by Jesse Teller
Until now.
The limits of a portal spell were great, but with the rings of the Sizen Dere, the effects were limitless. The portal opened and the Castle of Chains dropped into the hole. Within a breath, it was gone.
Roth could see Tate above him and he directed his attention to him. Tate had the other end of the portal open already, and as soon as the castle was gone, Roth felt the others focus on his brother.
The portal under Tate’s command ripped to a bigger size and Tate disappeared. Roth held his portal open until Tate could be heard laughing over the circlet binding.
“Work?” Ithyryyn asked.
“Come look,” Tate said.
Roth opened a portal to Tate’s side and saw the Castle of Chains towering over him. It stood perfectly, bound by impossible magicks, even though Tate had just dropped it into Purgatory.
The Castle of Chains now belonged to the Callden Collective.
Flesh and Bone
Rayph looked again at the pit with the bull in it. He knew he could use it, but he didn’t know how. Rayph walked past Lycenias and Silk without saying a word. He had been by here five times to look at the beast. He had the briefest breeze of a plan emerging, but nothing had taken form yet.
“They have the Crown. We can’t use it. We can’t get to it,” Smear said. “We can’t move those men.”
“We can’t keep them there,” Rayph said, walking back out into the streets and heading toward the mayor’s ziggurat. “I need you to go out scouting and find a place to put them. The mansion is not safe. I can feel the mayor’s eyes on everything we do. I can’t spare a person here to watch her, and I know she is informing on me to Brody.”
“Can we lock her up, too?” Trysliana asked.
“We had better not,” Rayph said, but he knew it was the right move. He knew he did not need a spy in his midst. He also knew he had too much power. He was already being watched and judged by so many. If he imprisoned the mayor of the city, would that make him more of a target for his accusers? For Thomas’s sake, Rayph could not chance it. He needed to keep his power displays down. Needed to play it safe.
“Well, if we can’t lock her up or shut her up, we had better move out of here,” Smear said. “Brody will move in, but that is the only play we have. We can’t trust her. We know she is his puppet. She is most likely listening now.”
“Where do we move all these men?” Rayph asked.
“Fanhon?” Trysliana said.
“We can’t ask him to watch any more people,” Rayph said. “We can’t move this many people to his workshop without showing everyone where it is. If they find it, they will hit it with everything they have. Maybe his traps will catch some of them. Maybe most of them, but someone will get through. Fanhon is a masterful warrior and archer, so maybe they are stopped, but the chances of all this landing in our favor is out of the realm of possibility. We can’t take those men to Fanhon. Not without losing those we have already.”
Rayph arrived at the mayor’s mansion and entered without incident.
“The only thing we can do is find a warehouse and reinforce it. We need to build a prison,” Smear said.
“Yeah, and then what? Who will guard it?” Rayph said. “Who will watch it? We already are spread out too thin to protect each other. We have no one to call on. No one to reach out to.
“We have to stay here.” Rayph walked out of the room and down the hall, and Smear and Trysliana joined him. He reached the double doors at the end of the hall and knocked lightly.
The door opened and the mayor looked up at them. She was dressed in an evening gown, tight, with her long tan legs on display. She turned and walked away. The three Manhunters followed.
She left a balcony door and stepped out onto the side of the ziggurat. The night’s air cut keen and cruel through Rayph’s robe and he shivered. Here on this level of the ziggurat sat chairs and a table. A pool devoid of water sat dejected and abandoned before them, and a tree stood with twisted branches free of leaves. It looked angry. Its shadow scratched at the city below and the night sky above as if looking for an escape.
“You are here to take me away,” the mayor drawled.
“The time for that has come,” Rayph said. “You cannot be trusted. I saw Brody eating at your table. His people were reclined in the main dining hall when I first walked into the city. You are a liability. I have been a fool to leave you free this long. I will find a place for you that is humane and comfortable. You will not see the inside of a cell. You will be safe and—”
“And my children?” She turned and looked at Rayph. The light of the orange moon made a massacre of her face. Reds and oranges made her look like a specter covered in blood. “What will happen to my children, do you think? When I am of no more use to him. When I cannot tell him your next move or tell him where you can be found. When I am done, taken out of here and locked up, what do you think will happen to my children?”
“He has your kids?” Trysliana asked.
“My young girl and little boy are at his bar. They have been there since the day before you got here. He bought me with terror and holds me with my own blood. Their father, he killed. Brody has taken all of it from me, all that I cared about, and left me this.” She motioned to the mansion around her. She looked at Rayph and barked out a quick little insane laugh. “Here I sit in a house I didn’t even want, in a city I can’t stand, ruling people I can’t protect from an enemy I can’t kill. My husband wanted power in the city, more land for his farms outside the city and more trade with the powerful elite of Dragonsbane. He made me take this post. Damn him for it. Curse his name for his greed and his lies.”
Smear nodded to Rayph and the two of them turned around. Rayph touched his fetish. “Trys, keep her talking. See what you can get out of her.”
“I want to help her. We can’t endanger her children,” Trysliana said.
“I will do what I can. This just got more complicated,” Rayph said.
He pulled Smear into the room and shook his head. He looked at Smear and the spy grinned. “You’re serious?” Smear said with a laugh.
“Do I have a choice?” Rayph said.
“Who and how many?” Smear asked.
“Both of you.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible,” Rayph said.
“Well, what about just me?”
Rayph lifted an eyebrow.
“Right,” Smear said. “Where are you going to put her?”
“I have one idea,” Rayph said. He looked at the table and the candelabra that sat atop it.
“That might work,” Smear said.
“Let’s get going,” Rayph said. “You’re in for a rough one.”
Rayph walked out onto the balcony and Smear whispered to Trysliana. She smiled and kissed him. Rayph watched as the two of them leapt off the side of the ziggurat and the mayor gasped.
“I have a few friends I would like to introduce you to,” Rayph said. “Pack a bag. You’re not coming back until this whole thing is over.”
The mayor wept and rushed into the room. She grabbed a trunk and began loading it. Rayph waited quietly with many other things on his mind.
Rayph woke to Dran’s hard voice. “Trouble, Ivoryfist. Radamuss has gone crazy. It’s bloody. My men are on it, but I could use your help,” Dran said.
Rayph sat up in his room at the ziggurat and grunted. “I’m coming.”
He focused on Dran and a portal opened out to the snow-covered streets. An alley stood before him and from it two large swaths of blood smeared. It looked like bodies had been dragged into the alley. Rayph took a deep breath before walking through the portal.
Dran looked haggard. She appeared to have seen something she marked as disturbing and that idea scared Rayph. “Do we know what it is?”
“It’s Radamuss. He has sliced and bitten his way through the Brown Way tonight. He is making a mess, has killed ten and bitten five others. They will turn. We have a big problem.”
“Is h
e in there?” Rayph asked.
“We have tracked him by the blood. It looks like he dragged the last two bodies he savaged into that alleyway.”
“Where does it come out?” Rayph asked.
“I have sent men to block it off. They are trained well. They will at least hold him back. These men here are ready to do the same. I am going into that alley. I wanted someone with me.”
Rayph nodded. “Us again,” he said.
She scowled at him.
“Like Jersen Block,” he said.
Dran growled as if she was not ready to replay the memory. She motioned for the alley and Rayph spoke a word. A great flaming ball of hovering fire erupted before them, big enough to light the way. Rayph touched his fetish, “Fanhon. We are at Distan and Harper, in an alleyway. Follow the blood, you can’t miss it. We need you fast. How long before you can get here?”
“Let me find it. Give me a few minutes,” Fanhon said.
Dran shook her head.
“If we wait, Radamuss will slip out. We can’t let this go until Fanhon is in place. We have to take this now.”
“Our weapons can’t hurt him.”
“Your spells can.”
“We will see,” Rayph said. He stepped into the alley and Dran followed.
The ground was covered in blood, swiped and smeared by dragging. Parts of bodies and meat had been gnawed on and dropped. A huge crate stood in the way of them seeing the whole of the alley, and Rayph knew Radamuss hid behind it. The wererat would be ready.
He would be nearly insane with bloodlust and would be fast. He might take his many-rats form. Rayph spoke a word, sealing the alley behind him. He cast again and a second invisible barrier snapped the back of the alley closed. Dran licked her sweating lips through the cold of the night and Rayph turned to her. Through the fetish, he asked. “You ready?”
Dran nodded. Rayph reached out with his hands and cast. He felt the bulk of the crate in his grip and threw his hand behind him. The crate lifted into the air and flew behind them to slam into the barrier.
Radamuss’s form was matted fur drenched in blood. He looked at them with huge red eyes and opened his massive rat face to scream at them. Rayph pulled his sword up between them. The rat turned from its meal and stood bold and terrible in front of them in its naked glory.
And Rayph noticed the full breasts of a woman.
He turned and sprayed vomit on the ground behind him as Dissonance rushed forward. The rat came for him and he turned around in time to see her soar through the air. Rayph broke into sobs and could do nothing to protect himself as Dran stepped before him and met the leaping form with her shield.
“We have to take her down,” Dran snapped. “You’re with me. You’re ready now. Act like it,” she said as she battled the creature before her. Rayph gritted his teeth as the remnants of his purge burned the back of his throat. Dran fought the rat beast back, slamming it with her shield over and over again. The beast flew at Dran full force. Dissonance was an entity insane, a raging animal that could not be stopped, could not be reasoned with.
“Get distance!” Rayph shouted, and Dran kicked out at the beast and drove it back. Rayph produced another wall directly before Dran. The monster scratched and clawed the barrier. It bit and threw itself at the wall, striving to kill and devour. Rayph was weeping so hard he almost couldn’t get the second wall up right behind the beast. The monster was trapped now.
Dran turned away and looked at Rayph. “Is that-?”
“Yes. It’s her. I can’t believe I let this happen.” Rayph walked to the wall and watched as Dissonance scratched and bit, fighting to get to him, fighting to kill and devour. He wished he were dead. He looked up for any sign of Vanyel, and found nothing but the moons and a black sky.
Rest and Damnation
The noon sun didn’t know to mourn. It was bright and innocent and hopeful about the day. It looked down on Ironfall with optimism, and Rayph hated it for that. This was not a day for sunshine, not a day for birds and sparkling icicles dripping from roofs and overhangs. This was a different kind of day, and he longed for darkness and ill weather.
His breath frosted before him in the air, as he stepped through the streets with her, the crunching of snow under him.
“I’m damned,” she said. She took in a great breath and blew it out slowly. “When I die, I am going to Hell. That is the only place for people like me.”
Rayph knew she wouldn’t believe him, but he lied anyway. “Dissonance, you will not be going to Hell. You are a champion of Cor-lyn-ber. You have earned a place at his side.”
“Please don’t call me that anymore, Rayph. If I hear that name again, I will lose my mind.” She looked down. Her tears were crystals glimmering in the sun. They even looked happy and clean. “I was given that name when I became a warrior of that god. I have lost that life. I have lost that right.”
Rayph was crying now. He walked the street coming up from her church and headed to the drop off at the other end of town. “I don’t know what to call you,” he said.
“Call me Trisha. That is what my father named me. It has not been my name for almost twenty years, but I will claim it again.” She clenched her fists tight and opened them wide again. “It’s a nice name, isn’t it?”
“It is, Trisha. It is a very beautiful name.” They walked for a long time before Rayph asked the question that needed to be asked. “What do you want me to do with your priest, with your church?”
“They will send another warrior to the church eventually or they will abandon it. Either way, the priest will take care of it until he dies,” she said. “Did Dran ever get a number for you?” She closed her eyes and more tears sparkled down her face.
Rayph could not tell her. Could not lie to her. “Don’t make me tell you, Dis-, Trisha. Don’t make me tell you that number. It was not you. That is all you need to know. It was Radamuss that made it happen. Those deaths are on him.”
“Please, Rayph, I need to know,” she said.
“Twenty-two.” He hitched a sob.
She looked at her feet. She shook uncontrollably before she sobbed out a cry of anguish so terrible the hearing of it would stain Rayph’s mind for all time. He reached out for her and she took his arm and let him hold her up.
“Can we sit for a moment?” she said. “I’m so tired.”
“Your body went through a hard transformation last night. Your muscles will be sore and hurt for a long time yet,” Rayph said.
“No, Rayph, they won’t,” Trisha said. Rayph felt a cold hand grip his heart and he growled.
“You saved me seventy-eight times,” he said.
She looked at him with shock and he smiled back at her, a retarded thing that seemed half-dazed and mostly mutated.
“How can you possibly know that?” she asked. “Don’t lie to me to make me feel better.”
“I have a counting spell I wrote thousands of years ago. It only works with my life, but I can ask it anything and cast the spell and it will answer for me. I asked it this morning how many times you had saved my life. The answer was seventy-eight. I am alive because of you. Thousands of people are alive because of you.”
“Twenty-two people died last night because of me,” she said. “How many were bit and survived?”
“Not many,” he said.
“One is too many, Rayph. Tell me now, how many?”
“Two, a man and a woman. They are contained and will be seen to,” Rayph said.
“Promise me you will kill them. Promise me you will execute them quickly without letting them know it is coming. Something painless,” she said.
“I will try,” he said.
She nodded and stood. “How many clergy?” Her sobs overtook her and she wept as he helped her walk to the drop-off.
“Please don’t make me tell you that,” Rayph said. “It will only hurt you.”
“I am hurt now too much for more. I cannot possibly come back from this. Before I go on, I need to know what I have done. I am goin
g to be punished for it forever. The least you can do is let me know why I am being punished.”
“Four members of Cor-lyn-ber’s church were killed. None bitten and survived,” Rayph said.
She gasped and slapped herself on the side of her face. She clawed down her cheek and Rayph grabbed her hands and held her tight. He wrapped his arms around her as she trembled and cried out. She screamed and begged but he would not let her go. He held her tight and whispered in her ear over and again how many times she had saved him. After many minutes, she collapsed, and he swept her in his arms and carried her.
He reached the drop-off and sat down, holding her in his lap as she slowly cried.
Soon Trysliana dropped to her knees and embraced Trisha. She kissed her forehead and hummed to her. Sisalyyon walked up behind Rayph and wrapped her arms around him and Trisha. She plucked a cherry blossom from behind her ear and she placed it in Trisha’s hair. Smear dropped to his knees behind Trysliana and kissed Trisha’s head. Dran walked up beside them all and touched Rayph’s shoulder. She said nothing. She made no move, made no sound. She alone held back her tears. Dran alone kept her reserve.
Cosmo clung to Trisha for a long time. He hugged her and sobbed and kissed her. He held her legs and petted her. There was something cruel about him being here. He had cast the spell. He knew what was going on in her mind. He knew her torture. He knew her pain. Only Cosmo could feel what she was feeling, and Rayph wept for him as well, for her pain was nothing for another person to bear.
Fanhon picked her up. He carried her to the edge of the drop-off and held her hand. Every one of them stood around her, looking out over the fall and the beautiful vista it showed.
“You are the greatest friends I ever knew. You are the only family I ever had. You are the ones who knew me best and the ones who loved me best. Do not give up hope. Do not stop what you are doing. I am leaving you. When I die, think of me no more and do not consider my fate. Concentrate on your jobs. For they are righteous and you will be rewarded—” She sobbed and the strength ran out of her legs. Fanhon caught her. She cried out before regaining herself. “You deserve to be rewarded for your work and your lives.
