Tarsilia was standing behind the counter, hands braced on the polished wood, eyes leveled on the doorway. I turned and saw Mychael and Tam still standing just beyond the threshold.
“You’re home,” she said to me, but her gaze had settled on my two escorts. Perhaps settled was too mild a term. A slab of granite landing on something doesn’t exactly settle. No doubt Garadin had told her who Mychael was and what he wanted—and Tarsilia was already all too familiar with Tam. And from the gorgon stare both of them were on the receiving end of, Tarsilia held Mychael and Tam personally responsible for everything that had happened to Piaras and me over the past two days. It was overdone and completely overprotective—and I loved her for it.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “They’re with us.”
She didn’t look entirely convinced, and unless she gave her permission, there was no way, short of using a magical battering ram, that Mychael and Tam were getting inside. Tarsilia had to invite them to cross her threshold. Her scowl told me she’d do it, but she wasn’t happy about it.
“Mychael Eiliesor, Paladin of the Order and Brotherhood of Conclave Guardians, and Sacred Protector of the Seat of Twelve,” she pronounced formally. Then she stopped and looked at me.
“Tarsilia, they need to get inside. Now.”
She sensed my urgency. “You and your guests may now enter my home,” she finished quickly.
There was an audible pop, and the shield parted and Mychael and four of his Guardians came inside, Tam bringing up the rear guard. The rest remained outside. The shield and wards resealed themselves seamlessly and without sound.
“What happened?” she asked me.
“Where’s Piaras?”
“He couldn’t sleep; he’s in the workroom.”
I brushed past her, and headed for the back of the shop.
Tarsilia was right at my heels. “What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, everything was. The air grew heavy with power, and it felt like the atmosphere before a lightning strike, prickling my skin like a thousand hot needles. Sarad Nukpana wasn’t looking for a way around Tarsilia and Garadin’s wards—he was punching his way through them.
Tarsilia and I were closest to the workroom door. We were the only ones who made it inside the room. As soon as we crossed the threshold, the force of the opening Gate sealed the room like a trap door slamming over our heads. Piaras looked up from where he had been grinding dried herbs, his eyes wide, like a deer caught in a hunter’s sights. I swore and reached for every shield I had. The Gate and the dark magic that fed it ate them like a late night snack. There was no way Mychael or Tam or anyone else could get in. And we weren’t getting out.
Sarad Nukpana’s Gate opened simply, no mouth of hell, no brimstone stench, just a parting curtain of silvery fog. I tried to draw my blades; I wanted to push Tarsilia behind me. Neither one was going to happen. The same dark sorcery that sealed the room held the three of us immobile. A sickly sweet smell came from the Gate and the sibilant chanting of combined goblin voices came from beyond it. I knew the chanting and what was feeding its power was worse, much worse. I heard the screams in the background to prove it.
Tarsilia was next to the Gate when it opened. She was the first to be taken.
“No!” Piaras’s anguished scream was in my ears and my mind.
A trio of black-robed goblin shamans crossed through the Gate into the room. A fully formed Magh’Sceadu drifted silently behind them. I couldn’t do a thing to stop any of them—and neither could Piaras. They grabbed him and pinned him to the floor, the Magh’Sceadu floating eagerly within touching distance. Piaras’s wide eyes tracked the creature’s every move. He knew what to be most afraid of.
Sarad Nukpana stood just on the other side of the portal. He made no move to come through. He didn’t need to. His shamans and Magh’Sceadu were doing a fine job all by themselves. And if he had created the Gate himself, he’d have to stay on the other side to keep it stable and open. It had taken an obscene amount of strength to punch a hole through the shields and wards surrounding Tarsilia’s shop. Nukpana had the strength, and from the sudden silence behind him, he had taken the lives.
“Welcome, Mistress Benares. This is a pleasant surprise. Just when I thought you were going to be elusive again, you’ve become most accommodating.”
His voice was just as I remembered: crisp, cultured, and skin-crawling creepy. I could see his eyes and I didn’t want to. Reflected in those dark eyes was something quiet, something ageless and malignant. If eyes were the windows to the soul, Sarad Nukpana’s soul had never seen the light of day.
Here was a goblin who enjoyed his work way too much.
To him, Piaras was little more than a boy, and what magic I had of my own would be hard pressed to mess up his hair, and he knew it. The Saghred was capable of more—much more. He knew that, too. He smiled slowly.
Then he extended his hand through the Gate to me. Dark blood was smeared on his palm. I knew it wasn’t his. As his hand passed over the Gate’s threshold, the pressure holding us immobile lifted. I treated myself to a deep breath. Piaras drew a ragged gasp. I guess if a hunter wanted his prey, he had to open the trap.
“Come, Mistress Benares. We have much work to do, and time is short.”
A reasonable request, in a reasonable tone. No maniacal laughter, no gleeful wringing of hands. None of the usual hallmarks of evil. Then why did I want to scream and run, and not in that order?
I swallowed the scream. “Let him go.”
That confused Nukpana. I guess he wasn’t too familiar with demands.
He realized what I meant, and glanced down at Piaras. You think I’d have asked him to give up a favorite lab animal. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“That’s the deal, take it or leave it.”
He smiled again. “You are in no position to bargain, Mistress.”
“Neither are you.”
I could let the Saghred use me, but it would take my breath, what was left of my strength—and would bring me one step closer to whatever awaited me by using it again. I didn’t want any of those things. Yet if I did nothing, the goblin would get everything his blackened heart desired, including two of the people I held most dear.
Easy decision. Some things are worth any price.
I knew what I wanted to do. I just had no idea how to do it. Fortunately, the Saghred knew both. My heart hammered in my chest, and my breath came quick and shallow from the awakening power. The goblin’s smile widened. I knew why I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t. Let him think I was terrified. I was. But not only of him.
The Gate was in my home because of Sarad Nukpana. I wanted to hurt the goblin grand shaman very badly. Hurt him, hurt the Gate. It was simple and brutal, but then I’m a simple and brutal kind of girl. If he wanted the power of the Saghred, he could have it. I hoped he choked.
At that moment, Piaras wrenched himself free of one of his captors, kicking the shaman under the chin with the heel of his boot. Sarad Nukpana’s attention went from me to Piaras for a fraction of a second. It was the only chance I was going to get. I took it.
I had the brief satisfaction of seeing the goblin’s black eyes widen in shock as the impact hit him. It lifted him off his feet, propelling him backward out of my line of sight. I felt the tremors, saw the chunks of stone fall from the ceiling in the room beyond the portal. The screams of pain I now heard were goblin. Over it all I heard Sarad Nukpana’s voice, calling for order, weakened, but hardly dead.
He wasn’t dead? I had vaporized six Magh’Sceadu in The Ruins. The Saghred could level armies, but it couldn’t kill one goblin? My throat constricted and I tasted blood in my mouth. I continued forcing the power that coursed through me into the Gate. Black flowers bloomed on the edge of my vision. If I lost consciousness, I was dead.
Piaras roared.
His terror was compounded by a rage that had been born last night in an alley, grew in The Ruins, and now ripped itself fully formed from his vocal chords in an apothecary’s workroom. I’d seen him angry, but never like this. The power within him fed off of that anger.