City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy)

by Wight, Will

  “Fascinating,” she murmured. Then she fell over.

  Erastes pulled the crimson Ragnarus blade from the Incarnation’s body and wiped it on the grass. “I knew I’d find a use for this,” he said.

  Simon laughed and ran out the Gate, chasing the final Incarnation.

  Lirial was floating away as fast as she could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough. He caught up with her in a handful of seconds, but she spun toward him and flared with white light.

  His eyes felt like someone had stabbed them with steel picks, and he was flash-blinded, but that hardly made a difference.

  Caela, he called.

  I still want to know why you’re not dead, she said. Above you, and a little to the left.

  Simon leaped, Mithra spinning in his hands.

  When he landed, the Lirial Incarnation followed him a second later. She hit the cobblestones in three pieces, each of which shattered like thin glass.

  Those white chains look good on you, Caela observed. You should keep them.

  I will if I can, Simon said. He’d found that power like this never lasted, but it would be nice if this was the exception.

  When Simon returned to Elysia, King Zakareth was holding the crimson Ragnarus blade in both hands. Erastes had the good grace to look ashamed.

  For someone facing down a growing half-circle of opponents, the King didn’t look afraid. Andra, Kathrin, Erastes, Shai—wait a minute, was she an Elysian Traveler now? It looked like she was using one of Alin’s powers—Ilana, and Leah stood facing the Ragnarus Incarnation, each of them brandishing their weapons.

  Simon stepped out, Mithra held loosely in one hand.

  “Seal yourself in the Vault,” Simon said. There was no sense in making it any more complicated than it had to be. “If you do, I’ll let you go.”

  Zakareth looked over to Leah. “Remember this, Leah. This is exactly why you save up power for emergencies.”

  With his spare hand, he reached up and grabbed the huge ruby at the center of his breastplate.

  Then he crushed it in his fist.

  Crimson light flowed like blood from the center of the breastplate, highlighting each plate in the armor. All of the rubies he wore started to glow like stars, and even the fire in his left eye socket flared. He lifted the Ragnarus blade.

  Erastes! Caela cried. Simon, he’s going for Erastes!

  With all the speed he could draw, Simon hurled himself toward Erastes, even though he didn’t see how the King could possibly get there before him.

  One instant, King Zakareth was standing on the ground ten paces away, and then he was lunging straight at Erastes’ chest. Simon got there in time, turning the red blade with Mithra’s edge.

  Alin’s sister!

  Which one? Simon screamed in his mind, but Caela didn’t know their names, so he dashed toward Shai. This time, he’d guessed right. He managed to catch this blow on Mithra, but it took both hands. Zakareth struck with so much force that Simon felt his feet being driven down into the soil.

  “This is the power that the blood of thousands will buy you,” King Zakareth remarked.

  Then the King was gone again, and Simon had to follow, desperately hoping his increased power would last longer than the Ragnarus Incarnation’s.

  ***

  Leah almost threw the Lightning Spear, but Murin screamed in her ear. Her mental projection—that throwing the Spear would be a bad idea—seemed unnecessary considering the bird’s sheer volume.

  Mentally, Leah ran down a list of her options, which was depressingly short.

  Until she got to the final item on her list: her last resort. Which now seemed much more appealing than it had before.

  Leah hurried out of the Elysian Gate, pulling the Seed out of her pocket as she ran.

  Bare patches of earth were easy to find, considering the way the street had been torn up in the battle. Even the layer of frost created by the Helgard Incarnation had been shattered in most places.

  Strangely, she was having trouble finding a blade. She would need to spill blood for this to work, and—though she bled from a thousand tiny cuts—she had to make sure that she gave it enough.

  It took her a moment to think of a blade from Ragnarus that wouldn’t do something horrible to her with a simple cut. At last, it occurred to her: the Whispering Blade. It was a long dagger made to cut through manifestations of Traveler powers that were normally insubstantial, but it was still a dagger. It would cut her hand well enough.

  Leah hurriedly scooped dirt away in a shallow hold, shoving the seed down inside. Then she drew the Whispering Blade across her left palm.

  True to its name, the weapon seemed to murmur in her ear as it cut. Then she bled freely down onto the soil.

  How long will this take? she thought, as she banished the Blade.

  Then a red tendril burst from the soil and wrapped around her bleeding hand.

  She could feel the blood leaving her, which was an even stranger and more nauseating sensation than the pain. Her hand grew cold, then her arm, and she managed to pull away before she lost too much blood.

  With the newborn Hanging Tree snatching at her heels—and still growing at an alarming rate, pushing soil aside to make room for its roots—she stumbled back into Elysia. The crimson branches waved at the Gate, unable to cross the portal.

  Good. She had thought, staring at the Seed with her Eye of Ages, that it had to be planted in the Unnamed World. It was nice to see she had guessed correctly.

  Now all they had to do was get her father outside.

  ***

  Simon had the advantage of reach, and he was still stronger and faster, even considering the King’s enhanced armor. He should have been able to cut Zakareth down.

  But every time he got an inch of space, the Ragnarus Incarnation struck at someone else. They were all doing their best to resist—Ilana and Kathrin fired supernatural arrows at the King, and the others tried to hold him off with their blades—but Simon and Zakareth were operating on a level beyond them, now. When the King changed direction to attack Andra or Shai or any of the others, Simon had no choice but to turn aside and stop him.

  Which meant, essentially, that he was letting his opponent dictate the fight. Chaka would have killed him.

  Worse yet, he could feel the White Light leaking out of him. It had lasted much longer than he thought it would, doing more for him than he could believe, but he could feel that he was reaching the end of his newfound strength and speed. When he did, he suspected the mask would take its toll.

  And at that point, one way or another, he would die.

  “I’ll give you Indirial’s job,” Zakareth said conversationally, as he ducked under a sweep of Mithra and drove his red-bladed sword at Ilana’s ribs. Simon summoned a second blade from Valinhall in time to parry, knocking the crimson point away from Ilana.

  “We could pull down Elysia,” the King continued. “We don’t need them to rule over us, especially not with Valinhall to deal with the Incarnations.”

  “Stop…talking!” Simon shouted, kicking the King in his breastplate and knocking him three paces backwards. Maker, but he hated it when people tried to talk to him instead of fighting.

  The King stood with his back to the Elysian Gate…which, Simon noticed for the first time, was filled with thousands of waving, flailing branches.

  Leah.

  The Lightning Spear blasted toward King Zakareth from the side, intended to knock the Ragnarus Incarnation out of the Gate at an angle.

  For a brief, frozen instant, Simon thought it was going to work.

  Then Zakareth snatched the Spear out of the air, turning it as if to examine the blade. “I have a lot to teach you, Leah,” he said. “Using my own weapons against—”

  Simon dashed forward and kicked the former King of Damasca in the chest. The Incarnation staggered backwards, his elbow peeking out of the Territory. The Hanging Tree took advantage of the gap, swarming over him and grabbing his arm, yanking him backwards and devouring him in
a flurry of crimson branches.

  Maybe that would teach him not to talk in the middle of a fight.

  Zakareth thrashed and fought for a few seconds, then the bright red light of his armor faded. His struggles weakened, and the Tree raised him into the air, preparing to swallow him.

  Even now, the King didn’t look surprised or defeated. He stared Simon down with utter confidence plain on his fate. “Maybe it will take three hundred years,” he announced. “Maybe a thousand. But I will return. What about you, Simon, son of Kalman? You’ve used great power today. What price will you have to pay, Valinhall Traveler?”

  Leah stepped up beside Simon, watching King Zakareth with her father’s eye.

  “I’ve been told it’s a fate worse than death, for a Ragnarus Incarnation to be sealed beneath a Hanging Tree,” Leah said quietly. She was holding Caela, for some reason, and the doll looked upon the King with a smug expression.

  “Perhaps we should show mercy,” Leah said.

  Simon looked at the Queen of Damasca. “Is that an order?” he asked.

  “A favor,” she said quietly.

  The Tree had begun to swallow King Zakareth into the earth, but Simon stepped forward, Mithra flashing in his hand as he cut down every single branch in his way.

  “So,” Zakareth said. “She gets you to do—”

  Simon cut his head off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:

  REWARDS

  359th Year of the Damascan Calendar

  1st Year in the Reign of Queen Leah I

  15 Days Since Spring’s Birth

  “I’ve heard reports that you were present at the Battle of Enosh,” Leah said, leaning back in her chair. “They say you rallied the troops and led the victory, once we had taken care of the Incarnations.”

  Overlord Feiora Torannus sat across the desk, her arms folded and her jaw set. “I don’t think I had to take a single Damascan life. They were more than ready to surrender once the Ragnarus Incarnation left. Besides, I’d been looking for you for days, so as soon as I found out you were in Enosh, I naturally headed straight there. It’s not my fault I ended up in the middle of a battle.”

  Implying that it was Leah’s fault. There was no complimenting this woman.

  “Be that as it may, the fact remains that you have given excellent service to the throne this past few weeks. I am inclined to grant you a favor.”

  Feiora scratched her chin. “Well, I could use a little more land…”

  An awkward pause stretched the seconds between them.

  “That’s an…unconventional request,” Leah said at last.

  The Overlord cleared her throat. “It was a joke.”

  “Ah.”

  Silence.

  After a few seconds, both of their ravens each gave a loud caw.

  Leah decided to move on. “Your brother tried to kill me,” she said. “But given that it was an incompetent attempt, and considering the service you have rendered me personally and the Damascan cause as a whole, I have decided to remand him to your guardianship. Please, keep him out of trouble.”

  Feiora sighed. “I’ll try.”

  “If he does anything else remotely traitorous, I’ll have him executed on the spot.”

  “He’s an idiot,” the Overlord said. “I understand. I’ll keep him in Avernus, for the time being. Maybe he’ll learn some patience…or at least some better assassination techniques.”

  This time, Leah gave a little laugh. “He literally threw birds at me. I’ve felt more threatened by an unruly horse.”

  The Overlord hesitated, shifting in her chair. That caught Leah’s attention. Any display of discomfort was unlike Feiora, who usually walked around as if she intended to march straight through anything in her way. If she had something that distressing on her mind, Leah only hoped it didn’t have apocalyptic consequences.

  “I…used to be…working against you,” she admitted at last. “I was staying at your camp, trying to follow you around so that I could find a chink in your armor. I wanted to rally the other Overlords against you, so that I could bring you down and force you to release Lysander.”

  Leah wanted to be shocked by what was, essentially, an admission of treason by one of the Kingdom’s highest officials. But she simply wasn’t surprised.

  “Why didn’t you?” she asked.

  “Given the way things went…” Feiora shrugged. “There was too much at stake. I couldn’t risk the nation to get back at you.”

  If Leah had been blessed with a brother or a sister who had understood that, she would never have been Queen. “You’d be surprised how many people wouldn’t even think it through that far,” Leah said dryly.

  “I deserve exile,” Feiora said. “But, given my service, if you could find it in your heart to simply demote me instead…”

  Leah sighed. “Did you actually talk with any of the other Overlords about a rebellion?”

  She shook her head. “Just a mocking remark every now and again.”

  “I can live with that. At this time, I don’t find that any disciplinary action is necessary.” Leah stared across the desk, taking advantage of her bright red eye to make the Overlord uncomfortable. “But, Feiora? Don’t do it again.”

  Feiora nodded sharply, and even leaned forward in the suggestion of a seated bow. “Thank you, Your Highness.” Then she whispered something to her raven, Eugan. The bird let out a mewl in response. “There is something else,” Feiora admitted. “Without him, I would never have been able to rally the Enosh Travelers. He managed to get an entire squad of Damascan Tartarus Travelers to surrender without killing any of them, which was the single most impressive achievement I’ve ever personally witnessed. If it weren’t for him, I might have had to kill a lot of Damascans.”

  Some of the reports had mentioned a young Traveler from Enosh who had helped Overlord Feiora win his people over. Whoever it was, Leah looked forward to meeting him.

  “Send him in,” she said.

  “Come on in, Gilad,” Feiora called. A young man shuffled in, perhaps as old as twenty. He held his hand down and his hands in his pockets—not at all the confident strut she normally associated with genius Travelers. At first, she wondered if this was the right person.

  “Gilad, let me introduce Queen Leah the First, of Damasca.”

  He went clumsily to one knee, but his eyes widened as he looked up and saw Leah. “I know you! Er, at least, I thought I did. I didn’t know you were the Queen, I’m sorry.”

  Leah’s mind was completely blank. “I apologize. Have we met before?”

  Gilad frowned. “I think so, but you weren’t the Queen then. Or I didn’t know it. You were coming from the village of Myria, right? You stayed in Enosh for a while. I think Eliadel rescued you, or something.”

  That was her, but she wouldn’t remember this boy if he had offered her another crown. “I’m sorry, perhaps I simply don’t recall. In any case, I’ve heard you did a great service for both my people and your own. Is there anything I can offer you in return?”

  This time, Gilad met her eyes more boldly. “Don’t burn my city down, ma’am.”

  Leah gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  ***

  Simon had never attended an official Damascan awards ceremony before. He desperately hoped he never had to do so again.

  The first hour wasn’t so bad. Leah stood next to the entire Agnos family, Erastes, and Denner—Kathrin had disappeared after the battle in Elysia, and no one knew how to contact her. Leah had provided them matching uniforms: crisp black trimmed with silver thread. A silver badge over the heart showed the emblem of Valinhall, which she claimed to have designed herself: a Dragon’s Fang, point-up, wrapped in chains.

  Standing there in his clean new clothes, standing next to others in the same uniform, Simon felt like a real, official Traveler for the first time.

  Then the second hour crawled on. Each of the Overlords made speeches. Indirial’s wife emerged from Valinhall
to deliver one on behalf of the Overlord of Cana, who couldn’t make it due to ‘binding personal issues,’ which was apparently court-speak for being sealed in his own Territory.

  By the time the third hour began, Simon was still standing. Andra had fallen asleep on her feet, snoring quietly, and Lycus shifted from foot to foot, clearly longing to sit down, and just as clearly determined to remain upright.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst came when all the Overlords had finished speaking, and Leah called on him to make his speech.

  She looked regal, as well she might considering that she was sitting there on a throne. The ruby-and-gold seat had been hauled out of the ruins of the main palace and relocated here, a separate building on palace grounds that had miraculously escaped destruction.

  Leah rested on the throne, looking perfectly comfortable on top of a block of solid ruby. Her dress was long, red, and pristine, trimmed in thread-of-gold. She wore the same silver chain and white stone on her left wrist, and in her right hand she held the Lightning Spear like a scepter. The silver circlet on her head gleamed a strange red, as though it were always reflecting a red light, but her most commanding features were by far her eyes. Her right eye was the bright blue of the Damascan royal family. Her left, a blazing crimson stone.

  When she turned that gaze on him and told him it was time for him to speak, a sick feeling grew in his stomach. Though, to be perfectly honest, that might not have had anything to do with her Ragnarus eye.

  Simon made his way up to the podium next to the throne, where everyone else had made their speeches. They had practiced this. He would be fine.

  Woodenly, he recited his speech.

  “I, Simon, son of Kalman, accept the burden of Valinhall’s leader. On behalf of all Valinhall Travelers present and future, I commit my Territory to the service of Damasca, and pledge my sword in defense of the ruling monarch and the nation.” As if he were about to take a plunge into icy water, he took a deep breath and forged ahead. “As the primary duty of Valinhall, I hereby agree to supervise the Incarnations of all eleven Territories, taking action when and if my Queen decrees them an issue of the nation’s safety.”