Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
I ldiko lunged for Tarawin, forgetting her captor’s grip on her arms. He yanked her back hard enough to make her teeth rattle and her back crack. She ignored the pain and his hissed warning to be still. Struggling to break free, she glared at Ineni. “I will tear your head off with my bare hands and feed it to the crows if you’ve hurt that baby.”
For a moment, Ineni’s mocking laughter was at odds with her expression, a vague wariness of Ildiko’s threat and the possibility she could carry it out. “You’ve a mother’s ferocity for a child not of your blood or even your race, Hercegesé. I find that admirable.”
Ildiko couldn’t care less about Ineni’s opinions. She stared hard at Tarawin, noting the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her bow-shaped lips pursed with her breathing, forming spit bubbles that disappeared back into her mouth with each inhalation.
Such serenity didn’t ease her fears. Tarawin was a lively child, especially now that she’d learned to walk. At home, she’d be toddling around the nursery, getting into trouble with her nurses or demanding Ildiko or Brishen carry her around the redoubt to see and hear all the goings-on there. And the queen regnant didn’t easily warm to strangers. Were she awake, she’d squirm in Ineni’s arms and bellow her disapproval at being held by someone she didn’t know. This was no natural sleep.
“What have you done to her?” Ildiko tried to free herself from her guard’s hold to no avail.
“Nothing that many a harried, worn-out mother hasn’t done with a fussy baby refusing to sleep.” Ineni lifted Tarawin to place a kiss on her forehead. Ildiko bristled. “A simple elixir of dream flower I brewed and mixed with milk. She’ll wake in a few hours none the worse for it.”
Until she could actually snatch her daughter back from her abductor, Ildiko would have to be satisfied with the other woman’s explanation and pray she wasn’t lying. “We considered you and your family friends, Ineni. Why did you do this?”
She couldn’t think of any reason for Ineni’s actions beyond inexplicable madness. The Emelyins had visited Saggara often, when Cephren reported to his liege matters of a judicial nature in his province, and sometimes at Brishen’s invitation. Ildiko had liked Ineni since the first time she met her and sometimes found it difficult not to show her obvious favor for the justiciar’s daughter over other visiting Kai families. A ribbon of cold shock was still unfurling within her at the revelation that this woman, whom Ildiko had considered a friend, was behind the abduction.
The sudden anguish twisting Ineni’s features startled her. “Friendship,” she said softly, “is a gift that must sometimes be sacrificed for necessity.” She tucked the sleeping Tarawin a little closer to her side as if seeking comfort. “You and the queen offer a chance to bring back the power that died with Queen Secmis and was lost to her son when he became a Wraith King.”
Even with the fog of a sleeping drug still clinging to her thoughts, Ildiko’s mind raced as she tried to comprehend Ineni’s enigmatic statement. Tarawin had inherited her grandmother’s formidable legacy. When she was older, and her sorcerous heritage manifested, she’d be the most magically powerful living Kai. That valuable heritage would have once been Brishen’s. Ineni was mostly right when she said he’d lost the power passed to him from Secmis. What little remained he jealously guarded in the hopes of one day uniting Megiddo’s eidolon with his physical form. Ineni didn’t know that, and Ildiko trusted she never would. Still, none of that enlightened her as to why Cephren’s daughter had taken the queen regnant and the regent’s consort.
Ineni studied her for a moment in silence. “Most Kai don’t understand how or why you’ve earned such devotion from the herceges. I think I do. You’re kind and obviously as devoted to him as he is to you. You held his kingdom together when he went to war and treat his niece as if you birthed her from your womb even though you’re not kin-bonded in any way.” She sighed, a mournful sound. “And there’s the crux of it. Were you Kai, none of this would be necessary. The little queen would still claim the throne, but Brishen’s line would also continue. Sons and daughters whose magic was as strong as the young queen’s even though their father no longer possessed his.”
The alarm bells chiming softly in Ildiko’s ears now rang loud and incessant. Ineni was making a winding way toward an explanation, but what she didn’t yet say painted every word spoken. Ildiko had been raised as a noblewoman of no importance except as a convenience in sealing a treaty. Now she was one of inconvenience, and the latter carried far more risks than the former.
Ineni turned her attention to the Kai holding Ildiko. “What of the driver?”
Ildiko felt him shrug behind her. “Dead. You instructed us to bring the hercegesé to you unharmed. He disobeyed.” His voice reflected no regret over the man’s murder.
“Needs must,” Ineni said softly, a bleakness tightening her mouth.
How many times, Ildiko wondered, would decent people use that reasoning to justify terrible acts? She’d killed a man herself to defend Tarawin and still had nightmares about it. She’d almost abandoned her marriage and the man she loved for a kingdom and people not her own. What had driven Ineni to these extremes?
Needs must.
Terror sent her thoughts scattering, and she fought hard in the henchman’s grip when Ineni instructed him to bring her closer to the altar slab. Ildiko squirmed, kicking back with her bare feet and tried to bite the hands that held her tight to no avail. The Kai simply shook her like a wet cloth and pulled her hair until her scalp caught fire and tears spilled down her cheeks.
The pain didn’t stop her. She fought even harder when Ineni paced alongside them with Tarawin to the altar. “You said you wouldn’t hurt her.” Ildiko wheezed the words between her teeth, her vision blurry.
“And I won’t.” Ineni bent to gently lay the sleeping child on the slab’s stained surface. “At least not very much and nothing she’ll remember.”
Grim words that only made Ildiko’s panic soar.
Ineni kept one hand on the sleeping child. Her features, when she faced Ildiko, had adopted an eerily calm expression. “Humans didn’t inherit Elder magic, but that never meant they lacked power of their own. Orshulgyn is proof of that. The ashes of sorcerers who could control magic with the same skill as any Kai adept are kept here, their power undiminished, even by death. She reached inside the satchel she carried with one hand, pulling out a ragged book which she held up for Ildiko to better see. “Grimoires like these hold spells, potions, incantations, some useful even to those who have no magic or aren’t human. I’ve never subscribed to the Kai notion that your kind is inferior to us in such matters. That’s a dangerous pride.”
Ildiko barely glanced at the book, all of her attention locked on the slender hand holding Tarawin down on the altar. “Please, Ineni,” she begged. “Whatever you’re planning, stop. No good can come from it.” She reached desperately for anything that might make the other woman pause and rethink this mad plan. “Surely your father doesn’t know about any of this, nor would he approve.”
Ineni’s strangely serene look melted away, leaving anguish behind. “He would disown me if he did, and he may still do so one day. I love my father, but his approval, his love, must come second now.” She frowned. “We’re a nation dying with every child born. Tarawin is a hope, but a single, fragile one. We need more than one if we’re to survive as a people with a soul. Without our magic—our ability to reap our mortem lights and preserve the memories of those who came before us—we will vanish before Tarawin can bounce a grandchild on her knee.”
Ildiko continued to fight against her captor’s grip when Ineni instructed him to drag her to the slab and hoist her atop its surface next to Tarawin. He held Ildiko down easily enough, her struggles no match for his strength.
Ineni lay the book down, adding a flask, a chalice, and knife next to it.
Please, gods, save us, Ildiko screamed the prayer in her head. Save Tarawin. Mercy for the queen.
“Peace, Hercegesé,” Ineni half crooned to her as she lifted the knife. “Neither you nor the queen are useful to me dead.” She paused. “At least not yet.”
With those words, the knife flashed, and Ildiko felt a sharp pain along the inside of her forearm before Ineni raised it and placed the chalice edge against her skin. She held her arm in a vice grip as blood ran in rivulets into the cup. Ildiko’s arm was awash in red by the time Ineni pulled it away and turned her attention to Tarawin.
“Don’t! This time she shouted the word as Ineni partially freed Tarawin from her blanket to expose one of her feet. The Kai holding Ildiko down clapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her protest.
Tarawin didn’t awaken when Ineni carefully pricked her heel, only pulling her leg back in reaction to the wounding. While Ineni wasn’t as harsh with the knife as she’d been with Ildiko, she was no less merciless in extracting the amount of blood she needed from the queen regnant to drip into the chalice. When she was done, she carefully wiped Tarawin’s foot and covered it in the blanket.
Ildiko’s heartbeat thundered in her ears, from both fear and relief. She didn’t fool herself into thinking either she or the queen were out of danger, but for now they still lived. Bound to Ineni Emelyin’s bizarre machinations but still alive.
Ineni poured a dark liquid from the flask into the chalice, swirling the contents for a few moments until satisfied with the results. She held the cup up with both hands and read from the tattered grimoire, not in bast-Kai, but in old Temple language used by human priests and mages who served the gods Ildiko herself had grown up praying to on sacred days.
“Blood of a queen, blood of an Elder, wine aged in a barrel made from a Sanfar tree. One to free the magic, one to cloak the wearer, one to bind the spell and make the wearer whole.”
More of the spell spilled from Ineni’s lips but in an arcane language Ildiko didn’t recognize. Ineni then downed the chalice’s contents in two gulps. For several moments nothing happened, and a look of panic blossomed across the woman’s face. “It didn’t work,” she said in a voice heavy with despair.
As she finished the sentence, her eyes rounded, and the chalice fell from her limp fingers. Ildiko’s guard abandoned her with a warning. “Run, and I’ll kill you.” He didn’t have to worry. She was going nowhere without Tarawin.
Fear twisting his features, the guard reached for his mistress where she now leaned hard against the altar slab.
Ineni held up a hand to warn him off. She gasped and bent at the waist before falling to her hands and knees. Her cloak hid her form, but the folds of cloth twitched and rippled as she convulsed, and ragged, choking noises erupted from her throat. The guard ignored her gesture and knelt down to grip her shoulder. She shrugged him away.
The convulsions continued for several more minutes before fading. It was the sight of Ineni’s hands that alerted Ildiko the spell had done its work. The Kai woman braced her palms flat on the ground to give herself leverage to rise. Palms that were no longer the gray of the Kai but as pale as Ildiko’s. Her fingers lacked the formidable Kai claws, their tips rounded by much more fragile human fingernails with pink nail beds.
Ineni rose on shaking legs, and there too a change was obvious despite the concealing cloak. She was no longer as tall, and the cloak’s hem puddled at her feet. She pulled back the hood with one of those very human hands. Ildiko and both guards gasped aloud, the Kai closest to her jerking away as if Ineni had struck him.
“Lover of thorns,” he said in a choked voice. “What have you done, mistress?”
She raised her hands to stare at them in a mixture of wonder and horror. “It worked,” she said, reaching up to touch her face, wincing as she did so.
Speechless, Ildiko could only stare at what had once been a tall, elegant Kai woman with gray skin, white hair, and yellow eyes. Now she gazed upon the mirror image of herself, right down to the cuts, scrapes, bruises, and tangled red hair. Even Ineni’s voice was no longer her own, though the cadence and accent weren’t Ildiko’s either.
Ineni turned her head slowly to survey her surroundings before her gaze settled on Ildiko. “It’s strange to see the world from your eyes.”
Shocked by the spell’s results and the sight of her double standing in front of her, Ildiko shook her head. “My gods, what have you done?” she said, echoing the guard’s earlier question in equally horrified tones.
Ineni shrugged. “Nothing yet. You can’t give the Khaskem children, and he refuses to set you aside for a Kai woman or take one as a concubine to sire offspring. Were he anyone else, such devotion would be admirable. If he won’t give up Ildiko of Gaur for a Kai woman, then a Kai woman will become Ildiko of Gaur. Not forever, but long enough to achieve what’s needed.”
All of Ildiko’s suspicions were confirmed. “A mare put to a stud.”
Ineni nodded. “Isn’t that the duty of every royal couple? He’s unwilling. You’re unable. Apart or together, neither of you is more important than the survival of the Kai and Bast-Haradis.”
Ildiko might have argued with her were it not for the fact she’d considered these same arguments herself many times, usually when sleep eluded her as she lay next to Brishen and wondered how the Kai would ever recover from the trauma of the galla and the sacrifice they all unknowingly made to defeat them.
Ineni’s plan was foolish, madness in the making, and poorly stitched together from the threads of desperation and grief. Even if Brishen thought her his wife at first sight, the mirage wouldn’t last. He knew her too well, and Ineni didn’t know her well enough. She could wear Ildiko’s face and body for a time but not her character. “He’ll know, Ineni. This illusion won’t fool him for long.”
“It doesn’t have to be for long. Just long enough for me to share his bed and take his seed.” Ineni shrugged off the cloak, revealing her Kai garb of tunic and trousers, now hanging on her in loose-fitting folds. “Strip her,” she instructed her guard. “We’ll exchange clothes. The Khaskem would question why I’m in something other than that shift when he sees me.”
Ildiko backed away from the guard as he approached her. “I’ll do it myself.” At Ineni’s nod, he halted. In short order Ildiko found herself swathed in Ineni’s clothes while the other woman picked at the torn, bloodstained shift now gracing her form.
Were these not such dire circumstances, Ildiko might have marveled at the spell’s power. Ineni mimicked her appearance in every way, even down to her injuries. Ineni, though, would have to do more than look and sound like her captive.
As if she heard Ildiko’s thoughts, she shifted her posture and turned her head in such a way that was nothing like her. Her half smile and raised eyebrows changed her facial features in a subtle way. The pitch of her voice altered as well when she spoke. “Don’t think I’m not aware there’s more to a mimic than what’s seen, Hercegesé. I studied you very closely every time we visited Saggara. I may not know you as intimately as your husband, but I’ve learned enough to suit my purposes for the short time I require.”
Ildiko believed her. Ineni, intelligent, clever, and focused, would somehow make her plan work and deceive a terrified Brishen blinded by relief at recovering his wife. She glanced at the still sleeping Tarawin. “What of the queen?”
Ineni scooped the baby into her arms. “She comes with me. Ildiko of Gaur is a resourceful woman. Everyone knows that. She escaped her captors with the queen and found her way back to the man who’d tear a kingdom apart to save her.”
Ildiko’s heart slammed against her ribcage. Her role in this mad scheme had come to an end. Surely, it was so. Keeping her alive was out of the question. Ineni hadn’t hesitated in issuing orders to kill the driver once his task was at an end. There was nothing to stop her from issuing the same order for Ildiko, and the motivation was even greater. Somehow, she had to buy herself time.
“What then,” she asked. “Once you’ve gotten what you wanted? You disappear into the woodland and Brishen finds my body later?”
It was eerie seeing her likeness stare back at her with a cold regard Ildiko was sure she’d never adopted in her life. “Something like that, though not right away. You’re still of use to me.”
A horse’s soft nicker and the crunch of hooves on hard ground alerted them to another’s approach. The brief hope that such sounds heralded rescue died in Ildiko’s breast. The second henchman she’d seen with the first when they’d come upon her and the haywain driver rode up to them. He dismounted, paused at the sight of the two Ildikos and then bowed to Ineni. “The Khaskem found the spoor we left,” he said. “And the driver. Two guards accompany him. They’re tracking their way here.”
Ineni took a deep breath. “They’re quicker than I anticipated. It’s time.” She gestured to the newly arrived guard and pointed to Ildiko. “Lock her in one of the columbaria. You remember my instructions from earlier?” He nodded. “Good.” She waved to the guard who’d brought Ildiko to her. “Let’s go.”
They made for the first Kai’s horse. Ildiko managed to evade the second guard long enough to block Ineni. “Please. I beg you. Allow me to kiss her before you leave.”
Ineni hesitated, then gave a quick nod. She didn’t relinquish Tarawin but held her up so Ildiko could press a kiss to her forehead.
“Sweet daughter,” Ildiko whispered against the baby’s skin. “Know I love you.” A soft sob escaped her lips when Ineni pulled away, the first hints of guilt flitting across her altered features.
“I truly wish with all my heart, things didn’t have to be this way,” she said.
Ildiko scowled. “You can still give up this madness. It isn’t too late, Ineni.” It felt so strange speaking to a mirror image of herself and watching the myriad of expressions chase across a face she was only used to seeing in a reflection.
Ineni sighed. “We both know that’s a lie. It was too late the instant the galla stole our magic.” She pivoted around Ildiko to accompany the guard to where his horse waited. He helped her mount, then mounted behind her.
The second guard didn’t give Ildiko a chance to watch them leave. His grip on her injured arm promised more bruises as he jerked her toward one of the columbaria. “Struggle,” he snarled as she stumbled after him, wincing as the hard ground dug into her bare feet, “and I’ll break both your legs. Scream, and I’ll cut out your tongue. The mistress doesn’t need you walking or talking to get more use out of you.”
She couldn’t risk defying him. This guard was far more savage than the first one, and she had no doubt he’d follow through with his threats with relish. He dragged her to the nearest columbaria, shoving the door open with his shoulder. His eyes gleamed like gold coins in the darkness. “Stay put,” he said. “And stay quiet.” Then he slung her inside and slammed the door behind him on a ghostly cloud of dust.
Ildiko listened to his receding steps, gauging the direction he took. If she’d heard correctly, he’d traveled in the opposite direction from where he’d left his horse to graze at the necropolis’s edge. Such knowledge might be of no use to her, but it was something to keep in mind. Ineni hadn’t yet ordered her death, and while she still breathed, there was hope of somehow making it out of this disaster alive and finding her way to Brishen.
As her eyes slowly adjusted to her prison’s deeper night, she made out various details. The round room housed a stone bier on which an urn stood in the middle, anchored to the surface by lengths of slender chain. More chains bound the lid closed. A weak shaft of illumination slanted down from the room to the floor, and Ildiko gasped at the sight. There was a hole in the roof, large enough for a person to pass through, and a rope hung from the exposed beams. It swayed gently just above one side of the bier.
Souvenirs from grave robbers no doubt. Whatever treasures had been put in here had long been stolen. She was surprised the cinerary still remained. The door must have been much more formidable then or warded, so they’d cut a hole in the roof and climbed in with the aid of a rope.
Ildiko couldn’t believe her luck. Had her guard crossed the threshold to push her inside, he would have seen the rope and the hole. This was a way out. She just had to reach the rope and climb.
The bier was taller than the sacrificial slab had been, and it took her three tries to hoist herself onto its surface. The rope didn’t hang as low as she’d hoped. Even on her tiptoes, she could barely grasp the dangling end in her hand and didn’t have the strength to pull herself up with such a meager grip. A frustrated growl escaped her lips before she could stop it, and she froze for a moment, hoping the guard was far enough away not to hear her.
Unsure what to do next, she tugged on the rope, lifting her feet so it would bear all her weight. It held as she swung gently across the bier, the joist creaking in rhythmic protest. At least the rope fibers hadn’t rotted through from time and the elements.
She dropped back onto her heels and let go of the rope, freezing a second time when a noise sounded nearby. She listened for the guard’s footsteps but heard nothing outside except the hoot of an owl. The odd noise repeated, louder this time.
The urn, final burial housing for a sorcerer’s remains, was chained not far from where she stood on the bier. As she stared at it, one of the chains rattled, and the urn pivoted ever so slightly on its own, its base scraping against the stone. The scents of ash and old earth assailed her nostrils as the lid tilted, pushed upward by the force of a dry exhalation from inside. Ildiko’s heart leaped into her throat.
She wasn’t alone in this house of the dead.