The Shield of Weeping Ghosts - James P. Davis [121]
Anilya smiled, though a cruel amusement played through her eyes at what she saw. "A sword, is it? Shall you run me through? Is this what you came for?" Incredulous laughter hid behind each syllable. "You should have killed me when you had the chance-and the strength-to do so."
He could not defeat her. He knew as much long before entering the Word, had contemplated the moment she would be successful in reaching it. A part of him always knew it would come to this, and that part frightened him more than the Word itself.
The spell he needed drifted and slid through a haze of pain in his mind. The words, the gestures came slowly, bit by bit. He struggled to ignore the screaming sorrow of Athumrani, the dull ache of his bleeding wound, and the pain of each rattling breath he forced into his lungs. The strength he needed was there-scattered and hiding throughout his body, but there.
Forcing his eyes to remain open, he watched as if in a dream as shadows gathered behind the durthan. They separated and settled, forming blobs of shifting and blurry darkness, though one appeared as she had in life. The Magewarden's daughter-her name unspoken in Athumrani's ravings, lost to time-did not truly look upon him, but he imagined that she saw him through the image of her father. Her lip trembled, her eyes begged him to stop, and he felt his strength wane.
"Forgive me," he said, and the words were his own, not the father lost to sorrow and unreason.
The children faded as he focused on Anilya, saw in her the last fragment of strength he desired. He gathered it to him-all the anger and guilt, to be done with it and court freedom, to spend it all on one choice. On the edge of his own abyss, to stop his enemy, he must grant her desire.
"Forgive?" Anilya said, confused, and her eyes widened as he reversed his grip on the Breath, the blade angling down, point-first toward the floor. She raised her hands, her voice chanting the first syllables of a killing spell, but Bastun was more prepared.
The magic leaped from his hand, a simple incantation, but effective. An airy orb surged forward, thrumming loudly and striking Anilya in the chest. She fell backward, her own spell lost in the discordant sound as she slammed to the floor.
Bastun did not look down, the exact placement of the blade unimportant. Instead he kept his gaze fully on the durthan, his master's murderer. He fed on the anger that welled in him, grasped it and pushed on the sword, pressing it deep into the stone. The floor shook, and a terrible chill flooded through his hands. His fever was banished, the burning of the ring balanced by an unimaginable freezing.
Somewhere in the vast reaches of ice that appeared in his mind's eye, a consciousness stirred. Dull and slowed by centuries of cold, it reached for him and caressed his soul with a limitless evil.
+ + + + +
Bright spots danced at the edges of Thaena's vision, exhaustion's harbingers stabbing through her skull. She kept her balance despite all, staggering away from the hungry frost of the dead prince. Her spells-those that might have any effect at all upon the bleakborn-were nearly spent, and Serevan still stood, still stared at her as his face returned to a semblance of life. Syrolf and two others remained standing, their brethren on the ground breathing but unable to go on.
Thaena's hands curled into fists as the prince studied her. He squinted as if she were barely there, a figment of his imagination. He had defended himself with the same nonchalant grace, dismembering most of her magic and weathering the rest without a wound to show for her efforts. Syrolf and the others charged him, slashing and cutting before retreating from his feeding aura, yet his flesh only flushed at their efforts. Scars faded and pale skin grew anew. Despite the futility of the assault Syrolf would go back, again and again, urging his men on for the memory of fallen Duras-to keep the prince from the northwest tower.
As the runescarred berserker raised his blade and prepared to attack again, Serevan's expression changed. A wave of rippling