Chapter Forty-Two
The huntsman’s tower was a shell. The side facing away from the manor still stood, propped up by a framework of weathered logs, but the inside looked like it had been scooped out and scattered across the approach. Once they cleared the overgrowth, Rae and the others had to pick their way through a maze of broken stones to reach the center of the ruin. Lalette hung back, with Mahk standing a wary guard on her. A few of the collapsed walls looked like they had been set down very carefully, their mortar broken and flagstones spaced evenly on the ground. A spiritbinder’s work, Rae thought. The tile floor was scoured clean, except for a black stain in the middle of the room. The justicars and Estev hesitated at the edge of the debris field. Rae glanced at Caeris. The woman shrugged.
“This is difficult ground for mages to cross,” Caeris answered. “This is where the breach opened. I’m surprised you can’t feel it.”
“I feel something,” Rae said. “Like it’s about to storm. Or worse.” He peered into the shadows of the fallen tower. The place had a haunted feel to it, even without the wraith humming against his soul. A lot of power had been channeled here. The realm of Death was close, the veil thin. “So you’re saying the three of you won’t come inside?”
“It’s better if we don’t,” Estev said. “At least initially.”
“Just have a look around. See if you can see anything unusual,” Predi said. “I swear, Rassek won’t be able to reach you without going through us first.”
“He’s gone through a great deal more than the three of you so far,” Rae muttered to himself. Looking back into the tower, he raised his voice. “What am I looking for?”
“The dead, and what they remember. This is where Rassek’s cabal died. They must have known something about his plans,” Predi said.
“Won’t they have already slipped into Oblivion?”
“Possible, especially considering that this is where the breach started,” Caeris said. She barely suppressed a shiver, then folded her arms. “Another reason we can’t go in without risk. They must be mad by now. And leave the spiritblade behind. If it’s linked to Rassek’s power, there’s no telling how it might react to the breach.”
“Mad ghosts, you say? And you’re just going to send me in?” Rae asked. He unlimbered the splintered sword of ice and leaned it against a stone. Estev came over and sat down next to it, giving Rae a reassuring smile. “Is this safe?” Rae asked him.
“Not at all. But you’ve learned as much as we can teach you, and learned it quickly.” Estev laid a hand on Rae’s shoulder and squeezed. “Your father would have been proud.”
Rae swallowed on the lump that was suddenly in his throat, then nodded and squared his shoulders.
“I still don’t like going in unarmed,” Rae said.
“You have a spiritblade, and a dead man in your soul. Though I suppose we all have a dead man in our souls, don’t we? Future dead men, at least. And women—sorry, La,” Mahk called from among the fallen stones. When Rae scowled at him, the big man smiled. “Cheer up, Raelle. If it’s as dangerous for spiritbinders as this lot say, it’s probably the last place Rassek will be.”
“Probably,” Rae grumbled. “An ironclad guarantee, that.”
“Just take a look around. Don’t touch anything, don’t talk to anyone. The memories of the dead always carry the secrets of the living,” Caeris said. “If something happens, we’ll be right here.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Rae said. He glanced at La. She was sitting on a stone, hands wrapped around her club-handle of a pistol. She looked up and gave him a strained smile. He returned it, then turned to face the stain at the center of the tower. The site of the breach that claimed Hadroy, and formed the Eye. What could go wrong? He squared his shoulders and marched forward, reaching for the wraith.
Mist gathered at Rae’s feet as he walked. Tendrils corkscrewed out of the ground to form a cloak, rising over his head and then, suddenly, crashed down to wreathe Rae in the wraith’s shadowy form. Cold air flowed around him, freezing his breath. The pain in his eye was a distant throb.
—i know this place. a broken place, full of bad spirits. why are we here, child?
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You say you recognize this place?”
The wraith’s senses stretched outward in misty tendrils. They skittered across the floor and climbed the ruined walls. it is familiar, but not known to me. there is . . . a fragment. a memory. Rae could feel the wraith’s perception brush against something cold; a hard boundary. He flinched away, and the wraith reeled its attention back inside. but it is not mine.
“Well, that’s useless. Any of your dead pals here, hanging around, when they should be good and dead and gone?” Rae asked.
—oh, yes. the dead are thick in this place. where are we?
“At the beginning of this whole mess. Take me down.” Rae stopped just in front of the stain, eyeing it warily. He clasped his hands in front of his waist, assuming a meditative posture he had learned from one of his father’s manuals, so long ago. He drew the wraithblade out of his soul with a gesture. The frost-stained blade shimmered like starlight in his hands.
“Let’s see what the dead remember, old friend,” Rae whispered.
—long time since someone called me that.
A black circle formed at Rae’s feet, as dark as ink, and bottomless. Viscous hands reached through the floor and wove a net around him, dragging him down.
“Whoa now! Not so dramatic!”
—the longer you spend in shadow, the more you belong to it, the wraith whispered. and this place in particular is closely tied to death.
“Well, next time—”
Rae stumbled into silence. The shadowlands formed around him, the remnant of the memories of the dead, especially those whose souls were touched by this place. The tumbled walls pieced themselves back together, sealing the tower closed, cutting off the sky. The sudden darkness blinded Rae. A low rumble ground through the murk, close at hand and slightly above him. As he stepped forward, the gray resolved into a shard of pure blackness hanging in the air, like dark lightning frozen mid-strike. Its bolts reached throughout the tower’s interior. At its heart hovered a sword of mismatched parts, the blade as wide as Rae’s head, cut apart by shapes that could have been runes of Chaos and Death. Black threads wafted out from the sword in all directions, scenting the air, crackling like static electricity.
“Well that’s ominous. Anything in the histories of the Heresy about a black sword?” Rae asked. The wraith didn’t answer, but Rae could feel its keen attention on the fell blade whirring overhead. “Is this thing actually here, trapped in the shadowlands? Or is this just another memory?”
—this is a shadow. a fragment of memory. but it binds them. all of them.
“All of who?”
—learn to see with the eyes of the dead. leave flesh behind. you are blunting your powers by depending on your mind to see what only your spirit can sense.
Rae looked around slowly. Other than the static bolts of dark energy piercing the shadows, all he could see was swirling mist, and the distant interior walls of the tower. Something called to him, though. Something was waiting. He beckoned it forward.
The mists cleared. Gray fog crystalized into narrow spirits, first one, then a couple, then more. Five spirits hanging in the air. They were fragile splinters of their former selves, barely more than shining spikes orbiting the rotating disk, bisected by a fleck of light where their eyes would be. And those narrow eyes were all fixed on Raelle.
—rassek’s grim cabal. something has manacled them here. bound them, then unraveled them. A shiver went through the wraith’s form, reverberating against Rae’s soul. a cruel fate.
Rae floated to the nearest spirit. He didn’t notice at first that he was floating, his toes bumping against the flagstone floor as the wraith carried him forward. The spirit flickered as he approached it. Its form was steely gray, though something else twisted around it. The closer he got, the more aware Rae was of the other thing, like a nimbus writhing around the core of the spirit. He reached out to touch it, but the wraith froze his hand in place.
—their bound elementals have been pinned in place, captive for all eternity. The wraith’s voice held awe, even terror. they are surely mad by now.
“I count six,” Rae said. “There were eight masters here, plus Rassek and Hadroy. But Caeris said two escaped. Are these those masters, then?”
—perhaps. The wraith drew itself up in Rae’s soul, weaving itself tightly through his body, tight as a bow. this could not have been part of their plan. what mage would agree to be imprisoned in this manner?
“What became of Hadroy, then? We know Rassek still lives . . . somehow. But the baron? Was he obliterated? And whose spiritblade is this?”
The wraith had no answer. Rae turned his attention to the nearest trapped soul.
The nimbus that wound through the bound mage was very clear, now that Rae was looking for it. A narrow skull shone through the soul’s misty substance, and shoulders of horned armor, all of it surrounded by a helix of slowly orbiting chains. Needle-thin teeth snapped at Rae as he approached. Wraithbinder. Apparently, not even death escaped whatever had happened in this place.
—strange. this one is hollow, the wraith whispered. Rae’s attention turned to the blackened stain at the center of the tower, directly beneath the profane. There was a void in the shadow, roughly in the shape of a man.
“What does that mean? Hollow?” The edges of the void were frayed, like a hole torn roughly from fabric.
—there is the shape of a spirit here, but it contains neither mortal soul nor planar spirit.
“It’s reaching for the sword,” Rae said. The shape of the man stretched out, one hand extended toward the floating disk, fingers spread. A fuzz of frozen lightning arced off its fingers like frost.
Rae looked up at the jigsaw pieces of the black sword. Each shard hung separate from all the rest, wavering slightly back and forth, humming as they moved like a windchime. The sword looked too large to wield, and the edges were blunt bevels. Even the hilt seemed impractical; runes ran down the length of the handle, sharp enough to cut into the palm of the wielder. The pommel was a crescent blade, and the guard was forged into the two symbols of Death and Chaos. Rae glanced down at the man-shaped void, its hand clearly reaching for the device.
“Is that what’s going to happen to me if I touch this thing?”
—this is only a figment of the spiritblade. a memory. it holds no true power.
Pray so. Rae swallowed hard on the knot in his throat, then reached out for the sword. Static electricity sizzled against his fingers. The air turned hard against his hand, pushing back until his fingers couldn’t get any closer. Rae closed his mind and pushed, drawing the wraith through his bones until it reached his fingertips. Glowing light crackled through his skin, slowly pushing through whatever force resisted his interference.
“No true power, eh?” he grunted.
—strange indeed. a powerful artifact. The wraith’s voice was strained. i wonder where it draws its strength from.
The ghostly shape of Rae’s hand penetrated the barrier, finally reaching the nobbled hilt. At the touch of his ghostly skin, the hum from the sword crescendoed into an ear-piercing wail and then faded out. Black sparks swirled in the cracks between the shards of the blade, growing and growing until dark clouds filled the gaps. Suddenly, a bolt of purple energy shot through the cloud, bright and blinding. Rae tried to turn away, but the hilt snagged his hand like a hook, holding him in place. Slowly, the pieces of the sword put themselves back together, settling one at a time into place. A jolt of electricity went through Rae’s arm as each shard snapped together.
“Should this be happening?” Rae screamed over the grinding roar of the re-assembly.
—hold fast, child. i sense something on the other side. something trapped. i—
The wraith’s voice cut out with a squeal. Rae felt hollow, his soul unspooling into the void. As the sword came together, the runes that had once separated the pieces remained, but they were now filled with pools of roiling liquid, as black as ink. Frantically, Rae tried to make sense of the runes, their sigils, their meaning. Most were a combination of three or more planar symbols, combining Death and Fire, Life and Stone, interlocking in mind-numbing complexity. It was more than just complicated. The runes moved beyond the material plane, mingling with the eight planes, creating something new, something profane.
This is the center of the Heresy. This is what Rassek’s cabal came together to create. But what is it? What does it do?
The black sword snapped together with a final, resounding crash. The dark lightning that flared around the weapon receded, and silence fell in the land of the dead.
The gate opened. Darkness reached through, and took Rae by the heart.