Spellbound: Book 2 of the Spellwright Trilogy. Blake Charlton

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СКАЧАТЬ for longer. You can’t afford that. My agents have found proof the Savanna Walker is stealing powerful objects from you again. Remember the Lornish necklace he swallowed two years ago? Or the Ixonian urn the year before that? Only this time the Walker’s greed is focused on Francesca.” Though the Savanna Walker had stolen from the demon in the past, Deirdre was presently lying; she knew the beast had no designs on Francesca. To induce Typhon to believe her she would have to produce evidence.

      She continued, “I have learned that the Walker removed the anklet you put on Francesca. He did so to take power from it, and to hide Francesca from you so he might consume her. I couldn’t tell you of my suspicions, my lord, until I knew where the beast hid the anklet. I needed evidence. Now my agents have learned that the Walker is hiding the anklet in the body of one of his followers. One of the bodies that he … forgive me, my lord, but I don’t know how he consumes them. One of the bodies he swallows? that he magically preserves? Whatever the case, the anklet is in one of those.”

      Typhon became still as the alabaster statue he resembled. Deirdre knew that the demon was now sending his mind in search of the magical anklet.

      Suddenly, Deirdre tottered back a few steps. She was deaf again. When she looked up, she saw the cube of blindness advancing on her. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said without hearing her own voice. She might not have the Savanna Walker’s ability to manipulate minds, but she was still Typhon’s avatar. She could summon enough strength to crush a block of marble with her hands. “I swear on the Creator’s name, I will break your—”

      The cube stopped advancing. “Both of you will be silent!” It was Typhon, his alabaster body again animated. Moving with frightening speed, the demon marched into the cube of blindness.

      For a moment Deirdre was left seemingly alone on the balcony. She took another step back, fought the urge to run.

      Suddenly Typhon stepped back out of the cube of blindness. Both his arms up to the elbows were covered with dark, clotting blood. Between the giant thumb and forefinger of his right hand glinted a small silver chain.

      Deirdre smiled.

      Typhon turned his horrible white face to Deirdre. “Daughter,” he said, “you will explain everything you did to Francesca, or I will pluck it out of your mind.”

      “My lord, you will not have my cooperation until I have the Savanna Walker’s true name and knowledge of the Silent Blight. I am the Disjunction’s true champion; he is not.”

      “You are my Regent of Spies,” the demon repeated. “I have the right to know.”

      “And because it is best for the Disjunction,” she said with a stiff bow, “I have the right to resist. If you steal the memories from my mind, you’ll be cutting our cause when we can’t afford to bleed.” She nodded at the Savanna Walker. “The beast is manipulating you to—”

      “Quiet,” the demon snapped and then turned on the Walker. Deirdre heard nothing of what followed but judged by Typhon’s expression that he was demanding an explanation from the beast.

      Deirdre smiled. The Savanna Walker might be a half-completed dragon, but he wasn’t much of a talker. As the demon’s avatar, Deirdre could vaguely sense Typhon’s emotions; his suspicion was rapidly growing. As well it should; the Walker had demonstrated his greedy and larcenous nature in the past. More important, Typhon had found the anklet in the stomach of one of the Walker’s consumed devotees. The demon could not conceive that Deirdre had planted it there … and, in fact, she never could have done so without Francesca’s help.

      Just then she sensed the demon’s anger flare. The Walker couldn’t explain the anklet. Chances were good that Typhon was now threatening the beast.

      At last, Typhon finished speaking to the Walker. He turned and strode past Deirdre before pausing. “I will deal with him later. He has much more to explain. But now, follow me, daughter. We shall peer into your mind to see if your intentions are what you claim. If you prove yourself to be a true servant of the Disjunction, I shall have Canonist Cala teach you of the Silent Blight.”

      Deirdre bowed and murmured her thanks.

      “Nevertheless, I want Francesca brought back immediately. Organize our best agents and find her. I’m not ready to wound Nicodemus.”

      “Yes, Typhon,” she said.

      He nodded. “Let’s go.” The demon started to walk away.

      Deirdre bowed again. Now began the most dangerous part of her scheme. She glanced back at the cube of blindness. The beast was standing near the balcony.

      Until now, the Walker had ignored her. Their only interactions had been when Typhon had sent the half dragon out to repossess her after she had died. But now the creature knew she was his mortal enemy.

      His first attacks would be directed at her person. That would be dangerous, certainly, but later the beast would strike against Nicodemus or, worse, Francesca.

      Deirdre needed to act to reduce the beast’s power now. Usually, she could do nothing to harm or even hinder the half dragon when possessed by Typhon’s soul. But presently the demon was infuriated; it gave her a certain freedom to enact his desire for punishment.

      She took a few steps after Typhon and then turned and charged the Savanna Walker. The blindness rushed to meet her.

      In a few steps, she moved into the cube of blindness. She’d also gone deaf. Even though she could no longer tell where her limbs were in space, she tried to throw her arms in front of her. A jolt of pain suggested that she’d struck something. She couldn’t feel what; her skin had become numb, but she was aware that her forward motion had stopped. Blindly, numbly, she tried to wrap her arms around her foe. She moved her arms so as to lift … and …

      A sudden blast of sound struck her ears: Typhon bellowing for her to stop. A flicker of vision. She was holding a massive object above her head. A long gray something hung before her. It looked like an impossibly long arm consisting of twenty or thirty elbow joints. Beyond stood the balcony railing and the sloping red tiles of the sanctuary’s dome. Blindness enveloped Deirdre again.

      She bent forward and with all her strength threw the beast forward.

      In the next instant, she was panting with the exertion. Sensation returned in a dizzying rush. Something hard and powerful wrapped around her right arm and hoisted her into the air as if she were a child.

      It was Typhon grabbing her; she had no doubt about it. But she cried out victoriously as the cube of blindness went tumbling down the dome to a long, sheer fall.

      Something forced her to look at the demon’s face, now a white mask of anger. “You can no longer resist the Disjunction,” he hissed. “Those who oppose us become us.”

      Deirdre felt as if ice chips were forming in her blood. Some part of her knew—though she did not understand how or why—that the demon spoke the truth.

      STANDING GUARD AT the alley’s entrance, Nicodemus saw the Savanna Walker fall down the dome, the impossible body tumbling over itself, nightmarish limbs flailing.

      “What is it, Nico?” Shannon asked from deeper in the alley. The old man and Nicodemus’s disguised students were crouching in the mud of a Water District alleyway. They had been shambling from one dilapidated neighborhood to the next, hoping to avoid notice.

      Nicodemus СКАЧАТЬ