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Maxim was pleased to see his new village thriving. Cleaning any last smears of mud off his face, grooming his dark hair, which had grown longer than he preferred, he walked out of the marsh. With the power of his gift, he could make these villagers think positively of him, see him as their new leader, believe every statement he made.
He’d used that power long ago to enchant Thora into becoming his lover. He’d been ready to give anything for her! He had wanted her so badly. By the Keeper’s crotch, if only he could go back and tell himself not to waste the effort. There had indeed been some good times in their relationship, maybe a hundred years out of fifteen long centuries, but the best part was that he never needed to see Thora again.
He came into view with his arms raised, and as the villagers noticed him, their casual singsong chatter dropped into silence. They stared at the stranger in wonder and fear.
Seeing that he had their attention, Maxim released his gift with a flourish and made a boom of thunder echo through the cloudless sky. Then he put on a benevolent expression as he stepped forward. “I greet you with kindness. I am Maxim, the wizard commander of Ildakar.” He waited for the name to sink in, and smiled more broadly as he released his gift, let a tingle of glamour flicker through the air, like a blanket smothering their uncertainty. “And I have even better news, because I am now your wizard commander, too! What is the name of this village?”
“Tarada,” said an old woman at her fishing nets, plucking at the twine and tightening a knot. “We are a simple folk, and we have little. If you’ve come to steal, you’ll be disappointed.”
“I’ve not come to steal,” Maxim said. “You have great potential, and that is what matters. Who is your village leader, so I can meet my second-in-command?”
A broad-shouldered man in his midforties came forward, not looking happy. He had short gray-brown hair and was missing two fingers on his left hand. “I am Danner. I resolve disputes here, but Tarada doesn’t need much more leadership than that.”
“You have more leadership now. You have a wizard commander.” Maxim released more glamour, and the people muttered, nodding, displaying uncertain smiles.
“We’ve never had a wizard commander before,” Danner said.
“Then this is a great day for your village. I’ll help you make changes. You are all my subjects, and we’ll build Tarada into something much greater than it is. You’ve never before dreamed what was within your reach, but I’ll help you make it happen.” Maxim smiled at all of them, glad that he no longer needed to hide his face with a mirror mask. These people were already in the palm of his hand.
“First I’ll need food, clothing, and a home appropriate to my station.” He gestured to the town leader, who didn’t yet understand that he no longer had any power here. “Danner, find me what I need. I’m sure the people will be happy to sort through their possessions and provide the necessary items for their wizard commander.”
He scanned the women in the town, wistful for the beautiful noble ladies at his pleasure parties. When he had left Ildakar in turmoil and fled into the wilderness, he hadn’t considered how long it would be before he had a woman in his bed again, to lay her down and stroke her, to hear her moan as she experienced the pleasure of being the wizard commander’s lover.
The women in Tarada seemed plain and washed-out, looking older than their years from eking out a life with no luxuries. He did see some young ladies still barely in their teens. Maybe if they were cleaned up, he might find them attractive, and if Tarada was going to be the start of a new rule for him, he would have to grant these people at least some small reward. If the women pleased him, he would return the favor.
Men paddled in with their canoes, curious about the stranger that the rest of the villagers gathered around. Larger boats returned from the wide river, and Maxim greeted them all. He maintained the calming veil of his gift like a mist throughout the air. The village was already his, and he merely had to finish arranging the details.
* * *
Within several days, thanks to Maxim’s efforts, Tarada entirely changed. Five of the smaller huts had been torn down, and the reeds, structural poles, and thatched roofing were used for a much larger building. It certainly wasn’t a palace—anyone in Ildakar would have laughed at the very suggestion—but it did have a certain amount of grandeur in relation to the rest of the village.
Until now, life in Tarada had mostly concentrated on gathering food, and the people had succeeded well enough, but Maxim had far greater ambition, and he had to start his new empire somewhere. Even Ildakar had humble beginnings on the shores of the Killraven River in ages past. Once he established himself in Tarada, Maxim might move on to a grander place, maybe one of the bustling towns downriver. Tarada was a fine start, though, and he was pleased with his progress.
Danner proved to be quite skilled as his second-in-command. The man knew all the villagers and resources in Tarada. Under Maxim’s glamour, he threw himself wholeheartedly into serving the new wizard commander.
Maxim chose two young women who were comely enough—one of them Danner’s own daughter—and took them as his lovers, granting them that extra glow of importance. The village girls were inexperienced and unimaginative, but pleasurable, and Maxim could train them, or even try others who might catch his attention. He didn’t want anyone in Tarada to feel left out. For the first time since he had abandoned Ildakar, Maxim saw a bright future.
Then Adessa arrived.
Over the last week, Maxim had prepared for the possibility of her coming and given the villagers instructions to sound a warning upon the approach of any strangers, but Adessa was fast.
A fisherwoman came running through the reeds, yelling at the top of her voice, “The morazeth is here! To arms!”
Moments later, Maxim emerged from his palatial reed structure to see a haughty Adessa stride into the village with her weapons drawn and a deadly gleam in her eyes. Under Maxim’s spell, an older fisherman threw himself upon her, attacking with a boat hook, but Adessa chopped the wooden staff in half, then sliced her knife across his stomach. Not even slowing her pace, she kicked the man aside as he fell clutching at the ropy entrails spilling out of his stomach. “Maxim, I am here for your head! On orders from Sovrena Thora.”
Knowing she was protected from his magic, Maxim cried out to the people, “Protect me! Stop her!” He used his glamour spell to nudge the villagers who were already wrapped around his finger.
Danner charged forward, lips drawn back in a grimace of anger and disgust. “We won’t let you harm our wizard commander!” Two more fishermen joined him.
Adessa looked at them as if they were bothersome flies. The villagers clumsily swung makeshift weapons, as Maxim had known they would. He needed them only for a diversion. They slowed Adessa for a moment, but she cut the legs out from under Danner, stabbed the two fishermen, and kept moving forward at her inexorable pace.
With a wild shriek, Danner’s young daughter bounded forward and threw a torn fishing net at Adessa, surprising her. The morazeth thrashed, tangling her short sword in the net, while other howling villagers rushed into the brief opening. The mob struck the morazeth leader with sticks. A young child darted in with gutting knife to stab her rune-marked legs. Adessa kicked him aside and into the water. More villagers crowded forward with murderous intent, but Adessa slashed herself free from the net.
Now the morazeth took the attack seriously. Whirling as if she were in an exhibition for the Ildakaran combat arena, she slew the Taradan villagers as fast as they came within reach of her sword. A few of them managed to land blows, though Adessa ignored the pain. She killed them all, leaving the marsh path and the village littered with severed limbs and decapitated heads.
Maxim dispatched more villagers to come running to his defense, well aware that the morazeth would surely defeat them all, and as the villagers died, one after another, his own tenuous glamour frayed. Terror loosened his hold on the population, and they pulled away.
Maxim knew i
t was time for another tactic. This small fishing village would never have served as the capital of his new empire, he realized. It was just an experiment, a way-stop on his journey, and it was time for him to use the supreme power of his gift so he could escape unscathed.
His magic would not harm Adessa, but he was clever enough to put it to other use. He used his gift on the sluggish waters of the oxbow bend, pulling upon the current.
As Adessa hacked her way through the last villagers, Maxim hurled the river water in a wide smothering flood over Tarada. The sudden wave washed away his reed palace and the numerous huts. Adessa braced herself for the crash of the wave.
At the same time, Maxim unleashed more magic, triggering a surge of heat that exploded the curtain of water into hot steam. Searing vapor roared and whistled, scouring the village. Boiling water drenched the people and structures, and swept Adessa away in the hot rush. As more of the river exploded, the entire oxbow was engulfed in impenetrable fog.
It gave Maxim the perfect cover to escape. He had already found a boat, which he would take to the main river. From there, he could get far away.
CHAPTER 40
Left inside her lifeless cell, Thora was tired of waiting. She refused to let her captors determine her fate anymore, and she would not be blocked from the great city, her city. Ildakar had discarded her, shoved her into this dark corner where no one bothered to think about her anymore. Thora had reached her breaking point.
Her own husband had spread his poison, brought the city down upon itself, and then dashed off, laughing at what he had done. For a long time, Thora had felt a sneering indifference toward him, and now when she thought of how he had kissed her and stroked her skin, she felt nauseated.
High Captain Avery had been a far superior lover, so attentive, appreciating her for her beauty, not just her power. In the cell now, thinking of the handsome captain, Thora touched her arms, her breasts, let her fingers explore her thighs and between her legs, but what should have been a tingling erotic sensation was little more than a numb touch. Her body was more stone than flesh and could no longer experience pleasure.
How she hated Maxim, hated the duma members who had cast this petrification spell on her, the conspirators who had pronounced her guilty because they didn’t understand what she had done for Ildakar. Everything for Ildakar!
She felt like the unloved stepchild of her mother city. The leaders dismissed her vision and ignored her powerful magic that had protected them for so many centuries. Her heart was broken for how her dreams had crumbled.
She returned to the doorway of her cell, where the rune-engraved stone blocks prevented her from using magic to escape. Thora ignited a light in her hand and set it afloat. The glowing ball hovered in the air, illuminating the stone walls. She studied the spiderwebbed fracture pattern where, in her fury at Lani’s taunting, she had lashed out and damaged the block with her bare fist.
It was just a start. She knew she could do more.
Thora had to get out of this cell, had to see her city. No, she needed to escape this place. Much to her dismay and disgust, Ildakar was no longer her home. She understood that full well. Nicci and Nathan, the duma, the ungrateful lower classes who had revolted against Ildakar and killed her son Amos—they were no longer her people. No, Ildakar was not her city anymore, no matter how much she had given to it.
She bunched her fist, drew it back, and slammed against the stone above the cracked block. Her knuckles hit so hard that the blow resonated up her arm, sending a shiver of pain up to her shoulder. In a way, she was reassured that she could feel it.
But she hadn’t managed to crack the next stone. She needed more.
Something about Lani’s provocation had triggered the extra power in her. Now, when she thought about her dulled sensations, how she longed to feel the thrill of pleasure in that most intimate of places which was now dead to her, she felt anger again. It grew brighter than the flame that hovered nearby.
Ildakar had taken so much from her! Lashing out, Thora struck another resounding blow against the stone, and this time she felt the block fracture. Before she let her anger fade, Thora smashed again and again, building it into a wild frenzy. She recalled how much she had enjoyed pleasure parties, thought of her lover Avery who had been murdered by Mirrormask’s rebels … murdered by her own husband!
After many repeated blows, Thora felt the damage to her hand, saw blood oozing from her chalky skin. If she’d been a normal human, Thora’s fists would have been smashed to a bloody pulp. She didn’t relent, but merely ignored the damage so she could keep going.
She continued battering the stone until the runes were finally destroyed. The blocks crumbled, the door sagged on its hinges, and Thora kicked hard against the heavy wooden barrier. Iron pins snapped from the hinges, and the crossbar clattered into the corridor. With a groan, the door broke free and crashed to the floor, leaving the way open for her.
Laughing, Thora stepped out of her cell. Once past the protective runes, she felt her gift swell within her. With an offhand gesture, she flicked a bleeding hand down the hall, igniting all of the torches with magic. Glancing down at her mangled fists, which had begun to scream with pain, she restored herself, sealed the worst of the injuries. She was the sovrena, intact once more, although she was unable to drive away the slow permanence of stone that still infused her body.
She was free, and now at last she could do what needed to be done. Ildakar had forsaken her, but General Utros and his vast army might appreciate Thora’s work, her magic. If she joined forces with him, she could help him overthrow this broken Ildakar and destroy the treacherous duma; then she could install herself as sovrena again and begin to fix things. Yes, that was how she could have her city back. That was how she could restore her dream, even if it meant she had to forge a terrible alliance with an ancient enemy.
She drove away the thought of what Utros and his armies would do to Ildakar once they surged through the gates, at least at first. It was for the best in the long run. She owed nothing to the city anymore, and she would rebuild it from scratch.
Thora knew her way around the dungeon levels. In her years as sovrena, she had sentenced many traitors to be killed in the combat arena, or she had simply used the petrification spell to turn them to stone. But some were sent to the dungeons, where she expected them to learn their lesson. Sometimes, she forgot about the captives long past the point where they had become contrite, then desperate, and then insane. After that, they rotted in the cells, leaving only moldering piles of bones for the rats to eat. Thora felt no sympathy for those victims, nor for her current jailers. She had her own priorities.
Freed, she strode along the passageways, searching for a way out into the open air. In a lit antechamber she startled two guards as they played a game with gambling sticks, bidding with stolen gold coins and jewelry. She recognized the two men who had treated her with such disrespect. As she strode into the antechamber, they lurched to their feet, astonished. “The sovrena’s escaped!”
She called a fist of air that slammed one of the guards against the far wall, and when he was pinned there, she pushed, harder, feeling the delicious thrill as his ribs cracked, and blood poured out of his mouth and nose. She kept pressing, crushing his heart flat, pushing the breastbone all the way against the spine.
Yelling, the second guard tried to run, and Thora smacked him with her magic just as he passed through the door, knocking his skull like a melon against the wall. She slowly pressed harder, flattening his skull until his brain oozed out like pinkish-gray slime down the walls.
Moving onward, Thora crashed through doorways, scattering more guards. Some turned to fight, but she dispensed with them quickly. Others fled. She had full command of her gift now, unhindered by protective runes. No one would stop her. When she reached the barred doorway of the dungeon tunnels beneath the bluff, she bent and twisted the metal barricade, then hurled it at two guards who raced forward to stop her.
When she finally broke out
to the landscaped streets and orchards, Thora paused to inhale, smelling freedom, smelling Ildakar. It was very late at night, the streets nearly deserted just before dawn. All the noble mansions were well lit, but she saw no one moving about. Above her, the shattered ruins of the sacrificial pyramid stood like an insult, where Nicci had thwarted the sovrena’s plans to raise the shroud of eternity. So much had collapsed on that night.…
Thora needed to make changes, but she couldn’t do it while Ildakar stood against her. No, the city had to be purged. She had to reshape Ildakar so that it could achieve the glory it deserved. She would use General Utros, the mortal enemy of Ildakar, but Ildakar had become its own enemy. She had to save her city from itself, and to do that, in order to surrender to Utros, she needed to get past the wall. She was sure the enemy camp would accept her.
She paused, feeling a chill of second thoughts, dreading how the victorious enemy soldiers would pillage Ildakar, punish the people for resisting the siege, for turning them to stone. They would destroy much of the splendor—
No, she banished those ideas. In the long term, if it was the only way Thora could become sovrena again, the results would be worth the terrible price.
Now that she had escaped, she needed to be careful. Before she could get past the main gates, Nicci, Nathan, and the duma members would stand against her, so she moved quickly, before news of her escape spread.
Down in the lower levels of the city, she heard a loud commotion and she saw many torches and gathering crowds. Something was happening at the main wall, and beyond the city she could see large fires spreading from the grassy hills down into the siege encampment.
