Ani clouded.
She knew herself to be one of the last truly proficient psychics in the Marque, for the Gifted training program was no more, and none of the latest intakes of Novices showed much promise anyway. Syrene had a certain psychic ability, this was true, but Ani was so familiar to her, and such a part of her existence, that any defenses Syrene might have put up against her had long since dissipated. As far as she was concerned, Ani was hers to dominate.
Only Thona, the former tutor to the Gifted, posed a significant threat, though Ani suspected she was not half as powerful as she liked to think. Meanwhile, the old clairvoyant witch Oriel was long dead, thanks to Syl, and the smattering of older Gifted Half-Sisters—now full Sisters themselves—had been dispersed throughout the Marque, their relatively minor talents left to fade through neglect, like the promise of student musicians who cease to practice regularly. Few remained who could stand against her.
So Ani began planning her coup. It took patience, and discipline, and all the time she heard the voice of Ezil, real or imagined, calling to her, encouraging her, crying for her to hurry. She harnessed her power, storing it, saving it, until the night that she went to Syrene’s chambers, and, as the Archmage slept, put her hands to her head, flooding her consciousness, clouding her to such a degree that Syrene’s own identity was lost for a time. All that was left was a shell, a mouthpiece, and from it emerged the words that Ani wished it to speak. Seclusion. Isolation.
Successor.
• • •
Then, at last, when the deed was done, and the news of Ani Cienda’s elevation was still being absorbed by the Sisterhood, the new Archmage led the old into the recesses of the Marque, and freed the First Five from their torment: first Atis, then Loneil, then Ineh, and finally Tola, all the while keeping a watch on the creature that rested in a web of tendrils above them.
To her relief, the One had not reacted, at least not at first. It did not move, but simply waited, watching from its lair. Even then, Ani thought, it knew: it had felt her inside Syrene’s head, and understood that this Archmage’s time was passing, and another was about to take her place. A new deal was about to be struck.
Perhaps the One thought it a blessing, for the old females beneath it were stinking and shriveled within the dry sacks of their own skin, and three of them had slumped into death as soon as they were disconnected from their life support, the red tendrils and fleshy cables emerging from their skulls wilting and decaying as the Sisters slipped away one by one.
Tola, however, had not gone immediately. Briefly, the old Sister’s white-filmed eyes had filled with fluid—tears; it could only be tears—and the milkiness was washed away. She saw Ani then, and the faintest of smiles played on her lips. She raised her right hand as if in blessing, and then she too died, the connective cords writhing from her head to lie spent and useless on the floor.
If she had ever had any doubts, at that moment Ani knew that she had done the right thing. Whatever knowledge the Others possessed had not been worth the sacrifice that the First Five had made to access it. The Sisterhood had been wise and knowledgeable in its own right once, before the Others had come. It could be so again. All that remained now was to release Ezil, the eldest. Buoyed by success, Ani reached out and pulled a fistful of life-supporting wires from Ezil’s chest.
The screech that came from above her was like no sound she had ever heard before. Whatever the One had been anticipating when the connection with Ezil was broken, it was not this. Ani looked up in horror, pinwheeling her arms as she stumbling backward over the cords and out of the way, for numerous sucking tentacles shot from the One’s torso and grappled with the air, seeking new life. They wrapped desperately around Ezil again, boring into her skull and face and neck, greedy for her life force, until she was obscured from the shoulders upward. The creature’s black eyes found Ani and held her fast, glittering with ancient malevolence, demanding that the deal be done.
For a moment, Ani considered letting it die. If it perished, would the remaining Others die with it? She couldn’t be sure, but she feared they would not. And how might they react to the death of their originator? She had a terrible vision of infected Illyri, overcome by the parasites they carried inside them, spewing spores into the faces of the innocent, infesting an entire society, invading Avila Minor, ripping apart the Sisterhood. She could not take that chance.
And that was when she gave Syrene to the One.
• • •
I showed her some mercy, Ani thought as she regarded the dreadful figure of the lost Syrene through the glass. She had clouded the Archmage’s brain so much that Syrene barely recognized her own Marque as she was helped by Ani into its depths. It was only at the end, when Ani began suiting up, and Syrene’s surroundings became familiar to her again, that she started to panic, but Ani had simply clouded her mind a little more, like an anesthetist increasing the flow of gas, and the Red Witch grew calmer. As Ani led her forward, the One cast aside the corpse of Ezil, its suckers curling away in something like disgust before unraveling again and fixing on Syrene. Immediately, they wrapped themselves around her head, pounding at her scalp, cracking the shell around her brain.
As Syrene took Ezil’s place, the Other in her head reacted to the presence of its sire, and reached for it. Filaments and coils emerged from her ears, and forced themselves through the bones of her skull, shattering the pan and exposing the brain.
Oh God, the blood . . .
In turn, the One stretched to be reunited with its offspring, and within seconds Syrene’s eyes had rolled up in her head as the three organisms—Illyri, Other, One—became a single symbiote.
It had, Ani supposed afterward, represented a good bargain for the One. Ezil and the other four Sisters were almost entirely used up; they had little life left for the One to suck from them. Syrene might have been only one Illyri, but she was strong, and easily worth five old husks.
I gave her to that monster, Ani thought. I condemned her to a life of pain.
And Ani wondered if she and the former Archmage were so different after all.