Dirge of the Dormant, page 21
part #5 of The Mindstream Chronicles Series
I can’t do this, he thought, though his hand did exactly what his mind railed against. I would rather die than hand my country over to this bastard.
But Darias. Could he kill his own son?
No. Gritha, Darias, and his three daughters would learn to live as Mangendans. Such a life wasn’t so terrible, was it? So they would have to paint their house gray. So they would need to bleach the color out of their clothes. At least they would live. All Serocians would live. Husbands, sons, and fathers would reunite with their families. The godfruit would be shared. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted?
With a deep breath and quaking hand, Gerad signed his name.
“Good boy,” Natan said in a patronizing tone. “Now the witnesses.”
“You’ll let my son go,” Gerad demanded.
“Of course. Once the treaty is properly witnessed.”
The room fell quiet as the paper was taken to one person after another to sign. When the twelfth signature had been placed, Natan smiled. “Let our spy know the boy is to be released unharmed.”
Gerad breathed his relief.
Natan’s gaze turned sharp and cold. “Slay him.”
From behind him, Gerad heard the shriek of two swords being drawn. His hands turned cold, like they’d been plunged into icy water. He started to turn and face the two guardsmen behind him, prepared to beg for his life. Murderous intent gleamed in their faces as they plunged their blades simultaneously into his gut. Gerad squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating death. He felt no pain, but he heard a loud crash like breaking glass. He opened his eyes to find the guardsmen blinking in confusion at their swords. All that remained were the hilts. The blades themselves lay at Gerad’s feet, shattered into a thousand shards.
“Retar’s fists!” someone cried.
“Look at his hands,” another said, pointing at Gerad.
He raised his hands, fingers splayed, and stared. The skin on both hands was deep, dark violet-blue.
“He’s drawing from the godheart,” Natan said.
Another guard drew his sword. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” Natan said. “It’ll ruin your sword too. He’s under the godheart’s protection.” He got up from his high chair and walked calmly down the two steps, though his expression looked anything but serene.
The godheart’s protection? Gerad thought. How could that be?
“Shall I bring hemlock, Your Grace?” asked a woman in the audience.
The grand duke stared at Gerad as he strolled forward. “No, it won’t work either. I didn’t want it to come to this, but you’ve left me no other choice.” He reached into a pocket and withdrew a sculpture of sparkling red metal like copper. From where Gerad stood, it looked like a woman with wild hair about eight inches high.
“What’s that?” Gerad asked, though intuition told him it was bad. Very bad.
The grand duke stopped a few feet from the petitioner’s box. “This is one of the three Mesitalics,” Natan said, sneering. “With a few words, I can use this idol to summon the Krykon Setennal, whose sole purpose is to slay the Concord and every other mater-bent in the world.”
Gerad swallowed, his mouth and throat suddenly dry. “If you summon the Krykon, you’ll have no one left who can use the godheart. It’ll do you no good at all.”
“Not true,” Natan said. “Upon your death, my deputy warmaster’s adjunct will claim the godheart and become my Prime Concord. With the godheart in his hands, he’ll be protected from the Krykon. With the Mesitalic in mine, I will as well. The other thousands of mater-bent people in the world have no such protection, nor will any other pitiful fool who stands between them and the Krykon. You will, in effect, be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, including the Gatekeeper herself. She may have stopped Urielle, but she cannot stop Setennal. Only the Concord can, but he’ll need the godheart to do it.”
Gerad trembled with anger and fear. He felt a surge of purpose, a need to do whatever it took to wrest that idol away from the Mangendan tyrant.
His brown eyes cold and determined, Natan took a breath and began to chant, “Zhipeelyis. Fakuis. Mo...”
“Wait,” Ibsa cried in an urgent and anguished voice from the door. “Stop!”
Gerad leapt over the low retaining wall of his petitioner’s box and rushed the grand duke, his hands aching with an unnatural violet-blue chill.
A scream blared through the corridors of the capitol, raising the hair on the back of Jora’s neck. “Gerad,” she said, breaking into a run.
“This way,” Adriel said, fingers weaving in the air before her. She took Jora by the wrist and led her through the halls. The scream faded to silence but for a cone of echoes in front of the scribe.
They nearly plowed into servants and others along the way. “Move,” Jora said, shoving past. “Move!” They received a few reprimands in return and shouts of alarm, but neither woman paid them heed. With her wrist clutched in Adriel’s grip, Jora couldn’t reach her flute in its scabbard.
The two stopped in the open doorway of a huge room. A dozen people sat in the gallery benches at the front of the room, facing a dais upon which stood a grand desk, reminding Jora of a courtroom at the Justice Bureau. There stood King Gerad, staring with a grimace at his outstretched blue hand in which he clutched a rod of copper that grew smaller with every passing second.
Another man, dressed in a black, slitted robe with a blue shirt beneath, stood beside the dais, gaping at Gerad. He took a wary step backward. “What’s happening?” he asked. Jora recognized his face from the day she’d sent Sonnis to deliver Rivva’s invitation to join Serocia in peace. Grand Duke Natan.
Standing in the middle of the center aisle was a tall, slim woman, her back to the door. Her dark hair was twisted into a bun in the back and secured with a hairpin. “He’s absorbing it. He’s absorbing the Mesitalic.”
Ibsa Bervoets, Jora thought. Her heart beat in eager anticipation. She grinned fiercely. Both her enemies in the same place at the same time. She could dispatch them now and be done with it, but where was the fun in that? On her flute she played, “Open way betwixt.”
At the sound of the flute, Ibsa turned around, her eyes widening as she recognized her enemy. She yanked off her barring cuff.
In a soft voice, Jora called Po Teng and Gruoarq first. “Sleep all but King Gerad. I’ll take my time killing every one of them.”
“Guards!” Natan shouted. He pointed at Jora. “Stay back.”
Ibsa ran to his side, her hand moving. In it, she held a glass stick with a dab of red at the end. In the gallery, men and women slumped one by one where they sat, some falling onto others. But Po Teng’s touch did nothing to Ibsa or Natan. Her inscriptions were protecting them both.
“King Gerad,” Adriel said, running to the king. He staggered and collapsed, and she eased him to the floor with one arm around his waist.
The copper lump was gone.
Soldiers flooded the room, swords in hand.
“Capture that woman,” Natan commanded, pointing at Jora.
The world went red. Kill. Kill. Kill.
Four men rushed her. She ran to the right around the rows of benches, playing her flute to borrow Gruoarq’s armor with one long strange melody. It clacked into place over her body as two of the guards caught up to her, swords swinging. Their blows knocked her off balance, and she stumbled and went sprawling. The flute flew from her hand and skittered across the floor. The Mindstream snapped shut. One of the guards dropped, its skin shriveling like a raisin. She scrabbled for her flute, desperate to summon more allies, but her armored knees on the marble floor gave her little traction.
Footsteps pounded toward her from the front and rear. Men poured into the room, swords drawn. Po Teng breezed over to one after another, his touch lingering long enough to sleep them before moving on, but he was too slow. He couldn’t keep up with the flood of swordsmen pouring into the room.
Her hand closed around the flute, and she turned onto her back as she brought it up to play, “Open way betwixt.” She called Zivenna and sent her off to shred the armsmen with her claws, Foul to set their clothes aflame, Sting to paralyze them with his stinger, Gordawn to hurl them around the room or break their bones. Their names fell effortlessly from her tongue as she called ally after ally.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Sweat formed on Ibsa’s brow as she drew inscriptions at a furious pace. With the glodule in her right hand, she drew and redrew the ward of protection around herself and the grand duke. “Stay behind me,” she said between breaths. She backed them into a corner so that she wouldn’t have to close the cloak completely around them, but Adriel worked continuously to cancel it. Every time Ibsa inscribed the cloak, Adriel brought it down again with one hand and launched an attack with the other. It was all Ibsa could do to keep the cloak up, let alone counterattack. She could hardly believe this was the same scribe who’d struggled to defeat her warding inscriptions when the Krykon was threatening.
Ibsa felt breathless and lightheaded as she exhaled again and again to activate her inscriptions. Behind her, the grand duke whimpered. Now and then, he pointed over her shoulder at one of Jora’s monsters that, once it slew a soldier, turned toward the two of them. She wanted to tell him to calm down, that she had everything under control, but that would have been a lie. Adriel was far more accomplished than she had a right to be at such a young age.
“Don’t just stand here wiggling your fingers,” Natan said. “Protect the men.”
“Can’t,” she said between breaths. If he couldn’t see she was trying to keep them both alive, then he was a bigger imbecile that she’d thought.
“That’s your job. My men are dying, which is what we’re going to do if you don’t help.”
Ibsa wanted to holler at him, to ask him what the hell he thought she was doing besides saving his life with every passing second, but she had neither the time nor the breath to speak. Instead, she worked faster, hoping to slip in an offensive of her own to catch Adriel off guard.
“Where’s the bloody alchemist?” Natan shouted. “Someone fetch him.”
A soldier tried to run out, presumably to carry out his order, but a bolt of lightning struck him in the back, killing him before he hit the floor. His limp body tumbled and skidded out of sight through the doorway.
“Retar’s bloody fists,” Natan said. “Move. I’ll get him myself.”
“No,” Ibsa said. “Scribe.” She narrowly missed getting the cloak up again before a gust of ice wind hit. She felt the protective cloak give under its strength.
The tall golden ally that had once been Zivenna stalked toward them, fingers hooked and ready to shred them with her claws. Ibsa exhaled, refreshing the protective inscription. The ally swiped at her again and again, its claws deflected by the cloak. Adriel canceled the cloak, and Ibsa renewed it. Several times, the ally’s claws nearly hit their mark.
The ally called to the enemy scribe which inscription to use, tutoring her in the midst of battle.
Adriel drew the inscription perfectly, as if she’d known it for years. Ibsa countered with another inscription, smirking inwardly. I’m still more competent than a teenaged—
“Kill it,” Natan shouted. Whatever possessed him to point over her shoulder at the seven-foot-tall creature, she didn’t know, but when the protective cloak fell, three of the monster’s claws found his wrist and hand. They raked through his flesh, leaving gouges deep enough to see bone. His shrill scream pierced Ibsa’s right ear. She cringed and faltered. Her inscription was wrong, and the cloak didn’t refresh. The ally fell upon her, slashing with those razor-like claws, ripping her clothing and skin to shreds.
“The cloak,” Natan screeched. “Get it up. Get it up!”
Ibsa took the brunt of the attack on her forearms as she scrambled against the onslaught to redraw the cloak. The pain was excruciating, and a scream tore at her throat as she exhaled. The cloak buffeted the monster’s attack and drove it back a step. She drew it again and again, exhaling to keep it refreshed.
Blood soaked her sleeves and neckline. She felt its warmth trickle across her skin. Her arms and face burned where the monster had gashed her.
“You let it cut me,” Natan said. “Look at my hand. I’m maimed because of you.”
Exhale. Stay calm, she thought. Exhale. Don’t do anything rash.
What she wanted to do was run for the door with the protective cloak around her, and leave that pathetic milksop in the corner to die. But she couldn’t. At least, not with all these soldiers around to witness it. Once they were dead, perhaps she would. Judging from the glances she risked taking, Jora was winning. To survive, she might have to.
Chapter 14
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Soldiers were pouring into the room by the same door from which Jora had entered. Her allies fought them, some with fire or lightning or poison, others with tooth and claw. Gordawn was like a mad bear, tearing limbs from torsos and hurling bodies and parts across the room. Though the allies fought fiercely, they were outnumbered. Men and monsters stumbled over sprawled bodies that littered the floor slippery with blood.
She ran around the room, playing commands on her flute to borrow her allies’ magic. “Armor,” she played. “Speed. Melt. Cloud.” She mowed an incoming stream of fighters down with a spray of clear spittle that looked innocuous but melted their clothing and armor and seared right through their skin, muscle, and bone. The soldiers’ faces didn’t look quite human, taut with mad terror. They screamed and flailed as they collapsed, blood pouring down their misshapen forms like wine overflowing a cup. She exhaled a cloud of thick smoke that burned eyes and choked lungs. Men collapsed, some crawling over the bodies of their peers to get away, and some dying where they fell.
Swords raised, another flood of men charged in with a roar of what sounded like bravado masking fear. “Lightning,” she played. She pointed one hand toward them, fingers spread. From her fingertips shot bolts of white lightning that struck each of them simultaneously and connected them to each other like dolls cut from a single sheet of folded paper. Their arms and legs flew wide, their spines arched and their heads were thrown back with jaws clenched. She thought she saw the vague shape of their skeletons for an instant before their flesh darkened. They keeled over as one onto what had been their faces, their bodies now black and crispy like burnt twigs.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
On the other side of the room, the scribe woman was on its knees, its eyes focused on the older scribe. The enemy. The two were battling with each other in a two-handed scramble to out-inscribe the other.
Kill.
She advanced toward them, intending to kill them both and be done with them. Raising the flute to her lips, she started to play.
“Jora. The whistle,” the younger scribe shouted.
She paused, uncertain, and lowered the flute. Beside the girl, a man slumped against the wall, its eyes glazed under heavy lids. Its lips twitched, as if it were mumbling in its sleep. There was something familiar about it. Something she needed to do to it.
Kill.
“Retar, help her,” the scribe cried. “Pull her back. Please.”
No, not kill.
Kill!
“Jora,” the scribe said. “Hurry.”
Jora blinked hard, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. Someone stumbled into her, knocking her to the side. She caught herself on one of the gallery benches and looked around, unsure where she was.
At the front of the room, Adriel was squatting in front of King Gerad, protecting him with her body, and drawing inscriptions in the air as fast as she could, exhaling hard after every one.
The whistle.
Groping for its thong around her neck, Jora ripped it off over her head and ran toward them. She ducked and darted through the crowd of men and allies fighting and shrieking and dying. A glob of fire sailed past, narrowly missing her face, and struck the wall. Her feet slipped in spilled blood. She flailed but kept her footing.
A swordsman bore down on Gerad, his eyes alight with fury. “Look out!” Jora shouted.
Adriel turned in time to see the man, his sword raised high as if to cleave Gerad’s skull. She shoved the king, toppling him. The sword came down and severed her arm midway to the elbow. She screamed, blood gushing from the wound.
“No!” Jora cried. “Adriel.” She closed the distance, desperate to reach her friend and try to slow the flow of blood.
Gerad felt someone push him, felt himself falling, but he couldn’t catch himself. He didn’t know which way was up. His mind drifted and twisted between two worlds, one in which men and monsters were fighting and dying, and another in which he wandered about in darkness, searching blindly for a way out.
The pain was gone, but it had left something behind. Something inside him. Something wondrous and monstrous and so powerful, it frightened him to think about it. He felt his heart beating, not with one thump but two. It was like having two hearts in his chest that beat in time, one pumping blood through him, the other feeding his soul. Part of him wanted it to stop, but the larger part hoped it would never end.
Little by little, the two worlds merged. He became aware that someone was screaming. It was a woman, and she knelt beside him, gripping her arm, but it was wrong. Its hand lay on the floor a foot away.
Adriel? he thought as his eyes struggled to focus. He sat up. How could it be? Adriel was in Jolver. Had he dreamed all this? Was he still hiding with Adelphus in the Meanders while the Mangendans blasted the palace with cannonballs? No, this woman didn’t look anything like Adriel. Older. Different face. And yet somehow he knew it was her. He felt it as clearly as if he’d felt the contours of her face with his hands. Looking down at them, he noticed their blue tinge and wondered if he’d bruised them somehow. It couldn’t have been the godheart—they’d taken it from him and put it in a vault somewhere. He recognized the hearing room, the grand duke’s desk and the petitioner’s box where he’d been forced to renounce his Serocian citizenship.
