The Codex Lacrimae, Part 3: The Book of Tears

Chapter 23: Master Devrone's Final Lesson

Aurelius and Clarinda stood at the same window in the great hall where they'd watched the campfires of the armies and listened as the enemy forces steadily made their way up the slopes of Hisn al-Akrad. The disbelief that any soldiers could hazard such a steep ascent had subsided hours ago after they realized that the climbers weren't ordinary men but members of the Wilde Jagd, their ranks driven by merciless Corpse Masters whose ghasts could appear anywhere at an instant's notice to prod any laggards with piercing shrieks.

The sky brightened in spite of forked lightning and rumbling thunderclouds that tried to forestall the coming of the dawn.

Except for Arcadian and Jeremiah (who spoke quietly at one of the conference tables opposite the central pews), all their friends had departed hours ago on various missions—for Ibn-Khaldun, Fatima, and Khalil that meant going to Saladin's encampment via the secret slides in the scriptorium; for Alexander, he'd said he was going to check on Jacob's mother, and then go to meet some of the two hundred knights of the bataille group he'd be leading after sunrise.

Aurelius and the young Norn had spent the time mostly sitting next to each other on the hard pews, and when they weren't planning, they even dozed. Conversations varied from recollecting events they'd shared in the Nine Worlds, to wondering at the silence of Genevieve. Mostly, though, they kept working at the problem of destroying the Huntsmen's caskets.

Aurelius stared at the steadily advancing torches of the Wilde Jagd closing the siege's noose upon the castle and tried to find a calm center and some direction by recalling Clarinda's words over the past few hours.

"We could just leave," she'd said at one point when they'd parted after another bout of kissing to silence an increasingly shaking Arngrim and murmuring Codex. "Just teleport to Mimir's Well, and focus on getting rid of the Singing Sword and the Codex."

"No, we can't," he'd replied, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "That's the elegance of the Huntsmen's plan. It's like when Old Nick revealed himself in Hela's Tower to be Uncle Servius. There are ... layers here—a strong foundation, and we can't just leave over two thousand people at this castle to suffer because they happen to be where the Codex and I are."

"I don't think I'd call the plans 'elegant,'"she'd said, "but, I know what you mean. I'm bothered by how quiet the book's been—as if it were biding its time and waiting for something to happen."

"It might be waiting for me to die, so then somebody else can accept its price."

"Don't get too dramatic," she'd said. "So, we stay here and fight it out, hoping that Saladin accepts the offer of the olive branch and we can somehow destroy the caskets."

"I don't think any wood or magical defense is going to have much chance against the Singing Sword," Aurelius replied, but pulled her closer to him on the pew rather than putting a hand anywhere near the blade's hilt.

After the first couple of kissing interludes succeeded in quieting its voice, Aurelius couldn't take his eyes off of her. The Dark Book reacted viciously to the romantic interest.

When the Codex returned to his mind, it flooded his imagination with images of Clarinda perishing in the most horrific ways by his hand. Aurelius saw black and white energies cascading from Arngrim while he slew her with the cursed sword and began a rampage through the castle that neither her touch nor the magic of Gungnir could stop. Whenever the magic talismans resumed their attempts to possess him, he'd tried to describe the nightmarish visions to Clarinda who, though she could hear the book, couldn't seethrough the special link they shared.