The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 26: The Wolf of Light, Part 6

 Ammas rose laboriously to his knees, mopping his face on the sleeve of his robe. He knew what he must do. It would almost certainly kill him.

 With bitter longing he gazed on his father's lifeless form, seeing at last how easily he had been lured here while his companions were at the mercy of the Swiftfoot wolves. But he could repair the error, and if he moved quickly enough he could save the people he had foolishly left in the Curia above. Standing now, he pressed his hand to Senrich's face, closing his eyes, and draped the sheets over his head. Senrich had asked for no prayer, and so he gave him none, trusting that he had found his place across the Ravens' Veil. That didn't stop the ache in his belly when he saw the bloodstains beginning to flower on the sheet where it touched Senrich's chest.

His fingers shook. It took him longer than usual to retrieve the tin of spirit salve. The patterns he smeared on his face were jagged and uneven, not at all the tidy patches of black he normally applied. Neatly he stowed away the salve, placed his hat on his head, and tugged on his mailed gloves. Skymetal blade drawn, Ammas strode out of the room, moving quickly now, ignoring the way the tears on his face ran tracks in the spirit salve. It wouldn't diminish its potency. Quite the opposite.

Abbess Ketheri stood outside the room, staring uneasily toward the far end of the archives. "You heard it too?" she said as Ammas rushed by. "Ammas, where -- " Quickly she glanced into the sickroom and cried aloud, stricken by the unmistakable shape of a shrouded body, blood spreading on that shroud. She clutched Ammas's shoulder, roughly pulling him backward. "What have you done?" she demanded.

Ammas rounded on her, gray eyes blazing from his face, the smeared black paste making him look half-dead himself. Ketheri shrank back. 

"I set him free," he snarled. Swiftly he brought the point of his dagger to the Abbess's throat. "If you don't want to join him, then don't delay me any further." Without waiting for a response, he stormed off, kicking aside the fallen piles of books heedlessly, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps.

All around him the doors were opening. The Dead did not whisper this time. They merely watched. There was no need to speak to them, formally or informally; no need to address them and plea for their aid. This was a city built on murder, and Ammas's overwhelming grief was like a beacon to them amid a sea of hanged men. They would do as he wished without hesitation.

Abbess Ketheri stared after Ammas, unsure what to do about him. The Chalcedony Palace would have to be informed of Senrich's death. But that could wait. Frowning, wrestling down her own terror of whatever cursewright magic this madman might employ, she followed him, although she prudently kept her distance.

Ammas took no notice of her. His attention was solely focused on the path to the Grand Curia. At the periphery of his vision the black-cloaked shapes of the Dead waited and watched, but for once he wasn't distracted or dismayed by their appearance. Grief burned in him like a coal, but the coal was flaring up into a choking rage. Not only at what had been done to his father, but what had been done to Carala; at the Emperor's blind arrogance in unleashing a plague of wolf's blood upon his own family; at the cruel manipulation of Denisius Gallis, as if both he and the Princess were nothing more than pieces on a gameboard; and most of all at the ritual performed on the unfortunate creature who had become the Emperor's werewolf slave. 

The words of Othma Sulivar rang in his head, and now he felt not only ambivalence but disgust: of course he could not bind Carala to him; of course it was a perversion that was rightly driven from his fellowship. As he drew closer to the door of the Overseer's chambers, the sounds of battle and wolf howls echoing through the Curia, he took comfort in the notion that he could at least begin to set things right.