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  The Last Null

  Dagger of the World, Book 7

  K. L. Reinhart

  Copyright © 2020 K. L. Reinhart

  All Rights Reserved

  Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All people, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination and / or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Radovan Zivkovic

  Contents

  Prologue: The Prophecy of Lorenz

  1. This Land, My Body

  2. Blaze

  3. The Last Null

  4. The Ancient and Royal Guild

  5. Stone Warning

  6. Sister of the Enclave

  7. Battle-Barge

  8. The Last Boat

  9. Hornets, Cats, and Birds

  10. The Blood of the Black Keep

  11. The Kingsdrake

  12. Wings in the Wind

  13. The Battle of the Neve

  14. For the World and for Pain

  Thank You

  Prologue: The Prophecy of Lorenz

  BWARRR!

  Reticula bolted awake to the clamor of the Night Bell, the large, sonorous shell of metal. It had never rung so much as it did on this long, long night at the roof of the world.

  “Brothers, Sisters! To the North Wall!” It was the booming voice of one of the Seniors of the northern community of the Enclave, huddled behind the ominous walls of the Black Keep, their home. Reticula knew that the voice was magically enhanced. It doubled and trebled in the freezing airs and found its way through the many labyrinthine corridors and courtyards of the Keep.

  Despite the fact that the treacherous Chief Arcanum—the Master of Magics for the monk-like community—had cursed the magical shields meant to protect this place, every individual was using what cantrips, prayers, and charms they had to help the war effort.

  To help their very survival.

  Reticula’s feet hit the chilled stones of the tiny annex room that was the sanctuary of Father Jacques, the Chief External. This bare cell with its tiny wooden frame bed and simple wooden box-stand had once been the abode of Jacques’s other pupil. This pupil was the only elf ever to be taught by the Enclave. He was the non-magical null and Reticula’s only friend here—Terak.

  The blond-haired teenager’s feet didn’t feel the bitter cold. The pumped hot airs of the kitchens had been diverted to keeping the halls warm instead of the rest of the Keep, where she knew that her black-garbed Brothers and Sisters amassed. Reticula realized that she was still wearing her pale cream tunic and heavy canvas leggings, even her black stockings and utility belt from the day before. She had been so exhausted when she had stumbled her way back to collapse into fitful sleep.

  “How many days has it been?” she pondered, partly to herself and partly to the small creature that was scampering back and forth. It sniffed at the thick, opaque pane of glass along the room’s singular window ledge.

  “Ratachook!” The creature—Frebius—chittered in its faintly rat-like way. Anyone might have mistaken it for such, except for its longer, delicate snout and large, emerald-green eyes. They flashed and caught the glowing ball of were-light that Reticula must have set before bed.

  I don’t even remember calling that . . . Reticula thought exhaustedly. She heaved her jerkin, fitted with buckles and straps made of stiffened and studded leathers over her shoulders, and seized up her thin shortsword.

  The young Journeywoman Reticula, seemingly older than her years, sighed once and remembered her lessons here in the Path of Pain.

  Twenty-First Maxim, Reticula thought as she buckled on her blade and checked her pouches for the many sachets, powders, and ointments that Father Jacques insisted that his pupils carry. Pain teaches. Fear teaches. It is only denial and ignorance that hold us back.

  Reticula was ready to fight.

  “What is it? The beastials again?” Reticula saw owlish fear in the wide eyes of one of the Brothers of the Enclave as she ran down the Outer Gallery along the Lower Hall. The Brother was young—perhaps he had only graduated last season. Still older than Reticula, though.

  “Remember your lessons, Cadwin!” snapped the Senior who was corralling the nervous younger and a host of others into line. “Not the beastials, you’ll be happy to hear. Your Brother and Sister scouts have heard drums coming from the Vale of the Blood Gate,” the fierce woman stated. “Something is coming for us . . .”

  The Senior looked up suddenly as Reticula skidded to a respectful walk, nodding to the grim-faced woman. The Senior’s eyes skittered over her and clearly found the scrap of black thread that marred the edge of her otherwise clear cream tunic edge—the Senior grunted to herself and looked away.

  That scrap of thread was the mark that Reticula was one of the Enclave-External, a secretive cabal within the mysterious order of the Enclave. It told the Sister that Reticula had been claimed by Father Jacques to do his “quiet work” about the Keep—and abroad.

  The Senior Sister who might well have pressganged Reticula into joining their ranks to go to the Northern Wall ignored the younger woman. Reticula was once again on her way.

  She took the steps from the Outer Gallery with a bound, opening the heavy wooden door with a wave of her hand and the Keep-wide access charm.

  “Avouna!” The door swung open, and she ran down another tight corridor, this one joining the Lower Hall to the Healing Hall. Already, she saw the soft glows of the tallow candles spreading up the broader steps and smelled the tangs of lavender and citrus.

  Here, the Chief Hospitality held court—and it was a busy one, as already there were scores of wounded Wall Brothers and Sisters. Reticula entered through the open double doors. She saw the long halls with the smaller alcoves and narrower lodges leading from them, busy with pallet beds and the hurrying white-clad forms of Hospitality’s healers.

  “Mamma-la, Ey Mamma-la—” She heard the commonest and most useful healing cantrip used all around her as the healers moved their hands over torn and punctured flesh and fevered brow. The beastials—half-warthog, half-orc creatures—had a bite and a scratch that could spread foulness, it seemed. Reticula could hear her fellows cry out in their pain and anguish.

  “Father?” But Reticula’s footsteps had taken her not to help the healers or any of the other wounded. Instead, she went to one lone bundle of blankets in a pallet bed, left in a solitary small alcove room at the far nook of the Healing Hall.

  “Father Jacques?” Reticula whispered into the small room, heavy with the scent of healing candles and burning oils. In response, the hunched form shivered, making a croaking sound, and the blankets shifted—

  “Journeywoman!” snapped a voice behind her. Reticula turned to see that her progress had been marked by none other than the lank, black-haired Chief Hospitality. He stood behind her in the open archway to the Chief External’s room.

  “Chief Sir!” Reticula at once bowed and bobbed her head. Jacques had taught her that, now that she was Enclave-External, she need only answer to him and the Magister Inedi. But old habits died hard. The Chiefs of the Enclave, Hospitality, Martial, and until recently, Arcanum, along with the hidden position of the External, were judges, counselors, and mentors to the rest of those who lived here under them.

  “You are not to bother my patient. Father Jacques is proving . . .” Reticula saw the austere man’s eyes narrow in annoyance. “Unresponsive.”

  You’re saying that like Jacques is trying to be difficult! Reticula struggled to hide the glare from her eyes. It wasn’t like it was Jacques’s fault that he got hit with almost the full curse-blast of the traitor C
hief Arcanum when they had tried to apprehend him.

  And he was trying to save me, too, Reticula thought.

  “He is no use to anyone. Go to Chief Martial. He will have more than plenty of work for you, girl!” Hospitality hissed irritably, already turning back to the doorway.

  “Chief sir, if I may, I am in . . . um . . . Father Jacques’s charge—” She chose her words delicately. What she was trying to say was that she was under oath only to take his direction, or in other words—no.

  “I know full well how the Oaths of Fealty work, Journeywoman!” Hospitality turned back with a hiss. “And soon you will be delegated back to Martials, if my patient’s condition keeps deteriorating!”

  Reticula blinked. “He’s—Father Jacques is dying?” she said in a lower voice.

  For a moment, the Journeywoman and the Chief Hospitality stared at each other in mute exasperation and hurt emotion. But then Hospitality let out a pained sort of sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. With it, he seemed to release some of his anger, too.

  “Fine, Journeywoman. Go see your chief. There’s stars-all I know what to do with him anyway . . . Just try not to upset him, please,” Hospitality muttered before turning away.

  That left Reticula with the weakened ruin of her master.

  “Father?” The young woman hesitated to approach the pallet bed, despite herself and despite her training.

  The mound of blankets shifted once again, dislodging smaller blankets in an avalanche of wrappings, revealing a four-fingered hand, work-scarred and claw-like. “Terak . . . ?” The familiar guttural voice was turned strange by pain.

  “No, Father. It’s me, Reticula,” the Journeywoman said.

  The blankets stilled before the hand took hers. Reticula’s palm fitted easily into the larger. The old man’s flesh felt cold and clammy.

  “What are they doing?” Reticula hissed under her breath, casting an accusing eye back at the open archway and the hurried forms of the healers that moved back and forth. “Here.” She picked up the pitcher of water on the side table, smelled it suspiciously, and found it scented with lemon. She eased the pitcher toward the mounded pillows, pulling at them to reveal the wiry hair that was once luxurious and dark, but now was more gray than black.

  There was the wrinkled forehead of the Chief External, the heavy brows that were scant and rough with the multiple flashes and burns of the chemicals he made. But he looks pale—too pale . . . The Journeywoman tugged at the blankets more.

  “Urgh!” In that moment, the Chief suddenly sat up, his four fingered hand seizing Reticula’s in an iron-clad grip. The other hand landed like a claw on her shoulder, blankets flying from him.

  “Ai—” Reticula let out a small whimper of surprise.

  “Terak! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Father Jacques spat into Reticula’s face. He was insensible. His eyes were sunken into deep holes where two stars of glittering, feverish pupils flared.

  The old man looked like a shadow of his former self. His lips had receded, revealing the gravestones of cracked, yellow teeth. A foul smell wafted from him—the smell of sickness and decrepitude.

  And near death. The Journeywoman recoiled despite herself.

  “I had to do it, Terak—you don’t see it, but I had to!” the Father repeated, shaking Reticula with every syllable.

  “Father—Chief!” the Journeywoman said in alarm. Jacques’s eyes suddenly blinked and his fierce concentration faltered.

  “Ru-Reh-Reticula?” he said in a weak whisper, his grip slackening on her face.

  “It’s me, Chief. You are very ill,” the Journeywoman heard herself say. Her chest felt hot and tight, filled with difficult emotions that the Book of Corrections had never taught her how to feel. That the Father hadn’t recognized her. That he was still upset at losing Terak through the elvish portals of the Second Family, when he—

  When he got the Demiene Flowers! Reticula suddenly remembered. The flowers from the Upper Realm of the Aesther, which had healed the Black Keep of the Blood Plague.

  And if the flowers can heal an Ungol plague, then maybe they can heal the Arcanum’s curses! she thought. “Father—wait, hold on! I think I know something that will help you,” she said, as the Chief collapsed back onto the pillows of his tiny bed, muttering and murmuring confusedly.

  “Father, the Demiene Flowers, can you remember where they were? If there were any left in your workrooms?” Reticula was already rising from the bed.

  “My—my workrooms?” Jacques said, blinking again, before a slow look of horror grew over his face. “He fell, didn’t he?”

  Who? The Journeywoman thought for a moment before understanding. Ah yes, of course. “Acolyte Terak, sir. Yes, I am afraid that we lost him between the realms . . .” It was hard to hide the twinge of jealousy that was plain in both her voice and her heart.

  “No use,” the older human grunted, and somehow managed to collapse even further inside himself, despite the fact that he was already lying down. His attendant Journeywoman saw his eyes flutter closed and his breathing hitch and whistle a little—even his skin appeared to lighten to a ghastlier shade of pale.

  “Father, there is still hope—” Reticula murmured, although her heart was starting to tighten with anger at her teacher. Was he so upset at losing his star pupil that he would give up all hope of surviving the next few hours or days?

  “No. It’s gone. We’ve lost . . .” Apparently so. His large, rounded, and scarred head turned to nudge deeper into the blankets around him.

  Hsst! Reticula straightened up. She could have slapped him in that moment. Are you so eager to forget the Book of Corrections? The Path of Pain? Who was she to challenge him? Jacques was her master, one of the Black Keep’s Fathers, a Chief—and she was but a lowly Journeywoman.

  But Reticula remembered the cloak of spectral black that held the Keep—an unnatural fog emanating from the Blood Gate itself, and spilling down the world of Midhara like wine down the best tunic. She remembered the hours of hacking and chopping and fearing for her life as she fought the wave of beastials drawn to the imminent incursion of the nightmare realm of the Ungol into Midhara . . .

  She remembered countless moments of sacrifice, bravery, and terror that she had seen on the walls. She even remembered Terak saving her life. Damn right, I’ll mention it!

  “Father Jacques.” Reticula drew herself up to stand over the bed. “Our Brothers and Sisters are dying while you mourn one elf,” she said tersely. “To walk the path of Corrections, you must first walk through pain.” She had quoted the very First Maxim from the Enclave’s holy book and was about to draw a breath to further exhort the Chief to action.

  When the Chief coughed and spluttered, and the pillow was left speckled with blood.

  “Rakh!” he coughed again. “You don’t understand, girl—” The Chief’s voice was weak and wavering, and his eyes were closed. “The Prophecy of Lorenz has already been broken. The Dagger of the World is lost . . .” He wheezed, his voice fading to the briefest of sighs, before fading completely.

  The Prophecy of Lorenz? What!? Reticula blinked. Magister Lorenz was the original. She was the first of the Magisters of the Enclave who had led her band of fervent acolytes far into the North, to make their home in this abandoned keep of black stone. Worry clutched at the heart of the Journeywoman when she saw Father Jacques’s almost complete stillness. Reticula leaned closer—

  But the ruined, tortured body of Father Jacques hadn’t quite given up yet. Not yet, she thought, as his chest rose and fell in faint, trembling breaths. The Father had just fallen asleep and taken his prophecies and secrets with him.

  But I will find them out. The Journeywoman studied the man’s lined and feverish face a moment longer before turning back to the Chief External’s workrooms. There would be his supply of Demiene Flowers—and perhaps this Prophecy of Lorenz, too.

  1

  This Land, My Body

  “Quickly, elf!” hissed a voice that to Terak’s pointed ears soun
ded like the scrape of winter branches in the wind. Terak the elf, the assassin of the Enclave-External and null, was trying his best to move quickly through the Forest of Hon It was hard when he was also attempting to carry the injured human storyteller, one of the ancient group of traveling Emarii storytellers, Kol.

  Ahead of the elvish assassin, the forest floor rose upwards, boulders breaking the leaf litter and held by ancient tree roots as thick as Terak’s arm.

  Ahead of the struggling elf and injured human was the owner of the strange wind-in-the-trees voice.

  One of the Elder Race. A creature out of myth, that surely had no place in the modern world of Midhara.

  But really, neither does Grom, the First Creature. Terak thought of the gargantuan dragon-like creature made of bone and stone and mountain root that he had helped awaken from its lair.

  And for that fact, neither do nulls, Terak considered briefly.

  The warrior of the Elder Beings was taller and thinner than Terak, which wasn’t really saying much, given Terak’s smaller stature. Although hard to see at times, due to the way that its mottled body and clothes appeared to move in keeping with the undergrowth and mosses and saplings, Terak could see that the Elder Being had mounded manes of feathers that stretched from the nape of its avian head down its back. From these wing-wraps extended two thin arms, further wrapped and encased in strips of armor-like bark.

  These were a strange folk in almost every way, Terak could see. From the way that they moved to the way that they talked—which even his elvish ears might mistake for the natural sounds of the Hon Forest. And of course, each of these strange beings was made even stranger by the fact that they had the heads of birds, too.