Its head snapped up, a strip of flesh dangling from its beak. Even as Baygis realised it had seen him, the bird was away, a bright flash through the trees. Baygis broke into a run, moving unnaturally fast.
Idiot mage, came the weaver’s voice in his mind. I am of the shadow, yet you stand in shadows to elude me?
Baygis could sense the bird getting away and he burned magic for fleetness, tearing recklessly through the trees, so quickly that his feet hardly touched the ground.
The bird’s voice came again. Don’t they teach you anything these days?
They teach us not to prattle when we need to flee, returned Baygis.
Stretching out his hands as he ran, he conjured a sphere of light. ‘Seek,’ he told it, and it shot off into the canopy. Ahead of him the bird chirped in panic as the sphere caught up and suffused it, making it convulse and hurtle to the ground. It struggled to right itself, powerless against the gold bonds of energy that now pinned down its wings. As Baygis reached it, the effort of his run caught up with him. He sank to his knees before the prostrate weaver.
‘What is your name?’ he said between heavy breaths.
The weaver’s blood-drop eyes swivelled to the mage who towered over him. ‘Die screaming, Varenkai.’
Baygis waggled his fingers. Inside the bird’s body tiny lines of fire ignited in pathways. It screamed, a sound like a kettle boiling. Baygis dropped his hand and the pain ceased. The weaver’s yellow chest rose and fell with uneven gasps.
‘What is your name?’ said Baygis.
‘Iassia,’ said the bird.
‘I’ll have your true name as well. And it will depend entirely on you how long you must remain in pain before you speak it. If you answer my questions, release will come swiftly.’
Iassia’s tiny head fell back against the grass. ‘Release?’ he said contemptuously. ‘You think that is what such a death would bring me?’ He twittered bitterly. ‘It does not, I assure you. You’ll never have my true name.’
‘Are you sure?’
Baygis’s fingers curled and the fiery pain spread again in myriad tiny threads that crisscrossed every part of Iassia’s body. The mage waited patiently as the weaver writhed. His scream became soundless, his beak frozen open, his eyes bulging wide. Eventually Baygis dropped his hand.
‘Your name,’ he said.
Iassia didn’t respond. His eyes closed and his wings went limp.
‘I know you hear me, bird.’
Iassia opened an eye. His voice, when it came, was scratchy, ruined by the scream. ‘You are a fool, mage. I will endure you forever before I speak my true name. Go ahead and convert all your power into pain. Once you are empty, let the other mages of the Halls work in shifts, burning me through day and night. I will still outlive you and all your kin. I can wait until Kainordas falls to time itself, and when the stones of the Open Castle lie in ruins grown thick with moss, I will emerge and fly away, and still you won’t have heard my name.’
‘There are other ways to find it, as well you know,’ countered Baygis calmly. ‘Perhaps I should try one of your own tricks.’
‘What?’ said the bird, but it was too late.
Baygis drove a mental spike into Iassia, entering his mind with stunning force. He knew he could not match the weaver in a prolonged test of psychic strength, but the suddenness and violence of his attack was enough to wedge himself inside. He felt Iassia’s blocks go up, and raised his fingers above the bird once more, distracting it with physical pain. The blocks faltered and Baygis broke them down, swinging a hammer in Iassia’s head, not concerned with the destruction he caused. Iassia screamed mentally as well as physically, and Baygis seized what he’d come for.
‘Found it,’ he said.
‘No,’ whispered the bird in true terror.
‘Iashymaya Siashymor. A pretty name for such an ugly soul.’
‘You have no right!’
‘Wish to be sent back to Arkus, little one?’
‘No! Please!’
‘Perhaps you’ll answer my questions now.’
‘You’ll kill me either way.’
‘So you still want pain until the moss grows thick on the castle ruins?’
‘No. No. Though, fortunately for me, I don’t think I have to be that patient.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Baygis.
The bird raised his head. ‘Behind you.’
Baygis heard the whiz a moment before the arrow’s impact knocked him from his knees. Reflexively he rolled and sent a stream of liquid fire back towards the source of the attack. There was a short shriek as the fire hit someone, followed by a sizzling that was even louder. Baygis stumbled to his feet, throwing up guards against further attacks. He glanced to where the bird had lain and cursed to find his net had failed and it was gone. Sending out his senses with none of his former subtlety, he was just in time to feel Iassia flitting out of range of any useful spellcasting. Sharp pain killed his concentration and his hand went to his shoulder. He winced as his fingers closed about the shaft sticking out his back. Best to return to the Halls and let someone else remove it – healing was not one of his strengths.
He cursed again.
Trying to ignore the pain, he went to the body of his assailant. Smoke belched from the charred corpse and the smell of roasted flesh filled the air. It had been a Black Goblin, its lips melted away to reveal a permanent snarl. One of Battu’s rogue archers? There’d been no sign of them for years. Perhaps the bird had managed to call it, but it had to have been very close.
One of its eyes rolled in the socket.
Baygis tensed, ready to attack – but there was no way the goblin could still be alive. He watched in disgust as an insect-like leg pushed from under the goblin’s eyelid, hooking barbs onto the remains of the cheek. The leg tensed and the eyeball rose in the socket, other legs coming free beneath it, and clear wet wings. It was a bug-eye, Baygis realised, a creature that linked the sight of its host to the Shadowdreamer. Pulling a dagger from his belt, he stabbed the thing back down into the eye socket. Its legs whipped about frantically, lacerating the grilled flesh of the goblin’s face.
Had the Shadowdreamer been watching?
He sighed at the failure of his mission, and turned to make his way painfully home.
Battu’s eye refocused, joining his other in true sight. His link to the bug-eye had been severed.
The archer hadn’t killed Naphur’s boy, which would have been a pleasant bonus. At least the bird had escaped. Part of Battu considered Iassia’s ordeal just punishment for not discovering sooner that Bel had been in the open. As it was, the assassins he’d sent into the area were too late – Bel had disappeared back through the wards by the time they’d arrived. He’d left the goblins there in case Bel became exposed again, but now the Throne would know there were Fenvarrow operatives close to the wards. They would have to withdraw.
Battu sank back in Refectu, the vision from other bug-eyes flicking through his gaze.
Quickly and painfully Iassia flew, shaken and angry and scared to his bones. No mortal before Baygis had ever learned his true name – the fate all weavers feared the most. He shuddered at the thought of what Arkus might have in store for any weavers who were returned to him.
He would bring destruction to these people, he swore it to himself. He would make them pay for what they’d done, for making him feel this way!