Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

“Any idiot could have seen it right from the start,” Alhundt said. “I suppose it took a while for the news to trickle down to you .”

Marcus raised his empty hands. “As you say. I give up.”

The Concordat agent stared at him, eyes narrowed. “I should cut you down right now.”

“I can help you. You said it yourself.”

“You could.” Alhundt started forward again. “If you really meant it. But I don’t buy it, Marcus. I know you. You missed your place as a knight-errant three hundred years ago. Always defend a lady, always stand by a friend, and never betray your lord.” She gave a heavy sigh. “You do a good job of hiding it, though. I admit when I first met you I thought you were a little more. . pragmatic.”

“Then cut me down,” Marcus said.

“There’s the Marcus I know,” Alhundt said. “Always ready to take a bullet for the cause.” She stopped, ten paces from Marcus and just short of the statue where Winter was hiding, and gave him a long look. “So what’s the plan this time? Got a pistol shoved up your ass?”

Marcus winced. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It won’t work, whatever it is. This isn’t a game of cards with the other captains. You’re up against the Divine here.”

“Jen. .” Marcus hesitated.

Alhundt started forward again. “Just do it. Get it out of your system. Maybe that will finally convince you.”

She passed Winter’s statue, barely a yard away. Winter tensed.

Nowor never.

When Alhundt took another step, Winter sprang, rounding the plinth with one hand extended. The moment seemed to stretch, as though she were running through molasses. Her fingers were inches away from the Concordat agent’s back when Alhundt spun, graceful as a dancer, and brought her left hand up. A wall of scintillating sparks snapped into existence, and Winter felt herself leaving the ground. A moment later she slammed against the belly of the lizard statue, pressed upward against the stone by a force so strong it was a struggle just to draw breath. Through the screeching, fizzing wall of light, she could see Alhundt step closer, hand extended, head cocked to one side as though examining a fascinating insect.

“ This is your plan? Have some idiot boy try to stick a knife in my back while you keep me talking?” She snorted. “Honestly, Marcus, I would have thought that even you could have come up with something better than that.” Alhundt peered closer. “Has he even got a knife? What were you going to do, boy? Try to strangle me?”

Through the scream of the sparks, Winter could barely hear Marcus’ voice. “He’s a distraction.”

There was the thunderclap of a musket going off in close quarters. The force holding Winter up abruptly vanished as Alhundt turned away, and Winter fell heavily across the stone lizard’s taloned feet. The Concordat agent was facing Marcus now, her unearthly reflexes having easily deflected the musket ball. Her other hand came up, ready to unleash a devastating wave of force that would tear the captain to shreds-

Something felt like it had given way in Winter’s chest. Pain radiated from her much-abused side, as if she’d been stuck with a knife, and even drawing breath was a painful effort. It took all the energy she could muster to extend her hand a couple of feet. Her fingertips brushed Alhundt’s shirt. With a supreme effort, she tugged herself forward and pressed her palm into the woman’s back.

Do it, she told the naath. Come on. Whatever it is you do, do it!

Something flooded out of her. She felt the naath rush through her chest, down her arm, through the tenuous contact and into the other woman. At the same time, she could sense Alhundt’s power, a spiky, twisted thing coiled around her essence like a wall of thorns. It flared as Winter’s naath leapt the gap between souls, and pure energy sparked and coiled on a plane far from the merely physical.

Alhundt screamed. Winter would have joined her, but she didn’t have the breath.

The two entities slammed together. Or joined together, mixed but separate, like oil and water. Wherever they touched, dangerous energy crackled. Winter remembered what Feor had said about naath , that they were jealous things, and she suddenly understood the girl’s pain. During the recitation, she had had this conflict roaring inside her, as the half-complete incantation warred with her own. Maybe that’s what the naath does. Tears people apart with the force of their own magic. But whatever Alhundt was feeling, Winter also felt, echoing down the link between them. So does it shred me as well? The prospect left her curiously ambivalent. She seemed to have passed beyond fear.

Something was changing. On the boundaries, where the magics sparked and warred, one of them was giving way. Winter’s naath expanded, oil spreading out as the water retreated. It converted the other into more of itself, twisted and pummeled and restructured it until it could incorporate the foreign thing into its own fabric. The process began slowly, then accelerated, change running through Alhundt’s magic as fast as thought could follow. Then, where there had been two warring powers, there was only one. Winter’s naath flooded back through the link, diving back into the depths of her soul like a monster returning to its cave, sated with its kill.

The link broke. It felt like hours had passed, but in the real world time had barely moved forward at all. Winter’s hand fell away, flopping limply against the plinth. The screech of Alhundt’s magic ended abruptly, leaving a tooth-jangling hum echoing in Winter’s ears. The Concordat agent herself crumpled on the spot, folding like an empty sack to sprawl bonelessly on the flagstones.

The sound of Marcus running was distant, irrelevant behind the shooting pain that wracked Winter’s body. Darkness closed around her. She closed her eyes and surrendered, gratefully, to unconsciousness.

MARCUS

“A re you certain?”

Jen lay on the bedroll, arms at her sides, left hand wound round with bandages. They’d dressed her in whatever could be scrounged from the stores, all much too large. The sleeves of the white shirt overhung her fingers, and the army-blue trousers had the cuffs rolled up like a little boy’s. Marcus had retrieved her spectacles, one lens cracked through, and set them beside her head.

He couldn’t help staring at her. With her features at peace, she looked like the woman who had cried on his shoulder and shared his bed, rather than the unholy monster she had revealed herself to be. The movement of her chest was so slight, the whisper of air through her lips so faint, that he felt if he looked away they might cease entirely. He rode with her in the carts during the day, and stayed with her in his tent at night. What sleep he did manage was brief and troubled.

No doubt the paperwork was piling up, but Fitz would take care of it. Marcus took his meals alone with his silent patient, and waited. Everyone knew just enough to leave him alone.

“Are you certain?” She’d implied there was more in his file that he knew. .

The tent flap rustled, and there was a knock at the pole. Marcus looked up.

“Who’s there?” His voice was still hoarse from that horrible day at the oasis.

“Janus.”

Of course. Marcus sat in silence for a long moment, indecisive.

“May I come in?”

“Go ahead.”

The tent flap parted. Janus’ left leg was bound up in wood and linen, and he supported himself with a crutch under that arm. He slipped inside with surprising dexterity and hopped over to Marcus’ camp chair.