by Wight, Will
He had paid his price. Now it was time to reap the rewards.
He tore his power from the Pillar, and it crumbled into ash and dust. The red veil in the sky tore itself to shreds and vanished, letting through the painfully bright sun and vivid blue sky for the first time in six months.
Counting himself, he had half a dozen Incarnations under his control.
And now they were free.
From behind the Ragnarus Gate, Cynara kept her eyes fixed on the approaching Tartarus Incarnation, its steel armor gleaming under the newly revealed sun. “He will need a gatecrawler, and then the Spyglass to help him find the Gate. Perhaps something to help him once he’s inside. That’s quite a bill you’re running up, for a single Territory.”
“I assure you,” King Zakareth said, “the prize is worth the cost.”
Indirial would have left from Leah’s camp, just outside Cana’s walls. Which meant there would be the residue of an old Valinhall Gate somewhere down there.
They only had to find it.
***
Get up! the Gold Light screamed. You have to fight!
Alin didn't feel pain anymore. Not like he used to. He experienced the suffering of his body, but only in a distant way, like he was hearing about someone else's injuries rather than feeling his own.
His body was complaining quite loudly right now. His back ached, his armor pressed in on his chest, and he had scrapes all over his head and neck. If he were human, he would have been dead.
And the blow had come from Simon, of all people. Months ago, when he had seen the fight with the Valinhall Incarnation, Alin had wondered if Simon might actually pose a significant threat. But then he had Incarnated, and realized the truth: the Valinhall Incarnation must have simply been weak. No ordinary Traveler could oppose him.
Now Simon had made him look ridiculous.
Fury rose in Alin, and he levitated himself to his feet on a wave of Orange Light.
You're angry because you're embarrassed, the Violet Light said.
Don't let those emotions drive you, the Green Light agreed.
Alin called Rose, flooding his body, erasing his wounds in an instant. Then he summoned the Gold Light, filling his palms with destructive power, and the Gold Light became the loudest voice in his head.
Tear him apart! was all the Gold said.
Alin hadn't seen him move, but Simon was now standing on the top of the steps leading down from the Naraka waystation building. He stood amid the debris of the ruined doors, the silver-and-black mask glaring out from within his dark hood.
Combined with the seven-foot sword held in his right hand, the whole should have made Simon look ridiculous. Instead, he looked like an executioner, come to put an end to Alin.
The impression was completed by Simon's silence. He didn't say a word, only stared from behind his mask.
Filling his legs with Red Light, Alin dashed to the side. He didn't want to endanger the people inside the building; not while Grandmaster Naraka might escape in the confusion. When he had a clear shot at Simon without blowing the entire Naraka waystation to dust, he hurled both orbs of Gold Light.
They blasted through the air like balls of lightning, spiraling around one another and centering on Simon.
Well, where Simon used to be.
Then Simon wasn't over there anymore, he was right here, and his sword was gleaming silver as it struck for Alin's throat. He threw up a shield of Green Light in time, but the sword hit with such force that the Green Light actually cracked. Alin had a second to think, That shield held under Overlord Malachi's best attack, and then Simon had vanished again. Alin threw out a wave of Silver Light all around him in a panicked screen, trying to find him, and the Silver Light was screaming:
Where is he? Why can't we get a look at him, where is he? No! Up! He's above you!
Alin looked up, summoning Blue Light, the sapphire tendrils exploding from the ground around him to try and bind Simon, to trap him and drain his strength, using it against him. But Simon twisted in the air, somehow flowing through the tendrils of Blue Light, and only a last-second double-layered shield of Green kept Alin from being split down the middle by Simon's blade.
This was getting absurd. Simon was keeping him on the defensive in his own city. That shouldn't have been possible!
The Silver Light whispered to him, and Alin realized what was wrong. He was fighting out of shame, rushing the battle, trying to prove he was better. That was not Elysia. He was fighting as Alin, son of Torin, not as the Elysian Incarnation.
In a breath, Alin embraced the Green Light and covered himself in a shell of six-sided plates of shining green, interlocking to form a dome blocking Simon out. The Valinhall Traveler struck at the shield in pokes and probes, but he didn't assault it directly.
Alin used the time to hold the Green Light, letting its patience flow into him, washing away his recklessness.
He was not fighting to prove a point. He was not fighting for his pride.
He fought because he was right, and it was time he remembered that.
And what are you right about, exactly? the Violet Light asked, but Alin ignored it. He didn't have time for distractions.
Alin released the Green shield, whipping sheets of Violet at Simon, trying to banish his sword, his cloak, whatever he could get ahold of. Simon dodged with ease, as Alin had known he would, but at the same time Alin let his danger as an Incarnation flood out of him with invisible urgency, summoning all the Elysian natives in the city.
One by one, the fuzzy creatures in the Violet District dropped their meals, the red gnomes picked up their tools, and the Silver automatons stopped patrolling.
Elysia was in danger, and all of his sons and daughters came to answer.
Now Alin had to keep Simon from killing him before they got there.
For some reason, Simon had dropped his sword outside the Green Light. He was reaching out into midair as though to summon it again, but Alin couldn't figure out why he had banished the blade in the first place...
Then Simon drew out of nowhere a massive hammer, mirror-bright steel from its haft all the way up to its head, easily as tall as Simon himself. He hefted the hammer in both hands, swinging it against the plates of Green Light in a blow that Alin knew would break through the shield. That was a problem; when his Green armor broke, it gave him a piercing headache and enough painful mental feedback that it would disable him for a few seconds. More than enough time for Simon to take his head from his shoulders.
So, in the split-second before Simon's hammer made contact with the Green Light, Alin banished the shield.
Simon did an impressive job of controlling his momentum and not spinning around or staggering off his feet, but when his blow didn't hit the shield as anticipated, he did miss a step.
And Alin caught him in a trap.
A bubble of Orange Light rose from the ground where Alin was pointing, snaring Simon around the middle and raising him into the air. Simon struggled, trying to break free, but the Orange didn't bind him. It simply lifted him, quickly and easily, into the air.
Alin didn't have to win, not now. He had to stall out the fight until the legions of Elysia arrived. Then it would be an all-out fight between the City of Light and the House of Blades. In a contest like that, he liked his chances.
Besides, he doubted Valinhall had any powers that could deal with levitation. Simon would surely die from the fall.
I never took you for such an optimist, the Silver Light muttered.
***
Get down there! Rebekkah shouted. He's going to get away!
Simon had stopped struggling and was letting the orange cushion take him where it wanted. It was almost soothing, actually, once he had stopped panicking in sheer surprise at being lifted off the streets. He had never seen the world from this high up; the buildings looked like toys far below, Alin like a golden fly. From this vantage point, he could see that Alin had summoned help: brightly colored specks rushed toward him from every District in E
nosh, all converging on Alin's position.
That was good to know. It meant he would have to focus on defeating Alin one-on-one, while Leah and Indirial and the rest took out Alin's army. He had no doubt they could do it, even though Elysia undoubtedly held some surprises.
He wondered if he could beat Alin in time.
He'd learned a few things about the mask, in the time since he had fought Valin. While the mask was active, he didn't run out of steel or essence. Not ever, as far as he could tell. Even the single-use powers like the frozen horn recovered much more quickly.
In exchange, his chains grew at an alarming rate. Since he had thrown the first punch, his chains had raced from his wrists to twisting around his back. Soon, they would be encasing his ribs like bands of iron.
So he couldn't fully release his powers without removing the mask, but he could slow the growth of the chains by drawing less. He pushed the steel out of his system as much as he could, until the chill flowing through his veins was negligible. Then he released Nye essence in a breath, so that the world returned to almost normal speed.
In this state, his chains would almost stop growing. It was a trick he had learned to extend the amount of time he could keep wearing the mask, which was critical: as far as he could tell, the mask crippled him after he used it, even if he had only worn it for a second.
So each time he put it on, he had to make it last as long as possible.
Simon twisted in the light’s orange grip, looking up at the clouds. They were rushing toward him, and with a mix of excitement and alarm, he realized that he might actually reach a cloud. He had never thought of clouds as things that could be touched; they were always impossibly far away, like stars.
From this close, he could see wisps of mist coming off of the cloud. Was that all a cloud was? Was it nothing more than a bunch of fog floating up in the air?
Focus! Rebekkah sent. There’s a fight going on down there, and we’re missing it! I’ll tell you all about clouds later.
I can’t get there any faster by worrying about it, Simon pointed out. I’m waiting until this light wears off.
You should be more excited about this!
He sighed behind the mask and pointed himself back down at the ground, where the city now looked like a gameboard of nine colors. The white part was the smallest, and the Gold District the biggest. He had imagined that it would be laid out in nine equal wedges, but the size and locations of the different colors seemed almost random.
The Orange Light started to flicker, and Simon summoned Azura.
I can survive a fall from this height, right? Simon asked.
You need to, Rebekkah said. Otherwise you won’t get to see Alin’s face when you beat him till he begs for mercy.
The light had grown still more pale, and Simon called another trickle of steel.
The funny thing was, he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill Alin. That was a crippling weakness in a fight, being unwilling to kill your opponent, he had learned that lesson long ago. Kai had never taught him, nor had Indirial; he had learned it from Valinhall. If he held back against the Nye, they would strangle him. If he had let the fiery snake in the forge live, it would have melted the flesh from his bones.
And if he didn’t kill Alin, or find some way to force him back into Elysia, he had no doubt that Alin would kill him.
This has to be done, Rebekkah said, with uncharacteristic patience in her voice. You know it does. Even if he’s not completely evil now, he’ll only get worse. You can put a stop to it.
Simon clung to that advice, pushing the doubts out of his mind. Alin was an Incarnation, and Incarnations were both unstable and unbelievably powerful. He had to die, or he would become an even bigger danger than he already was.
He had to fight to kill. Anything else was unforgiveable.
On a whim, he spun around. A second before the Orange Light ran out, he swept Azura’s blade through the belly of a cloud.
He felt no resistance, and the steel emerged trailing mist and patterned with dew.
Huh, he thought. So that’s a cloud.
The Orange Light failed, and Simon began to fall.
Rebekkah made a sound like a growl. Give me your killer instinct back! You almost had it!
Sorry, Simon sent, as the ground rushed up to meet him. I’ll focus.
He called steel and essence both, flooding through him in a rush of wind and ice. Then he pictured a stone amulet.
The stone was one of his newer powers, and he hated calling on it; steel protected him enough for most fights, and calling stone was distinctly uncomfortable. It felt as though his skin had become dry and solid, like he had to grind his skin to gravel every time he moved his joints. It didn’t actually happen, but it felt like it should, and that unnerved him enough that he tried to avoid using the power.
But he had the feeling that he was about to need all the defense he could get.
Here we go! Rebekkah cheered.
He called stone.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
FIGHTING IN THE STREETS
When Simon knocked Alin through the doors of the waystation and out into the street, Leah didn’t have time to react.
Indirial gave Ilana a hand up from the floor, where he had thrown her after snatching her out of the way of Simon’s punch. Feiora had propped herself up against the wall, and was now struggling to stand on her feet again, Eugan squawking in panic.
Leah found that she had her spear raised, ready to throw, and nothing to target. She caught a glimpse, through the ruined doors, of Simon standing on the steps outside the waystation. Alin was levitating to his feet across the street, so Leah hurried over to the doors. She needed to get a clear shot; maybe if she hit Alin with the Lightning Spear, Simon could do the rest.
She found her way blocked by a black cloak.
Indirial gripped her arm and practically dragged her to the back of the room, toward the Naraka Gate. “Sorry, this is far too much of a risk,” he said pleasantly. “You’re pulling out.”
“Release me!” Leah commanded. “I can kill him!” She struggled, but the man had a grip like an Ornheim golem.
Indirial nodded, but he didn’t stop dragging her toward Naraka. “I’m sure you could, given the time. Legend says that’s how the last fight between Ragnarus and Elysia went, after all. But this is not important enough to risk you. Do you understand?”
She did. As much as she would have preferred to win her way clear on the battlefield, it was a foolish risk. She was the only battle-capable Ragnarus Traveler they had, and gambling her life on a fight with an Incarnation in Enosh was not only sheer idiocy, it was selfishness.
She stopped fighting him, so Indirial released her arm. It was only then that she noticed something was wrong.
She couldn’t see Grandmaster Naraka through the Gate.
Her two Naraka guards were clearly straining to hold the Gate, shouting something at one another. The three Tartarus Travelers had blades drawn, and one of them reached out to one side of the Gate, dragging Grandmaster Naraka back by the hem of her robes.
One lens of her red spectacles was gone, but she wore a mad smile. As a Tartarus pulled a length of rope out of her pack to tie the Grandmaster’s arms, the old woman got one last gesture in with her branded palm.
Indirial rushed forward, his cracked blade drawn, but he wasn’t fast enough. The Naraka Gate winked shut, Grandmaster Naraka’s laughter drifting out.
From the look of things, the guards had restrained the Grandmaster before she shut the portal. If that was true, then they would be able to open a new Gate from their side at any moment.
Unless the Grandmaster knew a way to seal a Naraka Gate and keep it sealed. Unless she hadn’t been tied securely as it had looked. Unless the Travelers took too long to open the Gate, and Leah’s fight was already over.
Too many possibilities.
Indirial skidded to a halt where the Gate had once hung. “We need another way out,” he said. “It takes too long to open a
Valinhall Gate. What about Ragnarus?”
Leah hefted her spear, walking toward the broken doors. She could hear the fight between Simon and Alin in a series of deafening cracks and crashes, but she couldn’t see much except a few flashes of colored light. “That’s not an option. There may be enemies in the Crimson Vault.”
Indirial didn’t ask for any more details, moving on to the next possibility. “What about Lirial?”
With her Spear, she nudged one door open. It swung crazily from one hinge, dropping splinters like a tree dropping leaves, but she got a better look at the fight. Alin was standing in a dome of Green Light, and Simon had dropped his sword. What were they doing?
“Lirial’s no good,” Leah responded. “According to the scout reports, he’s got a network of guards on the other side. We’d be detected and detained.”
The Overlord’s gaze snapped to Feiora.
Leah shook her head. “They’ve got guards on the other side of Avernus, too. That would be the same as Lirial.”
Feiora hesitated. “Not quite,” she said. “There are some other…complications.”
Simon had produced a giant silver hammer from his Territory, and he swung at Alin’s green dome. Leah silently cheered, waiting for him to break the barrier so that she could hurl her Spear.
The green shield vanished, and then Simon was wrapped in Orange Light. Before she could even think of interfering, he shot up to the sky.
She felt a moment of panic for Simon. How long would he rise like that, drifting toward the clouds? Would he ever come down? But she focused on what mattered most.
Alin was standing in the street, exposed and undefended.
She drew back the Lightning Spear, ready to throw…
And a blue tentacle wrapped around her right arm. A cold tingling, buzzing sensation ran up and down her arm, as though it was carried through her bones. The Spear clattered to the floor, and she collapsed to her knees, all but out of strength.
Then Indirial was there, and his blade passed through the blue tendril, severing it into two twitching pieces. The buzzing feeling passed quickly, but the weakness remained. She shook it off and looked up at the drifting jellyfish-creature that had managed to sneak up on her while she was focused on the Elysian Incarnation.
