Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  There, piercing the black heavens, rose the immortal fortress. Its terraces and embankments, loggias, and galleries were pristine, free of even superficial blemishes. Lit by the light of the low star, every inch of the colossal structure gleamed in hues of amber and gold and silver. They were in Th’ai-ma. But not the Th’ai-ma she’d just escaped from. The pervasive ruin was gone. In its place was a blinding splendor that dripped from every tower and terrace.

  As her muscles gave up and she collapsed back to the ground, she found her breath coming faster. Why? Why are we here?

  With a growl, Nemo glided menacingly toward her across the hewn steps. “How can this be?” But before he could reach her, a shout cut through the babble of the low wind, and both of them immediately looked toward its origin.

  Down upon a great terrace below them—where moments ago nothing had moved—two figures now stood. One was a lanky, eyeless creature, garbed in regal vestments of blue and gray. Four thick spider legs grew from its back and now clawed at the air in an aggressive gesture toward its adversary. All Spinneretta could discern of the other was the flowing saffron robe it wore. The blood ran from her cheeks. It was the Yellow King.

  A violent string of wet, indecipherable syllables exploded from the mouth of the Yellow King. Though the language was alien, the voice in Spinneretta’s mind echoed back at her. You would dare to betray me? it seemed to demand. You would turn your back upon the one who gave you life?

  The half-faced spider thing raised its arms toward the King, and a shockwave of magic washed over the stairs. Another string of putrid unwords flowed from the creature, but this time the voice in her head was silent. Power wrapped around the King in cycling bands, and he began to strain against the spell as it lifted him into the air.

  Nemo, transfixed by the scene, crept closer to the unfolding battle. “This is . . . ” His lips shook. “Heinokk?”

  Pain raced behind Spinneretta’s eyes. A flash. She beheld the world from another angle. It came at first for a split second, but then it flickered in and out, superimposing itself over her vision. Through the Yellow King’s sight, she could see the half-faced creature—Heinokk, usurper of the throne, high priest of the Writhing Malefice. Its pointed teeth hungrily snapped at the air as its extended limbs compelled the magic to lift the King higher and higher into the air.

  Fear. Anger. Loneliness. Despair. The storm of emotions played through her chest, flooding her heart and clenching her teeth into an inseparable fixture. The voice in her head stirred. The King’s plated legs emerged from beneath the folds of the robe. The air grew damp and heavy as the psychic mist began to flow. Then you leave me no choice, her mind translated the slur of gravelly noise that emerged from the King’s maw.

  Tendrils of unseen vapor lashed out, billowing over the terrace in gigantic ripples. Spinneretta felt a terrible grinding sensation on the front of her brain, and a burst of light blinded both layers of her vision. Through her mind’s eye, she beheld Heinokk’s spell unraveling, breaking. The King landed upon his feet again, and the heretic Vant’therax recoiled in shock. The Yellow King surged forward, his body wrapped in a shroud of anti-magic. You who bring heresy against me, came her mind’s growling voice, shall be broken. Within the overlaid vision of the Yellow King’s sight, a recursive reality formed. Her own subthoughts dove into the mind of Heinokk, and in an instant she felt all the crackling energy go out of her, spiraling into the opened thoughtways. The veins of cognizance glowed and then ruptured. A tremendous force exploded between her mind and Heinokk’s, and she very nearly blacked out as the world tilted back into focus.

  Heinokk fell to the ground with a terrible, guttural scream. Panting, the King took a menacing step forward, his blurred vision scanning the throngs of assembled Vant’therax below. Their legs were stretched skyward, tasting the scene as it unfolded. The King glowered down at them, and a sharp pain ripped through Spinneretta’s heart; she could feel the resentment that roiled along the streets and alleys below. Fear and hatred burned through the King’s stomach at the sight of the towering sculpture of the Malefice.

  Her gaze fixated upon the sprawled form of Heinokk below. Fury. A choir of violent thoughts frothed from the corners of her mouth. With a shattered mind, you will never use magic again. Never again will you bite the hand that feeds you. Breath came erratically, and the King barely restrained himself from smashing the heretic’s skull in one blow. Now tell me, the Yellow King demanded. Who do you serve?

  Heinokk rolled on the ground, choking. He extended his thick spider legs again toward the King, attempting to summon forth another spell. Spinneretta’s heart sank again. Even in the face of such brazen heresy and treachery, she had held herself in check. Even though she had offered him mercy, he just spat right back in her face. She snapped. Howling a furious cry, the King fell upon Heinokk, his eight spider legs tangling with and crushing the heretic’s four. Thick blood poured from broken chitin, and pained cries echoed off the distant bastions and walls. Blinded by rage, the Yellow King dug the tips of his legs into the creature’s chest and pried, tearing him open. Vivisected, Heinokk could only bat ineffectually at the King with his weak limbs.

  The Instinct pulsed through the King, and an insatiable lust for blood overcame them both. The Yellow King clawed at his victim’s flesh and slammed his limbs against Heinokk’s exposed rib cage. Spinneretta could smell the organs pulsing beneath. One by one, the King broke and tore, crushed and gashed, until the only pieces remaining punctured the indistinct red masses writhing within. With a howl, the King thrust his legs into the Vant’therax’s core and ripped them out his sides, painting the stairs with streams of blood and bile. The black taste permeated Spinneretta’s drenched spiracles.

  His remaining eye wide, Nemo crept another cautious step toward the King and the corpse. “How . . . can this exist in your memories?”

  Horrified at the recollection of the vile smell on the King’s legs, Spinneretta just shivered where she sat sprawled. “I remember,” she said, choking on the words. From the depths of her mind, a vivid and horrible clarity had begun to reveal itself.

  As Nemo drew nearer the scene of carnage, the Yellow King lurched to his feet, a primal growl spilling out upon the steps where the rivers of blood flowed. Spinneretta felt the anguish ripping through his stomach, just as sure as she felt the slick blood on her own fingers and legs. The King looked down upon the eyeless crowds pressed against the base of the mammoth steps. The Vant’therax who had raised the monument of the Writhing Malefice. The traitors.

  The King howled a slur of deep crackles in the vulgar tongue of the Web. His voice boomed out across the city of Th’ai-ma. I granted you life. I built this kingdom for you with my own hands. And you turn your backs upon me? You put your faith into blasphemy? False idols? Prophets of death? The King’s voice grew more strained, the formless syllables seeming to crack and sputter. You have betrayed me, after all I have done for you?

  Sorrow filled her heart, but the rising and falling of that emotion was matched by indignation and hatred. How dare they? How fucking dare they? The Instinct had departed; her mind was clear now, but the stress that had weighed upon it now threatened to crack it, to drive her over the edge of sanity. They were all just using you. Pretenders, all of them. The voice was quiet for a moment. The hate spilled out from the depths of her mind in a mantra of madness. Hate them. Kill them. Purge them. Hate them. Kill them. Purge them.

  Nemo approached from behind the King, eying his shaking form with curiosity and wonder. He shot Spinneretta a confused look, ensuring she had not moved from where she sat hunched. “Even if it is only a fantasy, I would like a chance to finally pay my respects to the King.” He turned back to the robed figure, a hungry grin on his lips. “Stay where you are. I will not have you interfere now.”

  Spinneretta’s body twitched and then cramped as the spell of paralysis took hold once more. The psychic assault filled her body with a torturous pain. Her nerves screamed, muscles convulsing and straining ag
ainst themselves. It felt like her whole body was on fire. It’s just an illusion, she took once more to repeating in vain. None of this is real.

  Nemo clucked in satisfaction. “Yes. That should do. I’ve waited too long to lose this chance. To at last kill the Yellow King.”

  Those words resonated, and somewhere in the back of Spinneretta’s mind that unwholesome voice again awoke. The other voice of her thoughts—she now realized to her horror—no longer originated from her own mind. They came, somehow, from deeper; they came from behind the eyes of the King, whose vision flashed and clawed at her own.

  Stand up, the voice of her madness thought. We won’t be beaten by this pretender.

  Her jaw was a vice grip. From behind her pressed eyelids—which failed to hide the sight of Heinokk’s slaughtered carcass—she fought for the strength to reply to the phantom consciousness. Help me, she thought. I don’t know what you are, but please, help me.

  You know who I am. You’ve always known.

  She shook her head. No. You’re not . . . you’re not the Yellow King. The Yellow King is dead, and . . .

  Think, you stupid girl. The answer will set you free, if only you can remember.

  Her own thoughts halted on that word, her heart beating amid the swell of emotions within. Remember.

  She floundered onto her side, muscles still convulsing as Nemo’s spell sank deeper and her flesh strained to resist it. She tried to think, but every synapse in her brain was clouded. Each second stretched toward the edge of the known universe and the Void beyond.

  Say my name, child. As the words ran through her mind, a lick of mist raced along her arm, numbing the pain of Nemo’s attack for a split second. The Wine of Raxxinoth. The King’s power. Her power.

  Cling to that thought, her voice screamed at her. If you understand nothing else, then understand what the Wine means.

  Another arc of numbing power washed over her, giving her a momentary reprieve from the spell. The voice of her other self swam circles through her thoughts, leaving ghosts of memories in its wake. Memories, dredged up from the gulf beyond the border of her own life’s experiences. That border, an artificial construction, was the mere gateway to greater knowledge long forgotten.

  The splinters in her mind, those artifacts and relics of inexplicable origin, began to grow. Each fragment called out to another, resonating and enhancing the resurfaced images and sensations. A glimpse of the same sky that now bent overhead, strands of devoured worlds splitting the cosmic dark. The deep teal of the ocean, and a brooding nothingness around her. Carved tile mosaics and images, machines. Idols and torches, circles of black covens bending knee before the towering visage of the Writhing Malefice. The crunching of hollow skulls underfoot. Blazing eyes peering out from a veil of deathly smoke. Those fragments grew roots and spiraled down toward the origin of those memories. The roots delved deeper and, at last, breached the wall. Her memories flowed, as though bursting from a volcanic vent.

  And all at once, everything fell into place. With a horrible, gut-wrenching pang that echoed against the walls of her very soul, she understood. Despite the pain that held her body fixed in place, she managed to gasp. No, she thought. No, that can’t be.

  The dreams she’d had since she was a child—they had been but a trace of the truth. The vague sense of familiarity that plagued her whenever she heard of the ancient lore of the Websworn. The night sky of Zigmhen and the terrible phantoms it summoned in her mind. The markings that some part of her thought she could read but that she could not vocalize. The dreams of the eyes hiding in screens of smoke—the Weeping Man—and her unavoidable death.

  A soul touched is forever touched, Mark had told her. She’d ignored the shiver that had run up her spine, as well as the cackle of that other voice. It was the collapse of that cell—the last part of her old self—that had awakened her to that voice when all had been forfeit. Now, she was unable to run from that inescapable conclusion. Souls had inertia, and within the cycle of death and rebirth, inertia was everything.

  Down on the terrace below, the thoughtform of the King turned away from the crowds of Vant’therax, away from the body of Heinokk, and toward Spinneretta and Nemo. It was an incidental action encoded into history and memory, but as he turned Spinneretta was finally able to look upon his face for the first time. Old and weathered, it was covered in thick patches of sharp chitin growths. His long jaw, sharp and chiseled, dragged his mouth ajar. Above his mouth, amid several tumorous growths that may have been incomplete eyeballs without sockets, two brilliant blue irises shone.

  Her gaze met the King’s. In her subvision, the King’s gaze met her own. In that single moment, the voice flowed and stirred again, louder, swelling. Do you remember now?

  Jaw tight, she attempted to nod. “I remember.”

  Good. Then stand up! The voice was no longer just her own; it now blended with the voice that she’d once had. It was the voice she may have spoken with in the distant past before she had died—before inertia had given her life once more. Now, tell me who you are, the Yellow King thought to her. Tell me your name. Our name.

  Trembling from the revelation, her lips moved. “Nayor.”

  Startled, Nemo turned about and stared at her. “What did you just say? How do you know the true name of the King?”

  Her other voice was silent for a moment, and she felt its satisfaction coming over her. Heart pounding, a frigid horror wrapping her extremities, she stared into the Helixweaver. Behind him, the image of the Yellow King vanished in a burst of light. Tendrils of crackling mist-energy slithered through the memory and into her body. The schism in her mind mended. The split in her soul healed, and she was made whole again.

  As she felt the power flowing through her, the Yellow King’s sensory input vanished. The swirling thoughts of the voice recombined with her own, filling her with a newfound strength and conviction. The spell that had bound her in fire dispersed with a single flourish of mist ripped from her aura. At last, she found the strength to stand. Her spider legs helped her to her feet while Nemo looked at her in confusion.

  “What is going on?” he asked with a small gasp. “How can you stand?” Nemo thrust his hand toward her, and another spell collapsed on her from all sides.

  Mental muscle memory evoked a shroud of mist. It bent to her will and whorled about her in a fluent spiral. The spell broke against the vortex, dashed into invisible ribbons. She glared at Nemo, the anger in her heart overtaking her fear and confusion. His one eye, wide and bulging, searched her for an answer. She drew forth the latent power from the depths of her mind—her birthright—and descended the first step of the flight toward the Helixweaver.

  “What are you doing? What is this?”

  The King’s voice echoed, ricocheting off the walls of her mind, growing weaker with each reflection. It soon melded seamlessly with her own thoughts. As she slipped down the stairs, the seething energy of Mother Raxxinoth’s covenant grew stronger and stronger, sending painful shivers up and down her extremities. The power surged from the wellspring of her mind, billowed about her, whirled and twisted in bands of chilling vapor. Each tendril set the world of memory aquake, distorting the scenery and melting away the illusion binding her mind. In the distance, the towering structures began to break apart, to unravel.

  A disoriented fear shone in the Helixweaver’s emerald iris. Then, a look of sudden realization came upon him. His lips moved silently; if he had spoken, the swirling force between Spinneretta’s fingers and legs blotted out the sound. Attack the mind, the voice of Nayor said.

  Spinneretta clamped her jaw, harnessing the totality of her anger. She hurled herself at the Helixweaver, moving at an impossible speed. Unbound by physics, in a universe she alone ruled, she closed the distance in the blink of an eye. She released a baleful howl and thrust the focus of her power into Nemo’s chest, redirecting the entirety of her magic-destroying energy into a single psychic attack that shattered his body and destroyed the illusory world.

  Nemo
’s guttural scream brought Spinneretta’s mind to immediate awakening. She recoiled, spider legs scrambling to recover. Her legs splayed, and her body sank low to the ground in an aggressive crouch.

  The Helixweaver lurched backward, head in his hands, eye clenched and teeth bared. “What did you do, spider whore!?”

  As she looked up at him, fury overflowed from the depths of her reunited soul. Every nerve in her body still burned from Nemo’s psychic assault, but she didn’t care. The full strength of the Instinct thundered through her veins, scouring away all the fear that had paralyzed her before, just as it had when she’d faced off with Kaj. The feeling of incredible primal strength filled every muscle and sinew, threatening to snap her bones at even the slightest movement. Bloodlust again took control. She drew ragged breaths in through her mouth, each as cold as icy mist to her overheated core.

  “Reborn of Heinokk,” she spat between molten breaths. “That’s what you called yourself, is it not? The reborn of Heinokk.” A laugh spilled over her lips, and her spider legs shivered at the sensation of hot air on broken skin. “If you truly are Heinokk reborn then despair. For fate has already decided which of us will walk away alive.” Her skin blazed and tingled. Her hair stood on edge. She peered into the eye of the Helixweaver, and the toxic levels of adrenaline pulled her lips into a euphoric grimace. “Nemo. Heinokk. I will enjoy ripping you to pieces again.”

  Nemo started at her words. His eye went wide, and his shoulders shook. But he bit off the expression and turned it into a scowl. “I grow weary of your resistance.” He raised his hand toward her, fingers curled around an unborn spell. “Now die!” But whatever spell he’d thought to hurl at her made it no further than his own thoughts. Not even a spark of magic appeared. A moment passed, and fear again twisted his expression.