The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

XXIII

The Captive

In which they discover how the captive is bound

“It’s this way,” Damya said, putting away her globe. Time now for her scryer’s senses, she said. She led them to another entrance, one in a small clearing on the other side of Mount Adamant.

On this part of the mountain, the terrain obliged visitors to arrive via gryphons or dragons. Sharp crags made foot traffic a nightmare, and horses were not to be thought of. For this reason, Nensela insisted on checking for an aerie before landing. Fortunately, the Red Daggers did not keep one. At least, not on this side of the mountain.

Nensela shrugged off her cloak, revealing her quiver and bow case. Fashioned of black leather, the case’s façade was covered in a matching luxurious material. Velvet, her mortal husband told her. Beautiful silk embroidery on the velvet face depicted a jade dragon and red-violet phoenix. Lustrous hepatizon formed the trim, and Nensela always assumed the metal was chosen to match the phoenix.

The case was her husband’s gift to her, to entice her to take their voyage to the Gold Sea.

A phoenix for my phoenix, he laughed, for her immortality always delighted him.

You can get more like this if we go, he’d said. It is well made, see? This case will probably still be good even after I’m dead. Just think of me whenever you use it. Promise?

Nensela slipped on her thumb ring, then readied her bow. Senet had given her this one, a composite of ivory and palm wood.

The bracer she wore was a newer commission, cleverly concealed by her shawl and a chain of ancient gold coins she’d wrapped around her forearm like a bangle. If the prime beast master had spotted her battle gear he would have refused to rent her the gryphons, no matter the price. The coins were her keepsakes, mementos of the lost nations that minted them. From Amathus to Muziris to Zanbil— Now she removed the chain from her wrist and transferred it to her waist, like a belt.

She took aim, her keen eyes marking her prey before the others saw them. Twice she loosed an arrow, followed a heartbeat later by two shouts and two thuds near the mouth of the cave.

Leo whistled. “Is it true that archers from your land can hit the eyes of your enemies at a distance?” He eyed her barbed, poison-tipped arrows with wary respect.

Nensela smiled. “We earned the ‘pupil smiters,’ it is not a showman’s pitch.”

At the cave’s entrance they passed over the corpses without comment.

Once inside they came to the pens and stables. Leo’s magic calmed the animals, and Nensela’s arrows felled the beast masters. Next they came to the headquarters, and what would likely be Gallo’s personal quarters.

Nensela lingered between the two buildings. If she were Gallo, she would keep the captive close enough to monitor. Cautiously, she Called out.

«I’ve returned. I bring friends. Are you well? Can you help us find you?»

No response.

“Do you sense anything?” Nensela asked, refusing to panic.

Unholy chains signaled a high-value target, in Nensela’s calculation. So valuable that the Red Daggers would not kill her simply out of panic.

Could the hostage perish on her own? Though immortal, dryads could “go to their mother’s side,” as one told her once. On the other hand, Nensela was uncertain the hostage was a dryad. Something about her felt wrong, even allowing for the condition she must be in.

Damya halted in her tracks. She grabbed Nensela’s arm, and gripped it so hard that Nensela almost cried out. Leo watched calmly. Clenching her teeth, Nensela kept silent and counted the beats of her own heart. As she counted, she noted a ring Damya wore. White jadestone, set in orichalcum. The rose-gold metal stood for Aletheia’s flames—Damya had some gift for truthsay.

Blessedly for Damya, Nensela’s patience lasted until the count of one hundred and two, when the scryer finally came to her senses and let Nensela go.

“Your friend has been taken,” Damya whispered. “Gallo carries her further below ground. And the hostage—the first hostage, is there, too. Let’s hurry.”

As it turned out she need not have said that last, for Nensela and Leo were already heading for the open courtyard. Damya hastened to overtake them. Once in the lead she took them past the armory to a door built into the cavern wall.

A locked door.

Yielding to Leo’s venatori powers, the door fell off its hinges. Just in time Leo caught the door, and Nensela and Damya assisted him in quietly lowering it to the floor.

No lights lit their way here, so Leo took the lead. After all, Nensela could not shoot what she could not see, and Damya was not a field arcana. Only Leo’s powers could protect them now. Earlier Nensela saw him praying to the Huntress, and she hoped the goddess walked with him.

For a long while they crept through the dark, until at last light bloomed ahead. Gradually, as their eyes adjusted, they realized the light spilled from a door opened ajar.

“Here,” Damya whispered.

Nensela readied an arrow. Did she not promise Gallo he may die on his feet? Time to make it so.

“A moment,” Leo murmured. He held out his left hand, and a moment later a gust of wind rushed from him, and shoved the door open so hard it banged against the wall.

Through the open door they caught sight of a startled-looking Gallo. As though she were a saddlebag, he carried Edana slung over his back…in front of an open portal. Copper clouds irised in a stone archway. From inside the portal blew a wind so strong it ruffled their clothes and lifted their hair.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t make eye contact with Edana, as the young woman’s face was pressed against Gallo’s back.

Before she could speak, a familiar sensation came over Nensela. Almost of its own accord her mouth opened, and the words she spoke were not her own. In the Adamantean’s tongue she said,

“You take your death with you, Gallo.”

In obvious surprise Gallo staggered back. He did not step, but fell into the swirl of copper clouds, taking Edana with him. In her mind’s eye a road appeared before Nensela, and she stood motionless, seeing what she had to do.

Be still.

Leo charged forward, but she made no attempt to stop him. The portal closed faster than he could run, in only three beats of her heart. Leo swore, loudly and with feeling.

“Do not fear what must happen,” she said, again in a voice not her own.

Leo stared aghast at her, but Damya nodded her acceptance. Seeing the scryer’s reaction appeared to check Leo’s, for his shoulders sagged in resignation.

“Look,” Damya said, pointing.

Her outstretched finger drew their gazes to the stone tub in the center of the room.

Something about the tub made the hair rise on Nensela’s neck. Cautiously she approached it, Leo keeping step with her. However; Damya reached it first, and Nensela halted, awaiting her reaction.

Damya’s brow furrowed. Then she clamped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes widened. Leo joined her and looked down. He stumbled backwards, mouth agape.

Steeling herself, Nensela joined them.

The tub was filled with a strange liquid. Violet, ethereal water that glowed softly, and occasionally sparked lightning. Below all of that, a hazy shape with human contours.

The hostage.

Something about the water piqued at her memory. What was it about the color? The color meant something.

Damya cried out. “By the gods! Oh curse them, curse them all, may the Serpent take their souls!”

The scryer threw herself into Leo’s arms, and he looked over her head at Nensela. “This tub is a tomb. Not for the hostage. For the asrai.”

A jolt went through her body, and Nensela shuddered. “To the Serpent with Gallo,” she cursed.

At last she solved the mystery as to why Gallo was so off balance, so clearly out of sorts. The desecration he’d committed obliged him to suffer divine punishment.

Terror and reverence made Nensela avert her eyes from the water. Through all the centuries of her life, she never once came across the remains of an asrai before. Now she recalled what stirred her memory: accounts of certain sorcerer-kings in the days before the Scouring. Sorcerers so wicked, so decadent, they captured asrai for the sole purpose of bathing in the water they dissolved into when in captivity.

“How many?” she asked, finding her voice.

“To fill this? At least a dozen asrai,” Leo estimated. “According to my lore scrolls.”

“How do we free the hostage?” Nensela asked.

Reaching into the tub to unstopper it was not an option; touching the waters seemed disrespectful. There was also the possibility asrai waters were as perilous as their tears. The wicked sorcerer kings used unholy methods to survive their baths, or so the stories claimed.

Was the hostage a naiad? Such cruel efficiency, seizing a naiad and her asrai attendants, and using those attendants to bind her.

Leo began pacing frantically, unable to hide his alarm. “We need a priest. A Restorite priest. They would know the rites. By the Huntress! I hope Ziri feeds those Red bastards alive to the gryphons, and the rats, too!”

An apt sentiment, Nensela judged. Now to find—there. The mirror in the corner would serve her purposes nicely. Striding over to it she Called out.

“Nensela Sideris, prophet of the Seeker, requests aid from a servant of the Restorer. An evil has been done. Answer, please.”

Several Restorites responded within a beat of her heart. Attentive, their expressions changed from polite interest to a mixture of rage and horror as Nensela tersely explained the situation.

Immediately, a priestess volunteered to bring a cadre of priests to perform the cleansing rites. Thank the Restorer she was in Kyanopolis, as opposed to the others who were speaking from other nations of the empire.

With her scrying crystal Damya made arrangements with another battle scryer the Star Dragons left stationed at the public aerie.

“Send an escort for the Restorites. Bring them here with all speed,” she ordered.

Meanwhile, Leo made tentative overtures to the hostage, first vocally and then spiritually. No response. When Nensela Called, the hostage sounded weak, feeble.

The priestess left them, but Nensela maintained her connection with the other priests, to ask one important question.

“What boon might the outlaws have hoped to gain from this abominable act?”

The priests hurriedly conferred with each other through her link. At last one broke off; however, and beckoned for Damya to come forward.

“One of your order might do this,” he said carefully. “Light, water, reflections—from what I understand, these reveal nearly all that a scryer seeks to know. But not everything, correct? By the rules of the Ever Bright some things remain hidden…and for those things, legend has it you must use the waters of an asrai. Nothing at all can be hidden from a scryer who uses an asrai’s water.”

“Some claim that,” Damya conceded, her eyes cast down.

“And the hostage?” Nensela pursued. “What manner of being can survive immersion in the waters of an asrai? Or would require such a binding?”

This prompted another lively conference amongst the Restorites. In the end, they unanimously concluded the children of the gods made the most sense for candidates: naiads were the top choice, followed by dryads, followed by sea dragons.

“Thank you,” she said, and released them at last.

Nensela’s thoughts raced. Something was not adding up here. Outlaw sorcerers wanting forbidden power made sense. Using the asrai was a giant step into depravity…but not inconceivable. Not if there was something they wanted to know so badly, it was worth risking damnation.

By the Ever Bright’s rules, some things remain hidden. Impossible to scry. Such as?

The conclave.

The night last spring when she and Senet met with the other prophets in the Library of Kyanopolis. When the bandits attacked, the first thing the prophets wondered was how the bandits knew to attack them, then and there. On a night when the moon was dead, the conclave should have been hidden from scryers.

Now she knew. Asrai waters must allow for scrying at forbidden times. One advantage Gallo and Duke Gagnon would have sought. But that surely wasn’t all…

The Star Dragons.

At Fanuco’s Ziri thought shadow agents were a natural solution to the mystery of how the Red Daggers were able to find the Star Dragons. Never before had she asked how the Star Dragons made themselves unique among people in being hidden from scryers. But hidden they were. Except from asrai…

Edana.

Beyond all doubt the Red Daggers had searched diligently for Edana. Yet she evaded them. How? Why did they have to use ‘mundane’ methods to find her, if no one or nothing could stay hidden if scryed in the water of asrai?

And how was the hostage connected?

Clearly, the asrai were only a small part of the thread on the loom. Nensela tried again to Call the hostage. The hostage must be the key. Something about the hostage would account for everything about this situation.

She glanced again at Damya, whose face glistened with tears. “What distinguishes you and the other Star Dragons? In what fashion would a naiad, dryad, or sea dragon aid a search for you? Come child, dry your tears. Let us reason this problem together.”

But Damya and Leo both shrugged helplessly.

“None of this makes sense,” Damya wailed. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of any reason for what these monsters have done to their victim.”

“Forget about what doesn’t make sense,” Nensela suggested. “What marks you as a Star Dragon? What binds you to your confederates, but excludes those who are not one of you? Start with Edana, whom the Red Daggers could not find even as they found your people.”

Where, she wondered, would Gallo take Edana? Where might he think himself safe from Nensela’s wrath?

Murena?

Quite the gambit. Would Gallo, in his panic and fear, attempt to seek refuge with Murena?

Leo suggested, “All I know is our oath. Could that be it? That the Red Daggers use the asrai to find out who took the oath? Edana hasn’t taken it. If they concentrated only on the oathtakers, then that would include us and exclude Edana.”

An oath? Excellent starting point, but the captive was still unaccounted for in this scenario.

“What is the nature of this oath? A spell? Is a naiad or a dryad needed to amplify the powers of the asrai waters?”

“The oath is a spell,” Leo confirmed. “But the naiads are daughters of the Restorer. I am a huntsman, my lady, and I know little about naiads save that their springs can heal you.”

“Young man, I seek your counsel on that which is not obvious.”

Leo hastened to add, “The summer solstice nears. Maybe they need a naiad to fuel the darker magics—you did say abyssal were involved in this, didn’t you? Only instead of healing, maybe the Red Daggers wish to create a plague?”

Nensela cocked an eyebrow. An intriguing idea. Still, Edana was not yet accounted for in this scheme.

Would she see the young woman again?

Alive?

Only the Seeker knew…and Nensela must trust Her.

Bile rushed up inside her, and Nensela swallowed hard.

Countless times the Seeker defied her understanding. When doing Her will, Nensela did not always understand the why of it. Overthrow this king, or raise up this one. Help a wicked scoundrel to redeem himself, while telling a doer of virtuous deeds to get his affairs in order.

Time, and experience, gave her perspective. The passing of years brought her insight into past events she’d lived through. With this insight, she gained faith in her Seeker. A faith which carried her through events the meaning or purpose of which remained mysterious even now.

Thus, she did not rebel.

Never, until the Seeker demanded she take The Voyage.

The voyage—as the Seeker showed her—that would cost Nensela her family.

For six years Nensela sought an answer. Why did she have to take that trip? Why did she have to lose her family? Did her daughter survive somehow?

And You gave me no answer, though I begged You for one, Nensela seethed.

Until the giants.

An answer that lacerated her heart all over again.

But now her own words in Fanuco’s came back to her, and she clutched her cheek as if someone had slapped her.

Blind. This whole time, she had been blind.

Her jaw locked. This was not a time to allow her emotions to wash over her.

After a long while, she held out her hand. Steady. Later she must reckon with herself. For now, she had to do what she could to save the captive, who would help her to save Edana.

Damya’s crystal flared.

The Restorites had arrived.

While Nensela and Damya remained with the captive, Leo hurried out to guide the newcomers. An eternity went by before the priestess and her band swept into the room. Indigo and silver robes marked them as high priests of the Restorer, and their scowls marked them as furious. Righteous fury made good fuel, Nensela thought. As high priests they were powerful, and the approach of the resurrection solstice amplified their powers.

The priests circled the tub, eying it with both distaste and speculation. Nensela brought up Leo’s idea, of using naiads to bolster darker magics.

“Is it possible to assay what more may have been done to these waters?”

The high priestess, Tala, nodded. “There is no question something was done to corrupt these waters. Certainly a spell or a potion prevents the waters from dissolving. Before we can work, I must remove the impurity.”

“Is it the captive? How are we to remove her?”

The priests conferred amongst themselves for a short while. They apparently had a different plan in mind before arriving, and Tala’s diagnosis obliged them to change their plans.

Finally, they took something from the bags they carried. One at a time they placed sacred plants, flowers, and oils into the water, and over each one they said a word, different each time. Next, in unison they poured small jugs of water—likely from a naiad spring—into the tub.

The priests raised their arms over their heads, and clasped hands with one another. In a loud voice they chanted, in a liturgical language unknowable to those not initiated into the mysteries of the Restorer.

The priests fell silent, but they remained still. Damya and Leo seemed to be holding their breaths.

Suddenly, a whirlwind arose from the tub, and exploded into a blinding indigo light. From out of this maelstrom a strange, otherworldly voice spoke a language Nensela had never heard before.

As her sight returned she dimly perceived the priests swaying on their feet. Gradually clarity came, revealing the dazed, vacant looks on everyone’s faces. The otherworldly voice had vanished. Moments went by before she realized she had lost her hearing, and Tala’s words seemed to come from far away.

“…it is done,” Tala repeated.

She held a hand out to Nensela, and when Nensela came to her Tala seized her tightly, putting all her weight onto Nensela’s arm. In turn Nensela steadied her, letting the priestess lean against her. Curious, Nensela gazed into the pool.

The water was gone, not a trace of it remained.

Before their eyes lay a lithe, naked young woman whose lashes fluttered as she struggled to open her eyes.