The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

XXVI

Desolation

In which Halie shows her power and explains her purpose

“You may call me Halie,” the strange woman said, sitting up straighter. Her eyes flashed gold as she became more animated. “As I said, I was sent to this world for a specific purpose. Until now, I believed I had failed. You see, before I drew breath in this world, my mother spoke to me of many things. The Sea Lord spoke to me in His turn, and told me what I must do. You are the one they told me to find.”

“For what purpose?”

“To help you fight the Aeternity War. But there is another thing we must do first. We must stop these giants.”

Lady Nensela smiled tightly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do. But you make it sound as if that matter is incidental. And now you mention this Aeternity War, a cause or event that has never been known to me.”

Halie rose and turned to the door. Her hair fell over her face, and around her shoulders, concealing her from view.

“You knew not of it because it was not the Seeker’s will for you to know your part in it. Not before now. Not before you had your vision. And more importantly, not before you acted on your vision. That is why I know it is you I was told to seek. Come. You said that your friend has been taken, by the one who carried out the order to have me taken. Let us seek her now. Let us find her. We have work to do.”

Lady Nensela offered Halie her arm, and Halie accepted. To her surprise, Halie turned back when they reached the door. She lifted her free arm and spoke a single word,

“Begone!”

The ground rumbled and shook, and Lady Nensela stood transfixed as she watched what happened next. A black hole opened, first beneath Gallo’s desk, swallowing it, then it grew bigger and bigger, taking into its depths every statue, every fixture, every piece of furniture until at last only the walls remained. Even those Halie did not spare.

Cracks appeared in the frescoes, then the walls exploded, as if a dam had burst. Chunks of stone and rock fell into the chasm, aiming straight for the center before they were no more. When every part of what had been Gallo’s office whirled into the chasm, Halie passed her hand over it in a broad, sweeping gesture.

As quickly as it came, the vortex vanished, shrinking until all that was left was a deep, fathomless brine.

“By the Huntress,” Leo whispered.

Ziri whistled, his expression awestruck, and only then did Nensela notice that the two of them had come up beside her. The men took a step back, contemplating Halie. With her hair concealing her face, only her right eye was visible. An eye which glinted with cold fury.

“Let no part of this place remain. Everything, everything must be destroyed. Let no spoils leave here with you that is of this place. A welp of the Abyssal Serpent has polluted these walls. I will cleanse these caverns of every trace of it, and none shall come here again and live.”

Lady Nensela glanced at Ziri. Of course the spymaster looked amazed; Halie’s order went against every part of his training. Surely he had trained his arcana similarly well, to focus more on gathering intelligence than spoils?

The other Star Dragons, who stood far back, watched the proceedings in dead silence. Claudius, she noted, sank to the ground once again, palms up like a supplicant.

At a gesture from Lady Nensela, Ziri snapped to his senses. Once again he bowed to Halie, deeper and lower than he had before. Ziri straightened, and hurried to carry out her order. He gathered his people about them, and loudly repeated Halie’s command.

Several Star Dragons pointedly disposed of plunder they took from the Red Daggers, and even Claudius was quick to strip himself of everything short of the clothes on his back. Halie eyed him in particular but he could not meet her gaze, flinching away every time he caught her eyes on him.

Once Halie was satisfied nothing belonging to the Red Daggers would escape their fortress, she agreed to leave. The Star Dragons looked to her to set the pace as they hurried out. However, she patiently waited until they were all mounted on their gryphons before she abolished the fortress.

The landscape around the clearing wilted. Every tree withered, every sward of grass browned, every petal of every blossom shriveled and fell to the ground.

From ancient times soldiers would salt the ground of cities they razed, a curse against any who might rebuild them. In the here and now, Halie’s brine served for the same purpose, and Lady Nensela and the Star Dragons bowed their heads for a moment of silence.

Soon enough they left, with Lady Nensela sharing her gryphon with Halie, who rode behind her. When they passed over the bodies of the Red Daggers, Halie once again shouted, “Begone.”

They did not linger to see the chasm swallow the corpses.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Bessa clasped her hands behind her neck, elbows jutting past her chin, clear warning to back off.

She had watched from the mezzanine as the Star Dragons returned. At first she exhaled in relief when she counted the gryphons. None were lost.

But one gryphon was without a rider.

And Edana was not among them.

Bessa stood on her toes, stretched her neck, and squinted and scanned, calmly seeking for any sign of her. After all, Edana could have easily doubled up with someone.

Stoic, she refused to panic. Not even when Lady Nensela gave her the news.

Wisely, Lady Nensela made no attempt to approach her. Instead she glanced about the mezzanine, her eyes alighting on everyone present, as if she were checking that there was no one who should not be there.

“Gallo took her. To a place Claudius assures us he can find.” Lady Nensela indicated the man manacled and leashed at Ziri’s feet.

Bessa didn’t even glance at him. “And you trust this scum because?”

“Because he fears Her Grace, Halie,” she said, indicating the exotic young woman accompanying them. “And he has no choice but to be as useful as possible, if he wishes to live. We will get her back, Bessa. This I know.”

Her Grace. An honorific bestowed on a demigodess—dryads and naiads—but what use were either of those beings when Erebossi were about?

“I thought Murena was after Edana. Seers are blind to fellshades. How do you know she’s not trapped somewhere with him now?” Bessa took a step back, further distancing herself.

“If you were Gallo, would you be so quick to give away your only leverage? If I were Gallo, I would hide Edana in a place I have exclusive access to, until I found a way to resume being useful to Murena.”

“She’s right,” Claudius chimed in. He sounded as if the idea came as a revelation to him.

Bessa pivoted on her heel, at last deigning to give him her attention.

“With our people dead, there is nothing more Gallo could do for Murena,” Claudius said. “Except to give him Edana. Gallo has his own plans, and even without that he wouldn’t want Murena to think he’s expendable.”

“His own plans?” Lady Nensela said sharply. “You neglected to mention this. Do not think you will be permitted to trot out secrets at your leisure. Be useful very quickly, or I will end you.”

Halie gave a feral smile, revealing sharp canines. Claudius visibly recoiled, and clamped both of his hands over his mouth. Keeping his screams inside?

“Only by her sufferance do I let you live,” Halie pointed out. “Give her cause to doubt your usefulness, and I will end you first.”

Through her fury, Bessa felt a wisp of curiosity…and fear.

Claudius hastened to say, “What I mean is, Gallo mentioned what he hoped would happen now that the giants are coming. Fantastical stuff. Think, the overthrow of the emperor. The end of the prophets. Absolute insanity! About the prophets, I mean. I’m not sure what he has against them, but prophets are eternal. Only the emperor is temporary. Gallo thought Gagnon would be crowned, and he could cash in for all the favors. The giants are supposed to destroy the old order, and Gallo can help remake things as he wants them. He says—”

“Where is Edana?” Bessa cut in, raising her voice. “Where. Is. Edana?”

Claudius’s face froze, and his eyes darted from Lady Nensela to Halie, and now to Bessa. Some part of her could see Claudius was terrified and unsure who to please. No part of her cared; however, and she drew herself up to her full height as she glared down at him.

“She destroyed the portal,” Claudius said quietly, shifting his gaze to Halie.

Bessa advanced a half step towards him, and he shrank back against Ziri’s legs.

“B-but I have an idea,” he blurted. “Like I said, Gallo will go for the vaults, and you’ll need me for that part.”

Haltingly, Claudius outlined how he and Gallo had worked out a plan for a worst-case scenario. In this plan, Claudius would place money into an account under a certain name, and they would meet up in Karnassus to obtain the money and run.

“We have to act fast, though. My seal is needed to open the vault, but it wouldn’t be impossible for Gallo to overcome that problem. If he does, I’m not sure how we can catch up to him again.”

Bessa glanced at the sky. Sunlight waned, would night fall before they found Edana? “Is this a private bank, or a public bank?”

If public, business was conducted during the day, in the temple complex of the city. Where there would be a multitude of guards who would hear screams for help. If private, that meant Gallo used connections with business magnates. Individuals of astonishing wealth who would have exceptionally well-guarded estates equipped with an ergastalum—an underground pit where dangerous slaves were kept in chains. Some estate owners went down in infamy for their practice of throwing innocent passersby into their ergastula, and Bessa wouldn’t put it past Gallo to maintain an acquaintance with such folk.

Claudius ventured a smile. “Time won’t matter, not for this. If we go now—”

“Go now. Into territory you know, and we don’t; among people you trust, but we do not,” Bessa snapped.

Ziri interjected, “O honorable Bessa Philomelos, we’re safer than you think: our good friend Claudius will give us the name, the account, and the bank, and will remain here in our charge. Should anything happen to us he won’t live out this night.”

Claudius straightened. “I will need a tablet and stylus. And an oraculum.”

Darkness had fallen, and starlight glittered on the Viridian. Most warehouses in the port of Kyanopolis were now quiet. Not so in the corner office in the top floor of an ancient, graceful building along the pier.

Inside his richly appointed office Ziri, along with Damya and four other scryers, surrounded a marble fountain projecting from an alcove along the left wall. Appropriately enough for seers, the rim of the fountain was carved to resemble valonian oak leaves and acorns.

Dominating the main wall, windows of costly Athyr-aian glass offered up a visual feast of the Viridian and the moon, which hung low in the sky. Along the window an array of finely wrought figurines of marble or wood made up a tableau on a broad marble ledge.

Lady Nensela reclined on an elegant bench in the center of the room. Eyes closed in meditation, the prophet appeared far removed from the bustle of the scryers.

In a corner in the far side of the office, Bessa stationed herself beside a massive table of valonian oak. Stacks and stacks of papers, half of which were taken from Gallo’s office, nearly concealed the Vassinassan marble inlaid in the table’s top.

Bessa took advantage of her unobtrusive perch to observe Halie, who stood beside Ziri at the fountain. With her back turned, she did not see the uneasy glances Bessa cast her way.

What Lady Nensela said of Halie still made the hairs stand up on Bessa’s neck. The demigods did not mix company with mortals—or rather, Bessa amended with a glance at the prophet, they did not mix with those born to men and women.

Yet here Halie stood, in their company.

Why?

Not for any light reason, she’d wager that much. Worse, the demigoddess claimed a special mission to aid them. Which meant Murena really could be an Erebossan, perhaps a fellshade or arsh’atûm or some other native of that shadowy realm. Bessa admitted to herself, finally, that she had been holding out hope she was wrong about Murena. Correctly guessing that agents of Erebossa were amongst her adversaries brought her no joy, none whatsoever.

Especially since Murena sought Edana, and might now have her in his possession.

What did the shadow fiend want with her?

Surreptitiously, Bessa searched through the papers the Star Dragons had taken from the Red Daggers. Somewhere in this pile Gallo had to have written the answers she sought.

Except he didn’t. Oh, his papers revealed many details the Star Dragons might find tantalizing, but nothing she could make use of right now.

Then she came to a leather portfolio, and flipped it open to the first page inside.

In a fraction of a heartbeat she registered the black slashes and squiggles on the page, before red lightning flashed before her eyes. Terror jolted through her spine and deep into her nerves. Shuddering, Bessa reflexively slammed the folder shut.

Placing a shaking hand over her heart, she counted out her heartbeats until she could regain her calm. Only once in her life had she ever experienced so primal a reaction: on a sweet summer day when she was nine. She had been picking apples with Edana and their friends when she uncovered a snake in her basket.

What was that writing? Something Murena had written?

“Amyntas, protect Edana, please,” Bessa whispered.

Terror and despair threatened to overtake her. Honey-tongued, some called her, and yet her arguments availed her nothing in keeping Edana from going on that raid—

Notes from the dream spinner sounded in her head, bringing to remembrance her own words. From her own mouth she said honor and duty came before her own safety … and Edana’s sentiments matched her own, did they not? Her rage deflated, Bessa slumped against the table.

Only then did she see Halie eyeing her with keen interest.

“Karnassus,” Ziri said, sharply enough to break Bessa’s reverie. “Of course! Gallo must mean to use the Gate. As soon as he gets the money.”

“Which should be in our possession, if your men are successful,” Lady Nensela said, rising from her bench.

“Where can that Gate take him?” Halie asked.

Ziri pointed to an itinerary map on his wall near the fountain. “To another Gate, or a lesser portal. The only other Gate in Rasena Valentis is in the Aerie. If he means to go there, I could arrange for a welcome party to meet him. If he means to travel to a private portal then I can make no promises about tracking him.”

“Karnassus holds more than one attraction for Gallo,” Lady Nensela pointed out. “He may seek an alliance with Honoria Vartanian or Justin Kellis. Without his men Gallo must exploit a resource ready to hand: Edana, whom Murena is seeking.”

“So are we going to Karnassus now?” Bessa demanded.

Ziri whirled. Seeing her standing behind his desk, he narrowed his eyes and started forward.

Unabashed, Bessa stood her ground. “When we get there, do we have a way to kill abyssal fiends and their servants?”

Lady Nensela casually placed a hand on Ziri’s arm, halting his steps, but it was Halie she looked to when she asked, “Your Grace? Shall we leave Gagnon’s allies to you?”

The Sea Lord’s daughter bowed her head in response.

Now, finally, overwhelming curiosity obliged Bessa to engage with the demigoddess at last. “If you please—Your Grace—why are you able to fight Erebossi? From the stories I would expect you to make tidal waves or grow a forest. But no story connects sea dragons or dryads with the Erebossi.”

Cool, aloof, Halie gave no sign Bessa had offended her. Befitting Halie’s status as the Sea Lord’s daughter, Damya had clothed her in a golden sea silk chiton. The gown alone gave her a queenly air, but further still, abalone trimmed her sandals and pearls studded the stephane crown on her head.

“Your question is apt,” Halie replied. The folds of her gown swished and swirled about her long legs as she approached the table. “Therefore I will speak to you of my assignment: the Interceptor. Every day the Interceptor grows stronger. Soon it will have the power to sever ties between sorcerers and the Nasiru, the guardians. In their own tongues my Father, the Huntress, the Restorer, and the Reaper call Themselves by this name.”

Nasiru? Guardians?

Coming to rest opposite Bessa at the table, Halie stood close enough for Bessa to catch a subtle whiff of aged ambergris. A sacred scent, burned as incense on the Sea Lord’s holy day.

“Then the ‘presence’ the sorcerers report is a spiritual interdiction,” Lady Nensela concluded, having turned now to follow Halie’s movements. “Is the Interceptor one of the five Erebossi in Rasena Valentis?”

“Nay, it dwells in the Place Between. Such is the name of the realm between the cosmos and Erebossa. Unchecked, the Interceptor’s meddling strengthens agents of Erebossa, and weakens sorcerers loyal to the Nasiru.”

As she spoke, Halie fingered the sheaves of papyrus Bessa had rifled through. Now, up close, Bessa realized Halie did not have fingernails. In their place was something sharper, harder, and a trifle red: claws.

Abruptly Halie glanced up, and met her gaze. “Stories, did you say? Of my Father and my Grandmother? Ah, so marvelous it must be to hear them! Will you tell them to me sometime?”

Shocked, Bessa could only nod. No sound came out when she opened her mouth.

“Thank you,” Halie said, gracious. “Now let me say what the stories did not: sea dragons and dryads are not merely powerful stewards of the forests and the sea. Your world, Thuraia, is supposed to be a boundary between the temporal and the timeless. Between the corporeal and the incorporeal. Between the living and the dead. The latter of each of those is supposed to dwell within Erebossa. Children of the Nasiru defend this world from incursions by the Erebossi.”

Bessa ignored the murmurs of surprise to focus on the one true measuring rod she accorded weight to: Lady Nensela. Because she was watching, she did not miss how still, how statue-like Lady Nensela became.

As if she had said nothing remarkable Halie continued, “Particularly they guard the shadow gates. Not against living heroes who want to enter Erebossa, or summon their dead. But from the dead and arsh’atûm of Erebossa, who can also cross the shadow gates.”

Silence.

Questions swirled in Bessa’s mind. Finding her voice she settled on asking, “Why are there even shadow gates for your kin to guard?”

“The matter of their creation is better left unsaid,” Halie answered. She reached now for the folio case, and Bessa reflexively put out her own hand to stop her. The demigoddess paused, eyeing her. Under her gaze Bessa withdrew her hand.

Halie picked up the case and studied it. Her nostrils flared. “In the primordial days, neither dryads nor naiads nor sea dragons walked Thuraia. A day came when the Seeker spoke a prophecy unto the Nasiru. The next day, the Huntress seeded the world with dryad groves, and the Sea Lord placed the dragon eggs, and the Restorer consecrated the springs. All to defend this world.”

Panic bubbled inside Bessa as Halie slid a claw between the covers of the leather folder. “But what is the Interceptor? Wasn’t the Scouring preceded by the Great Silence, when the sorcerers were cut off from the spirits? Did the Interceptor do that? Is it acting on its own now?”

Unfortunately, her questions failed to distract the demigoddess, who flipped open the folder. For a long moment Halie’s golden eyes roved over the page. Again she turned her gaze upon Bessa.

“This frightens you? The writing on these papers?”

Mute, Bessa nodded. From under her lashes she saw Ziri react.

“As well it should. Were it otherwise I would kill you.” Halie tossed the leather folder back on the desk, scattering several papers.

Bessa flinched. Mercifully, Halie turned away to face the others, who looked as gut-punched as Bessa felt.

“The Interceptor has no holy purpose,” Halie continued. “The Great Silence, as you call it, required no interceptor. For the Scouring my kin sent forth the khrestai to destroy the sorcerers who were attempting to invite the Erebossi into your world. I am here for the Aeternity War, not a Scouring. The Presence is an enemy only; your sorcerers must be warned.”

“My play,” Bessa murmured, recalling the mission Lady Nensela gave to her. The prophet caught her eye, and nodded.

But finding Edana must come first.

“When we find Edana,” Bessa began, “how will you kill Honoria and Murena?”

“Kill them? Impossible. I will expel them. Any of you could destroy the mortal flesh they inhabit, but you cannot kill them.”

Swiftly she turned on her heel and strode over to the tableau arranged on Ziri’s window ledge. She swiped up a figure carved in wood, and held it up for them to see. A lamia.

“This snake woman you can kill: she was born to this world in the Age of Iniquity, though she serves Erebossa. But the lives of the fellshades are not tied to a body, as yours are.” The tip of Halie’s thumb claw rested on the lamia’s neck. The claw extended, lopping off the lamia’s head, which click-clacked against the marble ledge where it fell.

Ziri started; Lady Nensela tightened her grip on his arm.

Taking no notice of their reaction, Halie continued the lesson. “A body merely allows a spirit to influence this world directly, but the body also shackles their power. Unleashed from a body, you free them to usurp someone else.”

Underscoring her point, she promptly beheaded a figure of a naiad. Now she dropped the lamia’s body and retrieved her head, placing it on the naiad’s body. Green light sparked from her fingertips, and the lamia’s head was smoothly fused to the naiad’s body, as if carved that way from the start.

Again she astonished them into silence. Ziri’s appreciative whistle broke the tension, earning a smile from Halie that revealed her sharp canines.

“Of course, an abyssal spirit might not possess someone,” she pointed out. “They might choose to create a stronghold in this world instead. But my point is that the fellshades are indestructible spirits who must either be sealed away, or expelled.”

Lady Nensela asked, “Are the giants also Erebossi?”

“Indeed not, servant of the Seeker. Now for this Gallo. The sooner we save your friend, the sooner I end Gallo’s sojourn in this world, and that of his allies. How soon can we make it so?”