Chaos Unleashed

by Drew Karpyshyn

  If they failed, Orath realized, it wouldn’t be because of the navigator. The weakest link in the crew was the false captain. If he failed to react to Tork’s commands—if he was too slow, or he turned the wheel too far and they missed their mark—all would be lost.

  “Sixty-two degrees to starboard!”

  Orath knew it was dangerous to summon Chaos this close to Cassandra, even with the terrors of the Kraken’s Eye drawing most of her attention. If she noticed what he was doing, she would unleash the full power of the Crown against him. But if he did nothing, they wouldn’t survive much longer.

  Drawing on the reservoir of Chaos he’d gathered from feasting on the blood of the Inquisitors, Orath reached out to the magical essence imbued within the ship itself. He felt the touch of Old Magic, trapped within the hull, and opened himself up to it.

  The Chaos Runner was a creature of the sea. It understood the ocean in ways no sailor ever could—not even Bo-Shing. By forging a connection with the remarkable ship, Orath suddenly became more skilled than any captain since the Cataclysm.

  “Forty degrees to port!” Tork bellowed.

  Orath reacted with uncanny speed and perfect precision. The crew pulled on the ropes as they tacked hard, and the ship veered just in time to avoid being sucked down into one of the whirlpools that had unexpectedly spun off from the main constellation.

  “Sixty degrees starboard!” Tork shouted, and Orath dutifully spun the wheel again, all thoughts of Cassandra and the Crown pushed from his mind as he battled the angry sea.

  —

  Keegan kept the hood of his cloak up as he approached the ritual grounds, hoping it would hide his nervousness. Vaaler had spent the past two days meticulously preparing the location: a testament to how complicated and dangerous the spell he was about to attempt could be.

  He didn’t want to die in a final blaze of uncontrolled Chaos, but that wasn’t what he feared most.

  They’re all counting on me, he thought, staring out at the faces of the friends and allies who’d gathered to wish him well. They’re all looking at me to save them. And what if I can’t?

  Scythe was there, too, of course. She wore her typical outfit: tight black trousers and a sleeveless leather vest. The exposed flesh of her face and arms was covered with temporary tattoos that mirrored Keegan’s own, painstakingly drawn by the Danaan sorcerers working off Vaaler’s instructions.

  As he saw Scythe standing there a new fear crept into his mind. It wasn’t just his own life he was risking with this ritual.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he told her. “You can give me the Sword and stay behind to look after Methodis.”

  “Maybe you should be the one to stay behind,” she shot back. “Just give me the Ring and send me through the portal.”

  “You’re not a mage,” Keegan reminded her. “You’ve had no training. You don’t know how to use the Ring.”

  “And you’re no warrior,” she reminded him. “And believe me—you have no clue how to properly use the Sword. So I guess we better just accept that we both need to do this. Together.”

  She smiled at him, and he felt some of his anxiousness slip away.

  “I know you’re scared, Keegan,” she whispered, leaning in close. “So am I. But I believe in you. I know you can do this.”

  For an instant, Keegan thought about trying to kiss her again. Fortunately, he resisted the urge. Scythe was a friend, nothing more. But somehow, that was enough.

  “I bet you would have made an incredible Chaos mage if you possessed the gift,” he told her, returning her smile.

  “Save it,” she said though not overly harshly. “Everyone’s waiting for us.”

  It was hard to tell for sure, given her complexion and the markings scrawled on her face, but Keegan thought she was blushing.

  They stepped forward to where Vaaler was waiting to usher them into their assigned positions.

  “You both know what you have to do?” Vaaler asked.

  “I just have to stand still and shut up,” Scythe answered. “Wish me luck.”

  “What about you, Keegan. Are you ready?”

  “I am,” he said.

  Vaaler reached out and grabbed them both in a fierce hug.

  “I believe in you,” he told them before stepping back to stand beside Shalana and Jerrod beyond the edge of the ritual grounds.

  “I believe in us, too,” Scythe whispered, taking his hand.

  The ritual ground covered most of the large cobblestone courtyard inside the city hall’s main gates. Over the past two days, Vaaler and the Danaan wizards had transformed the bare stones into a map of the entire known world. The ground along the North Wall had crudely drawn trees to represent the North Forest, while scattered handfuls of coarse sand marked the edges of the Southern Desert. Blocky triangles traced in charcoal reflected the mountains bordering the Frozen East, and a series of curved wavy lines stood for the Western Sea, with a smattering of small circles serving as the Western Isles.

  Each of the Seven Capitals of the Southlands was drawn onto the map, as was Callastan. That’s where Keegan and Scythe now stood, surrounded by a perfect circle traced in ash. Vaaler had drawn a thick line from Callastan across the imaginary ocean, through the Western Isles and ending at another circle on the far edge of the map. Rexol’s gorgon-headed staff stood upright inside the circle, supported by a small stand. Visually it made a suitable representation of the Keystone itself, but more practically, incorporating the powerful staff into the ritual would allow it to be a catalyst for the spell.

  He wasn’t the only mage who would be invoking the spell. Just outside the map several more circles had been drawn. Inside each one stood a Danaan wizard, including Andar himself. Like Keegan and Scythe, their skin had been covered with symbols to help ward them against the Chaos they were about to summon.

  As one, Andar and the others began to chant. For two days they had practiced the incantation Vaaler had given them, and the strange words rolled smoothly off their tongues.

  “Lev. Ull. Fer. Shi. Lev. Ull. Fer. Shi.”

  To his surprise, Keegan recognized the words from his training under Rexol: North, south, east, and west in the Old Tongue.

  Stay focused!

  As the rhythmic chant continued, the glyphs on Keegan’s skin began to tingle. Chaos was gathering, summoned by the combined efforts of the Danaan mages.

  Keegan didn’t join them; his role was not to summon the Chaos but to draw it into himself, concentrating the power of many into one. He felt the familiar heat of the blue flames building up inside him, and he slipped on the Ring he’d been clutching in his hand.

  A tower of blue fire suddenly leapt up around him and Scythe, but the protective circle kept the flames from devouring them. He could feel her tense up beside him, fighting her instinctive response to flee the unnatural conflagration.

  Stay focused!

  “Lev. Ull. Fer. Shi. Lev. Ull. Fer. Shi.”

  Augmented by the Ring, the Chaos flowing through him became an unstoppable torrent. But instead of fighting to control it, Keegan let it pass through him and out into the ritual grounds.

  The pillar of fire around them grew higher, and a line of flames slowly began to trace its way along the line from Callastan to the Keystone. Keegan struggled to stay calm, resisting the urge to seize the Chaos and try to control it with his will. At this stage of the spell, he was still merely a conduit.

  “Lev. Ull. Fer. Shi. Lev. Ull. Fer. Shi.”

  The line of flames finally reached Rexol’s staff, and the empty eye sockets of the gorgon’s skull glowed with a fierce green flame. Scythe gasped beside him, and for an instant his concentration wavered as his head turned in response to the sound.

  Blue fire leapt from the pillar, engulfing him and Cassandra and spreading rapidly across the map in all directions. He heard Vaaler shouting, his voice panicked. The chant of the Danaan mages had dissolved into cries of pain and fear.

  Go! Keegan screamed inside his mind. Go now! />
  The world beyond the edges of the map suddenly vanished into empty darkness. The pillar of blue flame lifted him and Scythe high into the air, and she clutched at his arm.

  Keegan ignored the contact, his mind focused entirely on the spell, just as Vaaler had told him. He was no longer just a conduit; now the Chaos was his to control!

  Far below them the map began to grow in size. The crude representations of trees and mountains transformed into reality, growing to true scale in a matter of seconds. The wavy lines became an ocean stretching out before them, and Rexol’s staff metamorphosed into a massive black obelisk sending up a beam of pure white light to the heavens.

  The Keystone!

  Focusing on his destination, Keegan wrapped an arm around Scythe’s waist, then willed himself toward it. Suddenly they were flying through the air, hurtling toward a tiny island on the far end of the world, propelled along by a massive wave of Chaos.

  —

  We’re going to make it! Cassandra thought.

  The worst of the Kraken’s Eye was behind them. They had reached the farthest edge of the whirlpools and the storm; somehow, Tork and Bo-Shing had brought The Chaos Runner safely through.

  Through the ebbing rain she could see clear skies and smooth waters ahead. In the distance, the Keystone jutted up from a tiny island, shining in her Sight like a beacon.

  The ship suddenly bucked as they were hit by a massive wave. But this was not spawned by the sea; as it rolled over them Cassandra recognized the terrifying power of Old Magic.

  What did you do? she lashed out at Rexol.

  That was not me, the wizard protested.

  Tork had stopped shouting orders at the captain. His expression of perpetual calm was gone, replaced by a look of abject terror.

  “The Sleeper awakes!” he shouted.

  Even as the words left his mouth, Cassandra felt it rising from the depths—a Chaos Spawn so ancient and monstrous the Old Gods had never let it touch the land. Her awareness recoiled from it, refusing to allow her mind to picture fully the horror that was coming for them. Instead, her mind was assaulted with a collage of rapid-fire images: hundreds of wriggling, writhing tendrils attached to a body of immense size reaching up from the depths toward them.

  Reeling, her attention fell on Bo-Shing. It was only then that she realized something was very wrong with the captain.

  He’s hollow, she thought, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. And something is living inside him. Something dark and sinister.

  I tried to warn you! Rexol shouted.

  Before her dazed mind could make sense of what was happening with the captain, the beast from below struck. Dozens of long, suckered tentacles slithered across the deck of The Chaos Runner. Each was as thick around as a man’s waist, but they moved with the speed of striking serpents. They snatched up half the crew in seconds and dragged them screaming down into the depths.

  Shoji tried to run as another arm snaked its way from the water and lurched toward him. But the deck was covered in glistening slime left behind by the first wave of tentacles, and his feet flew out from under him. Cassandra cast aside the rope that lashed her to the mainmast and leapt toward him, grabbing his hand as the tentacle coiled around his ankle.

  Suddenly they were both being dragged toward the edge of the deck. Cassandra managed to brace her feet against the ship’s railing, calling on the Crown to give her the supernatural strength to hold on. But the man she was clinging to was made of ordinary flesh and blood, and he shrieked as his arm ripped free from his body and he vanished over the edge, leaving Cassandra holding nothing but a bloody stump.

  Repulsed, she tossed the limb aside. Another swarm of the slimy, slithery appendages crawled up over the side, flailing about for more victims. Cassandra jumped clear as one grasped for her ankle, then scrambled up the mainmast to get clear as the few surviving crew members were taken.

  Use the Crown! Rexol screamed inside her head.

  This time she didn’t argue. Instead, she slung the bag from her shoulder and pulled out the Talisman. Just before she placed it on her head a massive tentacle erupted from the deep, twenty feet in diameter and with suckers twice the size of a wagon’s wheel. It wrapped itself around The Chaos Runner and snapped the hull in half with a single squeeze, sending up a shower of splintered wooden planks and beams.

  The front half of the ship vanished; still in the clutches of the gigantic tentacle, it was instantly dragged below the surface. Fortunately for Cassandra she was on the other half, though it was sinking quickly.

  She placed the Crown on her head, bracing herself for Rexol’s attack. But the wizard didn’t try to fight her this time; even he recognized the danger they were in.

  A million sounds and images—the thoughts of every person in the mortal world—exploded in her head. But they were pushed aside almost instantly by the looming presence of a consciousness of unfathomable age and power.

  Brushing up against the behemoth with her Sight earlier had temporarily stunned Cassandra. But now that she was wearing the Crown, she was no longer overwhelmed by the Chaos Spawn. As magnificent as it was, it was nothing compared to the omniscient power of the Crown.

  Sleep, she thought, projecting her will toward the leviathan below. You are not of this world! Return to the depths and sleep!

  The creature fought her at first; after eons of slumber it had no desire to resume its hibernation. But even the mightiest Chaos Spawn had to bow before the power of the Talisman. Reluctantly, the creature retreated back to the black abyss whence it came.

  Still clinging to the mast of the sinking remains of the ship, Cassandra peered out across the water, looking in vain for other survivors.

  It was only then that she realized how still the sea had become. The wake of the rising monster had carried them beyond the edges of the Kraken’s Eye, leaving her alone on the calm waters a few miles from the island.

  I can still reach the Keystone, she realized.

  In that instant, Rexol tried to take control. She felt the wizard’s consciousness explode into the forefront of her brain, shoving her own awareness aside as it tried to leap from the Crown and into her physical body. The mage had caught her off guard, and for a moment he had the upper hand in their struggle. But Cassandra had cast him out once before, and after a short but violent mental battle she reasserted control.

  Ripping the Crown from her head, she let go of the mast as the second half of The Chaos Runner sank slowly out of sight. Alone, she bobbed in the calm waters, clutching the Crown in her hand as she tried to recover from Rexol’s ambush.

  She could see the island only a few miles away, but swimming to the distant shore was not an option. The back-to-back battles with Rexol and the Chaos Spawn had left her so exhausted she could barely keep herself afloat.

  With the last of her strength, she managed to wrap her free arm around a shattered plank from The Chaos Runner’s hull floating nearby. She could sense there was still power trapped within the wood. If she could just hold on, it would eventually ride the currents and bring her safely into shore.

  And what then? Rexol wondered, but Cassandra was too angry with him—and too drained—to answer.

  KEEGAN INSTINCTIVELY BRACED himself for impact as the Keystone rushed toward them, wrapping his arm even more tightly around Scythe’s waist as they hurtled through the sky. But they didn’t swoop down and land at its base like Gods descending from on high. Instead, the world around them began to blur as they neared their destination and their pace rapidly slowed.

  A shimmering blue veil fell over everything, growing brighter until it became so intense Keegan was forced to squeeze his eyes shut. Then his ears popped, and suddenly he could feel that he was standing on solid ground again. Opening his eyes, he saw the black obelisk towering above them, exactly as it had appeared in his vision.

  “Look down,” Scythe whispered.

  Below their feet was a shimmering blue circle roughly four feet across—the same size as the one
on Vaaler’s map, where their journey had begun. Though translucent, they couldn’t see the ground beneath it. It appeared to be a glowing hole plunging down into infinity, but somehow he and Scythe didn’t fall through even though they were standing right on top of it.

  Keegan gave Scythe a nod and let his arm drop from her waist. Taking a deep breath, she hopped out of the glowing circle and onto the ordinary-looking ground beyond its edge. Keegan joined her a second later.

  Even after they had left it, the strange glowing circle remained—a magic portal, open and waiting just for them.

  Only you and Scythe can use the portal, Vaaler had explained. Nobody else will even be able to see it. To return, simply step inside and imagine yourself back in Callastan. Once both of you pass through, it should seal itself behind you.

  “Where’s Cassandra?” Scythe asked, taking quick stock of their surroundings.

  There wasn’t anyplace on the island to hide. Scattered clumps of long, wispy grass that barely reached up to their knees were the only vegetation, and there were no large rock formations or hills. The only notable feature on the entire island was the Keystone itself. From where they were standing they could actually see all the way out to the ocean in every direction.

  It can’t be more than two miles across, Keegan thought. He made a slow turn, taking in the beach that formed a sandy ring around the entire perimeter of the island.

  “She must not be here yet,” Keegan said. “We beat her, thanks to Vaaler’s spell!”

  “I’d say it was your spell, not his,” Scythe argued. “Vaaler may have planned it out, but you’re the one who actually brought us here.”

  “If you say so,” Keegan conceded modestly, though her words caused a burst of pride to swell inside him.

  “I don’t see a ship on the horizon,” Scythe said, gazing back toward the east—the most likely direction of Cassandra’s approach.

  “I guess we just have to wait for her, then,” Keegan answered uncertainly.

  We were so intent on getting here in time to stop Cassandra from using the Crown, he realized, that we never even thought about what we would actually do once we arrived.