by Phil Tucker
He paused and glanced at the others, then continued. “Vow to us, Uniter. Vow to us, Wise Woman, that if our mistress proves herself instrumental in the defeat of this new enemy, you will spare her when all is said and done. You will allow her to depart and go where she wills, and will not seek to slay her anew.”
Tharok tongued the inside of his cheek. “Nerve. You’ve got plenty, to bargain when the fate of our kind lies in the balance.”
Blood Fire sketched a mocking bow in the manner of the humans. “Is there a better time to bargain?”
THE UR-DESTRAAS WILL DESTROY THIS WORLD AND TURN IT INTO A BLACK MIRROR OF ITS HOME BEYOND THE GATE. SMOKE WILL RISE TO CHOKE THE SKY AND OBSCURE THE SUN. LIFE WILL GUTTER AND FAIL, AND OVER THIS LAND OF RUIN WILL IT FLY, LOOKING UPON ITS FOUL WORKS AND FINDING THEM PLEASING.
There was such grave sorrow in the dragon’s voice that even the fury in Tharok’s chest stilled, and he lowered his blade.
TO PREVENT SUCH A FATE, I WOULD COUNTENANCE THE FREEDOM OF ONE MEDUSA. HER EVIL PALES BESIDES THE TERROR THAT IS THE UR-DESTRAAS.
Blood Fire hissed his pleasure and turned to Tharok. “And you, Uniter? Do we have your word?”
Tharok felt ashen and worn. “Yes, shaman. You have my word.”
“Very well,” said the shaman. “Then, let us hasten to her side. Come!”
Without waiting, he drew a curved dagger and began to carve a line of green fire into the air. The other shamans gathered behind him.
“My chieftains,” said Tharok, unable to muster the energy to shout. “Jojan. We are moving our forces into Aletheia. Everyone. Send word to Nous, Sige, and Zoe. Our warriors are to gather in the Portal chamber and await my word. There, I will tell them about our new enemy. Go. See to it.”
The chieftains arose, Jojan at their lead. Though there was no eagerness in them, neither did they seem loath to obey. They bowed their heads and turned to order their tribes, marshal the milling ranks and herd them through the massive Portal into Aletheia.
Maur approached. “I would weep if I were not so terrified.”
Tharok hung his head. His shoulders felt bowed down despite World Breaker’s might, despite the unnatural vigor imparted by the medusa’s Kiss. “It’s weak of me, and I am ashamed, but I miss the circlet. I miss its surety. Its clarity. When I wore it, the world was simple: a chess board where every winning move was plain. Our foe now wears it, Maur. She has its powers at her command. How can we hope to outwit her?”
“I don’t know,” said Maur. “But remember, the circlet never served you. It bent you to its purpose. It will now do the same with our enemy. Whatever her goals, she will find herself moving to accomplish its purpose. So, think, Tharok. What was its ultimate goal?”
Tharok sheathed World Breaker and dug his thumbs into his eyes, ground them deep, seeing exploding stars of crimson and white against the velvety darkness behind his eyelids. “Its ultimate goal. I don’t know.”
He wanted to rest. To stop. To let slip the burdens of being the Uniter if only for a little while.
Maur waited patiently. Finally, Tharok dropped his hands with a sigh. “I felt its will most strongly when I was standing before the Black Gate. It wanted me to go down to it. To open it.”
“To open the Black Gate,” said Maur. “And what would that do?”
“I don’t know,” said Tharok. “Kyrra said the humans believe hell lies on the other side. That magister, the one who stole the circlet – he said others believe it is the source of creative magic.”
“If the circlet wants it, then it must be bad,” said Maur. “Why, then, do the demons attack Aletheia and not come directly here?”
“Because... the circlet never compelled. It never forced me to act. Instead, it showed me how to accomplish my own dreams, but in such a manner that its goals became inevitable. It won’t force this Zephyr to come here, but it will arrange matters so that someday soon, she will believe doing so to be in her own best interests.”
“But she is mad,” said Maur. “She annihilated one of the cities of her own kind and liberated thousands of demons. Who is to say what her goals are?”
Tharok shrugged. “I don’t know. But she seems to desire Aletheia. So, now, we must defend that which we sought to destroy. Oh, Maur.” He covered his face with one hand. “Curse the day the circlet showed me how to escape the Valley of the Dead. Would that I had died up there and never brought it back into the land of the living. This is all my fault.”
He felt Maur’s hand on his shoulder as she stepped in close. “Who is to say what forces drove you to it? You were a tool, Tharok. You were used. But you were not a perfect tool.”
“No,” said Tharok, dropping his hand. Still, he couldn’t meet Maur’s eyes. “I was weak.”
“No. You were too strong for it.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You allowed me to escape with the shamans. That night in Gold, you defied it. Because of your strength, I was able to find the dragons. Even if Kyrra returns, she will never gain control over our kind now, not while the dragons remain to inspire us to something better.” She ducked her head so as to enter his line of sight. “You did that. You fought free for that one vital moment and saved our kind.”
Tharok snorted mirthlessly. “You are kind to say so.”
She shoved him, hard. He stumbled back and almost fell. “There is no time for your self-pity.”
Tharok fought down the urge to growl and instead stood up straight. “You’re right.”
“Of course I am.” She half-turned away, then looked back at him. “Are you coming?”
“On Flamska?” Tharok looked up at the dragon, who was watching him, its expression inscrutable.
“Are you going to run a foot race with shamans who can carve Portals to their destination? Of course.”
“It — it would be an honor.” I am not worthy, he wanted to add, and though he sincerely believed it, he didn’t want to test Maur’s patience any further. “Thank you.”
“Thank me when we are done,” said Maur. “Now, come.”
They touched Flamska’s foreleg, and together they slipped through space so that a moment later they were standing once more before the gathered humans.
Tharok shook off his uncertainty, raised his chin and assumed the guise of the Uniter once more. “There is no other way,” he growled, glaring defiantly at Iskra and the Ascendant. “I understand that, but that does not mean I like it. We will awaken the medusa, and I have sworn to my own shamans that if she proves crucial in our defeat of the demons, then we will not slay her but rather let her go as repayment for her service.”
The humans stirred, and Iskra took a single step forward. “Thank you. I know this is not easy. Ilina, are you ready?”
The old Vothak was practically vibrating with barely constrained enthusiasm. “I have dreamt of this moment my whole life, Iskra. Let us go. Now.”
The human knight, Tiron, spoke up. “There isn’t enough time for us to cross the badlands on foot. Draumronin has agreed — as have the others — to transport those who need to be present.”
“Tharok,” said Iskra. “We will need you in Aletheia to lead your kragh against the new enemy.”
Tharok grunted. “Yes. I have already sent word. My forces will gather in Aletheia. I will greet them there. Maur will oversee Kyrra’s return.” He was secretly glad for the excuse not to attend, because he was unsure he’d be able to keep his temper at the sight of her.
“Very well,” said Iskra. “Makaria, you will represent the Empire in this matter and go to Abythos to supervise the restoration of our army.”
“And Asho?” Kethe sounded torn.
“We will take him with us,” said the Ascendant. “He has already earned all honors, and if there is anything further I can do for him, it will be done.”
Kethe nodded miserably. “All right.” Then she took a deep breath and raised her chin. “Yes. Of course.”
“The attack on Aletheia could come at any time,” said Iskra. “We must hurry. Tharok, Tir
on, the Ascendant and I will depart for Aletheia immediately. Maur, Kethe, Lord Ramswold, Ilina and the Vothaks are to revive the medusa and bring back our army from Abythos. Any questions?”
Tharok felt a grudging respect for the older human woman. Had she been kragh, she would easily serve on a Wise Woman’s council. Despite the madness and chaos that threatened to overwhelm them, despite the pain and loss that she no doubt felt, she retained the ability to command.
As such, he did not mind her seeming to give him orders. He grunted his assent and turned to Maur. “Good luck. If Kyrra gives you any trouble, turn her to ash.”
“Have no fear on that score,” she replied. “I will be searching for the slightest provocation.” She hesitated. “Take care of yourself, Tharok. If the Sky Father wills, I will soon join you in Aletheia.”
“Yes,” said Tharok, and then words failed him. He didn’t know how to express the sudden longing that arose within him, forceful and dangerous, a yearning for her presence at his side, for her scorn, her vitality, the way she made him feel both alive and unsure of himself. He wanted to say something, affirm something between them, but Maur didn’t give him a chance.
She turned, touched Flamska’s leg, and then both were gone.
CHAPTER 13
Kethe
They were all soon assembled before the mighty spike of stone that had been driven deep into the ground in front of the Blade Towers. Kethe stood to one side, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of Tiron’s blade, studying it curiously. To think that great spindle of gray rock contained a medusa – a form in which it could sleep for centuries, waiting for the world to change, for the threat that had driven it to sleep to pass away.
It was fascinating to watch Ilina and her Vothaks deal with the black-skinned shamans. They recognized each other as kindred spirits, yet the gulf between them was vast. Ilina was forced to summon all her hauteur and imperiousness to hold her own against the one-eyed shaman who led what was left of Tharok’s contingent. Only her knowledge of the revivification rite allowed her pride of place; the shaman stepped back, unable to control his glower.
Flamska and Maur, however, killed any pretense that this was a glorious reawakening. They loomed right behind the spindle, a mighty and awe-inspiring presence that both Ilina and the shaman were unable to restrain themselves from glancing at. Lord Ramswold was sitting atop his own dragon behind the medusa’s faithful, looming over Vothak and shaman alike. No matter where they looked, they saw their draconian overseers.
The rite was underway. A large stone bowl had been found in which copious amounts of blood had been poured. The Vothaks and shamans had lined up to donate their blood, Ilina being the first. Forearms were slit open, and dangerous amounts of blood were drained. Into this, Ilina then stirred dust until a thick paste had formed, which she and her Vothaks used to decorate the spindle with strange, looping lines. All the while, she chanted, a repetitious drone that set Kethe’s teeth on edge.
“This is unconscionable,” Ilina said as she returned to the bowl for more crimson paste. “This ritual should be the culmination of a week’s worth of festivities and prayer. To rush it in this manner is sacrilege.”
Kethe caught her eye and raised an eyebrow. The old Vothak scowled and turned back to her work.
Finally, the last of the paste had been used. The spindle was girded in dark crimson as high as the Vothaks could reach. Something about the pattern made Kethe’s eye queasy; there was a power there that her own power yearned to crush, to erase. But she held herself back and watched as the Vothaks and shamans got down on their knees all around the spindle and began to pray.
It was an ecstatic affair, a call and response, with Ilina’s hoarse, shaking voice rising in ever-greater paroxysms of fervor. This continued for several minutes, and despite the eeriness of the affair, Kethe’s fatigue began to prey on her. The chanting became a drone; her eyes began to slide closed.
The chanting came to a climax, and as one the Vothaks rose and blasted the spindle with black flame. It was engulfed in a brief flash of ebon fire, and when it was gone, Kethe saw that the lines of blood had incandesced.
The pattern burned into the rock, eating away at the stone and creating cracks from which a bright crimson light burned forth. The spindle shivered as its integrity was fractured.
The dragons rumbled.
Kethe watched, fully alert once more, as entire segments of the spindle fell apart. Slowly at first, and then all at once, the mass of it fell asunder, crashing to the rocky ground to reveal the medusa within.
In an instant, Kethe’s blade was before her, lit with a blazing white fire. The medusa filled her vision. Nothing Kethe had ever seen had prepared her for the monster’s mesmerizing beauty. The colors that undulated down the medusa’s serpentine body burned with an otherworldly intensity, making the world of Bythos seem all the more drab in comparison. Eye-stinging yellow along her belly, blending into the most lurid of crimsons up her sides which gave way to pitch black on the overlapping carapace that ran down her spine. Her upper torso was human and powerfully muscled. Her skin was the color of darkening coals, a smoldering, dusty red with a fan of soft yellow scales rising up across her abdomen and between her breasts. A mass of snakes wreathed her face, hissing and undulating as if they were caught in underwater currents.
Flamska and Skandengraur reared and roared their warnings. Kethe’s heart pounded in her chest. Ilina’s cries mixed with those of the shamans, sheer rapture, and Kethe could understand why. There’d been truth in Ilina’s words: this creature exuded a divine radiance, a mesmerizing power that beguiled the eye and overpowered the will.
Kyrra’s eyes flicked open, and heat washed across Kethe’s face and hands as if a vast oven door had been thrown wide. The medusa’s eyes were as pitiless as the sun, a glaring nullity that burned Kethe’s vision until she was forced to lower her gaze, bright motes scoring her sight, only to look back with a squint as the medusa’s tail rose to shake with a terrifying rattle.
“Mistress! My queen!” Ilina staggered forward and fell to her knees. “Know that I am Ilina, al-Vothak of Agerastos, Keeper of the Sacred Flame, Guardian of the Hallowed Mysteries, your first and final servant!”
The other Vothaks had pressed their foreheads to the ground. The shamans knelt, hands raised, green fire flickering amidst their fingers, and their leader croaked his own proclamation of fealty.
But the medusa had eyes only for the dragons. “I am betrayed by my own supplicants. I do not know how you bent them to your will, but all will suffer for your temerity before you immolate me in your flames.”
Her voice was all alien overtones, the hiss of snakes blended into glory most ruined.
HOLD, rumbled Skandengraur. WE DO NOT WISH FOR YOUR DEATH.
The medusa’s rattle was accompanied by the hiss of a hundred serpents as her hair coiled and writhed in displeasure. “Speak, then. Only curiosity forestalls my vengeance.”
With great effort, Kethe lowered her blade. The sight and sound of the medusa evoked within her a primal yearning to submit, to kneel, but she curbed it ruthlessly. “A greater enemy has risen. Kragh and humans unite against it. But we’re still outmatched.”
Kethe had to fight to project her words, to speak bravely in the face of the medusa’s attention. Were it not for the White Song ringing out from her depths, her voice might have fallen to a whisper. “We need you, medusa. We need your counsel.”
The medusa smiled, her sensuous lips curling in amusement to reveal milk-white fangs. “What enemy could give even dragons pause? Ah… demons.”
WE ARE SO ASSAILED, said Flamska from behind the medusa. ALREADY, ONE OF OUR NUMBER HAS FALLEN TO AN UR-DESTRAAS. WE GATHER ALL MIGHT SO THAT WE CAN BEST RESIST ITS ONSLAUGHT.
“My queen,” said Ilina, daring to look up from the ground. “We have secured great oaths from all parties. Your safety and free passage are promised once the enemy is gone.”
The medusa considered the al-Vothak, then looked back up at S
kandengraur. “You have sworn this by the old oaths?”
YES.
“We need you to revive our army,” said Kethe. “The thousands that you petrified in Abythos. We need them back. Now.”
“How dare you speak to her thus?” hissed Ilina. She rose shakily to her feet. “A Virtue you may be of the heretic Empire, but if you think —”
The medusa lowered herself so she could reach around Ilina’s head and cup her chin with a taloned hand. Ilina froze as the medusa’s cheek rubbed against her own. “Hush, little one.”
Her cheek still pressed against Ilina’s, the medusa studied Kethe. Her serpentine hair wove itself around Ilina’s skull, nipping at her skin and scalp. The al-Vothak shivered violently but did not flinch.
“Tell me,” said the medusa. “Tell me what has transpired since I was driven into sleep.”
Kethe did so. As quickly and clearly as she could, she explained the loss of the circlet, the liberation of the demons, the fall of Starkadr, and Zephyr’s stated goal.
The medusa rose to her full height once more, releasing Ilina as she did so. The elder Vothak sank to her knees, and two of her followers moved to her side to grasp her elbows. “An ur-destraas.” She was speaking to Skandengraur, Kethe realized. “You have found yourself a worthy foe. Too worthy, perhaps. You will all perish.”
It was like being punched in the gut. You will all perish. The flame along Kethe’s blade guttered and died. “No,” she said. “There has to be a way.”
THERE IS A WAY, rumbled Flamska, speaking for the first time. SHE BUT SEEKS ADVANTAGE.
Lord Ramswold spoke, his voice flinty with disdain. “Let us liberate our army first. Then, if she proves equal to that task, we can explore how her purported wisdom might further our cause.” His smile was cutting, and Kethe admired his poise in the face of the medusa. “After all, we only promised her freedom if she proved useful in this struggle. Recalcitrance will not be rewarded.”
“He’s right,” said Kethe, sheathing her blade. “We must return to Abythos. There’s no time for discussion. Can you do this? Return them to life?”
