Page 90 of Shroud of Eternity (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles 2)

Mirrormask had an entirely different purpose in visiting Andre’s mansion.

Many lights were lit inside the sprawling building, and the fleshmancer was no doubt preparing for the blood magic at the pyramid in the next few hours. He would never be prepared for what Mirrormask was about to do, however.

A separate wing was dark, the windows covered with tightly woven hangings. If Andre called his experimental laboratories his “studio,” then this separate wing was his “gallery,” where he displayed his most magnificent work.

Mirrormask had been looking forward to this for a long time.

He was alone inside the dark and silent wing, but in the presence of tremendous power. He could feel the anger, the impatience, the bottled fury trembling in the air. He ignited a hand light and set it floating against the wall so that he could behold the three towering armored figures, fighting behemoths encased in their prison of armor.

The Ixax warriors.

He could sense them, and knew they were aware of his presence. He saw their glittering yellow eyes behind the slit openings in their helmets. The titans loomed there, straining inside their confinement. They had been locked immobile for more than fifteen centuries.

“Patience, patience,” he whispered. “It’s almost time.”

He looked through the slits in his own mask, which reminded him of their encapsulating helmets. Maybe the behemoths could see their reflections in the cracked covering on his face.

He stepped up to the first Ixax warrior. “I apologize to the other two. One of you will certainly be sufficient for my needs.”

The thick studded armor was marked with the insignia of Ildakar, a sun with lightning bolts—back then, Andre had been quite patriotic. He had created this trio of titans, hoping to unleash them so they could mow down swaths of General Utros’s army, like a scythe harvesting wheat. The wizards of Ildakar had stopped the fleshmancer from creating more than three, fearing how powerful those human weapons might be, suspecting they could be uncontrollable.

The petrification spell and then the shroud of eternity had rendered the Ixax warriors moot.

Mirrormask reached forward, found a deeply etched rune in the steel-hard leather armor on the first titan’s waist. Releasing his gift, he activated the spell that encased the mammoth soldier like a cocoon. He broke apart the magical manacles that held the Ixax motionless.

As the room began to glow, Mirrormask backed away. “Wake,” he said, “and do what you were meant to do.”

He laughed, knowing that this would be far more disruptive than anything else his rebels could achieve. Mirrormask flitted out into the darkness as the Ixax warrior began to bend his massive arms and legs.

Awakened at last.

* * *

The smashing uproar in the side wing of his mansion jarred Andre from his musing.

Elsa had stayed all day to help guide Nathan through his recovery. She suggested exercises, tiny gestures of magic that would help him build his confidence. Sometimes Nathan succeeded, but at other times the magic reacted in bizarre ways. Occasionally, nothing happened at all.

Andre was losing patience with his subject. “If you continue to fail, then we’ll just have to find you another heart, hmmm?”

Nathan’s face turned ashen at the suggestion. “No, I’ll keep trying. I will unlock my gift.” He turned to Elsa with a look of desperation. “We’ll find a way.”

“We must stop soon, because we have to go up to the pyramid. The bloodworking happens at midnight,” Andre told Elsa, then raised his eyebrows. “You can come and observe, Nathan, if you like. It might give you some inspiration, though, alas, you won’t be allowed to participate. Not yet.”

Nathan did not appear pleased by the invitation.

Just then, crashing sounds rang throughout the mansion, a deep hollow roar that sounded like a bear groaning in an echoing cave.

“Now what is it?” Andre said, exasperated.

He had heard the alarm bells and shouts down by the combat arena and was sure that some other mayhem was taking place down there. More animals released, perhaps. The city was becoming quite unruly. But he was busy in his own mansion, and the bloodworking would soon require all their attention.

This time, however, the havoc emanated from his own home. Elsa and Nathan looked as if they wanted to follow him, but he snapped, “Stay here.”

He stalked off, feeling a shiver go down his spine as he ran toward the side wing, where the noise had become deafening.

“Here now! By the Keeper—” he shouted, striding into the high-ceilinged gallery where he displayed the towering Ixax warriors. Two of the armored titans remained motionless, as they always had been. But the third mammoth soldier lurched forward on treelike armor-encased legs, stomping boots so hard they cracked the flagstones of the floor.

Andre could only blink and stare.

The Ixax reacted to his arrival, swiveling its gigantic helmet so it saw the fleshmancer, its creator, its tormentor. The eyes blazed like tiny balls of wizard’s fire.

Andre stumbled back, holding up his hands and summoning his gift. The Ixax strode forward with thunderous footfalls, clenching huge gauntleted hands.

Andre released magic in a wall of force that slammed into the armored titan, but it had little effect. The Ixax simply plowed through the magic, intent on the wizard who had taken three unwilling Ildakaran soldiers, conscripts who had agreed to help their city without knowing what they were offering to do. The fleshmancer had used those young men as the raw material to create these things—weapons powerful enough to save Ildakar, weapons that had never been used.

Instead, the monstrosities had been locked awake, motionless, going insane for fifteen hundred years.

Now the Ixax was unleashed, and his limbs swung free, releasing pent-up fury. He hammered the stone wall with his fist like a boulder launched from a catapult, and the blow crushed through the blocks, pulverizing them.

The Ixax let out another bellow, amplified through his helmet. Andre hurled wizard’s fire at the monstrosity. The fierce magical flames scorched the armor, but quickly rolled off. The titan closed the distance to Andre in two strides and loomed over the fleshmancer.

Trapped, Andre flung up his hand, releasing blasts of magic—sizzling bolts of lightning, howling wind, and fire—but the Ixax warrior did not even draw his huge sword. Instead, he raised a gauntleted fist, clenched it tight, and pounded down with all the force of a giant falling tree.

With a single blow, the Ixax crushed Andre, breaking him, splattering him into a mass of jagged bones, a shattered skull, scattered teeth, and spraying blood. He raised the gauntlet again and brought it down, pounding the ruined corpse another time, hammering the remains into a pulp.

Seven identical blows later, nothing remained of the fleshmancer but a widely dispersed film of gore. Blood, smeared tissue, and bone powder spattered the gallery’s floors, walls, and ceiling.

The Ixax lifted his huge feet and straightened. Even though he had destroyed his creator and tormentor, he was not satisfied after waiting for fifteen centuries. He had been created for destruction, so he marched ahead to destroy everything in sight.

Everything.

CHAPTER 72

When the clamor and shouts erupted through the fighting pits, Bannon guessed what was happening, and hope surged within him. The uproar seemed even greater than the previous time. It sounded like more than just a skirmish. This was outright war.

Bannon went to the bars of his cell and peered out, seeing the brown-robed figures hurrying into the fighters’ area. This time, they wore their hoods down, defiantly showing their features. Yelling, the rebels drove the unleashed animals ahead of them.

Two black spiny wolves loped forward, snapping their jaws, but more intent on escape than savagery. Three leopards sprang down the tunnels, dodging fallen bodies, paying no attention to the large swamp dragons that scuttled forward on powerful scaled legs.

Bannon shook the barred door of his cell, des

perate to break free. He wanted to run loose like the animals, to burst from this prison. He was shirtless, sore and bruised, wearing only a fighter’s loincloth. But after his vigorous training, he was more lean and muscular than he had ever been before.

He was trapped, held captive as a toy to be thrown out into the combat arena for the amusement of the people of Ildakar.

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