City of Towers_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [109]
“Why would someone do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but it means he was dead before the crushing blow, that someone was trying to cover up that first injury. I can only assume that the killers were trying to hide the subtle wound with this savage blow.” She shivered and picked up the disk of black crystal. “Let’s see if Jode can tell us.”
“How could he do that?”
Lei positioned the disk on what remained of Jode’s forehead. “The enchantment I’ve woven within this stone will let us speak with Jode, if only for a few minutes. It’s … not really him, just the traces of his spirit left behind. But he should be able to tell us what happened—at least, as much as he knew before …”
Lei was trying to hold things together, to focus on this as an academic challenge, but this was her friend, and she knew this was the last time she would ever speak to him. Pierce put his hand on her shoulder, and for a moment she clung to his arm, squeezing the cold metal as hard as she could. Then she took a deep breath and let go, moving back to the corpse.
She touched the stone disk and unlocked the energies with a whisper and a thought. “Jode,” she said quietly. “Tell us who did this to you.”
The silence was absolute.
“Jode,” she repeated. “Tell us what was done to you.” Nothing.
“Jode!” she screamed, though she knew he could not hear. “Jode!”
A moment later Pierce was holding her, gently shaking her. “Be calm, my lady. Your enchantment has failed, that is all. Be calm.”
Lei shook her head, touching the stone. She could feel the mystical energies still running through it. “No. No, that’s not it. He’s gone, Pierce. There’s nothing there at all. It’s all gone.”
She grabbed hold of Pierce and clung to him, and her tears began to flow.
“They didn’t just take his mark,” she whispered. “They destroyed him completely.”
It was almost the eleventh bell by the time Daine returned to the Manticore. Pierce had draped the ruined cloak over Jode’s body. Lei was studying sheets of parchment, her eyes still red with tears.
Daine sat down on the empty pallet and removed the shreds of his chainmail shirt. “What have you found?”
“His mark was removed,” Lei said. “Moreover, I think it was removed with these.” She pushed a sheet of parchment across the floor. It was the description of the deep dragonshards Alina wished to have returned. “The other day I told you that such a shard might be able to bind the energies of a dragonmark, to create some sort of defense against a mark. I think someone managed to take that one step further. They drew out his mark, his spirit, everything that defined his mystical identity.” Briefly, she recounted the results of her autopsy.
Daine drew his dagger while she was talking and slowly carved grooves in the floor. When she mentioned the missing brain he slammed the dagger down, the adamantine blade passing through wood as if it were paper. He ground his teeth and pulled the dagger from the floor. He’d seen so many die over the past two years, and right now there was no time for sorrow or fury. He took a deep breath and set down the dagger. He drew his acid-scarred sword and laid it next to his armor.
“I need restoration. We may have a battle soon, and I don’t want this shattering the moment it strikes steel.”
Lei nodded and picked up the sword. As she ran her fingers along the blade, the metal began to flow and reform. Within moments it had been restored to its original condition. Then she turned to the armor.
“I’m going to have to stretch the metal to make do,” she said. “It won’t be as strong as it was before.”
“Whatever you need to do,” Daine said.
There was a knock on the door.
It was still too early for Rhazala to show up. Daine snatched his restored sword and rolled over to the door. Remaining in a low crouch, he indicated that Pierce should open the door. As soon as there was enough space, his hand was through the opening, the point of his blade poised at the belly of their visitor.
A human woman stood on the other side of