24: Chaos Born
Tamerlan
COME ON! COME ON! KILL! Maid Chaos’ voice broke through the chaos in his mind.
His head was aching so hard from all the voices that he felt dazed. Pain sliced through his mind at the louder voice cutting over the rest.
I can feel the avatar. She is close! Hurry!
And there’s more, Lila Cherrylocks interrupted. I feel Choan stirring.
No time for that! Maid Chaos again. Focus! Focus!
Dragon. Ram was always focused.
If they were lucky, she wouldn’t already be dead. If they were lucky.
The Grandfather is with her. You must be ready.
That meant he had to smoke. Tamerlan stumbled along behind Etienne, holding his head in one hand, trying to think. Could there be a downside to smoking?
Open the Bridge! Do it! Or you’ll be too late.
Last time there hadn’t been a downside. Abelmeyer had performed wonderfully. It felt wrong to rely so much on the Legends, but when he smoked the chaos was gone, the voices silent – except for one. He would be able to think again. But Abelmeyer hadn’t been willing to use the Eye. And this time, they needed to use it.
Clamor filled his mind as the Legends urged him to listen, making thought impossible.
Let us guide you!
We will help!
Open the Bridge!
You need us right now. We can fix everything.
Of course we’ll use Abelmeyer’s Eye!
“I smell something strange below,” Anglarok said. “Something beyond embalming spices and blood. And it must be powerful to drown those out!”
Open it!
Anglarok pulled out a shell from his pocket, placing it to his ear.
“It’s here somewhere. Something ... wrong.”
“Then we have to hurry,” Liandari said, looking back at the door they’d barred behind them. “The invasion is succeeding. This building won’t be empty for long.”
They all looked nervous. But to them, the chaos was without, and to Tamerlan the chaos was within.
Let it end. Open the Bridge. I will take your hand! Abelmeyer called to him.
Let me out! Lila Cherrylocks insisted. You know I can help you! I will use Abelmeyer’s Eye for you!
My avatar! My avatar!
Tamerlan clutched his head, trying to hold back the pain of their screams.
“There must be a way down,” Etienne muttered, running his hands along the wainscoting on the wall as Liandari perused the shelves upon shelves of spices.
“This is for the dead?” she asked. “But why is there no one here?”
Etienne shook his head. “I don’t know. But I see no doors to below, only steps to the floors above.”
“I smell the dead everywhere,” Anglarok said with his nose wrinkling. “But there is something more.”
He sniffed along the wall, following his nose like a hunting dog. Tamerlan felt a pang of sadness at the sight. He looked just like Marielle.
And she’ll never get out of the clock unless you let us out!
Nothing else mattered compared to freeing her. He was past redemption, but there was still hope if he could only free her.
It was his choice to make. And his choice was Marielle.
He took a roll of Spice from his sleeve. This wasn’t the time to be fussy. He needed to open the Bridge and let out a Legend before they found the way down. It was his only hope to use the Eye and trap the Grandfather.
There was still a fire burning in the hearth. He plunged the roll into the fire and lit the end.
His hand was shaking. He wasn’t ready to go blind. But what other choice was there?
“Here it is!” Anglarok said, pressing his fingers to the carved edge of the wainscoting. The floor beneath them began to slide and an opening formed with steps leading downward.
“Come on, Tamerlan,” Etienne called, catching Tamerlan’s eye and shaking his head at the Spice.
Tamerlan hurried to follow, but he kept the roll of Spice at his side. Etienne might disapprove, but they still needed the Spice. They needed the Legends. They needed all the help they could get. No matter the cost to him.
He hurried down the steps behind Etienne and the Harbingers, nearly stumbling over Anglarok as the man fell to his knees, clutching his face. Moaning in high pitched agony as he tried to cover his nose and mouth from whatever smell was below.
No time for that.
Tamerlan leapt over Anglarok’s crouched body, hurrying down the steps. Below was the Maid Chaos’s avatar, and the Grandfather would be there – he was sure of it. If he did this right, they would save Marielle at long last.
25: Stalking Madness
Marielle
SHE’D FOLLOWED THEM from a distance. They didn’t seem to notice her unless she was close, but they buzzed around him like bees, their ghostly selves flickering in and out of sight as they stalked him. His head was in his hands as if he were trying to block them out, while around him they each tried to whisper into his ears.
Maybe out in the real world they might look grand or noble, but to Marielle, the ghosts of the Legends looked like gnarled, twisted spirits. Their translucent appearances winked in and out, elongating to stretch toward Tamerlan’s ears as they spoke incessantly to him.
Let us out! Let us out!
It was a wonder he wasn’t mad!
Or maybe he was. Maybe that explained a lot.
She felt a twinge of pain – or was it fear? – at the thought of Tamerlan going mad. It felt deeply personal, somehow.
He was fighting them as they went down the stairs. Marielle followed a few paces behind them. Tamerlan couldn’t see her and the spirits were too obsessed with him to notice her. Why him? Why did they all plague him? They didn’t seem to notice Etienne or the Windsniffer and Liandari.
It was hard to watch the Harbingers working with Tamerlan. It ached to think that they could help while she was stuck. She just wanted to be with them. She just wanted to help with this fight – whatever it was. She clenched her fists, watching as the Legends grew more frenzied. They whirled around Tamerlan like dry leaves in the wind. Whispering, whispering, whispering.
And then she felt him.
“The Grandfather,” she whispered and her eyes left Tamerlan as she searched for him.
He was here somewhere. She could feel it. She could locate almost anyone now that she was in the clock. She wasn’t sure how, only that she could, like swimming in a current. You could guide where the current took you, but you couldn’t control the current.
She smelled his foul insanity – the astringent scent of elderberry and malicious intent – rust-like and powerful. The insanity warped the colors around him, making them more vibrant but much less stable.
If she could just see how he flashed through time and space – maybe she could duplicate that, too. Maybe, she wouldn’t have to stay in this clock ...
26: Beneath the Embalmer’s Guild
Tamerlan
A LARGE crack split the air and a cry. He jumped the last four steps, landing in a crouch to see Liandari in a heap on the ground in front of him, her sword still clattering over the stone. Etienne stood in front of him, blade raised, coat swirling around him.
They’d been right.
The Grandfather was here.
The Grandfather rushed toward them in the green glow of the light on this lower floor, his hands held out. He was in front of them but then suddenly he was behind Etienne with his hands wrapped around the man’s throat as if there had been no distance at all between one point and the next.
Tamerlan bit back a curse, but he needed no more prodding. Desperately, he jammed the rolled paper in his mouth, pulling on it like a dying man sucking in his last breaths.
His mind cleared and he was rushing forward, tube of paper still stuck to his lower lip, as the Legend took his body.
Maid Chaos.
Dragon’s spit! Fear and rage shot through him and for a moment he wasn’t sur
e if it was his fear and rage over having drawn her from the Legends or hers over the Grandfather’s presence in her shrine.
Use the Eye!
She leapt at the Grandfather like a jungle cat leaping out on its prey. Glee filled her mental voice as she ripped him off Etienne’s back by sheer force, lifting him in Tamerlan’s arms and flinging him against the stone wall beside them. There was a cracking sound.
He should have slumped to the ground, but Legends didn’t slump. He was back on his feet in an instant, dodging back behind the glowing thing at the center of the room.
Tamerlan finally caught a good look at it and if he’d been in charge of his body, he would have frozen in horror. He was not. Maid Chaos laughed with his voice, delight filling her at the grisly sight.
Whoever had done that to a once-living thing either had taken great care out of respect or out of a grisly obsession.
Standing rigid and half-wrapped stood a black, shriveled ... thing. That it had once been human was – possible – though not clear. What flesh it once had was dried and clung to the bones like peel to fruit. Whether it was male or female was beyond telling. Someone had wrapped it from feet to waist in woven cloths. But from the waist up, the cloths were torn, stained, and jagged – as if the creature had enough life to pull them off that far but no farther. It glowed a sickly green. Why did it glow? That made no sense at all.
Floating around the ancient remains were glowing glass jars filled with piles of dust and the dust glowed green and seemed to writhe within the sealed jars.
My avatar.
He’d thought that Maid Chaos was a beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair and a breastplate of gold.
I was. In life.
But the other avatars had been recognizable. Deathless Pirate had clearly been himself. Queen Mer had been like her legends. The Grandfather had been untouched by the ravages of time.
My people tried their best. Their efforts were not perfect. They wanted to maintain life in my corporal body long past the time. It was a valiant attempt.
And a horrific result.
I bathe in horror. I revel in desecration.
And she was in his mind. Controlling his body. His soul shuddered.
And she wasn’t staying still.
As the Grandfather dashed behind her avatar, banging and clanging as he reached for some implement off a nearby rack, Maid Chaos followed. She drew Tamerlan’s sword letting it drag along the scabbard, so it came out with a rasping sound as she laughed.
Not the sword! The Eye.
I’m going to kill him. I don’t need an Eye for that!
“As it was written long ago, ‘She will dash him to the rocks. She will defy time. She will say – no further!’ My followers used that prophecy to guide them in the creation of this avatar, but today it comes true in your presence, Grandfather. Today, I slay you.”
She leapt forward, but he was faster. He stepped out from the rack of tools with a large sickle – the type used to collect spices for embalming. But this one was larger than any Tamerlan had ever seen. What would you cut with that? It was nearly the size of a scythe.
“So easily you misinterpret. As always, Clarissa. You could never see past the moment,” the Grandfather said. And with a single sweep of his scythe, he slashed through the avatar, cutting her clean through at the waist and smashing the floating jars.
The lights went out.
But Maid Chaos’ scream through Tamerlan’s throat seemed to go on forever. It echoed through time and space until it seemed like Tamerlan might have a living scream within him for the rest of his life.
27: Chaos Incarnate
Marielle
HOW WAS ANGLAROK NOT smelling this? All Marielle could smell was Legend – at first, she’d thought the scent was madness she knew now what it was – it was Legend. The smell of madness distilled over hundreds of years and made more potent, more powerful. It leaked all around Tamerlan like the drain of an alley leaking out to the canal, mixing in and out of his golden scent like a woven basket.
Maid Chaos had him completely in her grasp and to Marielle’s eyes, her ghostly shape was overlaid over Tamerlan’s normal human shape. His actions seemed delayed a half-second after hers – as if she were controlling them. And wasn’t that because she was?
That was his secret. His horrible, deadly secret.
Realization flooded over her, leaving her chilled. In Jingen, when the Butcher of the Temple District had strode through the streets slaying anyone in his path it really had been Tamerlan. And it really had been Maid Chaos. Suddenly – Marielle was seeing everything clearly.
When he’d given an eye to stop the dragon that really had been King Abelmeyer. And it had really been Tamerlan.
He was everything she knew him to be – a heroic, compassionate, intelligent man. And everything she feared – horrific, deadly, and murderous. He was both what she’d feared and what she’d hoped all wrapped into one. Who could have imagined such a thing?
A light flared and Marielle saw everything at once before it was suddenly extinguished again. Etienne holding the lantern over his head with a look of worried puzzlement on his face. Liandari slumped on the ground, eyes closed. Anglarok curled in on himself against the smell, moaning in pain. The avatar a ruined mess of ancient cloth, shattered glass, dust, and dried meat in a crude tangle on the floor. Tamerlan screaming, his face a mask of agony as he charged after the darting shape of the Grandfather.
The Grandfather snatched the lantern from Etienne as he passed, dashing it against the wall. A crash followed by darkness.
And then Marielle was hurrying to chase them. The light of the room above hit her like the blow of a hammer, but she had no physical body to deal with, no physical eyes to squint in pain.
The Grandfather rushed out onto the streets of Choan, Tamerlan at his heels. He was fast, but Tamerlan was faster. As they ran past the little fence surrounding the Embalmers, Maid Chaos reached out and pulled a bar from the fence as easily as if it were a twig from a bush.
“My last run will be one for the stories, Grandfather!” she yelled, hurling the bar at his back.
It bounced off and he stumbled out into a knot of men dressed like the nameless who had served Liandari and Anglarok. They attacked without warning, harpoons stabbing. The first in the group stabbed out at the Grandfather, but the Legend was too fast for him. He grabbed the harpoon, flicking it with so much power that the nameless who had attacked him spun through the air like a discarded rag. Two more leapt toward the Grandfather but the harpoon he’d stolen spun in his hands, swiping each of them out of the way.
Tamerlan had caught up now. He leapt toward the Grandfather, his sword flashing in the light of morning.
Oranges, trampled to mush, filled the streets, coating everything in sticky juice and filling the world with the scent of citrus. But Marielle smelled more than oranges. She smelled terror – raw red swirls that burnt her nose with the smell of vinegar tangled between houses and guild buildings. She could smell the people within, hiding in terror, some hurt, some dead. She smelled their blood as it slicked the walls of the buildings and flowed through the streets. She shuddered at the thought of it.
Had they stepped into a battle?
The ground beneath them shook, making both the Grandfather and Tamerlan stumble as they engaged in a duel so fast that Marielle struggled to see every movement. Sword met harpoon, spun toward the head of the opponent, missed as he ducked, immediately lashed out at his feet, whistled through the air as he leapt, twisted to slash mid-body. The strokes grew faster, faster, faster as they pressed the attack. Maid Chaos versus Grandfather Timeless. It looked almost as if the two had sparred a thousand times before. As if they knew every move the other would make and were already countering it before the opponent could even move. But if the Grandfather won it wouldn’t be Maid Chaos who died. It would be Tamerlan.
He had to win.
If he lost, all was lost.
And he would be lost, too. He needed sav
ing as badly as she did – saving from the Legends.
Marielle snuck closer, closer, closer until she was at his back. Maid Chaos stepped back, dodging a blow, and just like that, Marielle was in Tamerlan’s mind with him, looking through his eyes, watching the gleam in the Grandfather’s Eye as they pressed the attack.
She hadn’t meant to do that.
Meant to do what?
That was his voice!
Marielle? Is that you?
Shut up, you two! I’m trying to concentrate. Maid Chaos’s mental growl actually stung.
Marielle felt like her eyes should grow wide. This wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She wasn’t supposed to be inside his mind. But unlike Maid Chaos, she had no control over his actions. No control over what he might do – or not do. She felt his helplessness. Felt his desperation for the Legend to succeed and destroy Grandfather Timeless.
And the Maid could fight. She held her own, matching the Grandfather move for move. In Tamerlan’s body, she might even be faster than him. The Grandfather spun to the side, avoiding a clump of Choan guards as they rushed into the enemy with battle cries. She followed him, dodging the nameless who rushed to counter the guard. None of them seemed to care about the two Legends with the private duel, but indifferent blades could kill just as quickly. And they were fighting their duel in the middle of an invasion.
The Grandfather spun suddenly to the side, leaping up onto the top of an orange seller’s cart. The seller was long gone, hiding, fighting, or dead. But the oranges fell in every direction from the over-full cart as the Grandfather scrambled over them. Maid Chaos leapt after him, scrambling over falling oranges and fighting for speed as she had to scramble for footing, too. The Grandfather climbed from the cart to an awning, his feet slipping over the angled cloth as he fought for purchase. Tamerlan reached after him, snagging the back of his coat and tugging hard.
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