Gods of rock, gods of wood, gods of wax with feathers stuck in them. She had never seen them this clearly in her visions, but the act of conjuring their images for Ethanus seemed to bring them into sharper focus. Fascinated, she studied them even as he did.

What a strange amalgamation of deities! She had never been a religious creature and had paid no more than token homage to the gods of Gansang. Nevertheless, she recognized just how odd some of these figures were, not only in design but in substance. The air about them seemed to resonate with all kinds of discordant power; she wondered if Ethanus could feel it.

In the end she was able to conjure images of nearly a hundred of them, with misty images crowding behind them and bleeding into the shadows of the room. Ethanus studied them for a while, then got up and began to walk around the table. She pushed her chair back to get out of his way while he walked a full circuit of her vision. He used his own power on several occasions to bring some feature into finer focus.

“Do you know what they are?” she asked him.

“I know what some of them are.” He pointed to a tall figure with a crown of green and orange feathers. “That one is Duat, Lord of Death. From the Zoav jungle. And that one”—he pointed to a golden figure encrusted with gems—“that looks like an Anshasan deity. With a Skandir war god standing next to him. And that odd-shaped rock, that represents Jaasa, a water god revered by the desert nomads. How very curious.”

“So are they really gods, or just . . . images of gods?

“Well, what you are showing me are clearly idols, that is, physical representations of gods. But the line can be very thin between the two, Kamala. Some idols have centuries of prayer invested in them, which can transform them into more than mere statues. Others may have been used as the focal point for spirit conjuring and may even retain the essence of the beings who once possessed them. And witchery can turn such things into spiritual conduits, although that’s a costly endeavor. Windows into other realms. So, in answer to your question . . . yes.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, somewhat frustrated; she’d hoped for a simple answer, and this was not it.

“The question,” he mused aloud, “is why?”

“Why are they watching me?”

“Why are they all standing together?”

She shrugged. “The world is about to end, apparently. Maybe the gods are worried about it.”

He shook his head. “These are statues you’re seeing. Whatever power they might have absorbed down through the centuries, whatever supernatural creatures might inhabit them now, they are still just statues. Physical objects, which can only exist in one location at a time.” He looked up at her. “Such things matter in a vision, Kamala. They wouldn’t have manifested in such a form if it weren’t significant.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “I see them whenever I search for the Witch-Queen’s location.”

He nodded. “Perhaps there is a connection, then. You say she has the power to hide from those who are hunting her. Perhaps these idols channel more energy than she can mask. Perhaps their essence is . . . bleeding through somehow? I don’t know.”

“So, then, what’s the location?” She tried not to let frustration creep into her voice, but it was hard to be so close to the answers she sought and not know how to access them. “You’ve named gods from the four corners of the world. Where would they all come together like that?”

He did not answer her right away. His expression thoughtful, he got up from the table and walked over to his map chest. The cabinet of shallow drawers contained the most precious and delicate documents that he had gathered during his centuries of scholarship. There was strange and touching irony in how gently he handled them, taking care not to damage the fragile parchment sheets. In the house of any other Magister such things would have been reinforced with sorcery so that nothing short of a hurricane could damage them. But Kamala knew him well enough to know that he took pleasure in their fragility. One should never take knowledge for granted, he had told her. Their fragility forced him to handle them with appropriate reverence.

He chose one particular document from the collection, brought it to the table, and laid it out before her. A map. She banished her cups from the table so that the two of them would have room to look at it without risking a spill.

The map was an odd creation, reversed from the vantage point that cartographers usually preferred. With south at the top and north at the bottom, it defied her immediate recognition, and it took her a minute to get her bearings. Once she realized the trick, the various land masses and waterways began to take on recognizable form. Cities to the north, flanking a great delta. Mountains to the west, and a series of long ridges to the east. A vast expanse in the middle with dark, irregular lines running across it. It was all meticulously labeled, but the script was one she did not recognize, and the map was so old that the ink had faded, making it hard to see the letters. Any sorcerer other than Ethanus would have fixed the thing long ago.

“Do you recognize it?” he asked her. Always the teacher. But she didn’t have to think long to answer him; the map that Colivar had showed her earlier had covered much of the same territory.

“This is Anshasa,” she said, sketching out the borders of Farah’s kingdom with her finger. And there ” She pointed, “Tefilat.”

“Look south,” Ethanus prompted.

South were the strange lines, labeled in an unknown script. Where a number of them crossed there was a crude picture of a walled city, larger than anything else in the area. A circular wall surrounded it. A title of some sort was written above it, and there was smaller writing beneath it.

“These are caravan routes,” he told her, indicating the lines. “They connect the markets of the south with Anshasa. Any man who controls a source of water along that route stands to make a fortune. Wars are fought over such locations.” He pointed to the city. “Can you read the markings?”

She couldn’t, but that was what sorcery was for. Binding enough athra to gather the knowledge she needed, she gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the foreign script. When the strange shapes began to resolve into more familiar letters she began to read. “City of the Gods . . . .”

Her voice left her suddenly. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Read on,” he prompted her.

She reached out to touch the faded script; her hand was trembling. “Let no man storm these gates, lest the gods of Jezalya strike him down.”

“I’d heard tales of the place long ago,” Ethanus said. “Legends, really. Some powerful spirit who was crossing the desert supposedly grew thirsty and commanded the earth to bring forth water, which it did in such copious quantity that the gods themselves were impressed. They all came to visit the place, not only those who were native to the desert, but deities from all over the world. A great palace was built so that those who wished to live there might do so. I know little about it, except for those legends. But it will be easy enough to gather information now that we know where to look.”

She nodded. Normally it would be hard for her to focus her sorcery on such a place; the desert was so featureless there were no easy landmarks to follow. But if Jezalya’s gods had truly been appearing in her dreams, there might be some residual energies to work with. Shutting her eyes, she tried to focus on the figures that had appeared to her. Now that Ethanus had identified them, she could see that they were indeed statues, but she could also feel the power that emanated from them. A true sacred presence, or simply the residue of morati devotions? It mattered little to her sorcery. Centuries of religious focus could transform a sculpture of stone and wood into something that had power in its own right. She could sense that power now as she imagined herself inside their circle, surrounded by Jezalya’s gods. Help me, she thought. Show me the way.

She could feel her consciousness expanding as she extended tendrils of sorcerous inquiry southward, using that connection as her anchor. Forest and ocean and alabaster cities passed beneath her viewpoint—and then she came to a land that blazed with heat, set beneath a merciless sun. Since the real Jezalya would be shrouded in night’s darkness right now, that meant she was not merely seeing features of the landscape but was tapping into the very essence of the land, revealing its spiritual signature.

A hunger for water enveloped her, not something born in the minds of men, or even animals, but arising from the land itself. That was a recent thing. This place had once been green, she saw. Images from ancient history flashed in and out of existence too quickly for her to focus on any one of them. Lush grasslands. Vast lakes. Herds of animals roaming as far as the eye could see. Had the Great War destroyed this place too, or was there some more natural cause for the devastation? It was hard not to stop and study such images, but she had work to do. Focusing with all her strength on her objective, she willed the distractions to fade, until only the desert remained.

She located a trade route. It would not have been discernable to a human eye, for the restless sands had buried any signs of human passage, but her Sight could pick out the spiritual traces left behind by the hundreds of caravans who had passed that way over the centuries. This was her path to the city. She followed it with her mind’s eye, ignoring the ghostly echoes of merchants and soldiers and beasts of burden that had traveled this path before her. Sometimes when the echoes grew quiet, she thought she could hear Jezalya’s gods whispering in the distance, though whether they were trying to tell her something, or were just passing the time in sacred gossip, she could not tell.

Something moved in the corner of her vision. In another time and place she might have focused on it, but she needed to stay focused on finding the city. But then there were more shadows, flitting about the edge of her awareness like angry flies. She tried to ignore them, but they grew larger with each passing minute, until one swooped down low over her vantage point, its vast black wings blotting out the sun. Kamala had to remind herself that she was not actually present where they were flying and that there was nothing in this vision that could hurt her, save perhaps the Witch-Queen herself; nonetheless, every fiber of her being cried out for her to flee, as more and more of the monstrous shadows filled the skies above her. Souleaters.

And then she saw the city.

It was still many miles in the distance, but it gleamed in the sunlight like a precious stone, drawing her eye directly toward it. Most of it was shielded behind a wall many times the height of a man, but a single tower rose up from the heart of the city, with a great golden finial at its summit. The precious metal caught the light of the sun and reflected it outward, providing a beacon that could be seen from many miles away. A lighthouse in the desert.

This, she knew, was Jezalya.

Gazing at the city, she suddenly realized that her whole search was pointless. Obviously the woman wasn’t here. There was no point in wasting any more time searching the desert for her. Jezalya was of no interest to Siderea Aminestas. Colivar was looking in the right place after all. The clues were all in Tefilat, and he would find them there.

If not for what she had experienced in the Spinas, she might not have recognized the power for what it was: a masterpiece of obfuscation. Siderea Aminestas was not here; she had never been here; she would never be here; that message was as clear as the sun in the sky and the camel tracks leading up to the city’s main gate. Kamala knew enough by now of how a queen’s power worked to recognize the signs of it here, but though she admired the artistry of it, shaking it off was another thing. The person who had woven the spells surrounding this city was no simple beast, instinctively throwing up barriers in the wilderness, but a woman renowned for her skill at human manipulation. Kamala knew that it would take all the strength of her will to pierce through such a defense. And she also knew that if she succeeded in doing so, the Witch-Queen would sense her interference and know that her enemies had found her.

Now was not the time.

Dark shapes flitted hungrily about her as she withdrew her awareness from the desert, returning to the cool confines of Ethanus’ study. For a moment she just sat there, trying to focus on the night and the silence in order to still the pounding of her heart. Ethanus, ever patient, waited.

“She’s there,” she whispered. “In Jezalya. I think the other Souleaters are there as well, but she keeps them far away from the city.” She shuddered, remembering the hungry, restless shadows. So many of them. What were they all feeding on? “I have to tell Colivar.”

Would the other Magisters be able to see through Siderea’s power as Kamala had? Or would they need her to go back there, to gather more information for them? She felt a cold chill run down her spine at the thought of confronting the Witch-Queen directly, but also a strange sense of excitement. It was right that they should test their power against each other this way. Waging a war not with armies and siege engines, but with the gift of the ikati, that could turn a man’s attention away from his target. She remembered how Siderea’s power had tried to turn her thoughts to Tefilat, insisting that she must go there instead—

She stiffened suddenly. All color drained from her face.

“Kamala?”

“It’s a trap,” she whispered. “Tefilat. It’s a trap! She wants him to look for her there. That’s what Sulah’s dream was all about.” She shook her head, as if trying to clear it. Was Siderea’s power still affecting her brain, or were her thoughts her own now? “I have to warn him!”

She got up from the table so hurriedly that her chair fell back, clattering noisily to the floor behind her. “Ethanus, I—”

“Go,” he said. “Do what you have to.”

She began to draw her power to her. Normally she would never do so inside the house of another Magister, but there was no time to waste. Ethanus watched her mold a portal for herself, his expression calm. Unflappable. The world could come crashing down around them all and Ethanus’ heart would not miss a beat. What opposites they were!

She leaned across the table and kissed him on the forehead. At least that surprised him.

And then she wrapped the portal spell around her and disappeared into the darkness.