Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 43

Many cities in the Old World had suffered under the Imperial Order, but the threat of General Utros’s army was something entirely different from what they had experienced previously. Now that parts of his army were clearly on the move, Nicci had to spread the warning far and wide. She would travel to Tanimura, Serrimundi, Larrikan Shores, maybe all the way up to Aydindril or the People’s Palace, if the sliph could take her that far. She would tell her story, sound the alarm, rally them in any way possible.

But she needed to have proof. They would not just accept her wild story.

The following morning, after Nicci had delivered her report to the duma of what Mrra had seen, and told them her plan to spread the alarm to other cities, Elsa joined her and Nathan outside the ruling tower. She wore clean purple robes, and she had pinned back her gray-shot hair.

The older woman smiled and nodded slowly. “I think I have just the proof you need, a way you can take the ancient army with you. You can show everyone how great a threat Utros is, and they won’t be able to deny it.” She held up a small pane of glass she had brought with her. “We can use transference magic.”

With the sharp point of a dagger, Elsa scratched runes in each corner of the glass rectangle, then inspected her work. “I can transfer the image of what we see and capture it within the pane. The picture will live inside the glass.”

While Nicci and Nathan watched, she lifted the rectangular glass and slowly turned it, holding it at arm’s length and gazing through it to see the countless soldiers, the burned hills, the numerous tents, the immensity of the siege army. Then she touched the scratched rune in the lower left corner and handed the small pane to Nicci. “That should convince anyone who looks.”

Nicci held the glass, amazed that it had captured the precise image of what they saw from the tower, an undeniable and frightening record of the great army gathered outside of Ildakar. “Yes, this will help a great deal.” She wrapped the glass pane in a cloth. “Now I have to go to the sliph.”

“And we are going along with you,” Nathan said. “In case you need help.”

Nicci flashed him a quick, skeptical glance but withheld her comment. As she walked purposefully down the steep streets with Nathan and Elsa following, she thought of the sliph. “Though I can travel great distances swiftly, I will not be able to bring any help back with me. Ildakar is still on its own.”

Elsa took Nathan’s arm. “We have been on our own for a very long time.” She looked confident, even majestic as she walked along. “During so many centuries beneath the shroud, I did dream of the outside world. I read the histories of other cities, mining towns in the mountains, trade centers by the ocean. They seemed like magical places, and very few people in Ildakar remembered ever seeing them. If I’d known about the sliph and how easy it is to travel, maybe I would have explored.” They descended through the merchants’ district and into crowded residential levels where the lower classes lived. “But I suppose even the sliph couldn’t pass through a bubble in time. Our shroud would have been impenetrable.”

Nicci kept walking at a brisk pace. “That would not have been your primary problem. The sliph can only be used by someone with both sides of the gift, Additive and Subtractive Magic. Millennia ago, many wizards could access that magic, but now very few can use the Subtractive side.”

“Then how are you going to use the sliph now?” Elsa asked.

“I was a Sister of the Dark, and I served the Keeper. I can use Subtractive Magic because of the terrible price I paid.” She thought of the destruction she had caused, the people she had hurt, how she had tried to destroy Richard. Though she had forsaken that darkness, the scars were still within her, as was that poisonous strength. “I will be able to travel.”

They reached the lowest levels of Ildakar, and Nicci went directly to the low stone building that held the hidden sliph well. The door was open and unguarded, but people avoided the place. Though some had peered inside, the eerie darkness and the chill kept them away.

Nicci ducked and entered the enclosure, igniting a ball of light to drive away the shadows. Elsa and Nathan followed close behind. The air inside smelled like stagnant water and mold, with an undertone of rot. Green moss grew on the stone floor, but otherwise the chamber was empty, no furniture, no ornaments, no symbols.

Nicci knew how to summon the sliph. She had used the strange method of transportation before, sometimes uneventfully, while other journeys had turned into ordeals. Now she saw no other way to spread her warning so widely and so quickly.

Her feet whispered along the smooth floor as she walked to the low circular well. With all the places the sliph could travel, she considered where to go, how she might best sound the alarm to other cities, whom she could rally. The people across the Old World would have to prepare their defenses, gather for war. As proof, she had Elsa’s cloth-wrapped rectangle of glass, which she secured next to one of the daggers at her hip. But she didn’t know if it would be enough.

Nicci looked into the bottomless well in front of her, a hollow blackness that exuded cold and utter silence. “Sliph! Sliph, I summon you. I wish to travel.” When she sensed no response, she shouted louder. “Sliph, I command you to awaken! I wish to travel.” She looked back over her shoulder at Nathan and Elsa. “I will need your help.”

“Are you sure the creature is still alive?” Elsa asked.

“Oh, I’m certain she lives, although she may have gone dormant after so much time,” Nathan said. “They are not natural beings. We must call her again.”

“I traveled within the sliph not long ago,” Nicci said. “It’s how we got back to the People’s Palace in time to fight Sulachan’s hordes.” Determined, she reached out with her gift, called with her mind and heart as well as with her voice. “Sliph, you know me. I need your services.”

The sliph was a woman who had been altered by ancient wizards in preparation for their war. She remembered the original sliph, a former whore transformed into a magical creature who existed to carry travelers from destination to destination, deriving great pleasure from doing so.

But the other sliph that had rescued Nicci and her companions when they were trapped within the cliff city of Stroyza was an entirely different creature, one who remembered her name as Lucy. That sliph had been less passionate, less desperate to serve, and far less cooperative, but Richard had convinced her to whisk them all away.

Nicci didn’t know which one dwelled here.

Nathan and Elsa stood beside her at the cold stones surrounding the well. “Reach out with your gift,” Nicci urged. “Call to her. Ildakar is far from any other sliph well we know, and we need to make her remember this one.”

She focused her thoughts, extending lines of magic like a fisherman trolling in the water. She sent her thoughts into the infinite black well, while Nathan and Elsa concentrated hard, straining with everything they had. Nicci shouted in her mind at the same time she shouted aloud. “Sliph!”

Finally, a faint, gurgling echo came from far below, like water dripping down a very long pipe. Nicci sensed a churning sound that grew louder and closer, a waterfall charging straight toward them from the depths of the world.

Nathan and Elsa recoiled in alarm, and Nicci stepped back from the edge of the low wall, but stood straight as a turbulent froth of silver roiled up like a geyser about to explode. She didn’t flinch as the quicksilver liquid boiled just to the edge of the well and stopped, perfectly smooth like a razor edge of ice. A shape formed in the mirrorlike surface, rising up until its features sharpened into the hard and beautiful form of a woman.

This sliph looked different from the original, eager one and the less compliant Lucy. This sliph had long locks of hair like molten metal, blank mirror eyes, thin lips that showed no hint of a smile. Her cheekbones were high and her face was wide. She would have been a beauty in life.

“You wish to travel,” the sliph said, a statement rather than a question. Her voice sounded cold, impatient, certainly not solicitous. “It has been a long time, but I know no time.”

“Yes, I wish to travel,” Nicci said. “I have urgent business. I must go to some of the cities in the Old World to spread news of a war.”

The sliph’s expression grew more animated. “I exist to serve the cause. I was created to help deliver our faithful spies and saboteurs to fight the wizards of the New World. I am disappointed that the war isn’t already won.” She looked at Nathan and Elsa. “You all wish to travel? You all serve Sulachan?”

“Dear spirits,” Nathan said. “I don’t think—”

Nicci quickly held up her hand to silence him. “Is a war ever over? We must continue to fight. If you serve the cause, then you will help me travel.” She shot a quick glance at the wizard, who understood the danger of revealing too much.

“I serve the cause. Once, Emperor Sulachan even traveled within me. I still have his taste as part of me.” She turned those eerie silver eyes to Nicci. “How will you taste? You must be within me and I within you, then we will travel.”

Troubled, Nathan lowered his voice. “Sorceress, maybe we should reconsider.”

“I need to present our report, and quickly.” She faced the sliph. “It is vital that I deliver my intelligence. Others are waiting. The cause may depend upon my report.”

“I sacrificed everything for the cause,” the sliph said. “We will travel. Where do you wish to go?”

Now Nicci was at a loss, because sliphs could go only where they had been before, where a counterpart well existed. After so many centuries, she suspected the names of many cities had changed, so how would the sliph know? Getting her warning to Richard was Nicci’s priority, though. “Do you know the People’s Palace near the Azrith Plain? Or perhaps Aydindril?”

“I do not know the People’s Palace, but Aydindril?” the sliph asked. “The Wizard’s Keep? You wish to go into enemy territory? It is too dangerous. I was never allowed to go anywhere in the New World. I was only required to go where our spies and operatives have business.”

“Where is the last place you went?” Nathan asked. “Perhaps we know that.”

“Tanimura was the farthest boundary, although I delivered many faithful fighters to Serrimundi, Larrikan Shores, Orogang.”

Nicci quickly formed her plans. “Tanimura is acceptable.” She knew that city from her time at the Palace of the Prophets, and she would find a way to dispatch a message from there to Richard’s capital.

“Then come, I will deliver you,” said the sliph. “The mission must not wait. You will help us achieve victory against the enemy wizards of the New World.”

Nicci didn’t respond, deciding not to tell this sliph that millennia had passed, that the ancient wizard wars were long over, and that Sulachan had been defeated, not once, but twice.

“Be careful, Sorceress,” Nathan warned.

She turned to him and Elsa. “I won’t be gone long. Meanwhile, keep looking for ways to defend the city.” She flashed a hard smile. “I’d be very displeased if I returned from Tanimura only to find Ildakar destroyed.” Nathan chuckled weakly. Nicci faced the sliph. “I’m ready. We must travel.”

“You will breathe.” The sliph loomed higher, rising up like a molten sculpture. “Breathe in me and come with me.”

The silvery figure enfolded Nicci in a wave of cold liquid metal. The froth boiled all around her, engulfing her, and Nicci fell forward into the well. The sliph embraced her, pressed harder. In her mind, Nicci heard the command. “Breathe!”

She inhaled the silvery essence of the strange being, felt the sliph fill her mouth, her throat, her nose, her lungs. Her heart kept beating, but she was drowning.

The sliph carried her down and down and far away.