Between Kings, page 21
part #10 of The City Between Series Series
So I drew my two swords from Between, the weight of them familiar but somehow insufficient in my hands. If I was going to die today, I’d better make sure I finished up the job of binding his magic. At least then Zero would have an easier time finishing him off—and I had no doubt that Athelas would be there to make sure Zero did finish off the king, whether or not he had done as I asked him to do.
“You,” said the king, sharp and slightly savage, “are a constant surprise. You’re mistaken if you think you’ll confuse me with your ridiculous tricks, however—I suppose you left a doctored stash of filings for me to find so that you could stage your little surprise.”
“That’d mean I was here deliberately,” I said, grinning at him humourlessly with a sick feeling in my stomach. “And that would mean I’ve got bigger mental problems than an urge to be king.”
The king drew his own weapon; it was belted on and very pretty—and very deadly. The one thing it wasn’t was Between-drawn. That wouldn’t stop it killing me, but it was further confirmation of my ideas about the king and his abilities when it came to Between.
“I see you’re determined to bait me to kill you,” he said, and strode forward. “Perhaps I’ll oblige.”
I fought bitterly, savagely. I fought like my life was on the line, because it was. I fought to stay alive for as long as it took to finish off the binding that still moved so slowly because if it moved quickly he would sense it.
And in the end, it was the working that was my downfall. I could either fight or work with Between, and it didn’t seem as if I could do both at once. I retreated a bit too fast—probably retreated exactly where the king meant me to retreat—and tripped over an uneven bit of the brickwork that felt almost as though it reached out and grabbed my heel.
I lost one sword on impact; the king was on me in another moment with a knife at my throat and his knee on my solar plexus, his other hand reaching out to wrench my second sword away from me.
He tossed it into the darkness, breathing heavily, and said, “It’s a shame you chose to sell yourself to the Sero family. You would have been a good pet.”
I would have said that I hadn’t sold myself to anyone, but the truth was that I kind of had sold myself—at least at first.
Gasping a bit, I said, “You behindkind fae are all the flamin’ same, you know that?”
“You really are indomitable. I won’t play with you any longer—where are your friends?”
His magic, so close and so unaware, threaded itself together more swiftly, following the lead of my needle of Between. Bright with hope and prickling with dread, I knew that it would take at least another five minutes for the spell to complete itself.
How many fingers was I going to lose? Could I lose two and still use my hand? What if he started out with my entire hand? Would I lose too much blood and die before I could complete the working?
No use trying to distract him with anything else Between or Behind—I had to concentrate on my working. I wheezed at him until he got the idea that I couldn’t really breathe with his knee where it was, but he only moved it to pin down my right arm at the shoulder instead.
Another twenty seconds gained.
I tried to feel good about that, but I was already sweating, cold and dizzy with fear and awful anticipation. He could see it, and he enjoyed that too; he took his time leaning forward over my hand—touched each one of my fingers lightly as if he was trying to decide which one to start with.
Twenty more seconds. One minute. Only four minutes to go. Could I even put up with the pain of losing a finger?
The king cut off my thumb first, the mongrel. I think I closed my eyes, but I felt the coldness, and then the deep, dull pain that swept up my entire arm and forced a small scream from my throat. My body tried to curl in protectively, but the king’s knee pressed down harder, and something shifted out of place in a movement that was more noise than pain. Pain throbbed in my shoulder, huge and hot.
“Where are your friends?” he asked coolly. “There are still four more fingers here—yours to keep or still to lose, just as you choose.”
“Look at Athelas being right,” I said, trying not to throw up. The king probably wouldn’t let me choke on my vomit, but I didn’t want to throw up anyway. “Reckon he knew you’d do something like this.”
The king gave a small, derisive smile. “No doubt he wanted to have his fun with you before he brought you—I prefer knives to words. Now; your friends.”
“Nope,” I said. It was all I could say without throwing up. All I could say without losing hold of his magic and my sanity all at once, because I knew he was going to cut off my forefinger next and he was moving the knife and it was dripping with my blood and there was no hesitation and then pain and burning in my throat and more screaming…
There was a white space for a little while where he cut off more fingers and blood flowed, warm and sticky, while I shook my head with my teeth ground together every time he asked, “Your friends?”
The third and fourth fingers didn’t seem to hurt but when he cut off my smallest finger I screamed again.
I’d been crying for a while, but I didn’t remember starting. The pain was somehow mind-numbing, but the real horror was not being able to look away; seeing the mess he’d made of my hand and the blood just…pumping its way out of my butchered arm as if it didn’t belong to me.
And by the faintest thread I still held my sanity and the working. It glittered and wove itself within the complicated movement of the king’s body, and for an instant I thought I saw the whorls and sinews that made him up as he said impatiently to himself, “I’ll have to slow the blood. We don’t want to lose you yet, little pet. Where. Are your friends?”
Were they out? Were they safe?
I didn’t know because I still didn’t even know if Athelas could be trusted. I knew he couldn’t be trusted, but there had to be a way he could be trusted, too.
And then I screamed because there was no hand and no arm, just deep, cold pain and the stump of an arm below my armpit where the king’s knee pressed down.
I screamed and writhed, and the spell writhed and drew itself together, complete. I saw the world Between, bright and knife-edged and sharply in focus with the king at its centre, a blank spot without magic or the ability to use Between.
I shoved him away with the air itself—air sparkling with Between that made itself firm for me—and sent the king tumbling backward across the brickwork. Then I dragged myself to my feet, swaying.
The king caught himself and leapt to his feet, eyes hard and still uncomprehending.
“Been a change of plans,” I panted, and retched.
I sent a crawling surge of Between down my shoulder and toward the stump of my arm that was draining the blood from me, and it closed over the bare, severed flesh and skin. It might not hold, but hopefully it’d hold for long enough.
When the blood had slowed to a trickle instead of a surge, I said thickly, “Heck. Time for me to have my say.”
“Ridiculous,” he said, with a small, contemptuous huff of air.
“This bloke is getting on my last flamin’ nerve,” I said to myself, still swaying. I had to keep talking or I’d start throwing up or falling down, and I couldn’t do that right now because I was finally where I needed to be.
Not dead. Not surrounded by behindkind.
Alone with the king.
Only Between around us to play with.
“Sit down,” he said to me. “You’ll fall down anyway. You’re not going to leave this room, so sit down and rest until we begin again. If you tell me what I need to know, I’ll give you a quick death at least—there’s nothing left for you now.”
“That’s the thing about you blokes,” I said, with the sweat rolling down into my eyes and stinging them. It hurt so much just to stand there that the whole world was moving around me. “You keep on acting like things that are weaker don’t have any value. Look at you! You’re standing there alone and wasting time playing with me instead of calling for help because you think a human with only one arm left is the same thing as a dead human.”
“Are you not?” he asked, tilting his head enquiringly at me. “Do you think you have enough strength in your other arm to do anything against me? Even if you do have some strength there, do you think you have the skill for combat in your off-arm? Had you such skill, would it help you against anyone but another human?”
I laughed, because if it was still possible to trust Athelas, all of my friends must by now be safe—and because if I couldn’t trust him, everything was over anyway. At the very least, I had bound up the king’s magic so tightly within itself that he would never again use it, no matter whether or not I was the one who killed him. At least now I could fight to the death properly.
“That’s flamin’ typical of behindkind, too,” I said. “You think everything is important only because of how it relates to you.”
“Tell me what isn’t true,” he said.
There was a crease between his brows, and I could almost have sworn that he was trying to understand me. Why I was the way I was, how I worked—why I did and said the things I did and said. It was probably that quality in him that had kept him alive for so long: the quality that had made him seem so human and friendly.
“I mean, that might almost have been true if I was right-handed,” I said. “But I’m left-handed, so I hate to break it to you, but you chopped off the wrong arm. And stop trying to ruin my point—you asked me what I could do against you with just one arm? Dunno about you, but it’s never taken much strength to do this.”
I reached Between, without sight, without medium, without anything solid to reach for, and drew the heirling sword into my physical reality in one smooth, certain sweep. It came to me without hesitation, as if it had been waiting for exactly this moment, and in that moment it glowed, rich and warm, entirely yellow.
The king stared at the sword—forgetting me completely, if I was any judge—and there was a terrifying hunger in his eyes. I knew that hunger; I’d seen a similar hunger in Athelas’ eyes what seemed like a lifetime ago, when I offered him the dryad I’d gone on to give to Detective Tuatu instead. In that case, it had been a chance for safety and security that Athelas hadn’t ever had, and he had wanted it so badly. The king badly wanted the sword because it represented safety to him—but instead of safety merely to live and exist for himself, it was safety in his position as king that he coveted.
And that told me everything I needed to know.
“You’ve never pulled it out from Between, have you?” I said. “You’ve never been able to pull the sword out of anything, let alone raw Between. You ever even touched it?”
“Still,” he said below his breath, his chest rising and falling just a touch too quickly. “Left-handed or not, heirling sword or not, it’s only a human with a missing limb. A few minutes’ fight ought to end it all. I’ll deal with your friends later.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
With how carefully and completely I’d tied up his magic while he was torturing me, he would have to use his strength. He had nothing left.
Me, on the other hand? I had magic, I could use Between, and I still had three limbs, which was more than enough to make trouble with. My life wasn’t about to end because I’d lost an arm—though it might end sooner than I wanted if I didn’t wrap up things here and get to a certain vampire pretty quickly. A certain vampire who, said a cold thought, may or may not be too healthy himself.
“Oi,” I said, grinning savagely while the sweat rolled into my eyes. “Try to use your magic. Dare you.”
He stared at me, at first uncomprehending, then disbelieving, then blazing with anger as he reached for the one constant power he had always had access to and found that it didn’t exist.
I saw the rise and fall of his chest as his heartbeat sped up, and that was wearyingly satisfying.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
“One arm for a king’s magic,” I said. “A bit expensive for what it’s worth, but at least you can’t use it. How long do you reckon you’ll survive out there with Zero after you, no magic, and no sword?”
“That won’t matter to you,” he said through his teeth. “Because you’ll be dead.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I couldn’t help grinning, because I could see something moving in the darkness behind him.
Athelas hadn’t been the only one to sneak into the arena before I sealed it by calling on the king: he hadn’t been the only one I was hoping for either. I had a deep, sparkling sort of feeling that things were starting to pull together exactly as I’d hoped—or maybe that was just the blood loss talking.
Because despite the help from vampire spit, I’d lost too much blood. I could barely stand, let alone fight, but behind the king was Les, all shadowed eyes and carefully quiet feet. And even if his methods were unorthodox and his pockets stuffed with my best forks, Les knew how to fight—and how to stay alive.
I should have expected it: he always had been there. Every time I looked around—every time I played with Between or wandered where I shouldn’t.
Every time there was danger to heirlings in general and me in particular, he had been around. I laughed, gasping and gripping the sword tight, because I understood exactly how things had fallen together—and what I needed to do.
“Oi, Les,” I said to the shadow. “Got something for ya.”
And then I threw the heirling sword to him, up and over the king’s head.
The king tried to grab it, but it wafted straight through his fingers as though it was insubstantial—no, as if he was unsubstantial. It sailed over his head and smacked satisfyingly into Les’ palm, pommel first, the blade continuing its arc for a brief moment before he brought it under control. The blade flickered blue.
Bright and whole and more functionally insane than I had ever seen him, Les seemed to connect with the sword—or maybe he just felt safe and weighed down for the first time in his life. He sank a bit at the knees as though familiar with a sword. Maybe he was, for all I knew. He definitely lifted the sword as if he knew what to do with it, and as he settled into a guard position I saw the reflected blue glow of the sword on his face, oddly peaceful in such a context.
Something inside me broke a bit with unexpected relief and the sensation of letting go.
“You know what the funny thing is?” I asked the king, as he turned at bay to face Les, who still stood as firm and solid as I’d ever seen him with the heirling sword now again blazing yellow in his hand. “Not even the sword thinks you’re worth touching. You’ve been so busy trying to kill everyone that you haven’t even been looking after your world—and I don’t reckon it likes you too much right now.”
“Who are you?” the king demanded, his stance shifting into a fighting one. He didn’t exactly say it through his teeth, but it sounded as though he said it through a throat full of bile, and that made a small burr of happy spite at the back of my own throat.
“This is Les,” I told him. “It’s not his real name, but it’s the only one you’re getting. You tried to kill him about a hundred years ago, and he’s been skipping in and out of Behind ever since, getting twistier and harder to kill with every year. And every cycle that has tried to start, he’s still been there, still not dying.”
“I will kill that steward,” said the king, pale and furious. “He swore he’d dealt with that!”
“Good luck,” I said. “Athelas is about as hard to get rid of as Les is. If he’s clever, he’s somewhere far away from here by now.”
“I warn you, harbinger,” the king said to Les. “If you should choose to throw in your lot with the heirling instead of me, it will be your last mistake! Consider carefully!”
“That’s another funny thing,” I said, with a heady hilarity building up in me. I leaned against the dark wall, cold everywhere, but especially where my right arm wasn’t. “He’s not the harbinger.”
“Hullo, hullo!” said Les happily to the king. “Not the harbinger!”
The king, still wary and furious but not frightened yet, said coldly, “Of course you’re the harbinger! Who else would be?”
“G’day,” I said, laughing at the shadows that danced around me. “My name’s Pet. I’m your resident harbinger. That over there? He’s the last heirling. Or maybe he’s the first one, I dunno. He’s not dead, not as daft as he looks, and he’s been out killing other heirlings with my best stainless steel over the last week, so you’d better get ready to fight. He doesn’t play fair, either.”
Chapter Twelve
It’s funny how things fall into place when you use the right tools for the job—or maybe just when you put the pieces in the right places and stop shuffling stuff around in a mad panic trying to sort it out and do everything on your own.
All that to say that as I stood there with the wall holding me up, and still trickling blood through my Between bandage, everything suddenly seemed a lot easier, even if normal stuff like standing and breathing was getting hard. All the heavy things—the expectations of Between, the old king, the new king, the Order of Life, and whatever else you call what was basically a self-fulfilling Ragnarök—suddenly got lighter and took themselves out of my hands.
All I was left with was the business of staying alive for just a bit longer and making sure the wall kept holding me up.
I don’t know who taught Les to fight. It definitely wasn’t someone like Zero, and it showed. It made a difference, too; the king had been trained in real sword fighting, where every move had a counter move and every thrust had a parry. Les had been trained through several lifetimes of living through certain death and trying desperately not to give in and die. He fought wildly and unpredictably, his bare feet alternately gripping and moving with stunning speed, ducking beneath slashes that should have killed him and somehow avoiding thrusts that should have skewered him.
