Cradling his shield arm, Gadalanak used the wall to lever himself upright, then set off in search of a healer.
There had been events in the palace, sending tremors far enough to reach the challengers’ compound. Perhaps the List had been formalized, the order of the battles decided. A rumour to please the idiotic warriors gathered here-although Karsa’s only response to the possibility was a sour grunt. Samar Dev was inclined to agree with him-she was not convinced that the rumour was accurate. No, something else had happened, something messy. Factions sniping like mongrels at a feast all could share had they any brains. But that’s always the way, isn’t it! Enough is never enough.
She felt something then, a shivering along the strands-the bones-buried beneath the flesh of this realm. This realm… and every other one. Gods below… The witch found she was on her feet. Blinking. And in the compound’s centre she saw Karsa now facing her, a fierce regard in his bestial eyes. The Toblakai bared his teeth.
Shaking her gaze free of the terrible warrior, she walked quickly into the colonnaded hallway, then through to the passage lined by the cells where the champions were quartered. Down the corridor.
Into her modest room.
She closed the door behind her, already muttering the ritual of sealing. Trouble out there, blood spilled and sizzling like acid. Dreadful events, something old beyond belief, exulting in new power-
Her heart stuttered in her chest. An apparition was rising from the floor in the centre of the room. Shouldering through her wards.
She drew her knife.
A damned ghost. The ghost of a damned mage, in fact.
Luminous but faint eyes fixed on her. ‘Witch,’ it whispered, ‘do not resist, I beg you.’
‘You are not invited,’ she said. ‘Why would I not resist?’
‘I need your help.’
‘Seems a little late for that.’
‘I am Ceda Kuru Qan.’
She frowned, then nodded. ‘I have heard that name. You fell at the Edur conquest.’
‘Fell? A notion worth consideration. Alas, not now. You must heal someone. Please. I can lead you to her.’
‘Who?’
A Letherii. She is named Feather Witch-’
Samar Dev hissed, then said, ‘You chose the wrong person, Ceda Kuru Qan. Heal that blonde rhinazan? If she’s dying, I am happy to help her along. That woman gives witches a bad name.’
Another tremor rumbled through the unseen web binding the world.
She saw Kuru Qan’s ghost flinch, saw the sudden terror in its eyes.
And Samar Dev spat on her knife blade, darted forward and slashed the weapon through the ghost.
The Ceda’s shriek was short-lived, as the iron weapon snared the ghost, drew it inward, trapped it. In her hand the knife’s hilt was suddenly cold as ice. Steam slithered from the blade.
She quickly added a few words under her breath, tightening the binding.
Then staggered back until her legs bumped against her cot. She sank down, shivering in the aftermath of the capture. Her eyes fell to the weapon in her hand. ‘Gods below,’ she mumbled. ‘Got another one.’
Moments later the door swung open. Ducking, Karsa Orlong entered.
Samar Dev cursed at him, then said, ‘Must you do that?’
‘This room stinks, witch.’
‘You walk through my wards as if they were cobwebs. Toblakai, it would take a damned god to do what you just did-yet you are no god. I would swear to that on the bones of every poor fool you’ve killed.’
‘I care nothing for your damned wards,’ the huge warrior replied, leaning his sword against a wall then taking a single step that placed him in the centre of the room. ‘I know that smell. Ghosts, spirits, it’s the stink of forgetting.’
‘Forgetting?’
‘When the dead forget they’re dead, witch.’
‘Like your friends in that stone sword of yours?’
The eyes that fixed on her were cold as ashes. ‘They have cheated death, Samar Dev. Such was my gift. Such was theirs, to turn away from peace. From oblivion. They live because the sword lives.’
‘Yes, a warren within a weapon. Don’t imagine that as unique as you might want it to be.’
He bared his teeth. ‘No. After all, you have that knife.’
She started. ‘Hardly a warren in this blade, Karsa Orlong. It’s just folded iron. Folded in a very specific way-’
‘To fashion a prison. You civilized people are so eager to blunt the meaning of your words. Probably because you have so many of them, which you use too often and for no reason.’ He looked round. ‘So you have bound a ghost. That is not like you.’