Chaos Queen--Fear the Stars (Chaos Queen 4)

by Christopher Husberg

  “It has been a long time since I have been here,” the Beldam said as they ascended the stairs.

  “You’re lucky to be returning at all,” Nayome said.

  At the top of the steps was another door, but this one was plain, iron-banded wood, with a single doorknob at its center— and no locking mechanism that Cinzia could see.

  Nayome pushed the door inward and walked into the Triunity’s chambers. Cinzia took a deep breath and followed, just as she heard a sharp gasp from Nayome.

  Cinzia’s heart froze. They had chosen the time of day that, according to Nayome, all three members of the Triunity should be caught up in meetings and other business, and were least likely to be in their chambers. But there was always the chance that they would walk right into one of the highest-ranking members of the Denomination. If that were to happen— Goddess, if that was what was happening now—Cinzia had still not decided what they should do.

  When she entered the chamber, she realized she would not have to make that choice, at least not yet—but there was no relief. Instead, her gut tightened.

  The Triunity’s chambers were large, but not lavish. Simple rugs covered the floor, and tapestries more valuable for their content than for their artistry decorated the walls. The room itself was circular, and directly in front of Cinzia a large window looked out onto the Trinacrya square. Two other windows looked out at Triah at different angles: one toward the ocean and God’s Eye, and the other inland, toward Khale itself. The room was well kept, a large desk stacked with papers and books and a few other chairs across from where she stood in the stairwell doorway. She would have liked to look around and see what else the room contained, but the seven figures at the center of the room occupied her full attention.

  Three women from the Sect of Priesthood stood facing them, accompanied by four Goddessguards, armed and in chain mail, two on either side of the women. At the center was the high priestess who had delivered her papers of excommunication, Garyne Hilamotha. Her long black hair hung in a braid down her back, and her dark eyes stared right past Nayome and bored into Cinzia. One of the other women was a matron, her Cantic robes trimmed in gold, and the other a simple priestess. Just as Cinzia once was.

  And yet something about these women did not seem right to Cinzia. Why were they here, in the Triunity’s quarters? None of them belonged here.

  Did you really think I’d let you do this without opposition?

  A shiver ran down Cinzia’s spine as the voice echoed within the walls of her own mind.

  Luceraf.

  “Who are you?” Nayome asked the three, but Cinzia was too involved in the conversation in her own mind to hear how the women answered. And, after all, she already knew the answer, now. These women were part of the Cult.

  You have been there all along? Cinzia asked.

  Of course I have, my dear. You are too valuable to leave to your own devices.

  I did know it, Cinzia thought. But she had let her guard down anyway.

  She looked back at Knot and Astrid. Astrid was crouched, short swords drawn, ready to pounce, and Knot had drawn his Nazaniin sword.

  “So many of our enemies here at once,” High Priestess Garyne said with a smile. “How fortunate are we, ladies?”

  The two women on either side of her did not share her amusement. A sheen of sweat slicked the priestess’s forehead. The matron appeared slightly more composed, but her face remained deadly serious.

  We have a special treat for you, my dear. Luceraf’s words were cold, devoid of the amusement usually so prominent in her speech.

  “Who are these women?” the Beldam demanded, stepping forward. “You have no right to be here.”

  Garyne cocked her head to one side. “Is the famous heretic finally going senile? Or is that why you left the Denomination in the first place?”

  The Beldam spluttered a response, but Garyne spoke over her, nodding to the Goddessguards.

  “Seize them. Kill everyone but the vampire. Leave her to me; she owes us a debt.”

  Cinzia glanced back at Astrid to see fear in the girl’s eyes. “You’re part of the Cult,” Astrid said, putting together what Cinzia already knew.

  Garyne did not respond to Astrid’s question directly, but the implication was clear. “You once served the Black Matron,” the high priestess said. “She answered to me. An affront against my servant is an affront against me, dear girl. I cannot allow such things to go unpunished.”

  Anger bubbled up within Cinzia. She stepped purposefully between the high priestess and Astrid. “Leave her alone,” Cinzia said.

  The high priestess bared her teeth. “You can’t tell me you’ve actually developed feelings for that little daemon?”

  “Enough talk,” Cinzia said. “Or is that all you can do?”

  Garyne sighed. “All right, then. You heard the heretic. Enough talk, let’s get at it, ladies.” The matron and priestess looked at one another, faces pale, and then both drew daggers from their robes. The four Goddessguards stepped from the flanking position they held to stand between the three Cult members and Cinzia’s party.

  Cinzia heard muttered curses from Astrid and Knot simultaneously behind her, and the blood drained from her face.

  The voices of the matron and priestess rose in unison, their words trembling.

  “My blood for the blood of Aratraxia,” they both said.

  Cinzia froze, even as Knot and Astrid both rushed past her. The Goddessguards moved to intercept them, and with a scream from Astrid they all clashed in a flurry of steel.

  She had seen this before, heard these words before, when the young man had slit his own throat in front of her and Arven. Afterward, an Outsider—a great daemon from some faraway plane—had entered the Sfaera.

  They had to stop these women.

  “My blood pays the price of passage, from their realm to ours,” the two continued, their voices still in perfect unison.

  Knot and Astrid would not get to either of the women in time. Both the matron and the priestess raised their daggers, dark steel toward the pale skin of their throats.

  Cinzia bolted forward, past the Goddessguards, all of them distracted by Knot and Astrid, one of them already down. The priestess was closest to her. She could make it. She had to make it.

  Cinzia noticed something shift in the air around her just as the wide oak desk that had been off to one side slid across the floor directly in front of Cinzia, blocking her path.

  Psimancy. Someone in the room—Garyne?—was a telenic.

  Cinzia leapt over the desk, but two of the wooden chairs nearby suddenly flew into the air, rushing directly toward Cinzia. She raised her arms to block them as best she could, but Cinzia felt two sharp, hard blows against her arms, chest, and stomach.

  Above the sound of wood splintering, she heard the women’s voices.

  “My blood for the blood of Aratraxia.”

  Cinzia plowed forward, ignoring the dull ache in both arms, and tackled the priestess to the ground. Both the priestess and Garyne shrieked, and the priestess’s dagger clattered to the floor. The matron collapsed in a shower of blood.

  The dagger moved slightly. Cinzia gripped the priestess— her right arm screamed in pain—and rolled just as the dagger twitched into the air and shot toward her, embedding itself in the priestess’s back.

  Garyne cursed, but then she seemed to relax. “Two would have been better,” she said, panting, “but one will do.”

  A shadow moved over the chamber, and then a dark shimmer appeared, swirling in the air above where the matron now lay, face down in a pool of her own blood.

  A man groaned, and Cinzia heard the soft, slick sound of a blade sliding through flesh. She pushed the priestess’s body off of her, and turned to see the last Goddessguard fall to Knot’s sword.

  He and Astrid both turned to face the shape forming in the air.

  “Are you mad?” Cinzia asked, looking at Garyne. “An Outsider in a space this small… it will destroy the Triunity’s chambers. I
t might kill every one of us.”

  “And besides,” Astrid said, “we’ve faced these before. We can handle one of them.”

  With a great thump, a dark shaped dropped to the floor of the Triunity’s chambers with such force that it fell through it, stone crumbling and breaking beneath it. Cinzia heard the sharp crack of breaking glass, and the nearest window shattered into a hundred pieces at the impact.

  “I’ll just have to give it a head start.”

  The four weapons the Goddessguards had carried lifted into the air—three swords and a short stabbing spear. All four of them turned so they pointed toward Knot and Astrid.

  “No,” Cinzia said. Before she knew what she was doing— perhaps before she even spoke the word, Cinzia could not be sure—she found herself sprinting toward Garyne. The woman turned her head slightly as Cinzia charged, but there was nothing she could do. Cinzia crashed into the high priestess, and the two went flying toward the shattered window. In a panic, Cinzia realized she could not control their fall. The window was so tall and wide that the lip of it was less than a rod from the floor of the chambers. Cinzia and the high priestess barreled over the lower edge of the window, and out into the blue midday sky.

  * * *

  Astrid rolled to the side, the high priestess’s blades narrowly missing her. One embedded itself in the rising, dark shape before her.

  The Outsider thrashed, its tail flicking out. Nayome had hidden herself the moment fighting had broken out in the chambers. It was probably for the best. The Crucible had no fighting prowess that Astrid knew of, and would likely only get in the way. The Beldam she had lost track of, however. She hadn’t left, of that much Astrid was sure, but she, too, must have hidden herself when the fighting broke out.

  Astrid heard the faintest sound of scuffling, and a struggle outside the window. If her memory didn’t fail her, there would be a large, gradually sloping roof directly outside of the window. With any luck, Cinzia had stopped herself from falling any farther, and the high priestess had toppled to a grizzly death. From the sound of things, that wasn’t the case, and the two were engaged in a struggle on the roof outside the window.

  At least, Astrid hoped, that meant Cinzia was still alive.

  The hope gave her strength, and Astrid advanced on the Outsider, swords at the ready. She’d been confident earlier, but the last time she and Knot had faced an Outsider during the day, they’d at least had Eward’s archers to back them up. Here, it was just the two of them, and in a complicated space, to say the least.

  “How d’you want to handle this, nomad?” Astrid asked. When Knot didn’t respond, she snapped her head back to look at him.

  He lay on the ground, perfectly still, the spear the high priestess had psimantically thrown embedded in his chest.

  Astrid choked on the next breath she drew, her lungs contracting, throat tightening. She was aware of the fact that the Outsider now stood at its full height, its head almost touching the high ceiling of the chamber, a low growl rumbling with enough force that Astrid felt it in her chest. She was aware of the struggling outside the window, the faint voices. She was aware of Nayome, curled in a ball, beneath another large desk off to the side.

  But most of all she was aware of Knot’s stillness, and the length of wood sticking straight out from him.

  Within this awareness an entire world seemed to exist, a world Astrid never knew was there until this moment, outside of time and space, because even as the Outsider’s growl trembled around her and into her lungs, in this other world, this special world she had just become aware of, Astrid was without Knot, and that absence ached and echoed with an immediate pain that she could not ignore.

  He can’t be dead, she told herself, but she had no evidence one way or the other. He lay still on the ground, a spear in his chest. She knew what the chances of surviving such a blow were.

  The tower shook as the Outsider took a step toward her.

  Astrid didn’t have time to wait for the creature to take the initiative. With a deep breath she sprang forward, hacking at the Outsider’s nearest leg. She got a few good strikes in, but even with all her strength her blades hardly broke through the armored hide.

  Goddess, what she wouldn’t give for a bit of holy magic right now. Jane wasn’t her favorite person, she had to admit, but she’d once completely vaporized an Outsider with a ray of light, and Astrid would do just about anything to end this as quickly as possible.

  The Outsider looked down at Astrid, cocking its head to one side. With a strange sound somewhere between a bark and a scream, the monster kicked her, hard, full on in the chest, and Astrid flew backwards.

  She crashed into the wall, chunks of stone falling around her. Astrid gasped but took in a mouthful of dust and began to cough violently. She struggled to stand, but as she prepared herself to meet the Outsider once more—not knowing how in Oblivion she could possibly take on the beast—she realized it wasn’t striding toward her. It wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, it was staring at the desk behind which she knew Nayome was hiding.

  What in Oblivion…

  Suddenly, Astrid remembered their battle against the Outsiders under the dome in Izet. The Outsiders had seemed particularly drawn to, almost enraged by, psimancers.

  “Nayome,” Astrid said, speaking as loudly as she could while still keeping her voice calm, “if you’re a psimancer, the Outsider is going to target you. You need to do something about that.”

  Astrid took one step toward the desk under which Nayome hid, but so did the Outsider, which also glanced her way before refocusing on Nayome.

  Astrid swore. She would barely be a distraction to it. If it wanted to kill Nayome, it would, and Astrid would not be able to stop it.

  “Nayome,” Astrid said, but before she could continue, Nayome stood up. She was shaking, her hair in a frazzled blonde halo around her face. She stared down the Outsider, and Astrid recognized the pure, white-hot rage radiating from her eyes.

  “I,” Nayome said, her voice wavering through gritted teeth, “am a Holy Crucible of the Cantic Denomination. I serve the Goddess and all she stands for. I root out heresy and abomination, and purify such things out of existence.” Though her voice wavered and her body shook, Astrid felt the power radiating from her. Even without psimantic ability, she knew Nayome must be aiming a tremendous amount of acumenic pressure at the Outsider.

  The Outsider met Nayome’s gaze, huge black eyes clashing with her brown, and remained almost perfectly motionless. Astrid had never seen an Outsider so still, unless it was dead. Once they took form, they only seemed to care about thrashing, clawing, devouring, and destroying, with all the energy they had.

  “And now,” Nayome said, “it is time for your purification.” Her body remained still, albeit trembling, but Astrid could sense even more power radiating from the woman, all of it directed straight toward the Outsider.

  Nayome uttered a guttural moan, the sound escalating into a scream, and then in a single, swift motion, the Outsider’s head snapped back, and the beast collapsed, lifeless, to the stone floor.

  Astrid coughed, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the newly formed dust cloud as best she could. She had seen an acumen do something similar to a person once before, in Izet, when Kali had killed Nash. Kali had sent a psionic blast directly into the man’s mind, essentially bursting his brain inside his own skull.

  Dark blood drained from the outsider’s large black eyes, and she knew Nayome had done the same thing here. But, just for good measure, Astrid rammed a sword into one of the black, lifeless eyes, full on to the hilt.

  There was much to be done.

  First, she ran to the window where she’d last seen Cinzia and the high priestess topple out into the blue sky.

  “Goddess, it took you long enough.”

  Cinzia lay on a disrupted patch of the clay tiles that lined the roof, limbs spread awkwardly to keep her from sliding toward the edge.

  Astrid couldn’t reach her, so she ducked inside
to find the halberd one of the Goddessguards had been carrying.

  “AstridwhereareyougoingIneedhelp—”

  When Astrid returned, reaching the halberd handle out to her, she coughed, reaching for the weapon. “Ah. Thank you,” she said.

  “You got a good grip?” Astrid asked.

  Cinzia nodded. Astrid pulled. Eventually, Cinzia made it close enough for Astrid to grab her and lift her back into the Triunity’s chambers.

  “The high priestess?” Astrid asked.

  “She fell,” Cinzia said, staring at the body of the Outsider.

  “How in the Sfaera did you—”

  “Wasn’t me,” Astrid said. She nodded at Nayome, who stood exactly where she’d left her, face pale. “It was her.”

  Then, she rushed back to Knot.

  27

  CINZIA WAS ABOUT TO say something pithy about Astrid rushing away from her, when she saw the body. Knot lay prone on the floor, unmoving, a spear in his chest.

  “Oh Goddess,” Cinzia whispered. Then she was right behind Astrid, moving to him.

  “Is he—”

  Knot lurched up, coughing.

  “He’s alive!” Astrid exclaimed.

  Cinzia moved to him, her mind racing. A thrill of elation rushed through her; for a moment, she had thought he was dead. And, as she got closer, she realized the spear was less in his chest and more in his shoulder. She breathed a sigh of relief. A shoulder wound was relatively easy to treat compared to a punctured lung or heart.

  Knot mumbled something, and a thrill of elation rushed through Cinzia.

  “What was that, nomad?” Astrid asked.

  “I said,” Knot rasped, his voice hardly audible, “you’re bloody right I’m alive. But I need you to get this spear out of me.”

  “Goddess, Knot, I want to hug you,” Cinzia said, aware now of tears streaming down her cheeks. Instead, she took his hand, and felt Knot grip her own tightly.

  They worked together to get the spear out of him. His leather had stopped the barb from penetrating deep enough to get hooked into his flesh, and they could pull it out instead of having to push it all the way through. Cinzia heard the slick, wet, sliding sound of the spear moving, and felt Knot’s grip tighten. She held his hand with both of her own, until she heard a clatter as Astrid flung the spear away.