by Wight, Will
She seemed to realize something, and she jerked her head around, searching for something along the ground in the tent. When she saw the Lightning Spear lying nearby, she snapped out a hand to summon it into her palm.
It vanished.
***
All the dolls were absolutely silent.
“Mithra,” the Tartarus Incarnation rumbled. He bent at the waist to pick up the Wanderer’s silver-and-gold sword.
Kai started to laugh.
It started in his chest, an involuntarily convulsion that shook him, tearing out of him until he couldn’t help but cackle, chortle, positively choke in spasms of mirth. This was too much. He’d finally left them alone, tried to stay away like they wanted, respected Azura’s choice. And this was what happened. This was what happened.
He laughed until tears streamed down his face as the Tartarus Incarnation scooped up the sword and started to walk away.
Abruptly quiet, Kai held out a hand to the crowd of dolls.
“Caela, if you would,” he said smoothly. Caela rose to her feet and hopped up onto his arm without a word. Reaching up with her wooden hands, she tightened her bonnet.
Go, she said.
Kai exploded into action. His steel had been running out, but he did not accept that. As he’d done once before, he reached deeper into Benson’s basement until the steel skeleton’s burning blue eyes loomed in his mind.
Kai, my friend, Benson began, you look—
Kai ripped the power from him, and steel flowed through his muscles in a torrent. His leap took him over the Tartarus Incarnation’s shoulder, until he almost hit the ceiling, but as he passed over the Incarnation, he seized its breastplate in both hands.
When he landed in the hallway, he pulled the Incarnation down with him.
The giant flopped over onto its stomach, blindly waving Mithra. The edge of the Dragon’s Fang scraped at the walls and doorframes of the hallway, leaving shallow gouges. With its free hand, Tartarus pulled a steel spike out of midair and drove it at Kai’s neck.
Behind, Caela snapped.
Kai leaned his head to the right, and the spike drove through empty air. He grabbed it with his own free hand, jerking the weapon out of the Incarnation’s grip and tossing it to the ground.
He kept walking forward, dragging the ten-foot titan behind him like a struggling child.
He didn’t walk back to the entry hall, though he was vaguely aware of a stone giant and a shadowy figure back there, as well as a swirling Gate. Now, he had a new plan. Someone had sent this Incarnation into his Territory, into his home, to kill his dolls.
Kai wasn’t satisfied with breaking the enemy’s weapon. He would break the enemy.
When he finally reached the door to the forge, Kai picked up the Tartarus Incarnation with both hands and used him as a hammer, slamming him once, twice, three times against the door until it broke inward.
This is the second time he’s broken this door, Kai thought. Naughty, naughty.
Inside the next door, the Agnos family waited. They screamed and scattered as he walked in, dragging an Incarnation behind him. Andra and Erastes stood in front of the others, Erastes clutching a Tartarus steel infantry sword and Andra a smith’s hammer.
Kai paid them no heed. When the Tartarus Incarnation reached out for a workbench to try and pull himself up, Kai broke the bench into splinters. When he tried to throw a blade at one of the bystanders, Caela warned him, and Kai stomped his hand until it crumpled.
When he finally reached the gallery, he heaved the Incarnation in the room ahead of him. Behind, the hidden door slid shut.
The Incarnation placed one metal hand on the counters to either side of him, pushing himself up. One of his gauntlets still gripped Mithra’s hilt. Above, five complete masks—one more than last time—looked down on them.
“I am bound by honor to tell you that I was operating under restrictions the last we fought,” the Tartarus Incarnation grated out.
Kai didn’t care. He looked up at the masks on the wall. “You have no guard,” he said. “No trial. No way to release your power.” He pointed at the Incarnation, still looking up at the masks. “So with my own trial, I will prove my worth.”
Tartarus struck at Kai with Mithra’s blade, but Caela called out, and Kai ducked. He never glanced at his opponent.
“The enemy is strong,” he continued. “The enemy is here. The enemy threatens us all. It’s carrying Valin’s own blade, and if that’s not enough for you, then I don’t know what else you want!” By the end he was screaming at the masks, at the room, at Valinhall itself.
The sword fell like an executioner’s axe, and Kai stepped to one side. If defeating the same Incarnation twice in one room doesn’t count as earning a power, I don’t know what does.
Caela’s mental voice was grim. If it doesn’t, then tear this House down and build it again, she said. Because I won’t want to live here anymore.
Tartarus swung the sword at Kai’s neck, and Kai stepped forward, inside Mithra’s reach, calling stone.
His skin hardened, and he struck upward, driving his fist at the Incarnations’ descending wrist.
The metal arm collapsed in on itself with a deafening crunch, and steel fingers flew open. Blindly, Kai reached out and snatched Mithra’s hilt with his left hand, the blade reversed.
Then he called wind, letting the power flow down into his sword, strengthening and sharpening.
Blades appeared in the Tartarus Incarnation’s hands, but not fast enough.
Mithra passed through the Incarnation’s neck, sending his head clattering to the floor in another spray of gears and molten metal. The body jerked and twisted, but it didn’t attack anymore.
But Kai wasn’t one to lose the same way twice.
He slashed through the Incarnation’s breastplate with a wind-enhanced strike, tearing open the gears and springs inside, ripping the armor away plate by plate and severing each limb. When the Incarnation was little more than scrap metal, he reached in and pulled out something that looked like a red, pulsing, metal heart.
Ragnarus, he thought, and rage swelled within him. I will tear apart the Crimson Vault with my bare hands.
I…don’t think it was Ragnarus, Caela said reluctantly. I feel someone outside the Gate. A Valinhall Incarnation.
Kai froze. Last time they had entered the House through a gatecrawler, so he had assumed…but the Gate was clean and white, not angry and red. He remembered the shadow he’d glimpsed outside, at the end of the hallway.
One of his own, betraying him, attacking him in the House.
Again.
Kai collected what he needed from the gallery, stalking out into the workshop. “Take the scrap metal to the furnace,” he said, on his way out. No one said anything.
The Eldest was waiting for him in the forge, so he tossed the Ragnarus heart at the Nye. “Cast this into the void. Let it drift away from existence for all time.”
He bowed, his sleeves folded together. “It shall be done.”
The tip of Mithra’s point winked under the Eldest Nye’s hood, and Kai slowly moved the flat of the blade upward, lifting the Nye’s head. “If I find that you have tried to bend it to your will, you will answer to me,” Kai said softly. “Destroy it.”
The Eldest bowed again, and Kai walked out of the hallway to the entry hall.
The Gate had vanished.
***
Indirial felt Kai’s rage, felt one of the daughters of wind die, felt the destruction of Tartarus.
He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake.
When the Ornheim Incarnation left Valinhall, Indirial considered for a moment leaving the Gate open. Kai would certainly charge after him in a rage, and they would have their showdown. After all, Kai had beaten him once. Maybe he could do it again.
The thought was tempting, but the mission came first. And Kai wasn’t much of a threat, not after twenty-five years of isolation and slow, creeping insanity. Indirial would be better off cherishi
ng the memories of their first fight.
Ornheim gathered up the three Dragon’s Fangs, and the two of them began walking along the wall, preparing to jump off. They needed to reach King Zakareth as soon as possible, so he could seal the Fangs in the Vault. There, they couldn’t be banished, and the remaining Valinhall Travelers would be all but powerless…until they were tested and proven worthy.
One Incarnation for three Dragon’s Fangs and, essentially, control over Valinhall. King Zakareth would probably consider that a good trade.
Ornheim stepped off the wall, landing in a crater far below, and set off at a jog toward Leah’s camp. Indirial began to follow him when something burned at the back of his awareness, like a mole trying to burrow its way into the back of his skull. He turned and saw an angry red light where the Valinhall Gate had once hung.
Five spiked black fingers stuck out into midair, clawing the Gate back open.
The black gauntlet: Valinhall’s gatecrawler.
The call of the frozen horn would seal even this Gate, and for a moment Indirial wondered if he ought to try. It would be a race to see whether the horn’s powers ran out first or the gauntlet’s, and it would eat up precious time.
Now, it seemed like he would get the fight he wanted.
With Vasha gleaming and ready at his side, Indirial grinned.
***
With the spiked fingertips of his black gauntlet, Kai gutted the world. He tore a gaping red hole where the Gate used to be, and stepped through it. Wind tore at his clothes, at the hair over his eyes, as he walked onto the mighty walls of Cana.
The stones of the fortifications had been marked by the presence of Incarnations. One stretch of rock was dyed red as though it had been soaked in blood. The Crimson Vault. A few paces away, the wall’s bricks had melted and flowed into a small cave set with sparkling crystals. The Maelstrom of Stone. Outside the walls, pillars of snow and ice lowered in a makeshift staircase heading toward a distant camp. The Tower of Winter.
And a few paces away, the stone formed neat squares of smoothly polished tile. The House of Blades.
And on those tiles, the Valinhall Incarnation stood ready for battle.
His boots were dark and practical, his pants black, his shirt crisp white and missing the sleeves. The chains that spiraled up his tanned arms glistened in the sun, reflecting light like a steel mirror. An otherworldly cloak, woven from what looked like solid shadows, rose from the ground behind him. It flowed like a cape, untouched by the breeze, and rose in a cowl over his head.
Two things shone from inside the darkness of that hood: the twin violet circles of his eyes, and his bright smile.
Of course it was Indirial.
It had to be Indirial, because Kai had once let him live. This was all Kai’s fault. If he had killed Indirial a quarter of a century ago, then he wouldn’t have to worry about this. Or if he had let Indirial kill him. If he hadn’t taken in Simon, then Azura would never have abandoned him, and he could have protected Otoku as she deserved.
But then, if he had killed Indirial, then Indirial would never have saved the child Simon’s life. And then Azura would never have had the chance to choose another.
No matter how he twisted it, everything came down to Kai’s poor decisions.
Indirial leaned forward, Vasha in one hand, Korr dangling from his neck. “Challenge me, Traveler,” he said. “Come on!”
The wound in Kai’s back burned, but now he didn’t care about the pain. It felt like a fire at his back, driving him forward. His minutes were numbered, now that he’d left the protection of the House and the poison of Ragnarus could work at its full capacity. Besides, no matter how much power he’d taken from Benson, it would wear out eventually. And his chains had already reached past his shoulders, from his work in the deep rooms and his fight against Tartarus.
Indirial could move faster than Kai, could hit harder, could last longer. But Kai only had to last long enough to see him die.
The mask Kai pulled from his belt wasn’t as deadly looking as Simon’s. It was half white and half gray, with two rectangular slits for his eyes and no mouth. He slid the metal up, under his bangs.
If this doesn’t work, I will tear Valinhall down to its foundations.
Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, Caela said.
When he moved his hand away, the mask stayed. Steel coursed through him in a rolling, icy storm. Chains crawled across his skin even faster, but what did he care? He could fight.
Indirial blurred toward him, powered by the Nye essence that Kai had never earned. If he were on his own, he would never have been able to react.
But he wasn’t alone.
Left, Caela called. Left, then right, then straight ahead.
Kai stepped forward and swept Mithra up and to the left, knocking Vasha’s cracked blade wide. Indirial came in with another strike to the left side, but it was a feint. He reversed the blow, his blade flowing from the right, but Kai turned it aside again. When Indirial brought Vasha down with both hands, Kai raised Mithra and caught the edge of his blade on his own.
The gold-and-silver Dragon’s Fang of Valin, the Wanderer, met the cracked and pitted blade of his first student. For a moment they stayed evenly matched, quivering with tension, Kai’s mask only a pace from Indirial’s grin.
Then, in a puff of smoke, Kai vanished.
He’ll expect you behind him, Caela sent, as he dispersed. He’d anticipated that.
Which was why he formed above Indirial, falling toward the Incarnation’s head, his blade reversed so that he could drive his blade down and through Indirial, pinning him to the stone like an insect to a board.
That was the plan, anyway, but something made the Valinhall Incarnation look up, and he almost seemed to blur as he sidestepped, moving so fast that Kai couldn’t see it. He called wind anyway, and when he landed, his sharpened Dragon’s Fang drove into the stone wall of Cana as if into soft mud.
Vasha’s blade flashed toward his throat, but he disappeared into another cloud of black smoke.
They continued that way, evenly matched, for a tight handful of seconds that stretched on like minutes. Indirial was too fast for Kai to land a clean hit, but between Caela and the smoke, Kai could avoid any hit the Incarnation delivered.
Thanks to the mask, they were evenly matched in strength. But with every second, his wound tightened and burned worse, until even his fury couldn’t ignore it. And the ends of his chain-marks had started creeping up to his neck.
I won’t be able to finish this before the chains reach their end, will I?
Not unless he throws himself off the wall, Caela said. Probably not even then.
Indirial ripped a chunk of stone out of the wall with one hand and hurled it at Kai. Mithra sliced it in half, the two pieces flying off to either side, but it was a distraction: Indirial flew straight toward him, violet eyes glowing, Vasha pointed straight at Kai’s chest.
He swung his blade with both hands, Mithra meeting Vasha strength-for-strength. The force almost knocked Kai off his feet, and he stumbled several paces backwards, almost knocking himself over onto his back.
His time was running out. At this rate, he’d never be able to avenge Otoku.
I need a new plan, he thought.
***
Simon watched as King Zakareth the Sixth, Incarnation of Ragnarus, defeated the Endross Incarnation in an entirely staged contest.
He and Leah stood with their cheeks pressed almost together, trying to see out the tent-flap without opening it. He felt a little ridiculous, like a child trying to spy on an adult’s conversation, but two facts remained: they had to know what Zakareth was saying, and they couldn’t risk being spotted. That meant peeking out of a tent like an eight-year-old.
Zakareth rose in the sky on a glowing platform—glowing red, of course—and stood there, with a staff in his right hand and the Lightning Spear in his left. If he’d been serious about attacking Endross, he would have thrown the Spear from the ground, not levitated up to
fight him one-on-one.
The Endross Incarnation growled and spun when he realized Zakareth was there, throwing out both hands and blasting a double-fistful of lightning at the Ragnarus Incarnation.
The ruby on the top of the King’s staff flashed, and there was a blinding explosion.
When Simon could see again, the Endross Incarnation was plummeting to the ground, trailing smoke. The King raised his staff again, and all the Endross Gates around the camp were swallowed by red light. Even the summoned creatures vanished.
“How did he do that?” Simon asked.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Leah said, in a flat voice. She seemed to be handling news of her father’s survival and Incarnation better than Simon had thought she would.
King Zakareth raised his staff again, and the Endross Incarnation was hauled back up into the air by his throat. A glowing red collar wrapped around his neck.
“There’s no Ragnarus weapon that does that many different things,” Leah said. “He’s cheating somehow.”
Simon suspected that Incarnations were allowed to ‘cheat’ when it came to their own Territories, but he said nothing. Zakareth was already faking the fight; why not fake the extent of his own powers?
“I am the King of Damasca,” the Incarnation announced, his voice carrying easily through the whole camp. “I have come to protect my people.”
A few isolated cheers went up from around the camp, but even most of the soldiers in the royal army seemed too stunned by the turn of events to react.
“If you yield to my rule and guidance, Incarnation of Endross, you shall keep your life…though not your freedom. Do you submit?”
Simon couldn’t imagine anyone believing a scene like that, even from a King. It sounded like Zakareth was reading off a page, like Alin reciting an old, memorized story around a bonfire.
“I humbly submit myself to you,” the Endross Incarnation said, thus cementing his place in Damascan history as the worst actor of all time.
“Then kneel,” the King said. Endross went to one knee in midair, effortlessly hovering.
If this wasn’t practiced, how did he know that the Endross Incarnation could kneel in open air? Simon wondered. I wouldn’t have expected that.
