Taking another deep breath, she ignored the searing pain that opening her eyes had caused her, and willed herself to the Pattern Room in the Assembly.
Two magicians were in the room when she appeared. She cast her captive down in front of them. ‘Bind him. He is a Dasati Deathpriest.’ She did not know if these two were privy to the knowledge Pug had passed to the Assembly since the Talnoy had been brought to Kelewan for study, but every Great One living had heard of the Dasati. Finding one lying unconscious at their feet caused them to hesitate for a moment, but then the two Black Robes hurried to do her bidding. The stress of escape and bringing a captive had taken Miranda to the end of her already-depleted resources. She took two staggering steps, and then slumped unconscious to the floor.
Miranda opened her eyes and found herself in quarters reserved for her or Pug when they came to visit. Alenca, the most senior member of the Assembly of Magicians sat on a stool beside her bed, his face composed and untroubled, looking like a grandparent waiting patiently for a child to awaken from an illness.
Miranda blinked, then croaked, ‘How long?’
‘One afternoon, last night, and all this morning. How are you?’
Miranda sat up, gingerly, and discovered that she was wearing a simple white linen shift. Alenca smiled, ‘I trust you don’t object to our having cleaned you up. You were in quite a state when you appeared before us.’
Miranda swung her legs out of bed and carefully stood up. Her cleaned, pressed robes waited for her on a divan in front of a window overlooking the lake. The afternoon sun sparkled off the water. Unmindful of the old man watching her, she slipped off the shift and put on her robes. ‘What about the Dasati?’ she asked, inspecting herself in the small mirror on the wall.
‘He is still unconscious, and it appears, dying.’
‘Really?’ said Miranda. ‘I didn’t think his injuries that severe.’ She looked at the old magician. ‘I need to see him and we need to call as many members as you can to the Assembly.’
‘Already done,’ said the old man with a chuckle. ‘Word of the captive quickly spread and only those members too ill to travel are absent.’
‘Wyntakata?’ asked Miranda.
‘Missing, of course.’ He waved Miranda through the portal to the hallway and followed her, falling into step beside her. ‘We assume he is either dead or had some hand in this.’
‘He’s not Wyntakata,’ said Miranda. ‘He’s Leso Varen, the necromancer.’
‘Ah,’ said the old man. ‘That explains a great deal.’ He sighed as they rounded a corner. ‘It’s a pity, really. I was fond of Wyntakata, though he tended to ramble when he spoke. But he was clever and always good company.’
Miranda found it difficult to separate the host from the parasite that occupied it, but realized the old man was sincere in his regret. ‘I’m sorry you lost a friend,’ she said, ‘but I fear we may lose a great many friends before this business is over.’
She stopped at a large intersection and glanced at her companion, who indicated they should turn down a long corridor. ‘We have the Dasati in a warded room.’
‘Good,’ said Miranda.
Two grey-robed apprentice magicians stood guard at the door. Inside the room a pair of Great Ones stood beside the figure of the Dasati Deathpriest.
One, a man named Hostan, greeted Miranda while the other kept watch over the unconscious figure on the sleeping pallet. ‘Cubai and I are convinced something is very wrong with this … man.’
The magician inspecting the Deathpriest nodded. ‘He has not shown any signs of reviving, and his breathing appears to be more laboured. If he were human I would say he has a fever.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘But with this creature, I don’t have a remote idea what to look for.’
Cubai was a magician who was far more curious about healing arts than most Black Robes, since it tended to be the province of healers of the Lesser Path of magic and clerics of certain orders. Miranda thought him an ideal choice to be watching over the Deathpriest.
Miranda said, ‘While a prisoner, I deduced some things about these creatures.
‘The Dasati are not that different from humans, at least in the sense that elves, dwarves and goblins are similar: roughly human-like in form, standing upright on two legs, eyes in the front of a recognizable face, all the rest you can see, and I know they have two genders, male and female, the women bearing their young within their bodies. I gleaned that much while being closely examined by the Deathpriests. I can’t speak their language, but I did pick up a word or two along the way and now have some sense of what they presume about humans.’
She turned to a handful of magicians who had come into the room when word had spread she was up and with the Deathpriest. She raised her voice so all could hear. ‘They are physically stronger than us by a significant margin. I judge it to be a quality of their nature magnified by their presence on this world. But I think they have some difficulty with the differences between the two worlds, hence the dome of energy they created in which to reside. But one of their average warriors can overpower all but the most powerful human, be it Tsurani warrior or Kingdom soldier.’ No time like the present to start planting the idea of Midkemian help, she thought.
She looked down at the Deathpriest and tried to reconcile what she saw with what she had observed while he and his companion had experimented on her. ‘He doesn’t look well, that is clear.’ She leaned over and saw a sheen of moisture on his brow. ‘I think you’re right about the fever, Cubai. I think his colour is pale, but that may be the difference in light in the two …’ Her voice trailed off as she saw the creature’s eyelids flutter. She stepped back. ‘I think he’s waking!’
Instantly two magicians began incanting wards while others readied spells of confinement, but the Dasati did not awake or rise. Instead, with a low moan of agony, his body arched and began to convulse. Miranda was hesitant to touch him and that hesitancy prevented her from stopping him from flopping off the pallet onto the floor.
As he thrashed violently now, his skin started to blister. Not quite sure why, Miranda shouted, ‘Stand away!’
The magicians drew back. Suddenly a flame engulfed the Deathpriest’s body and then a huge discharge of heat and light nearly blinded those standing nearby, singeing hair and causing everyone within proximity to fall back.
The stench was that of sulphur and rotting meat being cooked, and many were gagging from the smell. Moving backwards from the site of the immolation, Miranda saw only the faint outline of a body in white ash on the floor.
‘What just happened?’ asked Alenca, obviously shaken by the experience.
‘I don’t know,’ answered Miranda. ‘I think that outside the dome they are unable to deal with the abundance of energy that we take for granted. I think it proved too much for him and … well, you saw what happened.’
‘What now?’ asked the old magician.
‘We go back to the dome and investigate,’ answered Miranda, assuming command of the situation without being asked. ‘That incursion is a threat to the Empire.’
That alone was reason enough to mobilize the Great Ones of the Empire. Alenca nodded. ‘Not only must we investigate, we must eradicate this dome.’ He turned to another magician and said, ‘Hochaka, would you be good enough to carry word to the Light of Heaven in the Holy City? The Emperor must be made aware of what is taking place, and convey to him our intentions of providing a fully-detailed report after we finish.’
Miranda was amused by the steely tone taken by the old magician: in his youth he must have been an impressive figure. He was the type of man who often surprised others when he took control, a quiet