by Holly Lisle
She turned to face Ry and rested a hand on his thigh. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Not yet.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her passionately, and she responded with everything in her. She fought to silence the voice in the back of her head that screamed, Last kiss—she held herself in the moment, focused only on his touch and scent and taste, and for that single moment joy filled her and overflowed—her mind touched Ry’s and they became one as fully as if they were joined flesh to flesh.
When at last they moved apart, he said, “Now we’re ready.”
Dùghall took one of Kait’s hands in his left, one of Ry’s in his right. “I am proud to have known both of you. I love you both as my own children. Good fortune find you, and courage and strength.” He squeezed their hands, then leaned forward and gave each of them a kiss on the cheek. “Now let us do what we must do.” He released their hands, took a deep breath, and the anxious, sad man he had been fell away. Dùghall seemed to grow taller. His chin lifted, his shoulders went back, and a fierce, determined smile crossed his face. “Shift first,” he said. “Then move into the Veil. Wait by the void you will find there. I will issue the challenge to Luercas—he will respond. He knows that until we are defeated he cannot move forward with his plans.”
Kait shivered and stared into Ry’s eyes. Then she found the wildness inside of her, the Karnee hunger, and her blood began to bubble and her muscles grew hot and slippery beneath her skin. She stood and quickly stripped off her clothes. Beside her Ry did the same. Within moments, they were furred, four-legged hunters in a world where colors were brighter, scents were sharper, tastes were richer—and now Kait yearned for the hunt, for the chase, for the kill. Now death was a stranger to her, and though the human Kait within still cried out at the knowledge of the loss she faced, Kait the beast longed only to be set free against the monster that was her prey.
Within the blood-bowl, light shimmered, and she crouched onto all fours, her belly pressed against the cool stone floor, and closed her eyes tightly, and Kait the human stilled the mind of Kait the beast and brought both of them together in this single final task they faced, and Kait the forbidden stepped out of her Scarred flesh and into the incomprehensible vastness of the Veil.
Ry, formed as she was in the spirit-flesh of a four-legged hunter, joined her. They stood in the midst of the terrifying infinity of the Veil. Before them lay a circle of utter darkness, a cold and evil twisting in the fabric of the universe, ringed about with tiny sparkling lights that marked its boundaries; it was the void Dùghall had created; their killer; their grave; their end. It was, too, the gate to the salvation of their world and those they loved. Kait howled out against the darkness, a cry that shivered through the Veil and touched eternity. Ry’s voice echoed with hers, telling her in wordless wild song that they were together, that they would be together as long as they had life and breath and soul.
Then, as one, they fell silent, and awaited the coming of the one with whom they would go down into eternal oblivion.
• • •
“Now he comes,” Luercas said, and at his feet Danya rattled her chains and snarled.
“Death to you. Death and pain, shame and humiliation.”
Luercas gave her a hurt look. “I would never have wished such a thing for you. You were supposed to be my ally. My companion. I tried to give you what you said you wanted,” he said. “I’m truly sorry I had no way to keep your enemies alive long enough for you to kill them yourself. You’re being unreasonable in demanding that I should have.”
“I sacrificed my child, my soul, my honor because of you!” she screamed.
“Everything you did, you did of your own free will, by your own hand and your own choice, and for your own reasons. You did nothing for me. You did it for yourself.” He smiled down at her and shrugged. “That’s all anybody ever does.”
The gloom of the tent brightened, and a swirl of light appeared at the foot of Luercas’s throne, and the Scarred stepped back as one. The ghostly form of a man appeared, tall as the tallest warrior, fierce as any lorrag, with a cloak of night that whipped about him in a wind that did not reach those who watched. He smiled coldly at Luercas, and more than one among the Scarred shivered. His smile was Death, the gleam in his eye was Death, and when he spoke, his voice was the icy voice risen from the lone forgotten grave. “Within the Veil our champions await. Come, fight, defeat them or die; you will not sit upon the world’s throne until the Falcons have fallen.”
Luercas did not tremble at the apparition before him. He only smiled, waved a hand in negligent dismissal, and said, “Go. Play your little games, you and your champions. I’ll be along in a moment—I’ll give you enough time to commend your souls to your gods, for when I come they’ll be my meal.” He snapped his fingers and the messenger dissolved into smoke, and in the breathless silence of the tent, the messenger’s startled cry, cut off, hung in mockery of the brave front he’d presented and the fierce threats he’d made.
“They are so small and so weak,” Luercas said to the Scarred who waited on him. “They would war with gods, but they are only flesh and blood.” He settled himself comfortably into his throne and with the practice of centuries, prepared himself to tread the trackless Veil. “Await me here,” he said. “Guard against intrusion. I will rejoin you shortly, and when I return, we shall ride forth to claim our world.”
He spun the silver thread that led from the realm of flesh to the realm of the spirit, and followed it into the cold and the dark of infinite night.
• • •
Kait, hanging in the formless darkness of the Veil, remembered Ulwe’s message—that one had said, I wait for you within the Veil. I never left you.
Perhaps I will find him here, she thought, and wondered where she might have to search—but she did not need to search. In the instant she thought of Solander, her mind was filled again with that all-encompassing love, with the touch of the soul that had first given her hope that she might be loved as she was—that she might be truly worthy of love.
Little sister, the radiance whispered into her mind, I came only to tell you what I have learned—perhaps you will find a way to use it.
Tell me, she said.
I was wrong, Solander told her. I thought that I had to hang on, that I had to defeat the Dragons a second time because without me, they would not have been defeated the first time.
But we needed you, Kait said.
No. I thought you did, so I held on and I staved off the natural order of life and death and fought to experience rebirth unchanged by that which lies beyond the Veil. I could not accept that heroes are born anew in each age that needs them; I could not accept that my fight was over or that the world could go on without me. In my own way, I was as wrong as the Dragons. Yours was never my world, nor was your time ever my time. This is your moment, Kait. Your time upon the stage, to fight and triumph or fall in defeat. And no matter what happens, when it is over your time will pass and you will have to let go. Then the world and its fate will belong to others.
The love touched her again, embraced her, comforted her. In that moment, love . . . and let go. Know that evil is always weak, for it is born of cowardice. Courage is eternal, for it is born of love. And love never dies.
Then Solander was gone, and again she faced the darkness.
• • •
Light moved in the distance—radiance that billowed forth from nothingness and swirled into the shape of a man. Now Luercas came. He was beautiful, Kait thought—as beautiful as any god. He shimmered with strength and life—nude, perfectly formed, and gently smiling, he walked toward them with his long golden hair blowing in the wind of the Veil and a trail of starlight scattering behind his every step.
On his left breast, two dark scars marred his flesh—two puckered triangles that drove like poison into his heart. Kait saw those scars and coldness gripped her; she knew without knowing how she knew that they were the genesis of Luercas, and their poison was as much a part of h
im as he was a part of them.
Move away from me, Ry said, speaking directly into her thoughts. Keep your distance.
She slipped to Ry’s left and moved forward in a slow and easy lope, ears cocked forward, nose sifting the air for any hint that scent might bring, mouth partly open to keep her dagger-sharp teeth ready.
“Oh, come, now,” Luercas said with a laugh in his voice. “I made a dramatic exit in front of my troops, but my intention is that we work out our differences and go our separate ways. You can’t expect us to actually fight. You couldn’t win against me, and I have no wish to destroy those who could be valuable to me someday . . . and who are, in any case, quite lovely. I am no barbarian to destroy that which is beautiful simply because it is not mine.”
Kait and Ry said nothing. They kept circling, looking for an opening.
Luercas sighed. “Quite a nasty trap you people have built for me there,” he said. “Impressive use of magic. The fellow who actually created it didn’t have the courage to come in here with you, I see, but the two of you seem to have enough courage for everyone—if not enough sense.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Dùghall’s void, and in that instant Kait saw an opening and leaped into it quickly, slashing Luercas’s thigh with unsheathed claws and darting out of reach before he could react. He snarled and made a gesture with one hand, and Kait realized he meant to summon forth power.
And she felt her second victory when a startled look appeared on his face and magic failed to flow into him at his summoning. Luercas glanced from Kait to Ry and said, “Nicely done. I commend you. It doesn’t matter that you have shielded the souls of the Calimekkans, however. My Scarred have souls, too. If necessary, they will serve me in death instead of in life.” He started to make the gesture again, and as he did, Ry leaped for his hand and his teeth ripped through Luercas’s wrist, and in the same moment, Kait, knowing what Ry was going to do, feinted behind Luercas and her teeth flashed in and ripped into the back of his leg behind his knee and she darted out again.
They were out of easy range as quickly as that. But this time Luercas summoned magic that responded to him—his wounds healed as quickly as they had been made, and the faint shield that had surrounded him from the instant of his appearance grew bright and hard.
“Stop before I have to do something you’ll regret,” he said quietly. “Listen to me for a moment. We three can reach an accommodation. Your world will be better for the gifts I bring to it. Matrin swarms now with murderers, rapists, slavers, and thieves; with diseases and poverty and addictions to a thousand poisons and abuses of a thousand vices. It doesn’t need to. There’s a better way.”
“The Dragon way?” Kait snarled, fighting her Karnee form to speak. “We’ve already seen that way. The Dragons would have built a lovely world, but they wanted to use the souls of the innocent to do it, as if human souls were appetizers before a banquet, to be devoured by the dozens or hundreds and then forgotten.”
“Dafril and his colleagues were wasteful and greedy.”
“And you’re not?” Kait asked. She and Ry kept circling Luercas, watching for another opening, but he’d become much more careful.
“That’s correct. I’m not. I am a man with simple wants and simple needs. I have eminently sensible goals.” He sighed. “I want to live forever; what sensible man does not? I differ only from most men in that I have found a way to have what I want. I want to make sure I spend eternity in comfort and happiness, and in pleasant and agreeable surroundings, free from want and suffering and ugliness. Again, my desires are such that I share them with every living human being. I differ from everyone else only in that I have been intelligent enough and determined enough to overcome the considerable obstacles that separate me from my dreams. I can live forever only if I am a god—I can guarantee eternal comfort and happiness to myself and everyone else only if I control the world in which I live.”
He spread his hands in a placating gesture. “In wanting pleasant surroundings and beauty, I must create a world that will offer these things to everyone equally. Don’t you see? Ugliness is offensive whether one faces it daily or is simply forced to know that it exists in the shadows at a distance. I will not wantonly waste lives or souls—the best gamekeeper is the one who remembers that if he kills all his deer today, he shall starve on the morrow. I do, however, accept the maxim that no one can eat venison who does not kill a deer.”
Move in a little, Ry said into her thoughts. Edge him toward the void.
They moved, and Luercas laughed and was suddenly behind them, farther from the trap than he had been before. “I’m not going to step into your trap,” he said gently. “Please stop trying to maneuver me into it. Listen to sense. Not all souls are deserving of immortality. Not all lives are equal. Can you truly tell me that a peddler in the flesh of young children is as worthy of eternity as the two of you? Or what of his customer, who buys the children, uses them as sexual playthings for a time, and then throws them away, ruined and scarred and broken for the rest of their lives—if they even survive? How has the woman who poisons her husband and her children in order to gain control of the family estate and become parata of it all earned eternity? Tell me—what of the man who slaughters strangers for the pleasure of watching them die; what of the raper of the helpless; what of the thief who in the name of his god or his Family or his city steals the poor into oblivion, and calls his thievery taxation, and claims it as his rightful due?”
Ry growled, “What of the petty demagogue who lays claim to souls not his own to buy himself eternity?”
Luercas smiled indulgently. “Better worlds are not built without cost. I will bring peace and safety to the streets; I will bring food to the tables of the poor, security to the aged in their time of great need, education and civilization and employment to those who now are ignorant and struggling. No disease will ravage any city under my care, no child will suffer abuse or die of hunger.”
“And all you want in exchange,” Kait said, circling and circling, “is our free will. Our bodies. Our souls.”
“The bodies of the irreparably damaged. The souls of the evil. Any good gamekeeper culls out the sick and the foul—it improves the herd.” Luercas shrugged. “And free will—”
“Free will,” Kait interrupted, “is the thing that makes us not a herd to be kept and culled and improved. Free will gives us the drive to improve ourselves. Or not, if we so choose.”
Ry slipped closer, teeth bared in a feral grin, claws out. “All men are evil sometimes. It is the immortality of the soul and the mortality of the flesh that gives each the opportunity to be reborn—to learn and grow and improve. The very thing you would strip away is the thing we most need.”
“What? An endless cycle of pissing, shitting, helpless infancy followed by stupid, weak childhood and pigheaded adolescence; then a few brief years of glorious adulthood followed by senility, senescence, and decay—and a final ignominious return to shitting, pissing helplessness in the form of a second, aged infancy? And then dying. Ah, dying. Hideous, humbling days or weeks or months or years that rip every vestige of self-respect from a man and leave him gasping like a fish tossed on a bank for just a bit of air he can breathe? That leave him begging his gods for an end to the pain, groveling for the simplest of mercies, for the end of everything he once held dear so that those he loved will no longer see him writhing in his cowardice and his shame? And then death itself, which should be the end of it all—but it isn’t. Because then we must come back and do it again. And again. And again. Learning every time. Becoming better every time—or so the gods would mislead us to believe.”
They moved closer to Luercas and he lashed out at them with magic—not enough to damage them; just enough to fling them away from him as if they were toys.
He snarled, “That is the fate you would demand for all of us equally. Well, I applaud your idealism and your fine and shiny belief that all souls, given time, will become worthy of life, but I don’t share your optimism. The evil sta
y evil; the good wear down from the weight of bitter lives one piled upon another and become evil. I see a better way to spend eternity. My way helps many, hurts only those deserving of hurt, and removes me from a cycle of existence that I find pointless, humiliating, and disgusting.”
“And the billions who are trapped in the Wizards’ Circles?” Kait asked.
She saw surprise cross his face, but then he shrugged. “They’re lost, ruined a thousand years ago, damaged now beyond repair. Their madness grows deeper and more terrible with every passing day, and the magical poison they spew out into the world grows worse. For them—and for the survival of Matrin—oblivion will be a mercy. I do a service, really. To them. To all who live or ever will live in Matrin again.”
“You delude yourself if you think there is anything but evil in your plan,” Kait said.
“You may believe what you wish. I am a good man, though, and I will prove it to you. You may walk away from this battle unscathed, right now, if you will only swear on your souls that neither you nor your Falcons will attempt to hinder me again. Your only other option is to die, which you don’t want and I don’t want. You cannot win. Surely you can see that; you haven’t the talent or the strength to stand against me.”
Kait felt him probing at her mind as he turned, as they circled; he was digging for her thoughts. She shielded herself as best she could, and so did Ry, but Luercas was right: He was stronger than both of them together, and he tore through their meager shields and into the secrets they had tried to keep as easily as a child would tear through ribbon and paper to get to the treat beneath. She felt him pawing through her thoughts and through Ry’s.
He did not gloat at what he found, though. Instead he grew still, and stared at the two of them with an expression of sudden uncertainty that bordered on fear.
