by Rob J. Hayes
Coby nodded slowly. "Me. Gol. Mercury. I wish it had been anyone but Silva."
"Me too."
The wrong thing to say. A snarl passed across Coby's face. It seemed so right there, where on Silva it would have seemed so wrong. "You killed her!"
"Not by choice." A traitorous thought that. I had stopped myself at the last moment, only to have Ssserakis turn my mercy into death. "Silva knew she went to Do'shan to die. Your mother sent her to die in her place."
Coby's hand shot out again, closing around my neck and for a moment I thought she was going to end it. I could feel the pressure, and her grip tightened. If I was going to die, it felt somehow right that it was in vengeance for my murder of Silva. I welcomed it. But it was fleeting. Coby let go and turned away, shaking her head. We both grieved, but we could never grieve together.
The pulsing synchronised and the laboratory was engulfed in a flash of light so bright it left me blind even through closed eyes. It took a few moments and lots of blinking to clear myself of glowing spots in my vision.
"What is this?" Coby asked, as though noticing the Iron Legion and his experiment for the first time.
"He's done it." Josef was back on his feet and at my side. "He's brought a Rand and Djinn back to life."
The yellow Source was oozing, a pallid flesh growing out of the cracks that had formed along its surface. As I watched, the flesh expanded and grew, reminding me of the Abomination I had once brought across from the Other World. It glowed with life and pulsed like a beating heart, growing larger with each pulse. The blue Source shook and sparked and smoke escaped its cracks, whirling as though caught in a vortex, collecting above the crystal coffin. And between them both stood the Iron Legion, an enraptured smile on his face.
"Well, this is bad," Coby said. "There was a reason my mother killed off the last of her sisters."
"Yes!" I hissed. "And Mezula won't want them coming back. The Iron Legion intends to bring them all back."
Coby sighed. "Idiot fucking terrans. My mother should never have raised you from the beasts."
"Coby!" I waited for her to look to me. "Get this thing off my wrist. You might hate me, and I might hate you," I had not forgiven her for killing Horralain, "but we have to stop the Iron Legion. He's too strong for me to fight alone."
"That's because you're weak." She grinned, but it was all insult and no humour.
The Sources were gone now. The pulsing mass of flesh was taking form; legs and arms stretching out, a great eye in the centre of the mass, blinking, its attention darting everywhere. The smoke had coalesced into a miniature storm, the heart of it growing more violent by the second, a heart of lightning.
"He's too strong for you as well," I said. "Even Aerolis fears the Iron Legion. The Djinn are scared of him. We need to work together, all three of us."
"I can't fight him," Josef said, his eyes fearful. "I have no Sources. No magic. And… and he kills people whenever I fight back."
My patience was wearing thin. "He's already killing people, Josef. I don't know what he's done to you, and I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. But we have to stop him somehow. You might not have any Sources, but you do have magic. You absorb it, the same as I do. At the very least, you have your Biomancy, even the Iron Legion admits you're damned near unkillable. So, stop acting like a fucking coward and fight him!" I think I shamed them into action. A one-armed woman bound and stripped of her magic, and I was the only one with enough fire still inside to take the fight to the Iron Legion.
Of course, we were too late.
A silence fell over the laboratory, broken only by the ambient noise of the Djinn. It swirled there, a vortex of smoke with a core of flashing energy. Time seemed fractured in its mass. Through its distorted form I saw the Iron Legion move, step forward, but it took seconds for him to actually make the move. On the other side of him stood a towering golden giant, all but terran in appearance yet she would have loomed over even Hardt. Her skin shone with a golden light and her form was so perfect to look at it hurt. She looked like a template from which all other terrans had been made unequal. And perhaps she was, it made sense that the Rand had altered us in their own image.
"Terthis?" When the Rand spoke, it was like a chorus of bells all chiming in perfect rhythm. A heart-breaking melody so perfect I could see why entire civilisations would bow before her. "What is this?"
The Djinn twisted, its form distorting for a moment. "You died, Elorame. I felt you drag me with you."
"You did die," the Iron Legion said, his voice booming throughout the laboratory. "My name is Loran Orran. And I have brought you back."
For a moment there was silence. Both Rand and Djinn were timeless, immortal. If there was one thing I realised from my conversations with Aerolis, was that the Djinn did not act rashly. It took its time to consider words and actions. It had the time to do so.
"Coby," I hissed, my voice a whisper. "Get this manacle off me." She didn't. Her attention was fixed on the meeting before her. I shouldn't blame her. Coby had never known another Rand, only her mother. This was almost a family reunion for her.
"This is one of yours, Elorame. Silence it." The Djinn twisted again. "Time is different. Things have moved."
The Rand turned her head, her gaze sweeping over the room and coming to rest upon us. Upon Coby. "I must find my sisters. Where is Mezula? Is the war still on, child?"
Coby froze and I could feel the fear on her even without Ssserakis. It is never an easy thing to become the sole attention of a god.
The Iron Legion stepped into the silence. "The war is over. It has been for a thousand years. Only Mezula and Aerolis remain of you. I have brought you back. I will bring back all the others who have died. I…"
"Quiet child," Elorame said. "Aspect, where I can I find your mother?"
"ENOUGH!" The Iron Legion let loose a kinetic blast that knocked everyone from their feet. It was a humbling experience watching a Rand knocked down like that. Even the Djinn, without a solid form, sputtered as though its vortex had been interrupted. "I will not be ignored, nor talked down to. I have given my life to the study of resurrecting your people. Of bringing both Rand and Djinn back so that you might fix the damage you wrought upon our world. And I will bring back the rest of you, but not before you grant me a boon!"
The Rand slowly regained her feet with more eloquence than any terran could ever muster. She closed on the Iron Legion, and from the other side so, too, did the Djinn. There was menace and intent in those steps. These creatures considered themselves gods. They had designed our people to believe it too, yet the Iron Legion stood between them, unafraid and with the power to back up his demands.
"Only I know how to bring you back," the Iron Legion said, a smile on his face. "Kill me, and your brothers and sisters will remain dead for eternity. How much is your immortality worth?"
That made both Rand and Djinn pause. They regarded the Iron Legion, and each other, and in that moment, I knew he had them.
"Coby!" I hissed.
The Aspect nodded, tearing her eyes from the meeting in the centre of the laboratory. "You might be right." She stepped closer to me, staring at the manacle around my wrist. "Just know that things aren't done between us, terran. You killed my sister."
"Name your boon, child," Elorame said. It seemed time was up, and they had come to a decision.
"Undo what the Chronomancy has done to me." And there it was. For all the Iron Legion's grandstanding about wanting to fix the world, it all boiled down to his own mortality. Magic comes with a price. Sources were never meant to be used in the way that Sourcerers do. I had lost ten years to a Chronomancy Source, but Loran Orran had lost decades. More of his life taken by magic, than by the natural process of time.
Unity of purpose. It takes the combined powers of both Rand and Djinn to undo what has been done. The Djinn to wind back time, and the Rand to repair the damage to the body. They did it then, Elorame and Terthis, came together in a flash of light that left the Iron Legion staggering.
He collapsed to the stone floor, clutching at his chest, his body wracked with spasms. And again, the Rand turned her attention our way.
"Once more, Aspect. Where is your mother?"
Coby turned on the spot, like a child caught doing something she shouldn't. "Ro'shan. And Aerolis is on Do'shan."
The Djinn and Rand turned to regard each other once more. A crackling power building between them, the Iron Legion forgotten in his agony behind them. Then Terthis shot upward, disappearing into the stone above. Elorame's golden form seemed to collapse in on itself, shrinking down until nothing was left but a thin golden line like a snake. It shot away into the darkness. They were gone.
"What have we done?" Josef's voice cracked on the words. He may not have had my dealings with the Rand and Djinn, but stories of their power were littered throughout our history. And through us, the Iron Legion had just released two more into the world.
The Iron Legion surged to his feet, a scream tearing from his mouth. He tore at his robes with hands that looked as though they were broken. Once he stood there, naked from the waist up, we could all see what the magic was doing to him. His skin was tightening, the wrinkles and blemishes vanishing. His bones seemed to crack and then mend themselves. Where before there had been sagging flesh, tight muscle bulged. The years fell from the Iron Legion in a chaotic spasm of pain, and I could see him growing more youthful before my eyes. Coby saw it too.
"What is this metal?" She poked at the manacle on my wrist. It was a finger width of solid metal, no lock or join.
"It fell from the moons," Josef said. "When it pierces the skin, it inhibits magic. He made the manacle and sceptre from Prena's sword."
"That's because it was made to contain the Rand and Djinn. The bars of their prison." Both Coby and Josef looked at me as though I had gone mad. "Josef, that sceptre, go and get it. Coby…"
Coby snorted. She was busy unwinding the metal bar that had twisted around my arm, her strength more than equal to the task. "I'm working on it."
"Forget the bars. Get this thing off my wrist."
The Aspect shook her head. "You terrans are so weak." She dug slight fingers into the flesh on my wrist and I grimaced against the pain, then she pulled. Even with Coby's strength, the manacle resisted. She growled, bending her full power to the task. Still, it did not budge.
Josef arrived at my side once more, the metal sceptre in one hand. "Maybe I can help," he said. He pushed Coby's hand away and lay his own over the manacle. Then he closed his eyes and drew on the innate Ingomancy he had absorbed from Neverthere. The manacle snapped open with a squeal and fell from my wrist.
Finally!
Everything returned to me in a rush. My eyes flashed as the Arcstorm burst to life around me once more, lightning sparking of the nearby bars. I could feel my Sources inside, the access to my magic returned. And Ssserakis. My horror came back to me with a shout of exaltation. My shadow wrapped around my legs and arm and tore the last of the bars away. I stepped free of the binding and spent a moment revelling in my returned power.
"Are you alright?"
Yes. I couldn't reach you. I was trapped inside again, but not by you.
"I'm fine." Coby shook her head at me. "Stupid terran. Do you have a plan?"
What did I miss?
I sighed. "He did it. He brought back a Rand and Djinn."
Coby looked like she wanted to slap me. "I know. I was there."
"And I wasn't talking to you."
He looks different.
I nodded. "They restored his youth before fleeing. We need to stop him. If he gets hold of us again, he can bring more back."
Coby glanced toward Josef. "I think she's gone mad."
I snatched the sceptre from Josef and handed it to Coby. "You're the strongest of us, Coby. We'll distract him. You need to stab him with this, it needs to pierce his skin to cut him off from his magic."
Coby turned the sceptre over in her hands. "It has no edge."
I let out a growl of frustration. "Then stab him really hard."
The Iron Legion laughed. It was done, his unnatural ageing reversed. He looked no older than I, maybe even a few years younger. There was no hair on his head or body, but here was the man I remembered from my youth. Strong, straight backed, regal, powerful. The Rand and Djinn had granted him his wish, and I could already tell he was more powerful than ever.
"Josef…" I said.
My friend shook his head and I realised then he was younger than I. Barely in his twentieth year, shaped by the hardships of half a decade of pain and fear. For the first time in our lives, I realised I wasn't looking up to Josef. He was small and skinny, a broken young man. Our lives had changed so much since the fall of Orran. Once we had spent every moment of every day together, as inseparable as water from the sea. Yet we had grown apart, circumstance and betrayal forcing us down different paths. But he was still my friend. I put a hand on his shoulder, the same way Hardt had done with me a hundred times, and smiled.
"We can do this," I said. "Chosen two and all that. All the tutors always said we were so much stronger together than apart."
Josef nodded, though I could feel the fear in him. A terror that spoke of deep conditioning. The Iron Legion had held Josef for over a year, and whatever he had done had left scars that would mark Josef for the rest of his life.
"Ssserakis?"
I have dreamt of this moment ever since he pulled me from my home. My wings will be useless to you in such a confined space, but I have had another thought.
My shadow turned oily, viscous. It pooled beneath me and then raced up my legs and chest, gathering at my left arm before travelling down to the stone that capped the stump there. Shadowy bones grew through the cap, winding and twisting together as they formed into the shape of a clawed hand. I raised it to my face and stared at the thing. It was skeletal, no flesh to speak of, and dark as the night. I could both feel it and not. No pain or sensation there, but it was a part of me and mine to control. I had two arms again, one mine and one Ssserakis'. I drew on the Sources in my stomach and brought lightning rippling along the clawed digits.
No fire. Remember, it is still a part of me.
Coby watched me, an odd look on her face that I think was disgust. Josef drew in a deep breath and wiped his eyes. I realised they were waiting for me to make the first move. It was probably best to strike before the Iron Legion realised I was free.
Chapter 36
There is a joyful poetry to a fight. To throw yourself so completely into the tempo of it. It is not easy, nor calm yet there is an exaltation to it that cannot be denied. To lose yourself in the rhythm of combat is the truest form of the fight. Ishtar tried to teach me that. She tried to explain that the mind may win a battle, but a fight is won by the countless hours of training rarely seen by anyone watching. Muscles remember how to move, the body knows how to flow, and tactics are a thing better left fluid. I never understood it before, and perhaps that is why she had always beaten me. But in that laboratory, matching myself against the Iron Legion I threw away all inhibition. It was a losing fight, one we had so little hope of winning, but I set my will upon the path to that little glimmer of hope and I ran toward it with everything I could.
I crossed the distance between us in a handful of loping strides, a thin double-edged Sourceblade forming in my right hand, lightning rippling along it. The Iron Legion noticed me at the last moment and a wall of rock shot up between us. I threw myself into a pirouette, spinning around the edge of the wall and into a two-handed strike that would have cut the man in two. Of course, the Iron Legion was not so easily beaten. Decades of training in both magic and battle, a lifetime lived at speed and then a new infusion of youth. He blocked me with hands coated in a thin layer of rock, and lightning sparked off every blow I aimed at him, scoring his skin in a dozen different places. He was an Arcmancer too, but he could not absorb magic like me, he did not have an Arcstorm inside. But his Biomancy seemed as strong as Josef's and every wound I dealt him healed wi
thin moments.
The wall of stone exploded towards us and in the centre of the flying rock was Coby, a vicious snarl on her face, still a dark mimicry of Silva's. I saw a moment of panic in the Iron Legion's eyes, his face so much younger than before. Then a shockwave of kinetic energy erupted from the Iron Legion and sent Coby crashing backwards with the remnants of the rock wall. I weathered the wave of force with a shadowy hand digging into the stone floor, steadying me.
Up close, the fight savage and quick, any sort of shield would be useless, but if the Iron Legion managed to erect a bubble around him, we might never get through. I had to keep him distracted, give him no time to form a proper defence, and hope Coby could get in close enough to put an end to it.
I clawed up a handful of stone and launched it at the Iron Legion, following it in with a new Sourceblade in hand. The rocks I threw at him struck his hands and stuck there, reinforcing his armour and shoring up the holes my blade had struck loose. I aimed high, bringing my Sourceblade down in a one-handed slash towards his head and letting the blade vanish in a puff of kinetic energy at the last moment. A new Sourceblade, no longer than a dagger, formed in my shadowy hand and I plunged it into the Iron Legion's side. He screamed in pain and I caught a rocky fist to the face that shook loose a tooth and sent me sprawling. The Sourceblade I left in his side exploded as I let it go, widening the wound.
It should have killed him, would have killed anyone else, but the Iron Legion staggered back onto one knee and clutched at the gaping wound in his side. Strain showed on his face, sweat pouring down his skin, and his eyes furious with the pain. Coby leapt at him, sceptre in hand. Too slow. Even with him injured she was too slow. The Iron Legion raised one hand and released a gout of flame into Coby's face. The Aspect staggered away, screaming amidst a searing blaze. I struggled back to my feet and a kinetic waved knocked me right back down again. Already I could see the wound in the Iron Legion's side closing, flesh knitting itself back together at an impossible rate.
Before I could recover, I found a boulder hurtling my way. No chance to raise a shield and even my shadow was too slow to stop it. Then Josef was there, throwing himself in front of me and taking the blow meant for me. The rock crashed against his back and I heard bones snap. I rolled away as the boulder crashed down upon my shadowy hand. There was no pain and my shadow slithered free before reforming. I ran to Josef to find him trembling, in so much pain he could not even scream. His back was broken, but the spasms running through him did not seem natural.
