A mist of power formed over the steaming surface of the blood. Anigrel leaned forward, dropping the lifeless body of the cat carelessly and opening his mind to his Dark Lady, as he had each Dark Moon for almost his entire life.
“What do you have to tell me, my slave, my love?”
Her darkness filled his mind and his soul, completing him in a way that nothing else ever had and ever could. From the moment he had first seen her reflection in a mirror in his father’s house when he had been a child of eight, he had been hers utterly. She had been his first and best teacher. He would do anything to be with her always.
Quickly he told her everything.
“And soon they will be yours entirely, Mistress,” Anigrel said humbly.
“Yet something troubles you, my pet. I sense it.”
“Two inconvenient Mages. They must be removed.”
He felt the rich glow of his Dark Lady’s amusement.
“Umbrastone is what you need, my jewel, my slave. It will poison a Mage-man and send him to his bed. Mixed with another poison, it will render that poison undetectible by magic.”
Anigrel felt a thrill of delight. Two members of the High Council poisoned in their beds! With only a little care, he could make it look as if their own families were responsible…
“Now that I have done something for you, you must do something for me. It is so hard for me to come to you, sweet Anigrel. You must change the Wards that bind the City. You have the power now …”
“Yesss…” Only let him remove three more members of the Council, and it would be a simple enough matter to suggest that the Mage Council was now stretched too thin for its members to stand in the Circle for every Great Working. To suggest that maintaining the City-Wards be turned over to a specific trusted body of Mages who performed no other task.
Anigrel would select them. Anigrel would lead them.
And Anigrel would corrupt them thoroughly.
“It can be done. I will need a little time. But it can be done. I swear it shall be done.”
He felt his Dark Lady’s delight flood through him, filling his body with black heat. Anigrel’s body shuddered in ecstasy, the intolerable pleasure building until he collapsed to the floor, insensible.
—«♦»—
IT was just as well, Savilla reflected, once the connection was broken, to occasionally reward one’s slaves. It made the eventual betrayal so much sweeter.
And she looked forward with longing to the day when she could bring her sweet Anigrel here, to the World Without Sun, and teach him what it truly meant to love the Queen of the Endarkened.
It was nearly a quarter of a century—as the Lightworlders counted time— since she had made her first move in the war. She had acted in secret, for she knew the work would cost her dearly, and in her weakened state, any of her nobles might have challenged her.
She had withdrawn to a secret place, deep within the World Without Sun, and there she had worked tirelessly, destroying hundreds of captives gathered in secret—and all of her own folk who knew of her plan.
And then she had struck at Armethalieh.
Even with all her gathered power, she had barely been able to slip through the wards the City wrapped about itself. But her effort had borne fruit.
She had touched a child’s mind.
Receptive, eager, willing to learn all she had to teach… Chired Anigrel— now Anigrel Tavadon—had provided the crack in the City’s defenses that would soon bring them utter dominion over their loathed enemy. He had become hers utterly, growing in Darkness and strength through the years, moving ever closer to the City’s heart of power.
It was not a true breech of the City’s wards. As yet, it was only a way for her to communicate unnoticed with her most devoted slave, willing to work toward any task she set.
And now…
Victory was near.
She could taste it.
Just as she would taste the blood and flesh of her sweet slave, when he was no longer useful to her.
—«♦»—
THE Centaur party continued to travel toward the Elven Lands. After the first few days, Cilarnen’s aches and pains subsided, though riding a draft mare was just as uncomfortable as he’d thought it would be.
In every spare moment, he practiced with his new wand. The need to practice burned in him; he had his Gift back, and being able to use it again felt better than anything he could have imagined. It was as if he’d had a hand cut off, learned to live imperfectly without it, and then suddenly had it regrow before his eyes. He was only an Entered Apprentice, but he had been studying so hard to try to impress his father that he already knew many of the more complex spells that kept the City running—spells to purify water, spells to bind and unbind, spells to banish vermin, spells to calm animals and send a non-Mage to sleep, dozens more.
But though he built the glyphs that summoned his spells until his eyes ached and his body trembled with weariness, he was careful to leave them incomplete. There was no need for them here, after all, and he really wasn’t sure what would happen if he completed them. For some of the spells, he lacked some of the needed components. For others… well, the more powerful the spell, the more necessary he had been taught that it was to work it within a warded Circle. All his teachers had said that over and over from the first day he’d entered the gates of the Mage-College. Cilarnen wasn’t really sure what would happen if he did them out here. Summoning Fire was one thing—and Mageshield could be done anywhere. But the others…
He didn’t know. And there was no one to ask.
Seeing his difficulties with the High Magick, Wirance and Kardus had offered to try to teach him their heretical sorcery. Cilarnen had accepted with very little reluctance. He was cast out by the Light already, so it didn’t really matter to him one way or the other, and Kardus was the closest thing to a friend Cilarnen had among the Centaurs, though he felt an odd aversion to Wirance… not a dislike, precisely, but more as if Wirance simply wasn’t someone he should be around.
—«♦»—
“THESE are the Books of the Wild Magic,” Kardus said, placing three worn volumes into Cilarnen’s hands one night as they gathered around the fire. “All the wisdom of the Herdsman’s path is written in their pages. Perhaps you will learn what you seek herein.”
Cilarnen accepted them gingerly. There was a certain illicit thrill in handling them.
Cilarnen opened the first of the three books. The leather was stiff and slippery in his hands, the covers oddly hard to open.
“There’s nothing here,” he said in surprise.
“Say you so?” Kardus said, frowning. “Look deeper.”
“At what?” Cilarnen demanded irritably. “There’s nothing to see. The pages are blank.” He handed the three books quickly back to Kardus, who looked down at the first book thoughtfully, shaking his head in puzzlement.
“Try mine.” Wirance, who had been standing a few feet away, stepped closer, holding out a single slim volume.
Cilarnen took it reluctantly. It was one thing to tell himself he was willing to investigate other kinds of magic. It was another to have his nose rubbed in the reality of it. Kardus could obviously read what was written on the pages of his three Books perfectly well, but to Cilarnen, those same pages were blank.
Unlike the Books of the Centaur Wildmage, Wirance’s Book seemed to burn in Cilarnen’s hands, writhing under his fingers as if it wished to escape. It gave him the same feeling he had around Wirance, only magnified a hundredfold.
He gritted his teeth and pried the book open.
It was blank.
He let the covers snap shut with a sigh of relief. When he relaxed his grip, it was as if the book flew from his hands and back to Wirance’s.