Jeff LaSala - The Darkwood Mask

She pointed the wand at the nimblewright, her hands still shaking from the numbing cold. Invisible energy streamed from its tip, but she saw no change in the construct’s form. She tried again, to no avail. One charge left.

Aureon, she prayed. Justice, Sovereign Lord, please!

She flicked the wand again and was rewarded by a flash of light from the nimblewright’s armored frame. She heard the impact of Tallis’s hammer against its body, and smiled.

“Thank you,” she said aloud.

Then her body shook from the impact of several pulses of energy which slammed into her from out of nowhere. She was thrown from her feet, and the world chose that moment to spin in every direction at once.

Then darken.

Charoth felt a constricting sense of loss as Lady Mova fell. The Seeker herself was unimportant now, but his servants were far too few. The nimblewright would carry out the final command of its mistress, so he’d had to trust in its skill to occupy or defeat Tallis.

The spell of incorporeality had been a difficult one to master, but he’d researched it solely for use with the nimblewright. Once he’d imbued the construct’s blades to exist in both the corporeal and incorporeal realms, the perfection of his spell in conjunction with its peerless swordplay could not be denied.

The nimblewright had been sold to Mova’s family by the Twelve more than a century ago. Entombed beneath the Crimson Monastery for many years, the moment the priestess had introduced it to him, Charoth knew it needed to be in his power. He was not comfortable in its presence-its eyeless gaze judged him, he was sure-but from the moment he’d seen its skill put to work, its role had been vital in his plans. The nimblewright could go where he could not and leave behind no evidence.

Until now, it had been invulnerable, but the Brelish girl had just taken that away from him with some second-rate tinkerer’s wand.

Charoth had paused in his work to strike her down with a spell-a minor force attack he could afford to expend-which should have been sufficient to kill her. It was about time. He’d considered having the nimblewright kill Soneste shortly after her interview with him, but the death of Breland’s sole investigator might have brought in Boranel’s Dark Lanterns-a more troublesome possibility.

Still, this was entirely too distracting. She shouldn’t even have been here.

Charoth looked down at Princess Borina. Her eyes were open, timorous, her gaze fixed upon his mask, pleading for cessation. In mere minutes, the arcane lineage of her blood would be siphoned away completely. She was just another privileged human undeserving of her noble inheritance. Such power, such purity of youth and mortal divinity, should belong to those whose brilliance deserved recognition. The world should be shaped by those with the will to shape it.

He had not labored in the Orphanage those many years ago to see things go wrong again.

The way it weaved its body from side to side, Tallis could well imagine the watery spirit that occupied the nimblewright’s body. His own body was drenched with sweat, his fingers slick with blood. The bracers Verdax lent him had staved off many blows, but his body ached from every hit.

Even with only one hand, the construct was a fierce opponent, but at least he could hurt it.

“You’ve killed innocents,” he said, needing to understand the creature’s motive.

They traded blows, the clash of steel and adamantine the only thing he could hear.

“I do not care,” the nimblewright said between strikes, surprising Tallis so much he nearly failed to parry its next one. The construct’s voice was like a wet hiss of steam issued from a human throat.

According to what Soneste had learned, the nimblewright would simply obey its master. It had no moral base, no opinions of its own. Like a golem, it knew obedience and nothing more. It was not evil. It simply was.

“Well I do,” Tallis answered.

He knew he was winning now, could feel the construct’s movements slowing not out of exhaustion but from the sheer damage it had sustained. The armor plating of its body was dented and gouged in ways that would have killed any man.

He struck again, pounding the adamantine hammer soundly against one shoulder.

There was no cry of pain. Tallis expected none. One moment it was a fluid creature of death and metal. The next, it was an inanimate suit of armor crashing to the floor. A cloud of vapor rose from his enemy and dissipated around him.

There was no elation, no satisfaction, from its demise. Tallis merely stepped past it, taking his remaining rod into his left hand and hefting his hammer in his right.

He glanced to his left and saw Soneste lying on the ground. She might well be dead. Halix struggled to stand. The young prince looked half-dead. There was no time to tend to either of them.

To Khyber with you, Charoth.

The wizard stepped away from the table, fully aware that he was all that remained of his cabal. Princess Borina cried out when his gloved hand moved away from her body, drawing wisps of power from the pulsing table. In the adjoined glass throne, the cadaverous man stirred. Whatever Charoth had been doing-whatever all of this was for! — it was nearing its end.

Tallis knew something about magic weaponry, armor, and various enchanted devices. Like his immovable rods, they had well-defined rules, limitations, and numerous applications, yet he could make no sense of this bizarre experiment, ritual, or whatever it was. The spells and variations of a wizard’s work were beyond him.

He did know that Borina was dying from it.

At the sound of his sister’s voice, Halix pulled himself to his feet. Tallis wanted to shout at the boy to get down-another spell from Charoth would end him. Damn it!

Tallis needed to make himself a target.

He held his arms out. “I’m sorry,” he said to Charoth, gesturing to the shattered door and the laboratory itself. “Is this the wrong room? I was just looking for the latrine.”

Charoth struck the ground with the tip of his blue-glass cane. “We are at a stalemate, Major,” the wizard said, his voice reverberating across the room clearly. He twisted the silver vulture’s head at its top and withdrew a jeweled wand from the concealing shaft. “It needn’t end in violence. We are rational men, you and I.”

Tallis wasn’t intending to trade words with Charoth any longer. He made sure his grip was good on both rod and hammer then took a step forward.

“Sss … sver …”

Tallis looked to the figure in the glass throne. The voice had been barely audible, but it had certainly come from the withered man. More importantly, it had drawn Charoth’s full attention.

He would not waste the opportunity.

Tallis placed all his strength and focus into the throw, sending his hooked hammer into the air. The weapon spun end over end, spanning fifteen feet and rebounding off whatever magic shielded the wizard’s body, but the force of the blow sent Charoth stumbling back. He recovered quickly and swiped the wand in Tallis’s direction.

Accuracy didn’t matter. Electricity sprayed from the jeweled device, twisting in the air and skewering Tallis. Overwhelming vibrations, the inability to control his own muscles, and the smell of his own burning flesh assailed Tallis’s senses for several agonizing seconds. He regained control with time enough to catch himself from falling, but he had to steady himself with one hand to the ground. He labored for breath, his body quivering.

One more hit like that …

Tallis looked up, ready to spring away.

“Can you hear me?” the wizard asked the figure in the throne, his voice sounding almost subdued. Was that a House Cannith emblem upon the man’s uniform? Pain blurred Tallis’s vision.