Blood of the Gods

by David Mealing

  The rest of their eyes turned toward her, caught halfway across the room, between d’Arrent and Paendurion.

  Anati appeared unbidden on a rocky point near her feet.

  My father says his time is finished, Anati thought to the room. He cannot be allowed to complete his ascension.

  Paendurion stared at Anati, his eyes wide.

  “Zi,” Sarine said. “What else did he say? Does he know of this ‘old way’?”

  “No!” Reyne shouted. “You can’t trust Zi. He’s betrayed us.”

  That got her attention, and Anati’s, too, both of them looking to where Reyne stood at the far entrance.

  “I bonded Xeraxet,” Reyne continued, “after Axerian’s death. He is convinced Zi is working with the enemy—the Regnant, as Paendurion calls him.”

  Lies, Anati thought. My father would never betray Sarine.

  But he has.

  A new voice, and a familiar one. A voice of iron scraped on steel.

  A kaas appeared, perched atop Reyne’s shoulder. Axerian’s kaas. Xeraxet. Why had he said nothing about this before?

  Your father was loyal to the Veil, Xeraxet continued. Zi would do anything to further her ends.

  You are stained by madness, Anati thought back.

  “Enough of this,” Paendurion said to her. “The kaas are treacherous creatures by nature. Their games are of no consequence here. All that matters is bonding your third champion.”

  “I stand with Paendurion,” Reyne said. “He knows the truth of everything we face. Whatever ill you or your kaas think of him, he is the clear choice.”

  “He’s a monster,” d’Arrent said. “I saw what he did at Fantain’s Cross, at Oreste, in New Sarresant itself. He is a butcher with no regard for innocent life. Whatever side he is on, they are my enemy, and I will fight against them with all the strength of New Sarresant and Old.”

  “I saw the same,” Arak’Jur said quietly. “In visions granted to me atop the mountain. This man deserves to die. It is justice.”

  Tigai and Yuli hung back, silently watching her along with the rest. It fell to her. She’d known it would, given the strange affinity she felt for this place, the path she’d walked to understand even the first principles of the bonding, and the blue sparks. This was why she’d come here, why she’d brought so many powerful men and women with her. It ended here, or perhaps began. She wasn’t the Veil, but she was something close to it. Even without a full understanding of what lay in front of her, her teachers had given her enough to know the shape of the role she would play. Axerian. Zi. Even the Veil herself, through the sketches and writings of her journal. How many times had the cycle repeated itself? If she was to be the Veil reborn, she would find a way to do what was right. To fight her enemy and pull the world away from shadow, whatever the cost.

  “I need both of you,” she said. “I don’t care how things were done before. I need all the strength you can give me. I need every champion I can bond to help me fight.”

  “No,” Paendurion said. “I won’t let you damn us with your ignorance. If this won’t be decided by reason, then let it be decided by blood.”

  80

  ERRIS

  Soul of the World

  Gods’ Seat

  A sucking sound tore through the chamber, and she reached for Shelter, slamming a barrier into place as Paendurion’s Entropy manifested in a sheet of fire.

  Chaos followed.

  She heard shouting, more sucking wind, a low roar, and the clang of bone on steel. Sarine, pleading for him to stop. Reyne, doing the same. Erris knew better. He was coming for her. He’d always been coming for her, since the first threads of Need had marked her as his enemy. And now, the horrifying realization: She couldn’t sense the golden threads anymore, since coming to this place. No time to process what it might mean. She held her Shelter, but Paendurion would be moving, bolstered by Body, as she was, coming to strike her from an unexpected angle where her barrier blocked her view.

  She drew her saber by reflex, spinning to the left—the clearest, most direct approach, which marked it the obviously wrong choice and therefore the only one Paendurion would use.

  He appeared around the corner of her Shelter and she dropped the binding, lashing out with a sixfold weave of Death to target the Mind copies he would have already summoned to mask his true position. Four copies were attacking from the right, two more from the left, and all save the one in front of her hissed and shimmered as her Death made contact, her saber cutting toward the only solid form.

  He’d unlimbered a broadsword from a sheath slung over his back, and met her cut with surprise in his eyes, though his stroke was no less sure for it, turning her blade with a powerful slash that all but sent her spinning off-balance across the jagged floor.

  Body surged through her, with Death tethers at the ready to defend it. Paendurion towered over her, easily triple her mass, his arms thick and glistening as he returned his broadsword to a high guard. Without Body she couldn’t hope to turn even a single attack, but even with it, his strength far eclipsed hers. She’d have to fight on different terms, or find a way to hobble him, though the thought was fleeting as he advanced toward her, sword in hand.

  She tried Entropy, a rush of fire immediately snuffed by Paendurion’s Death, and he struck, bringing his sword down in a brutal chop. She slapped it aside, letting his momentum shift his weight, and tried a counterattack, stepping closer to negate his advantages of height and reach. Shelter materialized between them, as though he’d crafted the white pearls in place of armor, and she struck against it, rebounding with hissing energy instead of sinking her steel into his skin.

  “Paendurion, stop,” Sarine was shouting. Only words, at the start, but now a wave of Shelter barriers sprang up around both Erris and Paendurion, a half-dozen walls all conjured into being at once, with more speed than even Erris could manage. “We can settle this. Stop fighting.”

  She’d recovered her footing, resetting for another attack. With her vision split between the physical world and the leylines, she could see the myriad strands of pearls Sarine wove around them, the strands of Death held between both her and Paendurion, the Body strands connecting them both to the leylines surging beneath the stone. It was as though the lines overflowed with an infinite supply, fueling any attack or defense, and she could sense the patterns of three weavers disrupting and calling on the energies collected there.

  Then, in an instant, a new connection appeared. Then another. Strands of Death pooled seemingly on their own, making spheres of inky black where Sarine had drawn Shelter’s white pearls.

  No time to puzzle out their source; the effect was clear. The Shelter Sarine put between them fizzled and vanished, revealing Paendurion charging toward her, leaping and brandishing his sword.

  Erris sprang back, darting strikes from her saber to check his advance, but he barreled into her reach, slamming his heavy blade down hard enough to shatter the stone when he missed his first attack. She dodged to the side and struck, finding another barrier of Shelter instead of footwork to turn her sword with his. This time she was ready, deploying Death to tear it apart, but he countered in kind, and her Body faded as his Death strands touched her, sliding past the defenses she’d expended to disrupt his shield.

  Her saber struck his flesh, but without Body she was reduced to a small-statured woman, no more than a bare fraction of his size. The cut should have sheared him in half; instead she sliced his rib cage in a glancing blow, and he spun, ripping her saber from her hand with the force of his Body-empowered parry, sending her blade clattering as it flew across the room.

  “No!” Sarine shouted. “That power isn’t yours.”

  The black spheres vanished abruptly from the leylines, and another set of Shelter sprang up between her and Paendurion, walling him off in a prison of white.

  “It’s been mine for sixteen cycles,” Paendurion said from behind the filmy haze. Erris took the moment to scramble after her saber, springing across the floor to w
here it fell. “All of this has been mine. I won’t have it stripped away by a fool with no knowledge of things to come.”

  “What you did, what Axerian did, and Ad-Shi,” Sarine said. “It was wrong.”

  “It was necessary!” Paendurion shouted back, his words dimmed by the Shelter but clearly audible throughout the chamber. Erris approached the Shelter from a different angle, careful not to tether any leylines to reveal her position. Paendurion seemed content to speak to Sarine, letting her maintain her barriers, but she could sense Life and Body connecting Paendurion to the leylines, with Death tethers held at the ready. Any moment Paendurion could lash out, disrupt the Shelter, and renew his attack. It was a great risk, waiting to tether her own connections to match him, but boldness had been the answer on the battlefield. It had to be the answer here, too.

  “You murdered countless thousands,” Sarine said. “You shattered civilizations, and for what? The chance to wake and do it again?”

  “Do you imagine the Regnant would do otherwise? We’ve held him back for sixteen cycles. No matter what price we paid, it was worth the cost.”

  “You’ve changed nothing. He’s still there, still coming. I mean to find another way.”

  “To defeat Death?” Paendurion laughed. “It can’t be done. The way is the way—there are rules of this world: champions and ascensions and Godhood. It is as it has always been.”

  “No,” Sarine said. “It isn’t.”

  “You are a fool.”

  “I mean to bind as many champions as I can bring here. When the Divide comes down, we will meet the Regnant in strength. Whatever you’ve done—whatever you think you need to do, we can change the nature of this conflict. I’ve faced him before, and I can do it again, with all of you at my side.”

  Sarine’s Shelter faded, revealing Paendurion standing with his sword point-down, facing the center of the room where Sarine stood between him and the column of light.

  Erris moved.

  Body came at the last possible moment, Death springing from her to intercept the ink-clouds that shot toward her, preserving her strength and speed. Paendurion turned, spinning to raise his sword, a look of surprise writ on his face.

  It stayed there, frozen shock in his eyes, as she slammed her blade through his chest, impaling him through the heart.

  81

  TIGAI

  Soul of the World

  Gods’ Seat

  The giant’s body slumped forward, pitching face-first into the stone with a jarring crunch.

  From Tigai’s vantage at the far entryway, the duel had lasted no more than a few moments, obscured by their shields as often as he saw them exchanging blows. That d’Arrent’s final strike had come from behind seemed to have caught most of the room by surprise. But he’d seen her creeping approach, retrieving her sword and waiting in front of one of the shields. A reminder that even the mightiest of magi could be cut down, if they didn’t see it coming.

  “He might have listened,” Sarine said quietly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  D’Arrent flicked her blade down, spattering blood across the stone.

  “He wouldn’t have listened,” the Empress said. “I did what had to be done.”

  “Justice,” Arak’Jur said, regarding Paendurion’s body with a solemn air. “And now we submit ourselves, as the spirits foretold. I am here as champion of the Wild, chosen of the Mountain, and son of the Sinari.”

  “How is it I can understand you?” Yuli asked. “Are you one of the kaas-mages, like Master Reyne, or Sarine?”

  Tigai frowned. She was right; he hadn’t questioned it before, but d’Arrent and Arak’Jur both spoke what to his ears sounded like perfect Jun, though he knew neither of them had any command of the tongue.

  “Another mystery of this place,” Sarine said. “But Arak’Jur is right. It’s time to bond you. All of you.”

  The tribesman knelt atop one of the few patches of smooth stone beside the column of light, and Sarine approached, climbing over the ruined chasms in the floor. Tigai watched her, his hand slipping down toward his pistols. Whatever she was doing, it might well present an opportunity to make good on the deal he’d been offered, to betray Sarine. He’d checked the starfield already; he could still sense it, even here in this strange place, and kept his vision attuned to its blackness. All he had to do was strike her down and lash himself to the nearest star.

  Sarine reached Arak’Jur, and a flash of light flooded through the room.

  Tigai squinted, shielding his eyes as a corona of images shimmered around the tribesman. Birds, fish, snakes, bears, cats, wolves, and more. Arak’Jur knelt through it, opening his eyes when the light receded moments later.

  “What is that?” d’Arrent asked. “What did you do?”

  “A great blessing,” Arak’Jur said, full of awe.

  “A bond, as a champion,” Sarine said. “My champion. I don’t understand all of it, but I know there’s an enemy, with champions of his own. All of you are here to help me face him, to decide the fate of the Soul of the World. He’s coming, with magi from the other side of the Divide. And I don’t mean to stop at killing his champions. I mean to break these cycles, to allow the world to heal.”

  “The gift is strong,” Yuli said. “With the bond, I can summon the Twin Fangs at will, with no sickness when it passes.”

  Arak’Jur nodded. “I can sense more than mareh’et, astahg, valak’ar, and the rest. I feel the blessings of every spirit. Great beasts, war-spirits, even spirits of fox, oak, beaver, and wolf.”

  “The enemy, the one you said was beyond the Divide,” d’Arrent said. “These are the armies I saw … the ones with you, and Acherre?”

  “Yes,” Sarine said. “They’re coming, with magi at their head.”

  “Then I accept,” d’Arrent said, stepping over the fallen body of the man she’d impaled. “Whatever strength you have to offer, I’ll take it and see it replicated throughout our ranks.”

  Tigai felt his heart thump, watching d’Arrent approach the column of light. He had to do it now. He tried to look relaxed, adopting an easy stance, relying on every pair of eyes to be focused on Sarine. He slid a hand around his pistol, thumbing the match in place and watching the starfield to be sure his anchor was set. It might well take several shots, to be sure. He’d need an anchor here, and another one waiting, somewhere far from the rest of these magi after they realized what he’d done.

  Erris knelt, as Arak’Jur had, and reached a hand toward the column at the center of the room. Sarine touched her shoulder, but where there had been a flash of light before, this time a deadening quiet emanated from them, like a shock wave of silence, muting every sound within the chamber.

  NO.

  A thundering voice, sounding in his head. The others could hear it, too, from the looks of confusion, panning the room to find its source.

  THREE. YOU HAVE ALREADY BONDED THREE. I HAVE TOLERATED MUCH FROM YOU, BUT THIS IS TOO FAR. YOU MUST NOT BIND A FOURTH.

  A shadow appeared overhead, a cloud of jet, as though the starfield’s empty blackness leaked into the real world.

  “I’m not her,” Sarine said, shouting loud enough that he heard it through the artificial calm. “Whatever deal you had with the Veil, consider it broken.”

  YOU RISK EVERYTHING, the voice said. Rumblings and thunder came from within the shadow as it grew, suspended in the air, just as it had at the Tower of the Heron. It had to be the same creature; whatever had appeared there must have found its way here, looking down on all of them, though it had no discernible eyes or features that he could see.

  BIND A FOURTH, BIND ANY MORE, AND I WILL DO THE SAME. EVERY PEOPLE; EVERY CALLING, SUMMONED TO WAR. I WILL SHATTER THIS WORLD, AND THERE WILL BE NO HARMONY, WHEN I AM DONE.

  “I know,” Sarine said. “I know that’s what you want. That’s why I mean to stop you.”

  YOU CANNOT STAND AGAINST DEATH. PERSIST, AND NONE WILL SURVIVE. THIS WORLD WILL BE ASH, ALL ITS LIGHT EXTINGUISHED. TURN BACK FROM THIS FOLLY,
AND I MAY YET FORGIVE.

  The light flashed, as it had when she’d touched Arak’Jur, and colors erupted around Erris d’Arrent. Green pods, red motes, black ink, white pearls, blue coils, purple cubes, swirling around her in ordered lines. Light surged from her, pushing away the heavy silence and the shadow together.

  RUIN, THEN, the voice said, dimming as it faded away. YOU CHOOSE THE PATH OF RUIN.

  The light snapped back into the column, and the shadow was gone.

  Erris stood, turning and inspecting her own hands as though they were unfamiliar tools.

  “Incredible,” d’Arrent said. “It’s as though there are no limits; I can draw Body, Mind … Need. As deeply as I wish.”

  Sarine met her with warmth, then turned toward Tigai.

  Shit. He hadn’t fired. But then, what was he to do, when the shadow promised ruin to the world? Was that the creature he’d made his deal with, in the starfield? The whole notion seemed hollow, set against what he’d seen.

  “Lord Tigai,” Sarine said. “I’d have you as a champion, too, if you’re willing.”

  He straightened, jerking his hands away from his weapons, as all their eyes turned to him.

  “What does it mean?” he asked. “What does all of this mean? That voice, the shadow. I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I,” Sarine said. “Except that the shadow is our enemy. Whatever we have to do to stop him, we do. And it starts here, with this bond.”

  He glanced between the others, feeling more than half a fool. All he’d wanted was a sure place for himself and his family. Talk of plots and wars and ruin was magi business, as far as he was concerned. But then, he was neck-deep in it, surrounded by vipers and pretending he wanted nothing to do with snakes. Maybe this was a path to strength, too.