helms.
“Here we go,” muttered Caina. “Follow my lead.”
No one argued with her.
She took a deep breath, squared back her shoulders, and strode towards the Immortals, her robe and black cloak billowing around her. The Immortals came to a halt, their blue-glowing eyes fixed upon her.
“Identify yourself,” said one of the Immortals in a hollow voice, purple stripes upon his black armor making him as a khalmir.
“You there,” said Caina, imitating Cimak’s formal Istarish as best she could. “I demand to speak with the Lieutenant of the Inferno at once.”
“Identify yourself,” repeated the Immortal khalmir.
“I have been set upon by bandits,” said Caina, “delayed by dust storms, and been forced to leave behind the city of Istarinmul, the shining light of civilization in the world, and instead decamped to these desolate and frozen heights. Yet all this I do willingly, nay, even joyfully, for the honor of the Most Divine Padishah Nahas Tarshahzon and the glory of the Istarish nation.”
The Immortals stared at her as if she had grown fur.
“Identify yourself,” said the Immortal again.
“Do you not recognize me?” said Caina, throwing back her cloak with a dramatic gesture. “I have been dispatched from the capital to serve the Most Divine Padishah on the borders of his realm, to report to the Lieutenant of the Inferno as his loyal khalmir. Really, fellow, you ought…”
The Immortal khalmir took a step forward, armored hand falling to the handle of his chain whip.
“You. Will. Identify. Yourself,” grated the Immortal.
Caina swallowed and made no effort to conceal the fear that went over her face. Many of the nobles of Istarinmul feared the Immortals, even those nobles the College had granted the honor of an Immortal bodyguard. “I am Kuldan Cimak, emir of Istarinmul, dispatched by the Padishah to serve as a khalmir under the Lieutenant of the Inferno.”
“You will have documents,” said the Immortal. “Produce them.”
Caina snapped her fingers. Nasser stepped forward with an elaborate bow, proffering up the satchel of documents. She drew out Cimak’s official commission as an officer of the Inferno and handed it to the Immortal. The black-armored warrior took it, unrolled the scroll, and scanned the lines of formal Istarish.
“Can you even read, fellow?” said Caina, putting noble hauteur into her voice. “One of my men can read it to you, should it prove necessary.”
The Immortal khalmir took the scroll. “You shall wait here.”
“Make haste,” said Caina. “The Lieutenant will not like to be kept waiting, and nor shall I.”
The Immortal moved away with a marked lack of urgency, and Caina settled in to wait.
###
Kylon waited, going through the exercises to calm his mind and prepare himself for battle. He had learned those exercises long ago as a child to control his arcane senses, to keep the emotional auras of others from overrunning his mind, and he had found them useful to prepare himself for a fight.
Hopefully there would not be a fight.
Not yet, anyway.
He felt the cold emotional sense of the Immortals. They had the same sort of ice in their minds that Caina did, but while her ice surrounded rage and passion, the ice of the Immortals ringed a black, malignant cruelty, a love of pain and death that Kylon had rarely felt anywhere else. The Immortals were monsters. They had once been men, but something had twisted them into monsters.
That twisting had happened within the Inferno.
Caina paced back and forth, muttering extravagant curses in Istarish, including several words that Kylon had not yet actually learned. He was always amazed at how thoroughly Caina could transform herself. Had he actually not known her, he would have assumed that an Istarish emir stood before him, an arrogant and petulant fool of a man. Yet none of the emotions on her disguised face reflected in her aura. She was concentrating on maintaining the masquerade, accompanied by the coldness he knew meant she was preparing for action.
He also sensed tremendous dread coming from Azaces, though the silent warrior remained impassive. Perhaps he feared that Nerina might lose her head if she saw Malcolm again, that she might panic and get them all killed.
The massive gate to the Inferno swung open with a groaning boom, and the ozone smell of Hellfire grew stronger. A troop of Immortals marched out, their steel boots clanging against the stone bridge. At their head walked a tall, gray-bearded Istarish man in a gold-trimmed white robe and turban, a dagger in his sash. His face was proud and stern, with a crooked beak of a nose, and