Siege and Sacrifice (Numina)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Kolosos dumped its finds in the Innerchord.

  Then it ran.

  “Go!” Sandis cried. “Go!”

  She bolted after the giant, her gait nothing compared to its long strides. She hadn’t gotten far before a wall of fire rushed toward her.

  “Sandis!” Bastien shouted, grabbing her wrist. It popped when he yanked her back behind an overflowing garbage bin. The heat that encased her stole the air from her lungs and the tears from her eyes. Threatened to turn her skin to ash.

  The flames passed, the light with them, encasing Sandis in darkness.

  Rist cursed beside her. “No wonder they haven’t found its hiding spot yet.”

  Bastien grabbed Sandis’s hand and pressed it to his head. “Now, Sandis. We’ll lose it if we don’t go now.” He met her eyes. “I’ll forgive you. I promise.”

  Trying not to look at Bastien’s bandages, Sandis offered silent thanks and summoned Hapshi.

  Chapter 22

  “Black ashes,” Rone muttered. His footsteps slowed as he crossed the glassy, star-pocked expanse beneath his feet. All around him, the world was smooth. Dark. Like he lived inside a gem, hard and cold and eerily beautiful.

  It was the pillar that ruined the effect.

  The flatness of the area made it easy to see, even from far away. It had just taken a while for Rone’s human eyes to be able to understand what he was seeing. It was a pillar. Twenty feet tall. And it was formed from numina.

  He didn’t recognize any of them, but they were there, stacked upon one another like bricks, twitching, writhing, yet unable to break away. At the pillar’s base was a strange creature Rone had never before seen. A behemoth of a thing with a long nose sandwiched between two hulking tusks that dripped with ice. The crystalline floor of the ethereal plane wrapped up around its trunk-like legs, holding it in place. It was a bodiless spirit, and yet it had been chained as if it were flesh and blood.

  Perched on the back of the lowermost numina was a rocky thing Rone would not have thought alive if not for its array of spidery eyes. Above that, two numina appeared glued together along their sides—one that looked like a rabid version of Hapshi and another with a striped, equestrian body and the head of an enormous golden flower, if flowers had fangs. Atop them, bound by its knees, was a humanoid numen like Isepia, though it had a strange-looking head that Rone wanted to call feline, and yet it distinctly wasn’t. Its impossibly green eyes looked upon them, and in a heavy Noscon accent, Rone heard the word Ireth, followed by something that could only be pleading.

  A few more creatures stood upon the shoulders of the cat-headed one, mewling and hissing at one another. Chained without chains.

  “This is what you meant,” Rone said softly. “It matches the pillars we saw in Dresberg, but—”

  Heinous, Ireth replied. Any other day, Rone might have been impressed that the numen knew Kolin well enough to use so powerful a word. But Rone’s thoughts held no mirth, only solemnity for the suffering literally piled before him.

  Whether or not the numina remembered their lives before, no being should be treated thusly.

  The tusked creature made a thick whistling sound as Rone approached. He lifted both hands overhead, unsure if the numen would recognize the offering of peace. “How do I free them?”

  I am not sure, Ireth answered.

  The tusked numen pulled against the glass enclosing its feet, but the plane didn’t give. Rone reached a hand for its enormous nose. His touch passed right through it, as though it weren’t there.

  Images of a forest flashed through his head. Of a sparkling canopy.

  Pulling his hand back, Rone blinked his vision clear. Whatever magic had shown him Ireth’s past was not unique to the fire horse.

  He rolled his lips together, contemplating. “If Sandis, or another vessel, were to summon one of these numina, would it still work?”

  I do not know. Summoning taps into the same magic Kaj is working. I understand only a portion of it.

  A sudden gust stirred Rone’s hair and jacket. Isepia had launched herself into the stale air, until she was at the height of the topmost numina. If she spoke, she did so in a way Rone could not hear.

  Steeling himself, Rone walked forward, passing through the tusked numen’s body. It was like walking through heavy steam without heat, or water thickened by paint. More visions clouded his mind, trying to whisk him away from reality . . . but they were disjointed, confused. A baby without a face cradled in slender arms. The forest. Running. A faceless man. Memories eaten up by time.

  Gritting his teeth, Rone forced himself to remain present. He looked up through the murky spirit engulfing him, just able to make out the shadows of the spidery rock being overhead. A song. A lullaby with no words. It was about ten feet from the ground; he had to jump to reach it. Stirring a pot. His hand brushed the bottom of the connection.

  The tusked numen released a loud whistle at the same time the numen above Rone groaned, their cries followed by a sound like two slabs of granite grinding against each other. Whatever bound the two numina together vanished in the cacophony of noise.

  Rone back-stepped until he exited the numen completely.

  The pillar had fallen.

  The glassy ground still encased the tusked numen’s feet, and the other numina were still bound one to another, but the rock creature with the many eyes was no longer fused to the tusked numen.

  Rone swore, more in amazement than anything else.

  You are mortal, Ireth said, as though Rone had forgotten. Your mortal touch severed them—

  The ground trembled as though God itself had grabbed its edges and shaken it. Red light split the darkness, much closer than the last time.

  Ireth’s accented voice sounded in Rone’s head, but the words didn’t register as Rone jolted away, then tripped over his own feet, landing hard on his backside.

  Kolosos took form before him, barely one hundred feet away. Somehow, in this limitless place, he seemed even larger. Here, Kolosos was pure demon. Sheer power.

  And his burning, molten eyes were focused on Rone.

  Ireth’s words sliced Rone’s thoughts like a knife. Move, mortal! Or you will die where you stand!

  A prompt reminder that Rone didn’t have sixty seconds to spare. Not anymore.

  He leapt to his feet and bounded after Ireth. Rone couldn’t ride the fire horse—scorching flames aside, Ireth had no physical body here. None of them did. Isepia bolted to the left, her ability to fly helping her gain.

  Rone ran faster than he ever had. He rose onto his toes, legs pumping so quickly they went numb. Heart brutally surging blood through his body. Pain flaring in his ribs.

  Yes, he was a mortal—and a poorly fed one, at that.

  None of the numina had corporeal forms, and yet the ethereal plane shook with Kolosos’s every step. Those steps grew closer together as Kolosos gained speed. Heat pressed against Rone’s back, and the smell of sulfur stung his eyes.

  Ahead of Rone, Ireth reared and turned around, galloping back toward him. The pale circle of light around his breast glowed so brightly Rone had to look away or lose his sight.

  Intense heat engulfed him. His skin and hair began to burn. Ash coated the inside of his nose—

  The light shifted. Rone turned toward the fire horse again, watching as Ireth sent a brilliant fireball surging over his head. It collided with Kolosos’s cracked, protruding face and crackled outward like lit gunpowder.

  Kolosos reeled back, his steps halting. The fireball didn’t seem to hurt him, only infuriate him. The glowing red between the cracks of the numen’s skin burned brighter, and Kolosos let out a roar that shook Rone’s eardrums.

  Run, run, run! Rone huffed as he put more distance between himself and Kolosos. Ireth galloped toward him, passed him, and sent up another ball of fire. A familiar shriek split the air; Rone recognized it from Kazen’s lair, the night he’d infiltrated it to rescue Sandis.

  Isepia had joined the fight.

  Rone risked ha
lf a glance back, spying the one-winged monster flitting around Kolosos’s head, distracting him. Kolosos swung for her, narrowly missing.

  Could one spirit inflict pain upon another? It had to be possible, or else the numina wouldn’t be so frantic. Then again, Rone would go mad if someone forced him into that kind of chained imprisonment.

  What would happen if Kolosos’s burning palm met its target?

  We should have been watching. We should have been watching for him. He should have kept track of when Kolosos would return. Then again, the monster might have transported back here early because he sensed Rone’s manipulation of his macabre pillars.

  Keep going! Ireth ordered him.

  Rone faced forward, begging his body to move faster. Already his muscles ached, yearning for rest. His throat yearned for drink. His strength was waning.

  And a new numen was racing toward him.

  It took Rone a moment to see the body against the dark expanse before him. Its tongue hung out of its mouth, and amber eyes sparked in its wolfish face.

  Rone recognized this numen. It had been bound to Dar, another of Kazen’s vessels.

  Drang, they’d called it.

  His mind raced along with his legs, trying to sort out how the hell he was supposed to fight off another numen while running for his life. If the beast tried to tackle him, claw him, it wouldn’t succeed. But for all Rone knew, Drang could summon some sort of magic to obliterate him.

  Before he could reach a conclusion, Drang darted to Rone’s left.

  Toward Kolosos.

  Rone slowed, gasping for air. He remembers, Rone thought, watching the third numen join the fight. He remembers, too.

  The ground quaked again . . . but wait, no. That was the air. It thickened and shivered around Rone, dancing in his lungs.

  Kolosos looked at Rone. Addressed him in a voice so heavy it hurt. Do you believe you have the power to stop me?

  Rone nearly shat his pants. Kolosos’s hooves came down so hard on the glassy ground it should have cracked.

  Ireth flung another fireball upward.

  Clenching his hands, Rone ran.

  The other way. Toward the fallen pillar. Toward the monster.

  Kolosos tromped toward him again. The heat was incredible and very much real. So was the shaking ground and the liquid rock seeping between cracks in the monster’s skin. But Kolosos was in the ethereal plane, and he was a numen, just like all the others.

  Rone was about to discover if he was very smart or very, very stupid.

  Fear pumping new energy into his legs, Rone bolted for the lava monster. Drang reached the monster first and barreled into its ankle, burning its shoulder in an attempt to knock the giant back. Isepia’s wind spread the sulfuric smell of rotten eggs through the dark expanse.

  Rone saw a clear path between Kolosos’s legs and dashed for it. But the monster turned, swiping for Isepia, and Rone ran right through the bulb of its hoof.

  It was like falling into the sun.

  And then Rone saw.

  “This proves it.” The voice came from Rone’s body, though he hadn’t said a word. The language was Noscon, yet he needed no translation. Blue smoke puffed from a bowl before him. Stone walls enclosed the small space furnished with simple chairs and a table. The empty tracks on the wall indicated the amarinth workshop they’d found in the sewers. “Our gods are false. This is the true power. There are many ways to manipulate it. We must simply discover how.”

  Three others in the room, two men and a woman, gaped at the bowl. One of the men grinned. The woman’s face drew downward. The second man came closer and peered into the bowl.

  “Teach me,” he said.

  “Swear to never repeat what you hear in this room,” Rone’s embodiment said, stirring the smoke with his hand. “Swear it. Only I can approve who joins our clan. Only I can reveal the secrets of this sorcery.”

  Kaj. Rone was watching Kolosos’s memories.

  The woman asked, “Clan? You intend to separate us from the others?”

  “The others have separated from us.” Rone felt Kaj frown. “The Mighty refuses to listen. As for this”—blue smoke danced around his fingers—“the others will never know.”

  Colors darkened. The room changed. The walls were now covered in stone tablets etched crookedly with Noscon symbols. Kaj flexed and relaxed his sore hands. Rone could feel the overused tendons, the blisters.

  What is the point to power if I must one day part from it? Kaj pressed his fingertips to one of the stone tablets. He was older now. Thinner. He drew his palm across the wall, corner to corner, before stopping and tracing a symbol with an overly long fingernail.

  “This,” he whispered to himself. “If we sacrifice enough . . . perhaps this will let us all live forever.”

  This time the transition was more abrupt. Rone found himself standing above a large divot in the earth, where the soil grew sandy and sank into the shape of a large bowl. Within it writhed Noscons young and old, male and female, gagged and bound. Rone—Kaj—and a few others stood around the edge of the bowl, expressionless, their hands linked. Rone recognized three of them as the men and woman from the first vision.

  Fear lit the bound Noscons’ eyes. Some struggled. Others sobbed.

  Kaj began to chant.

  Rone couldn’t shut his eyes. He couldn’t look away. Kaj had watched it, and so he must, too.

  He saw the sacrifices die, puff into wet red smoke. The smoke rose, cooled, and turned glassy against the sky.

  Rone stared up in awe.

  Was that . . . the ethereal plane?

  “No!” shouted an older man. The one who had wanted Kaj to teach him in the beginning. The vision had shifted again, and they were in the stone room from before. Two women wept in the corner. A disc of gold glistened at Kaj’s feet—the same Rone had found dented in the sewer, a miniscule version of the one Kolosos had created in Dresberg. This was that place, only thousands of years younger. “No, we will not send another! There is no point if we cannot pull them out!”

  Kaj looked upward, and Rone knew his thoughts. But are they alive?

  He’d sent his own followers into the ethereal plane. Was this his play for immortality? To create a realm where death didn’t exist?

  For a moment, Rone’s hunger turned the vision, the memory, fuzzy. He felt Kolosos’s heat pucker his skin.

  But the magic sucked him back in.

  “It will work.” Kaj took the hands of two people, a young woman and young man. “The bond will keep you connected.”

  The woman looked doubtful. “Are you . . . sure?”

  Anger flared through Kaj. “Do you question my power?”

  Dropping to his knees, the man answered, “Forgive her, Kaj. We trust all that you are.”

  “Someone’s coming,” called a scout from the window. Everyone, Kaj included, froze. The young people inched toward a covered back window.

  The scout relaxed. “They’re gone.”

  “Then let us begin.” Kaj guided the woman toward the gold disc on the floor. “Think of him,” he gestured toward the man. Her husband, Rone guessed. “He will be your salvation.”

  Hugging herself, the woman stared upward. Beyond the roof that shielded her.

  Kaj sent her into the ethereal plane, too.

  The vision shifted again. It was daylight now; Rone could see it through the heavy curtains over the windows. The people in the room were fewer. The husband from before stood in the center of the gold disc, mirroring gestures Kaj made. His skin was moist, his eyes sunken. Looking closer, Rone saw brands printed down his back in gold, only half-healed. Brands just like Sandis’s.

  The disc flashed, making Rone’s eyes water.

  When the light faded, the branded man still stood there.

  “Nothing happened!” snapped a man by the window.

  Kaj’s hands formed fists. “It makes no sense. It should have worked!”

  The man by the window charged forward, lifting his hand as though to strike—<
br />
  “I’m back,” gasped the man on the gold disc.

  Everyone froze.

  The branded man studied his hands. Turned them over. Looked around the room. His eyes settled on Kaj.

  “I’m here, but . . .” He touched his face, eyes wide. “This is Yetuae’s body. I’m . . . I’m Yetuae.”

  The man began to weep.

  Kaj stared. “Hoka?”

  Trembling, the man nodded.

  Kaj gaped and stepped onto the gold disc. “You’re inside of him. Fascinating. And Yetuae. Is he there, too?”

  Hoka—Yetuae—sobbed. “I can’t hear him. I can’t feel him at all.”

  The bond between the couple had been the key to connecting the two planes.

  Yetuae could only pull his wife into his own body, but he could direct other spirits from the ethereal plane into vessels wearing the golden brands. Within and without, above and below, fall and inhabit, I command. It had taken Kaj weeks to formulate the words.

  Though he was pleased by his success, his followers’ bodies never came with them. Only their souls.

  Kaj needed to change that.

  “We’re safe,” said a scout at the window. A new one. Rone wondered what had happened to the first.

  Kaj nodded. Yetuae stood in the center of the disc. His jaw was set, his skin perspiring. Like a man readying himself for pain.

  If summoning was anything like Sandis had described, he was in for a lot of it.

  “I’ll pull her out,” Kaj said, hands on the taller man’s shoulders. “There is a moment where the magic burns brightest. You summon her, and I’ll pull her into our realm.”

  This was the moment he’d been waiting for. Once Hoka came back, Kaj would find out if living in the ethereal plane had stopped her aging. If he had finally discovered the secret to eternal life.