by Carol Berg
“But I failed to close it before. Even with all my power and more borrowed from…others…I failed. And I’ve no idea how to destroy Ixtador—remove the corruption.”
“But this time you have the Fire. This.” He touched the wall. The starving dead flocked to his hand on the glass. “The Fire is the universe’s gift of light to humankind, a way for humans to espy reflections of the Greater Truth.”
“The prism,” I said. “The fire that Port—that Ianne brought from beyond the Veil was this prism—the three Stones joined together?” Altheus—Portier—had commanded his wizard to cut and polish the Stones the better to let the Creator’s light shine through. They were a conduit.…
“More or less. This glass is the greatest treasure in the living world. To see these small minds—two living, one dead—playing with its pieces for their trivial purposes is abomination.”
I had said something similar myself.
“Some will tell you that you were born in darkness apurpose to challenge me and that our combat risks destroying the prism, leaving the living world bereft of glory. But you wisely understand that your fate is your own choice, not some mythic destiny. You are not required to do such wickedness.”
The old man had warned me: Thou’rt other, born in darkness, gifted with strength to quench the light of Heaven.
And Portier: Your strength. Your gifts. You are born to do the unthinkable.
The young man tossed his silken hair over his shoulder. “Can you not see, my friend? You have the strength and skill to wield the Fire as it should be wielded.”
Tyregious had said the candle exercise demonstrated everything about the Stones. About seeing. About light. About magic…
Great gods of the universe…magic! I had witnessed the torrent of power unleashed by the Stones, purest magic that left both the formulaic practice of the Camarilla and my own plodding use of keirna unnecessary. No wonder Tyregious’s spells had needed no intrinsic power—not when the Stones provided a flood of it—the whole of it. And what better gift to aid humankind in times of trouble, to create beauty, to reveal the face of the divine? Altheus, the Holy Imperator, knew. Portier knew. Magic was a hope that something marvelous existed beyond nature, beyond death and despair and decaying flesh.
Disbelief sloughed from me like a snake’s skin. From youth I had scoffed at gods and daemons, while submerging myself in the most profound evidence of the divine—the Greater Truth of the universe, whether that truth be a benevolent Creator with messenger angels or the majestic precision of nature’s order that scholars only now were recognizing. And this being who walked in dreams and mystery, who named himself defender of this Greater Truth, implied that my wrong choice could destroy it…destroy the Stones, destroy the very conduit that brought magic into the world…destroy the light.…Unthinkable.
Such a horror gripped me, such certainty that all the whispers and prophetic declarations meant exactly what they said, that I could scarce speak. Myth was founded in truth. And sometimes it was truth. Yet if I had choice…“Why would anyone, human or divine, believe I would choose to rob the world of magic?”
“A very long story,” he said, his serenity veined with bitterness. “Dimios was enraged that such creatures as humankind possessed a gift meant for greater beings. He it was who punished Ianne by chaining him to the mount. And he punished the other daemons who gave Ianne such ideas. Dimios, in turn, was confined for that terrible deed, his lordship limited to a demesne of ice and gloom. In that great judgment, Ianne the thief pleaded that humankind be allowed to keep their bit of fire in perpetuity, the better to care for themselves and recall their place in the universe through glimpses of the Greater Truth. And indeed Ianne was given the Fire in this solid form, the prism, so that the light that you name magic could never be dimmed at the whims of daemons. None born to the wider universe can wield an artifact made for humans.”
But now this conduit of magic, our window onto the wider universe, had been damaged by the excesses of the Blood Wars. We had seen magic failing in the two centuries since, but we never understood that the price of greed and overreaching was our own future as a part of that Greater Truth, our very essence that could exist beyond mundane life—our souls.
Truth. As clear as mathematics.
And still the Defender spoke, disdainful now. Indignant. “Some will say that destroying this aberrant Ixtador might extinguish the soulless scraps who languish there. Yet your gifts can set them free, using the Fire to give them their proper place in the order of nature.”
He extended his hand. “Shun these bleak prophecies and accept the power that awaits you, Dante. Join me in fealty. Become my hand in the living world, and at long last we shall make things right.”
Of all things I desired to make things right—to preserve the glory of magic, to protect and defend it from the corruption of those like Jacard,
de Gautier, and Kajetan. I wanted to teach others to see. Surely my study, my searching, my skills, understanding, and desire had brought me here. Even the horrors of beatings and burnt flesh, of darkness and confinement, of lonely nights near the brink of madness had strengthened me, made me ready for difficult tasks—not just evil ones. And yet…
My mage collar itched as if a burr had been left inside it. I tugged at it and stared into the roiling sea beyond the wall. Soulless scraps…an unsympathetic description…To set them free…give them their proper place…What was their proper place? Would the destruction of Ixtador return a soul’s lost essence or destroy it utterly? And what of the souls not yet devoured?
Green light penetrated blood, bones, sinews…beautiful…cold. Everything the Defender said rang true. Yet in the night watches at Castelle Escalon, speaking in the aether with a stranger I could not yet trust, I had learned how easy it was to hide the truth while speaking no lies. Which brought me around again to the old shepherd’s caution: Be wary of thy companion, required to speak truth, though his meaning is ever lies. And though wary, stay with him, for he must lead thee to thy unhappy destiny. And the other, spoken by a friend abandoned and in pain: He’s going to come for you.…
Oh, gods, gods, gods…I touched the glass walls. They were solid on every side and cold as ice. The dead flocked to my hand. Panic robbed me of breath. The walls moved inward…crushing.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved away fear. One answer would tell me. “How do we prevent this eater of souls from entering the living world?”
“I have taken my stand here,” he said, drawing his fingers along the wall, causing a ripple in the ocean of spectres outside the wall. “And I will not be moved. Bring the three Stones together as one, and whenever you wield the Fire, your strength and my vision will be joined. We shall be as one, you and I—the Righteous Defender of the Greater Truth and his Hand in the Living World. Together we shall stand against corruption, remedy the wrongs that have been done, and reshape the universe.”
What is the sensation when the desperately needed rain in a dry season pounds just enough harder that the mind comprehends the coming of a flood? Or when the snow that dances lightly in the air thickens and the wind swirling it rises just enough to speak the onslaught of blizzard? Such was my experience when he gave his answer. The world shifted, and I understood the course laid out for me, not by impersonal fate or daemon compulsion, but by my own irrevocable choices. By my skills. By my gift. To do the unthinkable.
This being, named in myth the Righteous Defender of Heaven, had taken his stand here in the conduit of magic that fed Rhymus…that sent dreams to Masson de Cuvier…to my father…to me. The Stone had shaped those dreams into his vision of past, present, and future. My father had seen him in the dream, the Righteous Defender, calling him the fairest of all the Creator’s works. But months ago my poor sister had reminded me that the First of the Fallen was ever deemed the gods’ fairest. The one named Dimios. The Souleater.
He awaited my reaction. “Great lord, this honor…to be your hand…I cannot speak.…”
Was it coincide
nce that Kajetan, who now existed in Ixtador, drove his living nephew to collect the Seeing Stones and wield them as one? Was it Jacard who wanted me in Mancibar even though I had no place in his simple rite? Or was it Kajetan? Or was it Kajetan’s master? Kajetan plotted to take Jacard’s place in a mortal body graced with Portier’s gift of rebirth—one foot in each world, providing a passage for the One who wished to enter. If I became Dimios’s bound servant, I could not stop it.
I did not believe in destiny. But I recognized truth when I heard it. Purposeful blindness was folly when you stood at the brink of the abyss and the road behind you had vanished. We had the myth entirely wrong. The Righteous Defender was trying to keep us blemished mortals out of Heaven—the Greater Truth—strengthening his arm by devouring our souls. It was the Daemon of the Dead…the guardian, the blemished mortal who walked the verges of the worlds…who was supposed to stop him. Arrogant, cocksure, dismissive, he’d so much as told me how to do it—to destroy the prism where he lurked.
Only I couldn’t. I had walked straight into his trap, ignorant of those things I needed to know: how to wrest control of the Stones from their owners, how to destroy such things. Dimios would never have revealed so much if he was going to allow me to walk away. Sure, he had a grip on my soul already. The cold dark lurked in my depths, seething like the liquid fire at the heart of a volcano. And if I fell…
Desperate to find a way out, I gathered my wits. Perhaps I could buy time to set events in motion. I needed to adjust the spell Kajetan had left in Tychemus. That should prevent this abomination of a rite that could kill Portier and draw Kajetan, if not Dimios himself, through the Veil. Then I needed to find Will Deune and pass on what I’d learned.
Most of all, I needed time to invoke the spell I had prepared to protect those things I would not reveal—the truth of this mystery and the identity of those I loved, those who must now carry out what I could not. I would relish blasting the grate from Portier’s cell, but that would expose me to Xanthe, precipitating the very collaboration I feared. Portier was hostage to my faith in Jacard’s impotence, in Xanthe’s stubborn nature, in Anne’s determination and her power and her heart that would not falter at the deeds she must do. Me, a man of faith; it was laughable. But perhaps I could aid my friend’s rescue, too, if I could just buy enough time.…
“It is time to choose your course, Dante.” He whose fair hand awaited mine would not be denied.
I knew only one way to buy time. My hand gripped the silver pendant on my breast. Dimios knew me by my deeds. He could not see the rest.
My knees bent. I took his hand, kissed it, and pressed it to my forehead—the binding of submission and fealty. Emerald sparks leapt from our touch and I felt them settle like frost crystals in my bones. “I am imperfect in all things. But you have borne witness to my deeds. Magic, seeing, light, are life’s breath to me. You are the Righteous Defender of Heaven and I will stand with you as long as I have a mind. As of the sun’s next rising, I am yours. Tell me your will.…”
He bound me. And told me his will. And taught me that I knew nothing at all of pain. Laughing, he left me the hours until the sun’s rising to contemplate the horrors of my future. Time…
Anne
CHAPTER 31
36 DUON, NIGHT
THE KADR ROAD
“Dante!”
I sat bolt upright, my head splitting, my spirit cracked. I could not breathe, could not think for the tearing, lacerating agony. An eternity, it seemed, until I knew it was the aether and not knives carving my flesh from my bones.
“Ani, love, what is it?”
“Are you ill?”
Ilario and Rhea spoke as one, their worried faces revealed by flashes of pink and purple lightning, their concern underscored by thunder that fractured the night and trembled the soggy ground.
I clutched my stomach, crossed an arm across my breast, and rocked rapidly in a vain attempt to prevent my heart from bursting its bounds.
“Don’t know. Hurts.” I squeezed the words between my teeth. “Dante.” All his furious exuberance had returned, but buried in this horrific torment.
Ilario drew me into his arms, enfolding me in slender solidity. “Tell us how to help you.”
But I could not think. We huddled under a shallow overhang on the Kadr ridge, soaked through by an endless drizzle.
Rhea laid her own blanket over us as she revived the embers of our fire. “Let me examine you, Anne,” she said softly. “This could be some injury or joint fever. I’ve remedies.…”
“I don’t think it’s her own injury,” said Ilario softly, holding me like a fevered babe. “She can feel…other things.”
Not even in my murderous rage at Mont Voilline had I experienced such darkness tainting the aether. Icy malevolence. Wrenching, purposeful destruction. Memories of happiness were torn out of me—of my family’s love, satisfying study, the beauty of Montclaire’s spring wildflowers, of laughter and games and sweet sadness, of exuberant conversations with my unknown friend in the nights of Castelle Escalon. They blackened and withered as if the fires of Pradoverde had consumed them and left them as fouled scraps. My inner walls could hold against the onslaught no better than paper could hold back a lava flow. And Dante was at the center of it.
As the sun showed itself a ruddy bruise in the east, the ravaging stopped. As if the lion whose jaws had clenched me for so many hours had tossed me aside, leaving only the dry punctures of its deadly teeth. I dared not shift Ilario’s steady embrace, lest it all begin again.
The aether calmed to a quiet turbulence more usual to a morning in the wild, but I did not close it off. Rather I pressed my face into the sodden wool of Ilario’s breast and reached deep into the stream of emotion, dream, and magic…
… and Dante was gone.
“No, no, no.”
“Tell me, Ani. Saints’ mercy, is he dead?”
I shook my head. Even when he was so tightly closed, I had sensed the quiet echoes of his life—everything he was. But now…“Oh, gods, Ilario, he exists, but there’s nothing of him there. Nothing. As if everything he is has been stripped away and only his bones are left.” That did not, could not, mean he was dead.
“We’ll find him,” said my chevalier. “Never doubt. We’ll find him, and through you and Rhea and Portier—saints grant he yet breathes—we’ll have him back to explain all this. And, Ani, whatever has to be done about him…he will not burn. I’ll not allow that.”
HOVEN
The spring monsoon had struck as we ascended the Kadr ridge. No doubt the land of crags and seams saw little rain through the year, but we were convinced that it all fell on us. Though grateful we’d no dependence on the blighted water sources, we would have traded two days’ thirst for an hour dry.
The steady drizzle made the steeps slippery and the flats a sea of muck. We tied ropes between us, so as not to get separated in the fog, and took turns in the lead, walking instead of riding so as not to lose the road. Even so we almost missed the settlement of Hoven, lost in a sea of cloud.
“Honestly, it’s down there,” said Ilario amid a flurry of hacking and sneezing. “I’m not leading you off a cliff. Trust—”
A cry accompanied a sharp tug on the rope at my waist. Rhea vanished down the muddy embankment to the side of the narrow road. Ilario’s quick grab prevented me sliding after her.
“Are you broken?” Ilario called down into the fog where Rhea was spewing the first oaths I’d ever heard from her.
“No.” The weight on the rope eased. “Just twisted— Oof.”
Fortunately I was more prepared for the second wrench.
“Get a foothold and start climbing. We’ll not let you backslide. If you need, I’ll come down.…”
Centimetre by centimetre we took up the rope every time it went slack. “Careful of your gut, Chevalier,” I said, feeling my own strain as a sudden weight told us Rhea had slipped again.
“To be sure.”
When Rhea’s head poked above the e
dge of the road, her cheeks blazed through a skin of mud. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Stupid. Lumbering cow.”
Ilario offered a hand. She shook it off. “It’s naught.”
But as she climbed onto the mud-slick path, she was limping. Silently, guiltily, I cursed the thought it might slow us. Left to myself I would have ridden Duskborn into the ground and run the rest of the way. I had to see for myself. I’d sooner believe the aether itself broken before I would believe Dante so changed…or lost. I’d scarce been able to look at Ilario since his pledge to see that Dante did not burn. I could not bear to think what that meant.
Rhea pulled off her hose, and in moments, bound her left ankle, wrenching the bandage wickedly tight.
“As ever, you’re much too hard on my gentle, glorious physician,” said Ilario, touching her shoulder. She shook off his hand.
