Shadowthrone… now something else…
Kalam whispered, 'Still not touching…'
Bottle settled back, crossing his arms as he lay down on the sand. '
Wait,' he said, then closed his eyes, and a moment later was asleep once more.
Crouched close at Quick Ben's side, Fiddler let out a long breath.
The wizard pulled his stare from the reconfigured Shadowthrone, his eyes bright as he looked over at the sapper. 'He was half asleep, Fid.'
The sergeant shrugged.
'No,' the wizard said, 'you don't understand. Half asleep. Someone's with him. Was with him, I mean. Do you have any idea how far back sympathetic magic like this goes? To the very beginning. To that glimmer, that first glimmer, Fid. The birth of awareness. Are you understanding me?'
'As clear as the moon lately,' Fiddler said, scowling.
'The Eres'al, the Tall Ones – before a single human walked this world.
Before the Imass, before even the K'Chain Che'Malle. Fiddler, Eres was here. Now. Herself. With him.'
The sapper looked back down at the doll of Shadowthrone. Four-legged now, frozen in its headlong rush – and the shadow it cast did not belong, did not fit at all. For the head was broad, the snout prominent and wide, jaws opened but wrapped about something. And whatever that thing was, it slithered and squirmed like a trapped snake.
What in Hood's name? Oh. Oh, wait…
Atop a large boulder that had sheared, creating an inclined surface, Apsalar was lying flat on her stomach, watching the proceedings in the clearing twenty-odd paces distant. Disturbing conversations, those, especially that last part, about the Eres. Just another hoary ancient better left alone. That soldier, Bottle, needed watching.
Torahaval Delat… one of the names on that spy's – Mebra's – list in Ehrlitan. Quick Ben's sister. Well, that was indeed unfortunate, since it seemed that both Cotillion and Shadowthrone wanted the woman dead, and they usually got what they wanted. Thanks to me… and people like me. The gods place knives into our mortal hands, and need do nothing more.
She studied Quick Ben, gauging his growing agitation, and began to suspect that the wizard knew something of the extremity that his sister now found herself in. Knew, and, in the thickness of blood that bound kin no matter how estranged, the foolish man had decided to do something about it.
Apsalar waited no longer, allowing herself to slide back down the flat rock, landing lightly in thick wind-blown sand, well in shadow and thoroughly out of sight from anyone. She adjusted her clothes, scanned the level ground around her, then drew from folds in her clothing two daggers, one into each hand.
There was music in death. Actors and musicians knew this as true. And, for this moment, so too did Apsalar.
To a chorus of woe no-one else could hear, the woman in black began the Shadow Dance.
Telorast and Curdle, who had been hiding in a fissure near the flattopped boulder, now edged forward.
'She's gone into her own world,' Curdle said, nonetheless whispering, her skeletal head bobbing and weaving, tail flicking with unease.
Before them, Not-Apsalar danced, so infused with shadows she was barely visible. Barely in this world at all.
'Never cross this one, Curdle,' Telorast hissed. 'Never.'
'Wasn't planning to. Not like you.'
'Not me. Besides, the doom's come upon us – what are we going to do?'
'Don't know.'
'I say we cause trouble, Curdle.'
Tiny jaws clacked. 'I like that.'
Quick Ben rose suddenly. 'I've got no choice,' he said.
Kalam swore, then said, 'I hate it when you say that, Quick.'
The wizard drew out another doll, this one trailing long threads. He set it down a forearm's reach from the others, then looked over and nodded to Kalam.
Scowling, the assassin unsheathed one of his long-knives and stabbed it point-first into the sand.
'Not the otataral one, idiot.'
'Sorry.' Kalam withdrew the weapon and resheathed it, then drew out the other knife. A second stab into the sand.
Quick Ben knelt, carefully gathering the threads and leading them over to the long-knife's grip, where he fashioned knots, joining the doll to the weapon. 'See these go taut-'
'I grab the knife and pull you back here. I know, Quick, this ain't the first time, remember?'
'Right. Sorry.'
The wizard settled back into his cross-legged position..
'Hold on,' Fiddler said in a growl. 'What's going on here? You ain't planning something stupid, are you? You are. Damn you, Quick-'
