“I thought you said I was honorable?”
“Honor has its limits for any man. I’m going to set the items down here.”
Seregil heaved an inward sigh of relief as Atre stood the bottle on the stage in front of him, then pulled a silver chain from his neck; on it were the ring and the emerald brooch.
“You probably want to make certain they’re the right ones.” Atre tossed the chain to him, but as Seregil reached to catch it, a board creaked behind him and he had the sudden crawling conviction that there was someone behind him. Once again, sharp ears and good instincts saved his life; he ducked and rolled away from Brader’s flashing sword, grabbing the poniard from his boot as he did so. Springing to his feet, he faced down the swordsman. In defending himself, he’d left the path to the back door open. He feinted toward the phial but Brader blocked him and took another swing, staying between him and Atre. The man was dangerously good, and Seregil’s sword was out of reach.
Atre gave Seregil a sly smile as he walked back toward the bottle.
“No!” Seregil growled.
The distraction nearly cost him his life; Brader thrust at him. Seregil tried to dodge but the blade pierced his right shoulder under his collarbone and he dropped the poniard. Pressing his advantage, Brader wrenched the blade free and caught Seregil around the neck in a chokehold, then brought his blade up to cut Seregil’s throat.
“Wait! Let him see,” Atre ordered.
Dragging Seregil nearly off his feet, Brader turned him so he was facing Atre. Grinning, the actor started to raise his foot to crush the fragile phial, then screamed in pain as a red-fletched arrow pierced his boot, pinning it to the boards scant inches from the bottle. Another struck Atre in the side, knocking him off balance. The man went down awkwardly, one foot still held to the floor, clutching the arrow shaft protruding from between his ribs.
“Atre!” Surprised, Brader loosened his hold on Seregil just enough for him to elbow the man in the ribs and slip free.
As Atre thrashed in pain, his free foot hit the bottle,
sending it spinning toward the edge of the stage between two footlights.
Seregil lunged after it and caught it one-handed just as it tipped over the edge. At the same instant two large hands clapped around his and Seregil found himself fetched up painfully against one of the footlights, looking down at Micum Cavish’s pale face.
“You take her,” Seregil gasped, releasing the bottle very carefully into his friend’s hands. Micum pressed it to his lips with a gasp of relief. It held Illia’s ring.
Seregil got to his feet clutching his wounded shoulder and looked back at Brader, expecting an attack. But the man was on his back in a pool of blood, one of Alec’s arrows protruding from his heaving chest. Seregil scanned the theater and Alec waved to him from one of the boxes-the one they’d been sitting in with Kylith a few short months ago-and started down for the front of the theater. The front doors stood open now, explaining how Alec and Micum had gotten in while he and the others had been distracted.
Grimacing in pain and feeling a little dizzy from blood loss, Seregil picked up his poniard with his left hand and stood over Atre. The man coughed out a spray of bloody spittle; it reminded Seregil of the black poisoned blood running down Thero’s cheek, and he resisted the urge to kick the remaining life out of Atre.
Instead he knelt beside the dying actor, placing the needle-sharp point of the poniard to his throat. “How do we restore Illia’s soul? Tell me!”
Atre let out a wheezing laugh. “Or what? You’ll kill me?”
“Slowly.”
“Too late for that, I’m afraid. Unless you let me drink.”
“Those are swallowtail arrowheads,” Alec informed him as he climbed onto the stage to join them. “They have to be cut out, and even then you probably won’t live.”
“Let me drink,” Atre rasped again. “If you do, then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“I’ll get it,” Micum said.
“You’re not serious!” Alec gasped.
Micum regarded him stonily. “It’s my girl’s life. And you know the ones in the bottles with the completed seals are already dead.” With that, he climbed onto the stage and disappeared behind the scrim.
“He’s right,” said Seregil.
Alec picked up the fallen chain and examined Elani’s jewels. “Seregil, there’s a stone missing from the brooch.”
“My pocket,” Atre gasped. “Take it. I haven’t hurt her.”
Seregil searched him none too gently and found the loose stone. It fit the mounting on the brooch. “All right. Is Brader still alive, Alec?”
Alec bent over the other man. “Yes.”
Brader raised a bloody hand, motioning him closer. Alec went to one knee and bent over him. “What is it?”
“The company-” The way Brader’s voice gurgled in his throat spoke of a punctured lung, or worse. “Merina and the others. They know nothing about any of this. They had no part. I’ve no right to ask, I know, but please, I beg you, spare them! I swear to you, they had no part-”
“Do you know how to restore Illia’s soul?”
“The necklace.” Brader waved weakly in Atre’s direction. “Use it! Use-necklace. He always did. Will you swear? Please! My children-”
“Unlike you, we don’t kill the innocent,” Seregil growled. “And if they are innocent, we’ll see that no harm comes to them.”
Brader looked up at Alec, eyes growing dim. “I’m so sorry-for all of them.”
As they watched, Brader let out a racking, bloody cough, shuddered, and went still.
“Saved us the trouble,” Seregil sneered, then broke off as Brader began to change before his eyes. The long, bloodless face crumpled in on itself as the skin went brown and leathery. In moments the corpse was wizened to the bone, shrunken limbs like old sticks wrapped in rags, fingers curled like leathery claws, the skin brown and dull as an old boot. Only his hair remained as it has been, coppery red against the crimson blood pooling under his head.
“Looks like you and Thero were right about what they were doing with those souls,” said Alec. “How old do you think they really were?”
Seregil looked down at Atre and snorted. “Far too old.”
Micum returned with a sealed bottle.
“Quickly!” gasped Atre.
Seregil took the phial, broke the seal, and held it tantalizingly close to Atre’s lips without actually giving it to him.
“Tell me.”
“Drink-first. Or I take it to the grave.”
Micum looked ready to do murder. But instead he softly implored, “Seregil, please.”
Gritting his teeth, Seregil tipped the contents of the phial into Atre’s mouth. The actor swallowed convulsively, half choking, then shuddered violently. Seregil was afraid it had killed him, but instead color flooded into Atre’s cheeks and his eyes went vague and glassy. In spite of the arrows embedded in his body, he looked as strikingly handsome as he ever had onstage.
“Ah, that’s better!” he sighed.
“Now tell me how to save my daughter, damn you!” Micum demanded.
Atre laughed. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. I only take the essences. I don’t put them back.”
Micum grabbed him by the throat, his face a mask of rage. “Liar! Tell me!”
But Atre let out a strangled laugh and rasped, “Can’t.”
“Then you’re of no further use to anyone.”
Seregil handed Micum his poniard. The big man gazed down at Atre for a moment, then stabbed him through the heart again and again, until his own face and tunic were covered in blood.
At last Alec grabbed his arm. “Enough, Micum. He’s dead. Look.”
Atre’s body was shriveling and going leathery and brown, as Brader’s had, but more slowly. That handsome face gradually transformed to a horrid mask as the flesh darkened and shrank on the bones, eyes wizening like raisins. When it was
