The scuff of boots on dirt brought Khirro’s hand to his sword hilt. He headed toward the noise, pushing aside brush until he found the magician, stripped to the waist, crouching by a rock. His cloth mask lay on the ground, bits of dirt and decayed needles stuck to it as though it had been kicked around. Sweat streamed down Athryn’s face; rocks and twigs, leaves and roots littered the area around him. His dagger lay atop the stone. Blood from a multitude of cuts along his left arm dripped steadily from the tip of the index finger. When Khirro emerged into the clearing, Athryn looked up at him, face haggard, eyes sad. He shook his head.
“Nothing.” His shoulders sagged as though someone released the air from him. Khirro felt the same.
“Nor I.”
He picked his way through the piles of detritus to stand by Athryn. Sweat shimmered on the magician’s chest and arms, making the black letters tattooed on his skin gleam.
“I think the Necromancer might have made me become the tyger. I don’t have any control.”
Athryn shook his head again. “Darestat was already gone when you changed.”
“‘Already dead’, you mean.”
“No, that is not what I mean.” He retrieved his mask, shook dirt from it, then used it to wipe the perspiration from his brow and blood from his hand. “The Necromancer is not dead.”
“But I saw-”
“Do you not remember the tale I told you of Monos, the first Necromancer? Powerful magicians are not so easily killed.”
Khirro thought about Ghaul’s arrow piercing the Necromancer’s throat and wondered if Athryn might be fooling himself into believing Darestat still lived.
But he disappeared. There was no body.
Many strange things had happened during their time in Lakesh, and probably more to come, so he supposed he shouldn’t discount the possibility so easily. Let the magician believe what he will.
“Can you conjure him? Get his help?”
The magician shrugged and shook his head.
“And you’ve had no luck casting spells?” Khirro asked.
Athryn grunted and gestured toward the debris spread out around him. “I have tried everything I can with what I have. There are still other possibilities, but I have no gold, nor bones, potions, nor amulets. Nor many other things.”
Khirro suppressed a shudder. When Athryn’s brother Maes still lived, they used another method for summoning magic together. The little man’s torso, arms and legs had been as covered with scars as Athryn’s were scrawled with the words needed to cast the spells. How long would it be before he asked the same of Khirro? He didn’t like the idea of self-mutilation, but it could mean their lives. Given the choice between gaining a scar and living or going to the grave with unblemished skin, Khirro decided he’d rather take the scar.
“There’s one thing you haven’t tried,” Khirro said quietly. Athryn looked at him, blue eyes shining with understanding, but he said nothing. “Maes used to draw his own blood so you might cast your spells.”
Athryn nodded almost imperceptibly. “He did, Khirro, but he was my brother; we shared the power. The fact he is not here may be why I cannot cast a spell.”
“You didn’t know if herbs would work, either, yet you sacrificed these fine plants.” Khirro indicated a heap of leaves near his foot and forced a smile, but it quickly faded. “We'd better find out if it works now, not wait until another giant swings his club at my head.”
“You are right.” Athryn plucked his dagger from the rock and offered it hilt-first. Khirro shook his head and pulled Elyea’s dagger from his belt.
“What do you want me to do?”
He waited while Athryn scanned the swirling lines etched on his arms, tracing the cursive script with the tip of his finger. He stopped on a line that, to Khirro, looked no different than the others.
“What I attempt will be simple. You need not cut deeply, it should only be necessary for you to draw a few drops of blood.”
“Good,” Khirro answered thinking about the scars on his thigh and shoulder where arrows had pierced his flesh. He held the quivering tip of the dagger over his left forearm. “When do I do it?”
“Now.”
Athryn closed his eyes and chanted quietly in a foreign tongue. Khirro looked at him, still not used to his friend’s unscarred face, then took a deep breath scented with disturbed dirt and the magician’s sweat and poked the dagger against his flesh. It hurt but didn’t break the skin. Khirro withdrew the blade and tried again, this time drawing its sharp edge across his flesh.
The blade sliced through his skin. Air whistled between his clenched teeth; a trail of blood trickled around the curve of his arm. The magician opened his eyes and stared at the space between them. Khirro did, too, and saw nothing. Athryn chanted louder, trying harder. Khirro knew little of the workings of magic, but had seen first hand that the volume of the chant was unimportant when Maes healed Athryn with the mumblings of a missing tongue. He was about to say this when a shimmering in the air silenced him.
Khirro’s eyes widened as the tremulous air came together to from a ghostly shape, its appearance causing a blossom of hope in Khirro’s chest. Something flickered in the vision: a tiny version of the flaming tyger he’d become, but it didn’t advance beyond translucence before disappearing. Athryn chanted a few more seconds before falling silent. Khirro stared at the empty air, hoping it would return.
“Why did you stop?” He did his best to keep the note of disappointment from his voice. “It was working.”
“I did not stop, Khirro. That was the best I could do.” Athryn handed him the soiled mask to clean the blood off his forearm. “But it worked better than anything else.”
Khirro wiped his arm then looked up at the magician. “Did it need more blood?”
Athryn shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Let’s try again.” Khirro brandished the dagger, surprised by his willingness to cut himself, but his companion shook his head.
“No, Khirro. We must go.”
“We need to figure this out. Our lives could depend on it.”
Frustration tied knots in the muscles of Khirro’s jaw as Athryn rose from his squat and pulled his shirt on; frustration quickly became anger.
“Why don’t you want to do this?” he snapped. “Are you afraid of failing?”
“No. I think I know what I will need for my magic to work as it should.” He donned his cloak and pulled his pack over his shoulder. “Right now, we have to go.”
“But why not now?” Khirro demanded.
The magician stepped close, his lips inches from Khirro’s ear, and whispered:
“Because we are being watched.”
Chapter Five
Therrador tapped his foot; the click of his leather boot soles on stone echoed through the empty chamber. He fidgeted in his chair and leaned forward, elbows on the table, happiness and trepidation battling in his chest. Soon, the Archon would arrive, Graymon with her.
It would be good to have his boy back.
The weeks since the treacherous woman took him had been the worst of his life, worse than when he lost his beloved Seerna. He rocked back in his seat, shifted, then leaned forward on his elbows again, wondering how an agent of the Archon had reached Achtindel, entered the palace and left with Graymon unnoticed.
Someone will answer for that.
The door at the far end of the chamber swung open. Therrador settled his restless feet and sat straight. No door guard entered to announce his visitor-he’d instructed them to let the Archon in when she arrived-but it surprised him when the woman strode through the door with no soldiers of her own accompanying her. And no Graymon. Therrador stood suddenly, pushing the chair back with a scrape of wood against stone.