“Who is Kanderamath?” Tilda asked no one in particular, though the name sounded vaguely familiar to her.
“An ancient Witch King of Tull,” Sister Paveline said. “It was he who supposedly Opened Vod’Adia the first time, nearly five-hundred years ago.”
Tilda glanced at John Deskata, but the man’s face was blankly neutral and if he knew she was looking at him he gave no sign. She could not believe he was out here already after the news she had given him only minutes before, and then the reason occurred to her. A book that could open a doorway. A doorway that would lead to any place that the person walking through it could desire. Anywhere in the world. In an instant.
Tilda’s heart should have risen in her chest at the thought, but it stayed where it was. She had not spoken her last words to John Deskata idly. Matilda Lanai truly felt that the House of Deskata was better off without him, even if it meant the end of the once proud line for whom her own family had worked for a century. John Deskata was no sort of a man to lead a House. His last lie, that the Duchess Claudja was safe, had been the last straw for Tilda.
The crescendo of the Shugak’s debate turned into a shoving match, until finally the black bullywug silenced the others with loud croaks and a wild waving of its webbed hands. The thin hobgoblin that spoke Codian turned to Paveline.
“The mighty Shugak will grant entry into Vod’Adia by a party. Take the Daul woman as you will, but you must slay the Circle Mage and bring us out the book.”
Those words did move Tilda’s heart, and Heggenauer struck a fist into an open hand. Sister Paveline frowned, but before she could speak the black bullywug hopped over to the porch in two long bounds and threw itself to the ground at the base of the stairs. It held its webbed hands up toward the blue-eyed woman and gave voice to the most pathetic series of ribbits and croaks Tilda could have imagined.
*
Nesha-tari heard Kerek’s voice as though the bullywug were speaking Low Drak, and she answered it in the same tongue. The sound of the sibilant sounds sliding from her mouth made Zebulon and the Far Westerners stare at her.
“For what possible reason would I want to do that?” she hissed.
Kerek rolled up to his knees, joined his webby hands and shook them. His wide mouth lolled open and his tongue unrolled almost to the ground.
“Please, great Mistress, servant of the invincible Azure One. We humble servants of Black Danavod beseech thee. Slay for us this wizard, fetch his book, and you shall have anything that the Shugak may give.”
“I heard you the first time, bullywug. I asked why?”
Kerek’s hands worked over each other with an oily sliding noise.
“There is some chance, however slight, that a Tullish wizard employing Kanderamath’s style of witchery might undo the magic that binds Vod’Adia to this place. Without the Witch King’s spells, the place would be forever Closed.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Kerek’s tongue slithered back into its mouth.
“The situation, as it is, has been of great value to we Shugak. And to the Mistress of the Night Sky who we serve.”
Nesha-tari sighed and shook her head at the pathetic little creature.
“So go get him yourself.”
“Alas, we can not, for all Shugak have sworn an oath to the Black Dragon herself not to set foot on dark Vod’Adia’s streets. I mean to send word to Her immediately, but She is distant and never answers but in Her own time.”
“The Great Ones are like that,” Nesha-tari agreed.
“Mistress Nesha-tari,” Kerek again shook its hands. “ Please. A Circle Wizard never should have been allowed within Vod’Adia, but he somehow passed our wards. We know not how, though it may be that the book he carries is an object of great power in its own right. Such a thing is too dangerous to go unchecked. I beg of you.”
Nesha-tari leaned back and a smile played around her mouth.
“Danavod will surely punish you for letting him in, yes? The Great Ones are like that, as well.”
The bullywug whimpered, and Nesha-tari laughed. She could not help it. She felt wonderful the morning after Feeding, as good as she ever did in her life. Horayachus had been a man of such raw power and ability that she could look forward to the taste of him lingering, probably for months. She would go to Roseille, where she had been told to report her success to others in the service of Blue Akroya, and then make her way home to the Hakalya at her leisure. Perhaps, Nesha-tari thought, she would take the time to see something of this world beyond the Desolation of her birth, without the Hunger gnawing in her stomach. She would return to Akroya having succeeded in the perilous task he had given her, which was the only thing that truly mattered. Vod’Adia could disappear, and Danavod could kill all the Shugak if She felt like it. Neither would trouble Nesha-tari.
Unless…
Kerek was whimpering, but Nesha-tari hissed for silence and sat up straight.
Akroya had sent Nesha-tari here to kill Horayachus, a High Priest of Ayon within the Ayzantine Church. She had not asked the Dragon what such a man was doing out in the Vod Wilds, or how the Dragon had known he would be there, or why Akroya wanted him dead in the first place.
“Oh, beautiful favorite of the Blue…”
“Shut up, Kerek.”
Horayachus had come here, apparently, to kidnap a Duchess from Daul. Nesha-tari had never known her Master to express any interest in the ongoing war between the two countries, but His realm in the Hakalya was after all within the territorial boundaries of Ayzantium. The Zantish King’s Men, Cultists, and Fire Priests knew better than to trouble Him there, in the high desert Desolation.
None of that meant that the Blue Dragon was completely removed from their affairs. Nesha-tari knew that her Master had many servants, and while she alone was his favorite she was also the only one who had dwelled her whole life in His desert, never having been sent out into the world of Men. Until now. The Dragon had wanted Horayachus dead, and Horayachus was dead. But the purpose that the Fire Priest had for coming here, if what all the others said was true, was being carried out now by a band of renegade Codians, and the weak wizard, Phinneas Phoarty.
And Nesha-tari had no idea how her Master would feel about that.
“Damn it all,” Nesha-tari said in Zantish, making Zebulon raise both his soot-black eyebrows high on his forehead. Nesha-tari looked at him, and at Uriako Shikashe, and at Amatesu. She turned back to Kerek, who was now rocking feebly from side to side. She sighed through her nose.
“Stand up, wug, and go run to your vaults. I am going to have need of some money. And get me a pair of shoes.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Phinneas Phoarty was not certain what he had expected to find upon entering Vod’Adia, but it was not what he got.
After winding through back alleys for a long while the group had reached the Shugak gate where a long line of adventurers was queued up in groups of up to ten, waiting their turns to enter Vod’Adia on ten minute intervals. The city had been Open by then for around two hours. The Sarge led the way to the front of the line holding his ruined hand in a mass of bloody bandages to his chest and waving the Shugak totem stick with its rows of beads and bones in the other. He was in tremendous pain and at best only semi-coherent, but the grim hobgoblins at the palisade gate examined the stick and waved the group through between two others with toothy leers and guttural chuckles. They cared very little if a suicidal band of half-dead humans wished to enter the Sable City, so long as they had paid in full for the privilege.
The other adventurers eyed the group and muttered as they were jumped into the line, but no one stepped forward to ask as to the condition of the limp young woman slung over the legionnaire Ty’s shoulder. The humans did not impress Phin as being any more gallant than the Magdetchoi.