Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 80

Maxim ran into the night, leaving the city far behind. The shroud was down, and the whole world awaited him.

Ildakar had been his home for countless centuries, and as the wizard commander, he possessed every power, every treasure, anything he could want. He had loved his city. He had helped build it, raising it up from the plain, moving the river and the earth itself, and he had sacrificed much to protect it.

Ah, he had been so young and naive.

He had also been in love with beautiful Thora. He still recalled how happy he had been when they were first married. Joy had exploded from him, a romance that had nothing to do with the gift or any spell that he released. Thora had worked a different kind of spell on him. He had been infatuated, then deeply in love. The passion was immeasurable. He had felt drunk with the touch of her skin, the curve of her breasts, the feel of her soft, warm thighs wrapped around him as he entered her and she arched her back. It had been so marvelous!

What had he been thinking?

Unlike the ridiculous songs that minstrels sang, there was no such thing as a true love that lasted forever, of bonded soul mates whose every thought was for their partner, for whom each day, each moment apart was torture.

No, even his remarkable delusional love for Thora had lasted no more than a century or so. Even though she didn’t age and her body remained as perfectly formed as ever, Maxim had come to find it less interesting. For a while, he had diverted himself with lovely and pliable silk yaxen, but they quickly proved unsatisfying. So Maxim had his first real illicit lover, then his first ten illicit lovers, managing to keep them secret from his wife, although he suspected she had taken lovers as well, growing just as discontented with him as a husband. Eventually, they expanded the pleasure parties, flaunting their affairs in front of each other, and Maxim soon found that he didn’t even care.

He and Thora were bound together as sovrena and wizard commander, but his great love had turned to boredom, then apathy, and finally, twisted into a long-simmering hatred. He had wanted to destroy her, to make her hurt, to make her suffer.

On a grander scale, his romance with Ildakar was much the same. In the beginning, long before Emperor Kurgan tried to conquer the Old World, before the army of General Utros arrived, Maxim had loved this city. He was the one who had developed the petrification magic as an invincible defense. He had worked the spell that turned all those invading soldiers into stone. He had taught the others how to do it, but he controlled that potent magic.

Bottled up under the shroud, Ildakar became stagnant and remained that way for many intolerable centuries. If one locked even the closest friends or lovers in a confined room, Maxim knew, they would grow to hate each other after enough time had passed.

That was how Maxim had begun to feel about Ildakar. Yes, the city was still as beautiful and unchanged as ever, but to him it was just a colorfully painted corpse. And corpses began to rot and stink. They needed to be burned on a funeral pyre.

As Mirrormask, he had built that funeral pyre, and he had struck the spark to ignite the tinder. Nicci had been his tool, and a very useful one.

Now, as he continued to run beyond the walls, heading across the plain toward the hills to the south, he followed the uplift and the bluffs that rose above the Killraven River. Maxim knew he had to finish the work he had begun.

Ildakar needed to be destroyed. Although the rebellious slaves would prove to be an inconvenience for the rulers, they would do only superficial harm. Maxim wanted to do more, and he had long ago thought of the perfect answer, though he had always been too afraid to try it.

Now he had nothing to lose.

* * *

Word traveled throughout the city of Ildakar of the defeat of Sovrena Thora and the shocking revelation that Mirrormask was Wizard Commander Maxim himself. The duma members, united now, sent out announcements commanding High Captain Stuart and all of the city guard to stop fighting against the rebellious slaves.

The lower classes had risen up and now they looked at the damage they had done, the fires that burned in the poorer sections of the city. Instead of continuing to clash with the guards, the rebels worked together to stop the conflagration from spreading and also to treat the wounded.

Knowing that Mirrormask had escaped, his most vehement followers called for Nicci, and she knew it was her responsibility to help calm the unrest. After leaving the ruling tower, she, Bannon, and Nathan went through the streets, calling out for peace and cooperation, asking the people to help in the name of their homes and of their future.

Rendell and some of the other slaves kept calling out Nicci’s name. In her raspy voice, old Melba even proclaimed that Nicci should become the new sovrena, but the sorceress immediately quashed that idea. She held up her hand. “That is not for me. I came here to help, and I came here for my friends. Ildakar is your city.”

Mrra prowled about, making the people uneasy, but Nicci was sure to keep the sand panther under control.

As they moved through the wrecked lower levels of the city, Nathan lifted his hands, releasing his gift to fling water from the fountains and a swirl of wind to extinguish burning buildings. Nicci assisted him with her own magic to put out the worst of the fires.

Although exhausted, Nicci used some of her remaining energy to heal the most seriously injured, saving several people who would otherwise have died. Nathan knelt beside Elsa, both of them laying their hands on cuts and burns, soothing the agony of the victims. He looked gray-faced but relieved. “The last time I tried to do this, with an injured man in Renda Bay, I caused a horrific backlash. I am so glad to have … myself back.” Elsa placed her hands over his, and helped him heal the next victim.

Bannon ran about, gathering water and rags for bandages, while the wounded were brought to an open square for the doctors and gifted healers to tend them. He was eager to do everything he could to assist. Nicci knew the young man had always been self-sufficient.

The air smelled of smoke and blood. He was startled when a battered young woman clad in black leather came up beside him, moving silently, and offered to help. Bannon jerked backward, blinking his hazel eyes. “Sweet Sea Mother! Lila!” He reached for his sword, but the young morazeth kept her hands at her sides.

“I am not fighting you anymore, Bannon. You were my student and my pet, but Adessa is gone now. I have different orders. The duma has decreed that we should all work together. And I decided I would like to work with you.” She raised her eyebrows and waited.

He fumbled for words, and finally smiled. “I could use a hand bringing more bandages to the healers. Let’s help take care of the injured.”

Lila was stiff and formal, awkward around him now. “I can help treat wounds. I’ve inflicted enough of them.”

Nathan continued to work beside Elsa, and he warmly touched her arm. “I am impressed by your determination and your magical skills, my dear. Now that I have my gift back, perhaps you can teach me the spell that turned the sovrena to stone. It might prove useful.”

“I would be happy to teach you—if you stay,” she said.

“We can stay for a day or two, surely?” said the white-haired wizard, looking over at Nicci.

“A day or two,” Nicci agreed, wiping bloody hands on her black dress, “but there’s nothing more for us to do here. The city is now free. There’s no reason for us to stay. We should let these people pick up the pieces and rebuild. Perhaps they really will achieve a perfect society this time.”

“Are you that anxious to go, Sorceress?” Nathan asked.

She considered for a long moment. “Yes.”

Bannon looked quickly at Lila, who had just returned with more bandages. She still made him very nervous. “No reason to stay,” he said. “The city is safe, and we need to find other adventures.”

Though Nicci did not look forward to more days walking through the wilderness, camping on the hard ground, eating pack food, she knew that Mrra longed to be out roaming the plains and hunting. Beside her, sensing the thoughts through their spell bond, the big cat let out a sound halfway between a growl and a purr. “Ildakar doesn’t need us anymore.”

* * *

With the city in the distance, its skyline glittering with lighted buildings and high towers in the darkness before dawn, Maxim paused as he heard the howl of a spiny wolf, joined by two more in a primal chorus. They were animals that had escaped from the fighting pits, now running free far from the city—just as he was free.

Leaving the plain, he climbed the foothills beyond the last ranks of General Utros’s petrified army: hundreds of thousands of armored soldiers. That great force had intended to lay siege to the city, to conquer Ildakar in the name of Iron Fang.

Their motionless siege had lasted fifteen centuries, he thought with a smirk. Time for it to begin again.

When he reached a high vantage point, he stopped and began to make preparations. He scuffed the dry grasses with his heel, exposing bare dirt so that he could draw symbols and spell-forms in the ground. He would have preferred to shed the blood of several slaves, but he had only his own. It would have to be sufficient.

Nearby in the shadows, he glimpsed a spotted feline form, a flash of golden eyes in the night, and heard a growl before the creature loped off, skittish around humans. It must be one of the leopards Chief Handler Ivan had trained. Maxim waited, making sure the creature wouldn’t attack. Instead, it ran away.

Getting back to his magic, he used the long curved knife designed for bloodworking sacrifices. Maxim—Mirrormask—scribed the proper markings in the dirt, slashed open his palm, and spilled droplets of red into the dust. His blood seeped in, forming a deep brown mud.

The original bloodworking spell had required the deaths of thousands, endless troughs of blood poured out, hour after hour, for nearly two full days. Victim after victim came … some of them unwilling, others freely offering themselves. And after all that, the wizards of Ildakar had succeeded. The rippling wave of magic had turned General Utros’s warriors to stone. It had saved the city.

So much work, so much magic.

But it was vastly more difficult to cast a powerful spell than to undo it, to rescind the magic. The spell was already weakening.

Once his blood had pattered throughout the newly carved spell-form, completing the path of hot red liquid, he plunged the tip of the sacrificial dagger into the center of the angles, the intersection of magic.

Through his gift, Maxim felt the release, like an incredibly taut cord snapping in half, both ends flying apart with released energy. He broke the petrification spell, all petrification spells, and revoked the magic. The consequences rippled across the plain, flowing in a silent invisible wave over the city of Ildakar.

Wizard Commander Maxim gasped and fell backward, laughing. It was glorious! He could feel the exhilaration. All that energy was no longer bound. The magic itself had waned after the star shift, and when the one stone warrior named Ulrich had spontaneously awakened, Maxim knew it could be done.

Now he did it intentionally. He had cast the original spell himself, and today he uncast it.

He wished he could remain behind to watch, but he had no interest in being a part of this. He had already done what he needed to do. Oh no, there would be nothing left of Ildakar. Pleased with himself, Maxim ran into the hills, thinking of the rest of the Old World and all the interesting things that awaited him there.

Across the plain outside of Ildakar, hundreds of thousands of stone warriors began to thaw and awaken, remembering the city they intended to destroy.