Siege and Sacrifice (Numina)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

“And keeping casualties high.” Arnae’s tone was dark.

  The older man’s eyes whisked from her, to Rist, to Bastien, then back to her. “Where’s Rone?”

  Sandis felt Bastien tense. There was so much to explain that evasion was simply easier—and kinder. “We’re rendezvousing with him later.” Celestial, God, please let it be so.

  Arnae nodded. “Do you know the Green Street Boardinghouse?”

  It took a heartbeat for Sandis to connect the name with the building above the Riggers’ hideaway. She nodded.

  “If you need help, head there. I have to go”—he glanced past her—“but I hope to see you again. Take care of yourself, Sandis. And tell that boy not to get himself killed.”

  Cold lanced her middle. “I will.”

  He clasped her shoulder, then pushed past the others to the main street, where he vanished.

  “Sandis?” Bastien asked.

  Compass points. Sandis slinked out of the alley. Gathering courage, she said, “I want to see what he’s talking about. I want to know what Kolosos is planning.”

  Rist said, “We’ll have to watch out for soldiers.”

  Nodding, she clasped Bastien’s hand. “Guess we’ll see who knows these streets better.”

  Chapter 21

  Touch me.

  Rone and Ireth stood in a short canyon of glass painted the same indigo as the night sky. The only light came from the pinpricks of stars beneath it, and from the fire licking Ireth’s dark skin like it was alive.

  Rone, leaning against the cool chasm wall, said, “What?”

  Touch me, and I will show you.

  Confused, Rone pushed himself upright and moved toward Ireth. The fire on his back shrunk down, like it was afraid, and the heat diminished with it. Ireth stretched his long head forward, and the scent of ash and burning metal filled Rone’s nose.

  He touched Ireth, or tried to. His hand passed right through him, like the horse was a ghost.

  The moment it did, his mind flashed elsewhere.

  “It is an unexplored path, Mighty.” The narrow man had a hooked nose and bluish skin, like he had been left too long in the snow. Everyone in the room looked like that. Most had thick brows and wide noses. They wore leathers and skins and favored ornaments on their shoulders. The speaker’s hairline curved into a sharp widow’s peak.

  These are the Noscons, Rone realized, gaping.

  The man called Mighty wore a headpiece not unlike the one Rone had stolen from Ernst Renad. A matching mantle hung across his shoulders and collarbone. “Kaj, it is not done.”

  Kaj. Rone’s focus targeted the narrow man. He wasn’t what Rone would have pictured as becoming an all-powerful bull god. He was thin, about Bastien’s height. His hair was greasy and slicked back from his angular face. Rone wanted to move closer, but his feet remained rooted to the spot. He couldn’t so much as lift a finger.

  “Please, listen to me, Mighty,” Kaj continued, bowing, his voice oily and pressing. “I have studied, I have sought the gods. I believe this leads to immortality. I must pursue it. Think of the glory. Think of our people!”

  The heavy, accented words flowed through Rone’s mind. He knew they were Noscon, yet he understood them as Kolin. His vision moved to the gilded man, the “Mighty.” His broad face darkened, thick brow lowered. “It is not for man to know.”

  The vision blurred, changed. Rone stood outside, in a world that looked like Kolingrad . . . only richer somehow. More trees, darker earth. A funeral pyre burned hot in front of him. He could feel the heat on his face. Taste the smoke on his tongue.

  Rone blinked, and his body returned to him. He jerked back, pulling his scorched hand from Ireth’s skin. He nearly fell backward onto the glass floor.

  “What was that?” He breathed heavily, desperate for water. But there was none. He’d lapped up the last drop of the puddle he’d retrieved hours ago.

  My memories, Ireth said. I can only show you what I know, and what I have remembered. It has been a long time.

  Rone took a moment to catch his breath. He studied the fire numen. He hadn’t been able to move in the vision because he’d stood where Ireth, the man, had once stood.

  Ireth turned away from him, his foremost set of horns pointing toward the warped sun. One minute of immortality was not enough for him. His sorcery grew darker . . . Forgive me, I do not remember well. And I am not Kaj. His memories are not mine.

  “I think I’m keeping up fairly well,” Rone offered. He rubbed a chill from his arms.

  Our Mighty found out. But before Kaj could face his trials, he unleashed his magic. It swallowed us all.

  “He made this place.” Rone walked until he stood before Ireth once more. “The ethereal plane. He made you immortal.”

  He imprisoned our spirits in a semblance of immortality, yes. A puff of hot air emitted from his nostrils. Took away our ability to touch, to taste, to smell. Took away our home, but placed it where we would always see it and yearn.

  Rone licked his lips. Slowly, he asked, “How did you forget?”

  It has been a long time. Ireth straightened, his height intimidating. We became mad as we watched a world we could not touch. With time, we forgot what we had been. Our forms changed, slowly adopting what we saw.

  “You mimicked the world you saw?” Rone ran a hand back through his hair. He thought of all the numina he’d seen. Their different and bizarre forms. All of it part animal, plant, nature.

  When I remembered, I stopped changing. My spirit froze in the form you see now. The fire horse paused. Even Kaj, Kolosos, regrets what he did. That is why we are here.

  Rone digested this. Turned away and paced over the starry glass. Turned back and paced in a different direction. Rubbed the back of his neck. God’s tower, he was thirsty. He needed to reach into the world for more water. As much as he could get. But right now he needed to think. Think.

  A moment later, he turned back to Ireth, itching beneath his skin. “Can you fight him?”

  Ireth regarded him silently before answering. Kaj is powerful.

  Rone rubbed his hands together. Settled them on his hips. “My people are fighting him on the mortal plane.”

  Feebly.

  Rone glanced down at his hand, turned it over. “You can’t touch me. Which means the numen that chased me before couldn’t have harmed me. I’m immortal here. Minus the ‘sustenance’ thing.”

  The horse whickered, and Rone couldn’t tell if Ireth was laughing at him or merely surprised. We cannot touch you body to body, but our abilities are real. Taking a step back, Ireth snorted, and a fist-sized fireball shot at Rone’s shoe. He jumped back as the heat pushed through the leather. Stomped his foot until the small flame sputtered out.

  “Point taken,” he muttered as he examined his scorched boot. He met the numen’s dark eyes. “I might be mortal, but the numina aren’t. Your people could fight Kolosos, on this plane.” He snapped his fingers, remembering. “Sandis said the other side of the astral sphere was the Celestial. Surely the Celestial could fight Kolosos!”

  But Ireth shook his head. Hepingya is reclusive.

  Hepingya. He’d said that name before. A cool sensation spread from Rone’s chest out toward his limbs. “So it’s true. The Celestial is a numen.” And Sandis had figured it out, all on her own. “Hepingya.” He couldn’t say the name with the same lilt Ireth used. Shaking his head, Rone added, “What do you mean, ‘reclusive’? Let’s find it.”

  If I could find Hepingya, I would be at his side now. It is not possible.

  Rone rolled his lips together, thinking. He paced away from Ireth, then back. “But we can find other numina, right? They could help us.”

  They do not remember. But this time Ireth tilted his long head, regarding him with what he guessed was interest.

  “You said some do.” Rone stepped closer. “Some remember. And if Kolosos faces resistance here as well as on the mortal plane, he won’t have time to rest. To build whatever he’s building. If nothing else, we can slow him dow
n until we have a better option.”

  Ireth considered for a long moment, but Rone didn’t dare break his concentration. He waited, counting his breaths. The growls in his stomach.

  Perhaps. Perhaps . . . yes.

  “Do you know who can help us?” he pressed.

  Ireth nodded. I know one who should be close to here. One who remembers, but not as well as I do.

  “Great!” Rone clapped. “Let’s go. Who is it?”

  Her name is Isepia.

  They were making pillars.

  Sandis was fairly sure. After leading the others to the northernmost curve of the wall, she had caught sight of the minion they’d followed from the cathedral. They’d watched as he and a few others stacked gold as though to make a column. Arnae had mentioned these people converging at the compass points, so it had to be the same in the south, west, and east.

  Slaves. They were slaves. Sandis imagined herself among them and shivered.

  She, Rist, and Bastien had returned to the Innerchord, where they’d found a perch atop a two-story sweetshop with boarded windows, seemingly abandoned by its owners. Most of the riots were happening farther out, away from easy government reach, so this was as safe a spot as any, so long as the sun was out. Sandis wondered if the bakers had managed to flee Dresberg before soldiers were appointed to keep everyone inside, or if they were hiding somewhere, waiting and praying for Kolosos to pass over them.

  Sitting on the roof, they’d eaten the rest of the food Sandis had collected from Triumvir Var’s house, along with nearly all their water. Sandis would have to find Sherig tomorrow for further help. But now, their bellies were partly full and they were mostly safe.

  What would happen when the pillars were complete? What was the monster trying to achieve?

  Warmth trickled down her spine like hot water. Sandis closed her eyes. Ireth. What should I do?

  Pressure built at the bottom of her skull, and in it she tasted fear. This wasn’t the desperate fear he’d given her earlier, but a subtle, worrying fear. Sandis swallowed and whispered, “I’ll be all right.”

  Perhaps sensing her unease, Bastien laid a hand on her shoulder. She offered him a weak smile. Behind them, Rist paced over the slanted shingles. The roof wasn’t large enough to give his long legs proper exercise.

  “Soldiers.” Bastien pointed up the road. “I think they’re yelling at those people.”

  The soldiers had fallen in around a small group of men. Sandis couldn’t tell what they were saying, just heard the occasional shout, spied the movement of shadowed arms. Maybe they were attempting to draft soldiers for the dwindling army.

  “Let’s move,” she whispered, and crawled to the other side of the roof, the one facing away from the street. The moon, which was brighter and clearer than Sandis had ever seen it, thanks to so many stagnant smokestacks, ducked behind a cloud, leaving them in near darkness.

  Sandis had thought she’d be prepared for Kolosos to return, for the numen’s shaking footsteps and fiery aura, but nothing could prepare her for the sheer force that was Kolosos. A burst of heat pushed wind toward her, and on it she smelled burnt hair and something rotten. A great deal of the enormous monster was black, but the red cracks in its skin highlighted every crevice and shape of its horrid form.

  It had come from the south, just as General Istrude had said.

  Sandis felt both too close to and too far from the golden plate. The creature’s nearness burned her eyes, and her blood ran hot and quick through her body. Its horns stretched starward like parched stakes, and for a fleeting moment, as it turned, Sandis thought its molten red eyes looked directly into her own. She grabbed Bastien’s good forearm and squeezed it.

  A few of the once-brave bystanders began to flee. Kolosos found them, and Sandis shrunk into herself as the monster planted them, one by one, on the gold plate. She wanted desperately to save them, yet she knew she could do nothing. Not yet. She was too weak. They all were.

  It was just as the messenger had described. Sandis could barely see Kolosos’s work, but the screaming ceased as soon as the chosen humans’ feet hit the gold plate. Then Kolosos fetched another mortal, and then another.

  One of the stupefied slaves walked down the street beside the sweetshop. She stared forward, ignoring the bend in her right ankle. She was erect, fearless, and strange.

  The world shook as Kolosos moved. Soldiers backed up the street, armed but not fighting. They also knew they were too weak. Kolosos didn’t run after them, however. It moved away from Sandis, enough so that she dared to stand to get a better look.

  The city trembled with the monster’s steps, and the quakes knocked her back. Rist caught her shoulder. They exchanged a silent glance.

  Rist slid to the edge of the roof and climbed down. Biting her lip, Sandis gestured for Bastien to follow, helping him protect his left side as he dropped to the ground.

  They shied away from the soldiers, most of whom seemed to be scouting more than anything else. Was General Istrude among them, planning a new battle tactic?

  Slinking against the outer wall of a silent flat, the trio crossed another road and then another, following Kolosos’s glow. The numen was oddly quiet. So unlike the rage that had propelled it under Kazen’s bidding.

  The city shook again. Sandis barely kept her footing. The moment the ground stilled, she dashed ahead of Rist and peeked around another skyscraping building.

  Kolosos was on its knees, its fire burning the concrete around it. It had dug a deep trench in the road. Continued to dig.

  “I-I think,” Bastien said behind her, barely audible, “I think its l-looking for the ruins. Wh-What else could be under there?”

  Sandis pressed her lips together. The numina had sprung from Noscon magic. What was the monster seeking? More magic?

  Gold. The word came unbidden, so much so that she wondered if Bastien, or even Ireth, had whispered it. Kolosos wants more gold for the pillars.

  Rist’s hand grabbed her upper arm. “We’re too close,” he murmured. “We won’t miss anything if we move farther back.”

  Sandis’s feet resisted moving. She had to stay close. Kolosos’s sheer size made its strides long and fast. If she couldn’t track it, she couldn’t get Anon. The way the road hissed and melted beneath it confirmed what she already knew—she’d never be able to touch the monster and simply spell it back to the ethereal plane. Oh, if only it were so easy.

  Rist was right. If they lingered, Kolosos could swipe out with its cleansing fire and kill them.

  Nodding, Sandis allowed him to pull her away. Her brands itched, fingers twitched. Mouth dried.

  Soon. Soon. Kolosos could not exist in this plane for even half an hour. It would have to run, and then Sandis would give chase. Try to do what General Istrude and the others could not.

  She thought of the anguished look that had twisted Oz’s face as he confessed Jansen’s demise. The agony on Bastien’s face as the doctor tended his burns.

  But she wouldn’t let Rist or Bastien die. She’d protect them. Anon, too.

  She’d die doing so, if that’s what it took.

  Rone had not missed the one-winged, savage woman in their time apart, but he was oddly happy to see her.

  He and Ireth had passed two other numina on their journey to find her, both as feral as wild animals. The first had been a deerlike creature with long violet leaves growing out of its head. It had growled as they neared, but a flash of fire from Ireth had kept it at bay. The other had been what Rone could only describe as a lizard with crystalline scales in ten different colors, three long tails sweeping from its backside. Rone wondered if this was the numen that had chased him upon his arrival to the plane, but it had skittered away immediately, more prey than predator. All Ireth had said was Forgotten.

  Isepia lingered in what Rone would call the ethereal plane’s version of a mountain. It was a high, sheer cliff, similar to the one that Rone had leapt from only days ago. Square and rectangle pockets marked it like uneven windows, and Isepi
a rested in one of these, perhaps twenty feet up.

  She hissed when they approached, human eyes flicking from Ireth to Rone. Rone thought he saw recognition in them.

  He will kill us all, Ireth said. It took two heartbeats for Rone to realize the fire horse spoke to Isepia, not him, yet Rone could “hear” him still.

  Maybe not the best introduction.

  A low growl rumbled in the harpy’s throat. Thick Noscon words filled his head. A second later, the translation from Ireth: We cannot die.

  Rone glanced to Ireth.

  The fire horse’s mane and whiplike tail glowed brighter. You have seen his destruction. He is working magic just like before.

  Isepia’s growling ceased. Her brow furrowed. Before?

  She didn’t remember.

  Kaj trapped us here, Isepia. You used to be as he is. Ireth gestured with his muzzle toward Rone. We all did. Now Kaj works to destroy us to gain a mortal body.

  The half-human numen was silent a moment. She studied Rone. He is making pillars here, too.

  “What?” Rone asked.

  Ireth flicked his fire-laced tail close enough to Rone to risk burning his skin. Rone clenched his teeth together, no further message required.

  Pillars? Ireth asked.

  Isepia stood, but did not leave her nook. Her single wing stretched darkly behind her. He has begun to fit the others into pillars. He seeks to match the mortal city below.

  A shiver coursed through Rone. No gold, Isepia continued, but Kaj’s magic is infused into the numina. We are his fodder here.

  He will kill us for his pillars, Ireth said.

  Isepia glowered. Glanced at Rone. He is stronger than even you, Ireth.

  But not us. Not if we all pull together.

  Isepia growled, but nodded. I will come.

  The city gave way to Kolosos’s smoking fingers like clay to a sculptor’s hands.

  No one stopped it. Not Sandis, not the soldiers, not the Riggers, not God. They all watched, silent and waiting. Holding their breath. Afraid.

  Every time the monster straightened and moved, Sandis’s heart went wild in her chest. She pressed her nails into her arms, fighting her instinct to flee. But Kolosos didn’t see her. Or if it did, it didn’t care. The demon continued to dig, occasionally pulling up rocks or other objects from beneath Dresberg. Sandis never got close enough to see the exact items, but an occasional glint of gold reflected the red light emanating from the numen’s body.