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  Mourningbird

  Empire of Masks book 3

  By

  Brock E. Deskins

  Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review. All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws. Copyright © 2017 by Brock E. Deskins

  Books by Brock E. Deskins

  The Sorcerer’s Path

  The Sorcerer’s Ascension

  The Sorcerer’s Torment

  The Sorcerer’s Legacy

  The Sorcerer’s Vengeance

  The Sorcerer’s Scourge

  The Sorcerer’s Abyss

  The Sorcerer’s Return

  The Sorcerer’s Destiny

  The Sorcerer’s Rebirth (coming)

  BROOKLYN SHADOWS

  Shrouds of Darkness

  Blood Conspiracy

  Primacy of Darkness

  THE TRANSCENDED CHRONICLES

  The Miscreant

  The Agent

  EMPIRE OF MASKS

  Highlords of Phaer

  Nightbird

  Mourningbird

  OTHER BOOKS BY BROCK E. DESKINS

  The Portal

  Amelia: Battle for Ardentia

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  EPILOGUE

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Russel’s hands were a blur as he paced about the room located beneath the airship, his torso bobbing up and down in agitation. “No, no, no! Highlords are bad! Highlords almost destroyed the world. The highlords enslave people, kill people. Better to stay dead.”

  Ashlea stepped in front of Russel and tried to calm him with a hand on his shoulder, but he walked right through her ethereal form. “They aren’t bad, Russel. Not entirely. They made mistakes, like all people, but they wanted to protect everyone. They still do. Only the highlords can fight the Necrophages if they come in force. Please, you have to believe me. It’s the only way.”

  Russel shook his head so hard he nearly dislodged his leather cap with several articulated lenses attached to it. “No, not the only way. Many ways. Many ways.” He spun in a circle. “Three hundred-sixty degrees in a circle. Three hundred-sixty ways. Three hundred-sixty.” He pounded his fist against his head. “But we live in a three-dimensional world. A circle is a sphere. 129,600 square degrees. 129,600 steradians. 129,600 paths.”

  “Russel,” Ashlea pleaded as the boy became increasingly agitated.

  “Time! Time adds a fourth dimension. Every second, new ways, new choices, new paths! 129,600 ways now. 129,600 new ways now. 129,600 new ways now,” Russel said, stamping his foot with each mark of time.

  “Russel, please stop!”

  Russel crossed the room, cradled his chicken in his arms, and stroked her feathers as he thought to himself. How could I have missed this? Because probability equations are limited to the facts at hand and theories based upon reasonable assumptions of validity. I knew Ashlea had likely come from Phaer, but the highlords were all dead, and the likelihood of their resurgence was too remote to reasonably factor into a hypothesis much less a viable theory. If Ashlea is right, that the highlords are capable of making a return, then most everything I have postulated thus far has to be discarded and reformulated. This new dimension adds another entire factor of probabilities, of paths, choices—realities that cannot be seen or measured, and yet they exist. But now that I know they exist, I can measure them, factor them into my probability equations. Just need more time. More choices.

  “Russel, please come back to me.”

  Russel’s head snapped up and he blinked at Ashlea, confused for a moment as to why she was there.

  The ghostly girl clasped her hands beneath her chin, her eyes beseeching. “We have to go, now, before it’s too late.”

  Russel’s fingers waggled from beneath Lilliana’s feathers. “No, can’t leave now.”

  “Why not? Can you not make the airship fly now that you have my stone?”

  “No…yes…soon, but not now. Cannot leave now. There is only a seventeen percent chance that the Necrophages are in Eidolan in any kind of force. If the highlords return now, there is an eighty-six percent likelihood the cities will go to war with them the moment they discover their existence, resulting in a ninety-two percent probability of our ultimate failure.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It is a probability equation created on the fly with information I am only now able to calculate, and I am rounding off to the nearest whole number, but yes, I am sure. To improve our odds of success, we need better weapons, friends, allies. The highlords, assuming their power is equal to what it once was with high probability that it is actually less, cannot defeat the Necrophages once they invade with their full force, not without forming an alliance with the cities.”

  “What are you saying, that we have to wait for the Necrophages to invade, to begin their slaughter, before we can do something? There is one in the city now! Surely once they discover his existence they will see the danger he represents.”

  “No, people are dumb, blind brains, deaf brains. They won’t see or hear. There is a seventy-three percent probability that, if they discover his presence, they will be able to destroy him, thus creating a false sense of security and reducing the likelihood of an alliance with the highlords. Yes, the Necrophages will have to invade before the cities will consider such a joining, and even then, there is a fifty-two percent probability that one side will choose war with the other rather than enter into a pact to fight the common enemy.”

  Ghostly tears trickled down Ashlea’s face. “But a lot of people will die if we wait.”

  “More will die if we act too soon.”

  “All right, Russel, I will trust you.”

  “Never trust people. Trust the math.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Nimat glared down from her throne, her eyes promising death. She had escaped the warehouse fiasco, but so had her enemies, and one of them had her stone. There was a Necrophage loose in her city, and for the first time in her very long life, she understood fear. The alien emotion raised her fury to epic levels.

  “You failed me, Rafferty. Not only did you allow a large number of men to get close enough to strike at me, but your incompetence cost me something I prized above all else, far above the value of your miserable life.”

  Rafferty Valentin swallowed the lump in his throat. Sweat poured from his body despite the icy chill running through his veins. His face was nearly as pale as that of the underlord. Langdon stood at his side, his knees trembling so hard that he feared he might collapse at any moment.

  “I was also betrayed, Underlord. People I thought I could trust allowed others to infiltrate our ranks and were staged inside the warehouse, probably hours before we arrived.”


  “Hours? How do you know that?”

  “I found remnants of food and waste inside some of the shipping containers in which they had lain in wait, indicating that they had been in there for some time.”

  Nimat tapped a slender white finger with its black enameled nail against her delicate chin. “If this is so, then the fault is not entirely yours. No one outside of Undercity knew where the exchange was taking place and at that time. It appears I too have traitors in my midst.”

  “I swear to you, I am not one of them.”

  “Perhaps not, but that does not help me get my stone back. Have you learned anything about who was behind the theft?”

  Rafferty wilted under her glare. “Not much, Underlord. I lost a lot of men in the ambush, and many more to the gendarmes. I have rounded up three men who participated in the attack. The others have gone to ground or were arrested by the gendarme. The thieves were freelance and did not know who they worked for. They all claim to have been approached by the same man who offered them a lot of money to steal your arcanstone. None confess to knowing who the man was that hired them, who they were stealing from, or what they were even supposed to take other than whatever was inside the blast box.”

  “And you believe them?”

  “It is possible but unlikely that they are lying. I know how to interrogate and break a man. All three recounted the same story. One man of exceptional will might thwart my efforts, but not all three.”

  “What of the mercenaries who delivered the stone?”

  “I apprehended two of them before they were able to return to their airship. Neither of them know anything about what instigated the attack.”

  “Where is their captain?”

  “Died in the battle, Underlord. I do not think they were involved either, with the exception of the one man who was…like you.”

  Nimat bolted from her throne. “He is nothing like me!” She forced herself to be calm and sat back down. “But I understand your meaning.”

  Rafferty cleared his throat and shifted his feet. “Underlord, what is he? He wielded dark power the likes of which I have never seen.”

  “He is dangerous, possibly the most deadly creature in this city, or even all of Eidolan, next to myself.”

  “Do you believe he is acting alone?”

  Nimat stared over his head and into the shadows. “Let us pray that he is. Continue rounding up everyone involved. Inform your lieutenants and sub-leaders in Liberty to be extra vigilant and report any strange happenings they might see or hear of to you immediately. Get a message to Marina and have her people do the same in Midtown. I expect every surface leader from Blindside to Liberty to scour the city for these traitors, and when you find them, I want their bodies strung from the lampposts as a warning to others.”

  Rafferty ducked his head. “Yes, Underlord. What about the man from the ship?”

  “You will inform me of even the slightest rumor of his whereabouts or identity. He is not something you can handle. He is not human and unlikely to be wearing the same skin as the one we saw last night.”

  “Skin, Underlord? You mean a disguise?”

  “I mean skin in the most literal sense. Trust no one. Look for any hint that someone close to you, no matter how familiar, is acting out of sorts. He could be anyone at any time.”

  “As you say, Underlord.”

  Rafferty and Langdon turned to leave but Nimat stopped them. “Leave your underling with me.”

  The two men turned back around and Rafferty said, “Underlord, he is faithful to us both. He fought bravely to defend you and your property last night.”

  Nimat smiled down at her subjects, but neither of them were foolish enough to think there was a shred of warmth in the gesture. “Perhaps I wish to reward him. Have I not been a benevolent leader all these decades, that you think my every action is nefarious?”

  “No, of course not, Underlord.” Rafferty spared Langdon a grim look and quick nod before turning and walking away.

  Nimat stood, glided down the dais steps, and stroked the soft stubble shadowing Langdon’s chin. “You are friends with Kiera, are you not?”

  Langdon swallowed and locked his knees so they would not betray him. “Uh, somewhat, Underlord.”

  “But not as friendly as you would like, yes?”

  “Maybe…I guess.”

  “Do you know where she was last night?”

  “I…I…”

  “It would be a bad idea to lie to me, boy. I saw her. She can conceal her face, but she cannot hide from me. No one can. What was she doing there? Was she working for Rafferty? I know you and he have been trying to enlist her for some time.”

  “She was trying to get the stone for you, I swear!”

  “So you knew she was there.”

  “She asked me for my help. She wanted to get the stone and return it to you in hopes that you would erase her debt and kill Fred Switzer,” Langdon said, his words coming out so fast his tongue felt as if it were having a seizure.

  Nimat cocked her head. “Why should I kill Fred? The man is repugnant, but he earns me a lot of money. The same cannot be said for Kiera.”

  “She said…she said Fred hired her to steal the arcanstone from you.”

  All trace of amusement left Nimat’s eyes. Her hand flashed too fast to see, the fingers wrapped around Langdon’s throat, and she lifted him from the ground with ease. The arcanstone hanging around her neck glowed blue beneath her black shirt as she drew power from it.

  “Why have you withheld this information? Did you tell Rafferty what you know?”

  Langdon’s hands gripped Nimat’s wrist as he squirmed in her grasp. “No! I had hoped Kiera was here already with the stone. That’s what she said she was going to do, and I didn’t want Rafferty to mistake what she was doing and do something crazy. Please, I swear that’s all I know,” he choked out past the constricting pressure around his throat.

  Nimat threw him several feet away. “Bring Kiera to me without delay. If you do not, I will grant your desire to be together for what remains of your miserable lives. Go!”

  Nimat spoke seemingly to the empty chamber once Langdon had fled. “Find Fred Switzer and bring him here. Preferably whole, otherwise in pieces if that is what is required.”

  Two forms detached themselves from the shadows and departed without a sound.

  ***

  “Kiera!” Wesley called out. “Kiera?”

  Kiera lay on her narrow bed and stared at the ceiling as she clasped the sand globe in her hands, so lost in thought that she did not hear him.

  Wesley poked his head around the open doorway. “Hey, how’d it go last night?”

  Kiera answered him with silence.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Your brother has killed us all.”

  “Come again?”

  She sat up, slid her legs over the side of the bed, and stared into the ornament’s swirling sand. “It started as a disaster and deteriorated into a catastrophe. I fought the masked man again.”

  “The one who tried to kill Fred?”

  Kiera nodded. “The very one. He stole the arcanstone.”

  Wesley shook his head. “What arcanstone?”

  “The one Fred told me to steal. The one that belonged to Nimat.”

  Wesley’s eyes went wide. “What? Fred made you steal from Nimat? I don’t know which of you is more insane! Did you do it? Did you steal the stone?”

  Kiera wagged her head. “Nope. The masked man got it. I followed him to steal it back and we fought.”

  “Did you get it? You can give it to Nimat and tell her that was the plan all along. You can tell her Fred tried to steal it but you got it back from him.”

  “That was the plan, but he didn’t have it.”

  “I thought you said he had it?”

  “That’s what I thought too.”

  “Then who has it?”

  “Your brother.”

  Wesley’s eyebrows knitted together as if his face seemed to be trying t
o crawl into his own mouth. “Why would you think Russel has it? That makes no sense!”

  Kiera chuckled as she made the tiny airship bob and roll inside the glass orb. “When I caught up to the man, he didn’t have the stone. He had this in his pocket. This thing, that I gave Russel, who then, I don’t know when or how, swapped it out for the arcanstone. He made fools of us as we fought over what we both thought was Nimat’s gem.”

  “Russel is not a thief, and he certainly isn’t a fighter. How could he possibly have done that?”

  Kiera flung the globe across the room, but the thick glass failed to break, denying her even that small bit of satisfaction. “I don’t know! He’s Russel! I don’t know how he does anything he does! All I know is that I don’t have anything to keep Fred or Nimat from killing me, you, Russel, and anyone else we’ve so much as said hello to in our lives. Because that’s how far the blood purge is probably going to go!”

  Wesley’s mouth worked for several seconds before he was able to form words. “Have you talked to Russel?”

  Kiera’s head lolled to one side and her eyes narrowed. “Have I ever been able to talk to Russel? I say words, he signs craziness, and then we go our separate ways, each hoping the other understood what we were saying. But no, I have not talked to Russel. He’s down in his hole doing Russel stuff.”

  “Should we run, try to hide?”

  “Would it do any good?”

  Wesley’s shoulders slumped. “No. I guess there’s only one thing to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Accept our fate like men.”

  “Meaning you’re going to get so high that any torture and your eventual death is lost within the oblivion of your own mind.”

  Wesley managed to grin past his fear. “That’s how a smart man does it. You want some? I have plenty, thanks to Fred.”