The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

Chapter V

The Ritual

In which Erebossi must be balked

“I don’t like this,” Alia said. She soothed her gryphon, smoothing out its ruffled feathers.

“Agreed,” Sheridan said, eying Tregarde with open suspicion.

They were once again in the Peach Blossom Estates neighborhood, but this time in the park. Alia knew sorcerers were highly selective about where they sited their homes. They said they preferred areas ‘where the magic runs deep.’

In such places, one did not have to be a sorcerer or a priest or a seer to feel the power in the air. It permeated everything, and in quiet moments some people claimed they heard whispers. Whispers, Alia was told, of spirits uttering spells and knowledge in the ears of those attuned to hear them.

Sorcerers with means made a point to live in such places. Sorcerers without means made do with what scraps they could find throughout the city. Not surprisingly, sorcerers in the property trade were amongst the richest, most well-connected people in the city.

The Peach Blossom Estates came with the important perk of having an abundance of plants, herbs, flowers, and other flora suitable for spells and rituals. Some parts of the park were cultivated, others were left wild according to which condition was more favorable for the use of the plants growing in them.

Alia’s vantage point was the bell tower at the center of the park. The bell tower was attuned to celestial phenomena, with different chimes according to when the wandering stars in the Seeker’s Alliance were aligned with each other, or the sun, or the moon. A special ting ting ting rang out when a solar eclipse ensued.

From Alia’s perspective the clearing was visible beyond a circle of trees. Were she on the ground nothing within the circle would have been visible to her. Tregarde insisted the circle would be irresistible to Fellrath’s brotherhood; too well would it serve their plans.

As for Tregarde he appeared tense, expectant as he waited in silence with his arms folded. Back at the Watch he and the other three sorcerers outlined their plan to Alia, but they hadn’t entirely sold her on it: wait for the shadow priest to begin the spell before springing into action.

The plan made sense, in a way—the sorcerers could deny any wrongdoing they might do, but they couldn’t deny any act she saw them actually committing. But all the same, she would rather have grabbed the other three involved in this spell without openly dealing with the priest.

Shadow priests were not illegal, per se. They bore raw power, and may have been schooled in the ways of the Huntress, the Sea Lord, the Reaper, or the Restorer, but they refused to hold allegiance to them. Thus they closed themselves off to the higher powers of the gods. Instead, they dealt strictly with spirits. Or abyssals.

Most especially abyssals.

Devoted as she was to the Huntress, Alia held no fear of shadow priests. However the shadow priests believed themselves to be persecuted, and Alia being a member of the Watch made her useful to them for propaganda purposes.

See? Even when we’re just minding our own business the Watch comes after us. The Watch won’t leave us alone.

While Alia readily acknowledged the shadow priests were universally reviled, she felt little sympathy for them. Refusing to police their own was their own choice, freely made, and too often shadow sorcerers committed nefarious acts—and nothing was worse than soul cutting.

Then again, the last thing she needed was for all of Ebon Cove to begin a rampage against suspected shadow priests or acolytes.

Where once the circle stood empty, suddenly it became a hive of activity. Seven men clustered below. Immediately, Alia pulled a cone of glass from her saddlebag, followed by a five by five inch mirror. The cone was pale gold, an indication it had fully absorbed the light of Sorcha the Everbright.

Alia set the cone in a tiny metal stand, then placed the stand on the ledge, with the pointy end of the cone facing the clearing. Then she held up the mirror in front of the broad, flat end of the cone.

The clearing and its inhabitants came to life vividly in the mirror, showing Alia four men she recognized. First amongst them was Rav, Fellrath’s second-in-command; then Clawfoot, Fellrath’s confidant, and two of their captains.

“Ah,” said Tregarde. “You have one of them Ellura scrying mirrors. Handy.” Along with Sheridan, he and their other companions clustered around Alia, all the better to look through her scrying mirror.

As for Alia, she made no reply, for she focused all of her attention on three people she didn’t recognize. One, a youth, and the other was a man of middle age who kept looking around as if searching for escape routes.

The final man was beyond any chance of recognition, for he alone wore a plain-featured mask of orichalcum. Narrow ovals formed the eyeholes, and a slit sufficed for the mouth. His dark robes shimmered blue in the moonlight.

While she stared at the scrying mirror, Sheridan held out her Ellura Aura Detector No. 8, attempting to capture the auras of those below in the clearing. Unfortunately, Sheridan reported, the Ellura did not work at this range. He even leaned out of the tower as far as he could and extended his arm to maximum distance, and still no luck. If the priest escaped, he had only to shed his robe and his mask and Alia would never know who he was. She looked up to see Tregarde watching her.

He seemed to be reading her thoughts, for he said, “No one will escape, I promise you.”

“Shh,” Sharma warned. He remained mounted on his gryphon, prepared to pounce. Glancing at Alia he said, “When that masked bastard raises his hands, that’s when we move. Ready yourself.”

Ready herself she did, collecting her scrying gear and mounting her gryphon as quickly as the other three sorcerers mounted theirs. The sorcerers brought out their knives, unsheathing them and letting their cutting edges rest against their palms. She shuddered and averted her gaze, concentrating instead on the goings-on in the clearing below.

From her gryphon she resumed looking through the scrying set. The brotherhood had now formed a circle around the youth, the man, and the priest. No escape was possible now for the man and the boy … assuming they wished to escape. The priest started speaking, and the man and the boy stared intently at him. Light glinted from the boy’s hands, confirming they were indeed armed for a blood spell. Quickly, Alia put away the scrying set and prepared to take flight.

“It’s begun,” Tregarde said. He grabbed the reins of Alia’s gryphon, as though to hold her back.

Sheridan looked to Alia and she nodded her assent. The boy’s upbringing was similar to hers in that he possessed the self-discipline to only take her orders, unless she gave him leave to do otherwise. Whatever Tregarde and the others said, he would only follow her.

The shadow priest’s arms shot skyward.

“Now!” the sorcerers shouted as one.

Alia reflexively dug her heels into her gryphon’s flanks, a silent command to take off. The beast remained silent, restrained by the muzzle over its beak so as not to destroy the element of surprise. She flew in the central position, and the sorcerers fanned out around her. In the sky over the circle her sorcerer allies cut their palms and shouted a spell.

Below, the inhabitants of the circle froze. Their knives fell to the grass, and their arms fell limply at their sides.

Alia swooped into the center, directly in front of the shadow priest. She pointed her moonbow knife at him.

“I am Watch-Huntress Alia Ironwing. You are under arrest. Remove your mask.”

The shadow priest wordlessly obeyed, revealing a face almost as nondescript as the mask formerly concealing it. His brown eyes stared glassily at nothing. Coupled with his slack jaws, his countenance assured her he was firmly in the power of the compulsion spell.

Chancing a look back confirmed Sheridan floated directly behind her, at an angle allowing him to point his long knives at the man and the boy. The sorcerers covered the brotherhood.

Still, she felt an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. “Are there more of you?”

“Yes,” the priest said dully.

A quick visual survey revealed no one, nor did her ears pick up on any telltale sounds of people fleeing. But the man was a shadow priest … green light flared from her amulet.

“On guard,” she cried, and tugged at her gryphon’s reigns, taking flight once again.

Sheridan and the sorcerers followed suit.

They were barely in time. Misty shapes floated into view, from just beyond the trees. The mist moved as though powered by a mighty wind, enveloping the brotherhood and the ritualists all at once. Shapes began to coalesce.

“Stop them—” she cut herself off when she realized the sorcerers were already in the midst of a spell.

Something emerged from the mist. Smoke, slithering close to the ground until abruptly it rose up. And up. Above the trees it rose. Now it took on the shape of a man, and extended an arm-like appendage toward Misra. The sorcerer’s gryphon reared up and retreated out of reach of the smoke-thing. The smoke-thing made one last swipe, then shrank back into itself on the ground.

Alia was so focused on Misra that she missed a second smoke-thing reaching for her. Fortunately her gryphon noticed, and ascended rapidly as Sheridan’s warning rang out. She looked down, and gasped out a command, repeating it in rapid-fire succession until she was out of reach of the smoke-thing. Or rather, what she hoped was out of reach.

“What are those things?” she demanded.

“Get back! Infernals! Get back.” Tregarde flew further up, drawing level with the the summit of the bell tower.

The hair stood up on the back of Alia’s neck. She didn’t need to be told a third time. The group clustered their mounts together, so they could speak without shouting.

“What do we do?” Sheridan demanded. “Why are Erebossi here?”

“They were invited,” Tregarde said. “I’ll wager they’re needed to intercept the souls and make sure the spell takes. Maybe they’d even claim the priest and the other two.”

Alia’s nostrils flared. Infernal spirits so near the Radiant Gate? Had the powers of Rikka, her mother, and the other dryads failed so badly? In living memory no Erebossi had never been summoned to Ebon Cove. The dryads made certain the endeavor was impossible. Was this why the Brotherhood sought to weaken them? To violate the Edict of Qirû?

By the Huntress! What other terrors will be unleashed?

“Send the abyssals back to the Serpent,” Alia ordered. “We can’t let the sorcerers finish their ritual.”

The sorcerers were shaking their heads. From the ground, a scream went up. Alia craned her neck, trying to peer through the smoke.

“No,” said Sharma. “You don’t understand. When we did our spell we must have interfered with the priest’s hold on the abyssal. They were under his control. Now they’re after him and everyone in that clearing. They’re lost.”

“Then banish them. Now!”

“We can’t separate them,” Tregarde replied. “We either contain them all or contain none. Only when the people are dead can we do anything. I’m sorry.”

Alia clenched her jaw, annoyed at her own foolishness. Of course the sorcerers didn’t know what to do. But she was no sorceress. At her command her gryphon plunged down, aiming for the spot where she last saw the boy. She held her arms out, her knives gripped tightly in both hands.

“By the Huntress I command you to flee!” she screamed, swooping into the infernal smoke.

The sigils etched into her knives flared white, as did her amulet. Celestial light blinded the others, forcing them to avert their eyes. The abyssal spirits fled, retreating to the edges of the clearing. The ritualists and Fellrath’s officers lay trembling on the ground.

“Now,” Alia ordered.

The sorcerers reacted.

Silvery globes soon enveloped the abyssals, trapping them.

Alia glared at the men. Rav as usual looked smart in his silk tunic and trousers, embroidered with gold threads and fancy beadwork. Meanwhile, Clawfoot leaned into his bestial byname, sporting a cape fastened at his shoulders with the shrunken heads of two rakshasas. Allegedly, the shape-shifting monsters were once sent to kill him by one of his vengeful victims, but so great was Clawfoot’s prowess that he bested them.

As for the ritualists, the middle-aged one sobbed uncontrollably. In shame? Or terror? She focused on the boy for a moment. Peach fuzz covered his face, along with pimples. Young. Trembling hands filled his mouth as he sucked on his fingers, and he rocked back and forth on his haunches. If she were to guess, terror and the breaking of the compulsion spell afflicted him.

The compulsion spell worried her. From what she understood, the worst thing one could do to someone in the power of a compulsion spell was to inflict trauma on them. Effects varied; some people were knocked into endless sleep, and might not be revived for many months. Others went insane, usually temporarily.

But in certain circumstances the victim’s mind was broken forever.

Gryphon’s Rock—the temple of the Huntress—would safeguard the boy, she decided. Neither the brotherhood nor their shadow priests would dare set foot there. In the meantime, the priests would see to the boy. If all went well, he would be forever free of whatever elements of his life led him to be in the soul-cutting circle.

Alia addressed herself to Rav and Clawfoot. “Two choices: come with me, and tell me everything I want to know—or I will let your shadow masters take you. Decide. And be quick about it.”

Extreme emotions might break compulsion spells, and the men were behaving much like the boy, trembling and mumbling to themselves. No one under a compulsion spell could react to emotional stimuli.

The shadow priest lifted his head. He was not traumatized. If anything, he appeared defiant.

“Don’t listen to this ignorant wench,” he cried out. “She falsely claims a place of virtue—”

Immediately Alia pointed one of her knives at him. The sigils of the Huntress flared again, but Alia’s voice was icy in its quiet.

“By the Huntress I will have your silence, abominable one. One more word from you—just one syllable—and I will send you to the Exalted Eagle. Call Her a liar to Her face if you dare.”

It occurred to Alia that just as others would fear the bowels of the Abyssal Serpent, the spirit-cutting shadow priest would dread the abode of the Huntress. Thus, she saw no point in threatening to send him to the Abyssal Serpent.

The priest’s jaw snapped shut. Alia did not hide her sneer of contempt. In his place she would not have imagined backing down. Did he not believe what he claimed?

Now for the others. She sheathed the knife she held in her left hand, but only to draw her Dragon Pearl IV. Hammer pulled back, she aimed for Clawfoot, who cowered to her left. None of these men were worthy of her knives.

“I will not repeat myself.”

And she fired.

Clawfoot screamed, clutching his right shoulder. A rakshasa fang fell to the grass at his feet, blown off his shoulder by Alia’s bullet. No blood flowed from between Clawfoot’s fingers, proof enough she had not shot the man himself. Yet he screamed all the same. Frantic, his eyes swiveled to rest on the Erebossi contained—but only for a moment—in the shields the sorcerers had put up. Panic, terror, were written all over his face. Undoubtedly he was thinking of the implications of dying in the presence of infernal agents. After all, he was their rightful prey …

A cacophony assaulted her ears as the men babbled their response.

Alia smiled grimly, and glanced up at last to see Sheridan and the sorcerers staring down at her, awestruck.

Victory.

Victory only gave her more questions.

Clawfoot, Rav, and the captains filled in several important holes in her knowledge, but soon enough it became clear to Alia they didn’t know the answers to two key questions:

Where were the dryads taken?

And to whom were they given?

“So they wanted power?” Sheridan asked, scorn and disbelief ringing in his voice. He hung back, eying the moat with distaste.

They had returned to Junius Fellrath’s house; Alia needed to search for herself for a thread to follow to find her aunts. Based on what the men had told her she had a good idea of what to search for; something the Watch might have missed on their first search of the home.

Alia entered first, followed by Serafina. The door was still propped open; the wards were no longer an issue. The Watchmen stationed at the end of the bridge proved sufficiently sharp eyed, and saluted Alia snappily enough that she didn’t doubt they were taking their task seriously. No one was to enter Junius’s home, save for anyone directly authorized by Alia or Strategos Palamara.

Serafina glanced back at Sheridan, who was hanging back, and audibly sniffed. “No flayers here, my dear. Come along now.”

“So they keep their word,” he grumbled, and finally started forward.

“They gave their word to the Keeper. They had better honor it,” Alia said. She was studying the floor plan Constable Tau had helpfully made for her. After a moment she started for the library.

“As for your observation, Sheridan,” Serafina began. “I wonder. About that power.”

Alia stopped to look back at her. The senior officers of the Brotherhood insisted the point of capturing dryads was that the dryads fueled unimaginably powerful spells. Powerful enough for the sorcerers to avoid incurring debts to Erebossi, or having to petition the gods or spirits.

The power was intoxicating. No longer would they need an army of sorcerers to make an earthquake, one sorcerer could generate one. Raising the dead even on the winter solstice? Child’s play. The laws of the gods yielded before the sorcerers, who possessed no scruple in bending and breaking them.

“Nothing limits them, except the limits they deign to impose on themselves,” Alia said, modifying a quote from the Edict of Qirû.

“Exactly,” Serafina said. “And I don’t like it. But—don’t get caught up in that part. It’s terrifying enough, but there’s more. So much more.”

The trio clustered back together. Serafina began to whisper, as if she wanted no one to hear them, not even the spirits.

For all of her trepidation, Alia was a little relieved her instincts served her well. With every fiber of her being she knew Rav and Clawfoot were lying: power was not an end in itself.

Or that it was truly without cost.

Serafina was looking at her. “You sense the wrongness of this, too, don’t you?” She glanced at Sheridan, who nodded his confirmation. “What Rav and Clawfoot are saying? Stone cold lie. None of this is as simple as they claim, and either they are fools—or they’re playing us for fools. To even begin to weaken the groves, and the dryads, takes a tremendous amount of power. You were right to keep asking them who was taking the dryads Junius captured. And if I were you, I would be very afraid to face whatever it is.”

“The shadow priests?” Sheridan asked.

Serafina’s dismissive wave of her hand nicely accompanied her sneer. “Fools, the lot of them. Children. Forget those lackeys, which they can be nothing but.”

“Lackeys of the Erebossi?” Alia asked. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. An abyssal would have no qualms about harming the daughters of the Huntress. And Erebossi stood to gain so much from taking down the guardians of the Shadow Gates. Moreso than any sorcerer might.

Sheridan started to protest, but Alia held up her hand, quelling him. She regarded Serafina steadily, the expression on Serafina’s face assuring her that terror was the sensible emotion to feel right now.

“The Erebossi are the ones you refer to, yes?” Alia continued. “Nothing else fits. Do either of you understand the significance of the ceremony last night? Abyssals were summoned here. Impossible! Impossible—because the Keeper and her grove reign here, and where a dryad reigns an abyssal must fear to tread.”

Alia beckoned for them to follow her to the library. Once she ushered them inside she shut the door tightly behind herself.

Sheridan was staring at her in wonder. Alia didn’t blame him, for what she was about to tell them was not something even the most devoted of venatori knew. Tregarde and his companions proved as much last tonight.

“When I first came to Ebon Cove,” Alia began, “Palamara told me the sorcerers here were more well-behaved than in other places. Everyone seemed to marvel about this. Some spoke of other cities they lived in, where sorcerers summoned infernal spirits and monstrous arsha’tûm to destroy their enemies. But such never happens here. And people thought this was because the sorcerers of Ebon Cove are more”—she paused and smiled sardonically—“civilized. And I agree. They are. But their good behavior is not chosen, not of their free will. Virtue is a condition imposed upon them due solely to living within the jurisdiction of my grove.”

Sheridan glanced at Serafina, saw her nodding in agreement, and frowned.

Serafina gently said, “The flayer called the dryads gate guardians. Did you catch that, Sheridan? And Alia repeatedly refers to Rikka, the dryad elder not as an elder, not as a queen, but as a keeper. Did you notice that?”

“I did,” Sheridan said at last. “Isn’t she keeping a grove? Unless they have a portal?”

The answer was on the tip of Alia’s tongue, but she held it. Rikka had not given her leave to reveal the Radiant Gate. Not yet. But Sheridan was close enough for her to skirt the boundaries of her oath without leaving him in the dark.

“You can look at it that way. The fact is, the dryads are not keepers of groves,” she said. “Groves are simply where they live. The true task of a dryad is to safeguard this world from incursions from Erebossa. Among other things. Dryads are guardians not simply of Gates but of the world itself, and they permit no trespassers. The flayers in this latest incident are an exceptional case; this is the first time they’ve ever been invited here. I now believe the reason they ever appeared here in the past had something to do with the sorcerers they attacked in those instances. Somehow, the sorcerers may have brought the attacks upon themselves. Whether wittingly or not, I cannot guess.”

Sheridan gaped at her. After a moment he began to pace about the room, without appearing to see what he was seeing. Lost in his own thoughts, which Alia and Serafina were content to allow him.

After a while Sheridan asked, “Did you know this, Serafina? Is this something everyone learns eventually?”

“No,” Alia answered, before Serafina could. “Everyone does not learn this eventually. This is not something dryads share with outsiders. Dryad business is not our business. We are to study the Edict of Qirû and obey, and for my mother and the other dryads we need not know or do anything more.”

“Because a servant does not need to know why, a servant must only be given enough information to obey?” Sheridan demanded, without heat in his voice.

Alia narrowed her eyes at him. “That is more stark than is warranted, I think. But the fact is, we do not share the purpose or the responsibilities of the dryads. The dryads are servants, not us. Did I not say there is knowledge that confers a burden on the one who knows it? If the dryads are to guard against trespassers, then it is fair enough that the Edict tell people not to summon into this world the very beings the keepers are trying to protect us from. Minding the Edict is not dependent on knowing the affairs of the keepers.”

Sheridan’s eyes dropped. “Fair enough.”

“As for me, I did know the dryads are guardians,” Serafina said. “For one particular reason I gather is lost now to mortals.”

Both Sheridan and Alia stared at her in surprise; Serafina rarely contrasted their lifespans. In most cases doing so would be rude.

“Lost how?” Sheridan asked.

Serafina shrugged, and pointed at the leatherbound codices lining the shelves in Junius’s library. Burled camphorwood shelves were built into the walls. Five shelves started down from the ceiling, and below the fifth on the left wall were cabinets, and on the right wall were map chests.

“Losing knowledge is easy enough when you don’t write things down. Or when the things you have written are burned or decay or are lost, and information is not conveyed to one generation after the next. It just happens,” Serafina said. “Nevertheless, I suppose this is not something humans wrote about because humans would not have known the whole story behind the War of Fire, Rain, and Thunder. Or as some call it, the Dryad-Salamandra Wars.”

Their gazes fastened upon her, rapt, and Serafina smiled. Alia nodded, considering Serafina’s flare for the dramatic. If things had gone differently in Serafina’s life Alia suspected she might have remained an actress.

“What was the reason for the war? Did you burn the groves? Why?” Sheridan asked.

“In those days, we did not worship the Huntress,” Serafina said, and a key clicked into place in Alia’s mind.

Now she understood the exchange between Rikka and Serafina.

Serafina continued, “Burning the groves wasn’t the first step, though we did start the war. Hmm—was it only four thousand years ago? The war started the moment we arrived here. Uninvited. Of course the dryads took offense; our arrival in such large numbers would naturally be considered an invasion. In fact, it was an invasion. But our intent was not to conquer. There are consequences for poorly choosing one’s leaders, and the war was the price we Salamandra paid for our choices.”

“What?” Sheridan’s jaw nearly touched his chest.

Serafina playfully lifted it for him. Sheridan shuddered and stepped back. After a minute, his voice returned enough for him to ask,

“You’re not from this world? You’re invaders?”

“Refugees, really,” Serafina amended. “Ancient history not entirely relevant. Suffice it to say we are not natives of this world. We are not from Erebossa,” she added hastily, seeing the question in his eyes. “Nor are the flayers, for that matter. There was a time when my people shared a world with the flayers, but those times are past. And I believe Alia is correct. Something of an infernal nature is at work in what’s happening with the dryads. Our trail will lead us to Erebossa. Count on it.”