Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2)

by Brian Niemeier

  Goodbye, called a distant voice indistinguishable from Astlin’s own. I love you.

  Don’t leave me!

  A bloodcurdling squeal from behind her accompanied the cracking and rending of wood. Astlin turned as the demon bat rose. Its eyeless face leered, and golden light enveloped its hideous form.

  Astlin stared at her glowing hands, less concerned with Hazeroth than her constantly rising heat. Her leather armor, Worked to resist elemental fire, peeled away in charred flakes and crumbling sheets as its steel fittings melted.

  Hazeroth waited as if he knew—and relished—what would happen.

  The gate’s falling! Astlin realized. The flaming sea beyond her soul sought total, final escape. Terror seized her as she recalled Irallel and Megido’s collapse into roiling rifts between Strata—cosmic wounds in torment forever. She tried to release the Fire; to stop its rampage through her transessed flesh, but the primeval force defied her control.

  Blazing like an ingot in a forge, Astlin watched her fingers melt; then her hands. The Fire’s roar swallowed her scream.

  45

  Hazeroth regarded his victory with ambivalence. The souldancer was dead—or at least enduring the violent discorporation that was her kind’s final fate. Yet he hadn’t struck her deathblow. To his vexation, she’d devolved into a writhing mass of fire. The awful heat, which sowed the air with lightning and made it almost too dry to breathe, deepened his displeasure.

  Dull aches accompanied closing wounds and knitting bones. Sharp pain in his eye sockets preceded the return of sight; a welcome, if unessential, addition to his other more acute senses.

  The lifting of the interdict left Hazeroth more wary than pleased. Had Shaiel’s Will changed regarding the souldancers?

  Still wearing the form that fools called his curse, Hazeroth looked past the Fire Stratum rift to the moored nexus-runner. He would succeed where the Lawbringers had failed and retrieve the smith. Such a coup would surely absolve the fire souldancer’s loss.

  Hazeroth spread his wings and glided toward the black ship. If Shaiel’s favor remained, Thurif would be aboard. The demon indulged lavish fantasies of repaying the Steersman’s betrayal.

  And someday—somehow—I shall collect on the debt of the Will.

  A strange sound like a fire’s roar mimicking a human scream caught Hazeroth’s notice. He glanced back at the Fire Stratum gate, which still appeared as a stationary firestorm suspended over a cooling puddle of brass. The faint rosy scent was odd, but nothing he saw differed significantly from other discarnate souldancers.

  And yet, the seething inferno was different. Its chaotic form coalesced, briefly assuming a human shape with hate-filled eyes like blue stars, before launching itself upward in a screaming torrent.

  Hazeroth pivoted in midair, barely avoiding the flame. It streaked past but turned sharply and flowed back at him. He dove, rolled, and banked, but the agile fire matched his movements with blazing speed.

  The demon sensed a dread presence hidden within and suffusing the fire.

  The light of the Well!

  Burning torment engulfed Hazeroth. He drew on the Void. The living flame shrank from the hellish cold but renewed its pursuit and boiled the golden light away. Fire that was more than fire devoured his flesh.

  When the charred bones that had been wings could no longer support him, Hazeroth plunged from the sky. His agony continued after he struck the dock, and only increased as he clawed in vain at the all-encompassing fire. He dragged himself across the dead limb of the goddess he’d defiled, choking on the fumes of his own burned flesh.

  Hazeroth of Gheninom—who’d won princely honor in hell and sired horrors to curse the nights of men—never believed that one of Thera’s castoff hosts could best him until the moment the Void took his soul.

  Sulaiman Iason’s centuries in hell didn’t prepare him for what waited on the abandoned pier. Two figures lay upon the scarred branch—the blackened bones of a giant bat, and a young woman whose naked skin shed soft internal light.

  Cook bolted from the passage.

  “Do not to touch the bones,” Sulaiman warned.

  Tefler stepped onto the ravaged bough. “I won’t even ask what happened here.”

  Cook draped the young woman in a torn leather coat they’d found below. “It’s Astlin.”

  “She’s back to normal?” Tefler asked.

  Cook’s gnarled hand brushed Astlin’s hair from her face. The fine strands shone like hot coals but left him unburned. “There’s nothing normal about this.”

  Tefler glanced at the brass-coated wood underfoot. “You’ve got that right.”

  Sulaiman barely heard his comrades’ discussion. His eyes remained fixed on his enemy’s charred corpse. Thus ends the demon Hazeroth, he thought, feeling cheated and grateful at the same time.

  “I’ve contemplated Hazeroth’s death since his first day here,” said Tefler, “but I never thought he’d go out like this! Hope he didn’t take Astlin with him.”

  “She’s breathing,” Cook said as if it surpassed every present wonder.

  Astlin stirred. Her eyelids fluttered and slowly opened, revealing eyes that glistened like sapphires in bright sunlight; not like miniature suns themselves. Their look was weary and sad.

  “You’re safe,” Cook said as he helped her into a sitting position. “You’re alright.”

  Astlin’s mouth half-twisted in a smile before her desolate expression returned. “No,” she said weakly. “I’m worse.”

  Sulaiman’s brow creased. “Worse?”

  “Xander came back to me.”

  “How’d he get out of the cave?” asked Tefler. “We buried him pretty good.”

  “His soul came into mine,” Astlin said. “I should’ve told you.”

  Cook’s misshapen face was grave. “Where is he now?”

  The tears Astlin shed were clear—their only resemblance to water. “I watched him die. Then he came back, and I killed him again.”

  “My God,” whispered Cook. “You consumed him.”

  Sulaiman approached her. “You speak madness, unless I am ignorant of much that passed between you.”

  “Or both,” Tefler said. “Xander had part of her soul. Absorbing the missing piece made her human.”

  Astlin’s eyes dimmed. She slowly shook her head. “Any humanity I still had is gone.”

  “My queen witnessed such an event,” Sulaiman said. “Restoring the lost fragment perfected the souldancer’s bond with his Stratum.”

  Astlin stood, wrapping herself in the tattered coat. Her face lost all expression as she turned to Cook. “You said the Fire was me. Now I’m fire.”

  Tefler’s brow knotted. “I don’t follow you.”

  Astlin extended a hand toward Tefler, and the burns vanished from his skin.

  Tefler stared at his unblemished hands. “That was no prana burst. How’d you do it?”

  “You were burned by elemental fire,” she said. “I took it back.”

  Cook rose and stared at the demon’s corpse. “You killed Xander for the power to kill Hazeroth.”

  Astlin flinched as if struck. “Xander asked me to. I refused at first, but…” She stared into the distance. “I’m such a coward.”

  “You did not will his death,” said Sulaiman. “He consented to spare your life despite the cost. There is no nobler end.”

  Astlin spoke as though she hadn’t heard. “I kill whoever I love.”

  “Take her back to the Serapis,” Tefler said to Cook. “Sulaiman can do that shame ritual again once we finish up here.”

  Cook lowered his voice. “That might not be a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s in pretty rough shape.” Cook tapped his knobby head. “Do you really want to put her on a ship with old folks and kids?”

  “You’re usually more accepting,” said Tefler.

  “That was before she ate Xander!”

  “But she killed Hazeroth.”

  The debate trie
d Sulaiman’s patience to the point of exhaustion. He swept his arm toward the Kerioth. “My friends, forget not our purpose.”

  Tefler and Cook faced him.

  “We strive against gods,” Sulaiman went on, “and even now the smith may be forging another. Let us hasten to retrieve him and visit justice upon Thurif.”

  Cook jabbed his thumb at Astlin, who seemed lost in a grey world of her own making. “Should we just leave her here like this?”

  Tefler sighed and approached Astlin. “This was kind of a secret,” he said, “but telling can only hurt the one who told me.”

  He laid his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not a monster, Astlin. Or at least you’re the good kind. You think so little of yourself that you don’t know your own strength, and that gets people hurt sometimes.”

  Astlin looked away from whatever grim vision had enthralled her and met Tefler’s shifting gaze.

  “It might not hurt so bad,” he said, “if you didn’t care about people so much. But here’s the secret. You get to save them. You can save everybody.”

  Astlin’s numb façade crumbled. Behind her heartbroken expression shone a glimmer of cautious hope.

  In that moment, the priest of Midras saw Astlin as if beholding her for the first time. One with the heart of a star. Can oracles survive the gods who gave them?

  “Who told you that?” Cook asked Tefler.

  “Thera.” Tefler raised his hands defensively. “I know what you’re thinking, but she’s never outright lied to me.”

  “Tell us the oracle,” Said Sulaiman.

  “I didn’t exactly memorize it,” Tefler said. “I was comatose from a nexus-runner crash when Thera told me, but she said we had no idea how important Astlin is.”

  “Is that it?” asked Cook.

  Tefler waved his hand as if shooing flies. “She said that Astlin can save us all from the tyranny of the Nexus.”

  Sulaiman felt as if he stood in a small boat rocked by sudden waves. “What cosmic falsehood! The Nexus lacks a will, and cannot impose tyranny. Yet the lie befits one who is herself a tyrant.”

  “If she’s never lied before,” said Cook, “why start now?”

  Astlin’s voice rang out with startling strength. “Who cares if it’s true?”

  Sulaiman, Tefler, and Cook all turned to her.

  Astlin glared at the Kerioth. “A lot of people think Mirai Smith is worth killing over. I want to see why.”

  “When did this happen?” Gid asked the guard—or rather the apprentice shipwright who’d been drafted into watching the brig.

  Sweat beaded on the guard’s brow—probably not from heat or fear of reprimand, considering the circumstances. “While I was in the head. I was only gone five minutes!”

  Gid’s voice slowed and sharpened. “How did this happen?”

  The apprentice glanced at the two empty cells as if stealing a look at the sun. Correction—only one cell was truly empty. The other still reeked of some caustic substance potent enough to make Gid’s eyes sting.

  “Rhetorical question,” Gid said after watching the guard’s mouth work soundlessly for several seconds. In truth, he had no idea how both greycloaks had vanished from the brig. He’d never thought Shaiel’s priests capable of anything like Night Gen translation. He knew they could channel the Void, which might account for the uncanny cold in both cells.

  But something about those acrid fumes didn’t sit right with him.

  “They can’t have gone far,” the guard said hopefully.

  Gid stepped into the neutral-smelling icebox. No trace of the prisoner remained. “Assuming mundane forms of travel.” Without facing the guard he said, “Pull everyone we can spare to help search.”

  “That’s not many. We’re shorthanded as it is.”

  Gid ignored the objection. He almost told the apprentice to send Tefler a warning before he recalled that the heretic Lawbringer had lost his cloak. Neither Cook, the Kethan girl, nor the priestly fanatic had a sending device as far as he knew.

  “You waiting for an invitation?” Gid snapped at the guard, whose sprinting footsteps soon echoed down the hall.

  Astlin strode through the emerald gloom of the Kerioth’s silent halls, haunted by grief that threatened the return of madness. Sulaiman, Cook, and Tefler walked behind her, their footsteps more cautious.

  The friction of Smith’s gears shone like a beacon that led her to a door on the highest deck. Astlin tightened Sulaiman’s green cloak, which encircled her body from chest to knees, pulled Hazeroth’s coat shut, and entered the room beyond. Her friends followed.

  Thurif’s been busy. Astlin studied the chamber. A scent like lightning hung in the air. Strange machines filled much of the space, but she recognized the operating table.

  “Look at this.” Tefler approached a stack of bodies piled to one side. Many wore Cadrisian uniforms. Most were horribly deformed. All were room temperature.

  “Come out and talk,” Astlin said to the room. “I know you’re here.”

  Metallic scuttling preceded Smith’s descent from the ceiling. He didn’t climb down. Instead, the tiny gears composing his body snaked to the deck like oily vines. His corpselike face slid down the twining tendrils to a point just above eye level.

  “Seeing you again surprises me.”

  Astlin glared at Smith as if her eyes could burn through him. “Where’s Thurif?”

  “I think I know.” Tefler propped up one of the piled corpses. A pale face stared from a black hood, its misplaced eyes glassy.

  “We’ve been through this before,” said Cook. “That can’t be him.”

  Smith gathered himself into a vaguely quadrupedal shape. “Killed by the Gen.”

  “What Gen?” demanded Astlin.

  “Said his name was Szodrin.”

  Astlin gasped.

  “Someone you know?” Cook asked her.

  She shook her head. “He died in the Ostrith Guild house collapse.”

  “Living when I saw him,” said Smith.

  “When was that?” Tefler asked.

  “Left not long ago. Returned to the ether.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Cook told Smith. “You joined Thurif willingly. The two of you must’ve planned this together.”

  “They never met Szodrin,” Astlin said. “Unless he really did kill Thurif.”

  “And robbed you of your vengeance,” said Sulaiman.

  Astlin turned to him. “If Szodrin spared me a death, I’m grateful.”

  “Give him thanks, then.” Smith’s tendrils burst outward in a riot of cogs. “And worship my masterpiece!”

  Tefler scowled. “You turned Szodrin into a god?”

  Smith grinned like a child who’d stolen a cookie behind everyone’s back.

  Embodiment of fire though she was, Astlin felt a chill.

  “You’ve made a god,” Sulaiman said, “but can you unmake others?”

  “Destroy,” said Smith. “Create—two names for the same thing.”

  Cook crossed his arms. “Now I trust him even less.”

  “Don’t be so hostile,” Tefler said. “Let’s hear him out.”

  “You can’t kill a god,” said Cook. “That’s what being a god means!”

  “Spoken like a scholar,” Smith said, perching himself on the table like gears spilling in reverse, “but if a mortal fated for godhood were killed prior to divinization…”

  “Then you do govern Kairos,” Sulaiman said, “as other souldancers rule their Strata?”

  “Are you so ignorant of our kind?” Smith leered at Astlin. “Rule, nothing; I am Kairos.”

  Tefler’s brow furrowed. “Which Stratum is Kairos?”

  “It’s not,” said Cook. “Kairos is a kind of time.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “Kairos is the gods’ time,” Cook explained, “sacred time that touches eternity.”

  “I completely understood that,” Tefler said, failing to hide his confusion.

  Sulaiman’s hands trembled. “T
hen what I would attempt is possible. Through Kairos I can return to a time when Thera is yet a souldancer and can be slain ere her godhood’s restored.”

  “Traveling Kairos is difficult,” said Smith. “Killing to unmake a god is even harder, since preventing the victim’s theosis removes the reason for killing.”

  “The Burned Book of Bifron’s cult warned of such contradictions,” said Sulaiman. “I may have resolved them.”

  Smith’s gear-like eyes narrowed. “Speak.”

  “My foe caused the Cataclysm. I’d wish to kill her whether mortal or divine.”

  Astlin’s unease had grown throughout the conversation, and now she’d heard enough. “Are you seriously talking about changing the past?”

  Sulaiman’s eyes never left Smith as he answered. “We must use the means afforded us.”

  Astlin’s mind reeled with the implications of what she’d heard. “You planned this all along. Why didn’t you tell us? How did you keep it from me?”

  “He’s not the only one who kept things from us,” Cook grumbled. His words stung Astlin like a lash.

  Sulaiman faced her. “Dwelling in the house of another mind-reader taught me to guard some thoughts—and to reveal those I would make known. As for why I held my counsel, I need not your gift to read the rebellion kindled in your heart.”

  “Xander,” Astlin said softly. “If you stop the Cataclysm, I’ll never know him.”

  “Yet lives unnumbered will be saved,” said Sulaiman, “his among them.”

  Conflicting passions drove Astlin to silence. Losing Xander was agony; the thought of never having known him awoke a terror she’d never thought possible. But an inner voice clear as glass cut through her fears.

  He’ll be alive. Xander and all of those people will live!

  “I still don’t think it’ll work,” said Cook.

  “Perhaps the smith speaks truly,” Sulaiman said. “Perhaps not. The mystery will wait till we’re far from Shaiel’s grasp.”

  “I’ll fly us back to the Serapis,” said Astlin.

  Tefler arched an eyebrow. “I thought you hated flying this thing.”

  “Doing nothing would be worse,” she said as she hurried from the room.