The Brush of Black Wings Part 7

Smoke filled the room. Above her, the ceiling groaned a warning just as one of the supporting joists cracked. Perfect. They'd survived a demon's machinations only to be killed by a collapsing roof.

She slid her hands under Silhara's arms and dragged him toward the door, uttering a stream of curses that would have made him applaud if he'd been conscious. The curses changed to coughs as smoke filled her lungs and obscured the cottage's interior. She aimed for the gray light of the open door, barely visible in the haze of smoke. Silhara was a slender, muscular man without a speck of extra padding on him, but he was dead weight unconscious and harder to drag than an anvil through mud.

Her shoulders clenched in protest, and sweat soaked the shirt she wore, as much from the exertion of dragging her husband through the door as from the heat of the fire. The fetid air smelled almost sweet when she finally got them both to safety and just in time.

A final booming crack, and the cottage roof collapsed in a giant cloud of dust and smoke, smothering the flames inside. The flattened structure revealed Acseh standing in the distance, staring at the ruins. She rubbed her eyes as if disbelieving of what she saw.

Shrouded in a fine coating of dirt, Martise dropped to her backside next to her p.r.o.ne husband and exhaled a long sigh. She lowered her hand so that it hovered just above his nose and mouth. His breath tickled her palm, and she breathed another relieved sigh, this one accompanied by tears.

Her blow hadn't killed him even if whatever Megiddo had done to him almost did. She'd take the image of the powerful Master of Crows reduced to a screaming, thrashing cipher to her death, certain neither old age nor mind sickness would lessen its clarity. She'd never made the mistake of a.s.suming him invincible. Their battle with the lich years earlier had confirmed that, but a man who could defeat a G.o.d seemed invulnerable in many ways. A demon king had shown her otherwise, and she'd hate him beyond immortality for it.

She jumped when Silhara groaned and reached up to gingerly touch the side of his head. "What is wrong with you?" he said in a voice so scratchy he was almost incoherent. "First you try to emasculate me by kicking my b.a.l.l.s into my throat and then you bash my head in."

Martise's dry chuckle turned to outright laughter mixed with tears. He'd come back to her-beaten, b.l.o.o.d.y, exasperated and snappish. Very much the man she loved with all her heart.

She stroked his hair away from his face and temples, careful to avoid the swelling knot where the skillet had kissed him. "You're a filthy mess," she told him. He frowned at her, and somewhere in that black, black gaze, Martise saw a glimmer of something that made her shiver-horror. He blinked and it was gone, and a part of her hoped she imagined it.

"And you're beautiful," he replied. "Dirt suits you. So does my shirt." He sat up with her help and felt the spot where she struck him. "Ouch! Did you have to hit me that hard?" His scowl faded when he caught sight of the cottage. "You knocked the house down too?"

She grasped his hand, laced her fingers through his and kissed his dusty knuckles. "You and Megiddo did that." She saw it again, that flicker of aversion she'd never seen before Megiddo's enchantment. "What did he do to you, husband? I found you entranced, completely unaware of your surroundings. When I touched you, you went mad."

Silhara's harsh features grew even harsher, colder. He stared at the deep scratches he'd inflicted on his arms and felt the ones on his neck. "There is memory, and there is nightmare," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Did I hurt you?" She shook her head, and his shoulders slumped a little before stiffening once more. "Did he say anything to you?"

She shrugged, desperate to banish that strange look in his eyes but unable to figure out how, especially when he was as cryptic as he was now. "Only that he gave you his story, and when you revived to call his name. He'd come to you." She clutched his hand. "Silhara, you can't battle him yet. Whatever he did surely weakened you. Maybe enough so that we can't escape here yet."

He stood and lifted her with him until she rested in the circle of his arms. His beautiful hair was as matted and dirt-encrusted as hers was now. Never before had she wanted so badly to be in their bed at this moment with her sitting cross-legged behind him, combing out his long locks. If they made it back-when they made it back-she planned to spend hours doing just that and thanking kind G.o.ds for the chance to indulge in so simple and so fine a thing.

Silhara brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, and his lips tilted upward a little. "Smears over smears. Somewhere under all that grit is skin I plan to taste when we return home."

"Promises, promises," she teased. She liked that he was as certain of their return as she was. Like her, he didn't allow himself the defeat of a "no" or even a "maybe."

He gently patted her tangled hair. "I won't need to fight him. Not anymore. Not with what I know."

"What do you know?" Martise frowned. He'd retreated back to cryptic remarks. She regretted her question when his face paled.

"That cruelty is immeasurable." He said it in almost the same hollow voice Megiddo possessed, and Martise recoiled in his arms. Silhara patted her back to rea.s.sure her. "He said I only need to call his name?" She nodded.

He released her and stepped to one side. "Megiddo," he said in a low voice.

Martise almost leapt out of her skin when the demon spoke behind her. "I am here."

Silhara slowly turned to face Megiddo. The two eyed each other in silence, neither moving. Martise's mouth fell open when her husband suddenly inclined his head in a gesture of sincere respect. "Megiddo Saruum," he said in his ruined voice. "I am Silhara of Neith, Master of Crows."

She uttered a strangled gasp, too stunned to form sounds into words. Less than an hour earlier, they'd threatened to kill each other and the women trapped with them. Now, her husband not only greeted the demon with a deference he didn't bother to show G.o.ds by calling him King Megiddo, but voluntarily offered up his own name. Her earlier question bore even more significance.

What do you know?

Megiddo returned the gesture and added a salute, shocking Martise into further speechlessness. "You're a worthy adversary. As I said earlier, my brothers and I could have used your help. Will you help me now?" His glaze slid to Acseh who refused to draw closer. "Help us?"

Martise put her back to the demon king and stared hard at Silhara. "What is going on?" she demanded in a furious whisper.

He gazed at her. "The accounts are wrong. All of them. He was a man once, never a demon; only one who fought them. A brother in arms to four others. The historians lied about them, made demons of men who sacrificed themselves for the unknowing, the uncaring, and the ungrateful."

She gawked at him. "Are you sure?"

Silhara nodded. "We trust the tomes too much sometimes. Remember Zafira's story? Amunsa almost destroyed the northern monarchs because of Berdikhan's betrayal, but their historians told a different tale."

"But you controlled him with the sword."

"That's because it's ensorcelled with necromantic magic stained by demon blood. I thought the greater magic was goetic, but it's necromantic."

She glanced over her shoulder at the silent Wraith King. "He's dead?"

Silhara followed her gaze. "It would be a mercy if he was. He's only partially alive. A man split three ways with one part still lost." He turned Martise back to face him. "Do you trust me?"

She didn't hesitate. "Always."

He snorted at that. "You know that isn't true."

Martise arched an eyebrow at him, thrilled to see him more and more himself after the awful moments inside the cottage. "I trust you when it counts most."

He kissed her forehead and blew away the layer of grit coating his lips. "A bath for us both when we return home."

She clasped her hands behind her back to keep from clutching him and stopping him from drawing close to Megiddo. Silhara's magic was formidable, and he could easily defend himself, but Megiddo's sword was far more lethal than just a sharp edge wielded by a skilled fighter.

Silhara pointed to Acseh who'd approached cautiously, wary as a deer and ready to flee at the slightest twitch. "Call your woman here."

"She isn't mine." Martise's eyebrows rose at the hint of longing in Megiddo's voice. Mistress of earth and heaven indeed. "And she fears me now."

"Not nearly as much as she fears me. Summon her. She needs to hear this."

Acseh refused at first, backing away and shaking her head. Impatient with her antics, Silhara invoked a spell that sent his rough voice booming across the gray flatlands. "Do you want to leave here or not?"

Martise hid her smile behind her hand when Acseh suddenly sprinted toward them, stopping just short of their gathering to hover behind the Wraith King. Her husband's methods weren't always subtle, but they were effective.

"Kind of you to finally join us, mistress," Silhara snapped.

"Kind of you not to try and kill me, sorcerer," Acseh shot back.

He grinned. "Not from lack of trying. Thank your protector there." He indicated Megiddo with a thrust of his chin.

Both he and Martise watched as Acseh edged a little closer to Megiddo, out of reach of the writhing robes but close enough to demonstrate her willingness to be near him, wary and guarded though she remained.

Silhara answered Megiddo's earlier question. "I can cross you both to our time." He held up a hand at Acseh's sharp inhalation and turned all his attention to Megiddo. "You need to consider this. If you end up in my time, there's no guarantee either of us will ever find your body."

"Find his body?" both Martise and Acseh said in unison.

Silhara ignored them and continued. "Even if we did, the magic used to construct or deconstruct a Wraith King is Elder magic, unknown to us and inaccessible. You would live among us as a shade, a cursed one. Sorcery in my time is plentiful, and its adepts are powerful. If they learn of you, they won't help you; they'll hunt you."

Silence descended on their small gathering for several moments before Megiddo spoke. "Can you send us back to our times?"

Silhara shrugged. "I don't know." He looked to Acseh. "Did you leave anything of yours behind in the place where you were taken?"

She shook her head. "No. Nothing. I was in the cottage when the gray plane claimed me." She swung an arm to encompa.s.s the flattened cottage's smoking carca.s.s behind her.

The memory of history cla.s.ses she'd taken at Conclave Redoubt surfaced in Martise's mind. She tugged on Silhara's sleeve. "The people of the Glimmer lands buried prayer bowls at the four corners of a newly built house to ward off unclean spirits. Sometimes they were buried in the ground beneath the house."

"Sometimes plastered into the walls," he finished for her. "Sometimes both."

She nodded. "The four bowls are connected to each other. All we need is one in the wall, and she has her tether."

Neither Acseh nor Megiddo followed as Silhara and Martise scouted the perimeter of the cottage's remains. Silhara's triumphant shout sounded dull in the heavy air as he bent over something in the rubble. "Glimming woman," he said to Acseh. "Your bad fortune has just turned."

Martise joined him and spotted half of a broken clay bowl, its curved interior etched deep with protective runes dyed black with char. It was the only one they found in the remains, and she prayed that meant the other three were buried in the ground where the house once stood. If so, then Silhara might be able to return the woman to her time.

Acseh's hands curled into fists when Silhara gave her the news in Glimming. "Are you certain?" she asked in a warbling voice.

He shook his head. "No. I can't guarantee the exact moment you were taken, but maybe within a short frame of years. You'll return to where the cottage once stood, but bear in mind, there's a chance I send you into a time frame where something else stands where the cottage was." He peered into her eyes. "Do you understand the risk that involves?"

She was silent for a long time. Martise didn't blame her in the least if she chose the safer route and returned with them to Neith. Acseh nodded. "I understand." She gave a fleeting smile. "It's very much worth the risk."

"Can I return with her?" The demon king gazed at Acseh, his spectral gaze revealing nothing of his thoughts.

His expressionless features didn't alter at Silhara's reply. "No. She is bound to one time and one time only, an anchor in her own right because she lives and breathes and is whole. You on the other hand are incomplete, your body in one place, your soul in another, your sword in a third until now. It would be like casting a handful of dust into the wind and hoping it all ends up in the same heap on the same sh.o.r.e. A cart full of prayer bowls won't tether you."

"Then I am trapped." Martise winced at the faint thread of dying hope in Megiddo's voice.

"Maybe not." Silhara turned his attention back to Acseh who sidled closer to the Wraith King. "If you trust this woman, give her the sword. I'll ward it for her protection. My apprentice tells me she is from your time, give or take a decade or two. I can send her back. If she owes you a favor, now's the time to claim it. She can take the sword and find an Elder mage skilled in their magic who can reunite the three beings that are Megiddo Saruum so they become simply Megiddo."

Megiddo's rigid mouth relaxed into a faint smile, and his metallic eyes took on a faraway look. "I was a monk once."

Martise flinched. That was the wrong thing to say. Or so she thought.

Silhara only nodded. "I know." He addressed Acseh. "What say you? The quest I just described is a voluntary one. You can accept it or lie and accept it. There is nothing to stop you from throwing the blade into the nearest river and living the life you were robbed of when Megiddo brought you here. His debt to you is his trust and all the risk it entails."

Acseh stared at him for a moment, then at Martise and finally at Megiddo. There was no mistaking the softening of her features when she looked upon his visage, ghastly pale and barely human. "I hated you the first few centuries I was trapped here."

He chuckled softly. "In your place, I'd hate me as well, Damkiana. I think it a greater tragedy that I captured you by accident instead of by purpose."

"I don't hate you anymore, and I'm glad you aren't a demon." Acseh smiled and turned back to Silhara. "I'll take the sword, find one of the Elder mages and do what I can to make him whole once more."

Martise resisted the urge to applaud. She believed Acseh to be sincere and admired her courage in promising to help Megiddo. Hers would be a long and difficult road with no promises of a successful end. Her family might eventually bury her with Megiddo's sword clutched in her withered hands, all hope of him escaping the gray plane dead with her.

Silhara's black eyes glittered, admiration in his gaze for the woman's resolute agreement. "And you, Saruum Buidu, are you in accord?"

Megiddo sighed and shrugged. "I've waited this long. What's a few more decades?" He tossed the sheathed sword to Silhara who caught it neatly. "My thanks, Silhara of Neith." He bowed to Acseh. "Good fortune favor you, Damkiana. Do not forget me." He faded before their eyes, man turned to mist swiftly shredded by the ceaseless, silent wind. A whisper of his voice remained. "I won't forget you."

Acseh raised a hand to clutch empty air. "Wait," she entreated, her dark eyes glossy with tears. "Wait."

Martise swallowed down her own knot of tears. She coughed and cleared her throat. "Would you like to know what 'Damkiana' means now?"

The other woman wiped her eyes and nodded. "You know what it is?"

"Yes. It means 'mistress of earth and heaven.' It's a term of great affection given to mothers, beloved wives and G.o.ddesses."

Martise regretted telling her when Acseh began to weep in earnest. She exhaled an indignant huff when Silhara leaned to whisper in her ear "Nice helping of guilt you layered on there to make sure she keeps her promise to him."

"That isn't why I told her," she whispered furiously and slapped him on the arm.

He shrugged. "Accomplishes the same purpose." He held up the sword and scabbard. "Let's get this thing warded for the mistress of clouds and gra.s.s and send her on her way. I want to go home, boil myself in a tub of hot water, have my wife comb my hair and swive her for hours when she's done."

Martise gave him a gimlet stare. "How about you comb my hair, and I swive you for hours when you're done?"

Silhara grinned. "I like the way you think, apprentice. There is no loser on your battlefield. Only a crow mage in your bed."

"May it always be," she said fervently and trekked to where a weeping Acseh grieved for a lost soul.

EPILOGUE.

A solitary crow perched on a high branch and watched the activity below with a beady eye. A resounding boom thundered through the winter-bare forest as a stone column crashed to the ground, sending flumes of snow into the air.

Silhara eyed the last of the temple's fallen columns and dusted his gloved hands in satisfaction. Fine-tuning magic to perform complicated ritual and delicate maneuvers was all well and good, but it was nothing compared to slinging raw power at heaps of stone and watching them disintegrate into rubble. And if someone asked him why, he'd happily tell them it was a d.a.m.n lot of fun.

He waited a week after returning home before destroying the ruin. The power it took to force open the right portal that sent Acseh back to her time had him seeing double when it was done. Getting himself and Martise back home had almost emptied him of magic. Plans for long baths and longer bouts of lovemaking were set aside in favor of death-like sleep. He and Martise managed to stumble back to the manor from the forest, but he couldn't conquer the stairs. Gurn had carried him, unconscious, to his bedchamber. He awakened three days later, still grimy and b.l.o.o.d.y, next to his clean, sweet-smelling wife.

Her matted hair had been washed, combed and tamed into a braid, and she lay next to him, dressed in a leine that had managed to tangle around her legs. Silhara eased out of bed without waking her and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

Gurn's delighted expression when he spotted him died a quick death, and his nose wrinkled. "You smell worse than the dog,">> he signed.

"Nice to see you too, you wretch," he muttered before grabbing a bucket and heading for the bailey. The cold shock from the first bucket of well water made his skin burn, and he shuddered hard enough to knock his bones loose from their joints. Something struck his shoulder, and he glanced down at the boar bristle scrubber lying at his feet and then up at Gurn who watched him from the doorway that led to the kitchen. A cake of soap sailed through the air shortly thereafter. Silhara caught it and lifted his hand to sign a rude gesture, but Gurn had retreated into the warm kitchen, shutting the door behind him.

Silhara cursed the servant, his lineage, Wraith Kings, weepy Glimming women, smelly dogs and most of all Conclave priests while he stood naked in the snow-shrouded bailey in the depths of winter and bathed away the stench of blood, demons and broken kings.

A blanket smacked him in the face when he entered the kitchen, wet and shivering so hard he could no longer speak. Gurn had built the hearth fire to a roaring inferno. He coc.o.o.ned in the blanket and stood as close to the hearth as he could without setting himself on fire. When he no longer quaked like a sapling caught in a windstorm, he downed a pot of hot tea and abandoned Gurn for the woman sleeping peacefully in their bed.

Silhara slid under the covers and gathered Martise close. She sighed in her sleep and stretched against him. This, he thought, was bliss unmatched; the complete and utter ant.i.thesis to the horrors that still lingered in his mind when Megiddo touched him and shared a world of nightmares beyond description and agony that defied comprehension. He rubbed his cheek against the top of Martise's head and stared unseeing at the closed shutters that kept the room dark.

There had been little he could do for Megiddo. The magic that transformed him was so old and so inhuman, there was no way he could mimic it and return the monk to his former self. His best hope lay with a woman with every reason to abandon him to his fate. Silhara doubted she would. He'd witnessed Acseh's grief and, like Martise, believed her sincerity when she promised to help. As an accomplished liar himself, he recognized one at thirty paces. Acseh wasn't a liar.

Martise turned in his arms, and her eyes opened. Her soft smiled warmed him from the inside out. She twined a length of his damp hair around her finger and let it slowly unravel. "You're awake and clean. It's like magic," she teased.