by Phil Tucker
“Are you so sure?” Erenthil asked with a smile. “What if they had guidance? Experienced hands at the tiller, to help your Sin Casters with their powers?”
“Demons,” croaked Audsley. “You’d embed demons in them?”
“Yes,” Erenthil said with a flourish. “In each breast, a demon who could teach them how to master their own powers, or, barring that, use their powers for them. Each Flame Walker Kissed by the medusa and bonded to a Virtue or Consecrated. I tell you now, the result would be, in the most literal sense of the word, awesome.”
“Never,” the Ascendant said flatly.
“Bond with Sin Casters?” asked Synesis. “I would rather die.”
“You cannot accept demons into your hearts,” said Audsley. “Please, you must trust me on this. Once they are within you, they will never be expunged. Your very nature will change.”
Iskra braced her hands on her hips. “You offer us salvation, but it sounds like damnation to me. What would be left of us, even if we should win?”
Erenthil hovered above it all, eyes glittering in the moonlight, a crooked smile tugging at his lips. “How quickly you all embrace death and defeat. How nobly you bend your heads to the executioner’s ax.”
“We should have known better than to listen to you,” said the Ascendant, his fury giving him poise and strength once more. “I was a fool to sully our final hours with your perfidy.”
“Wait,” came a weak voice. “Let me speak.”
Audsley moved forward a few steps so the source of the voice could come into view. It was Asho, and Audsley’s heart leaped with a surge of joy. Kethe was helping him to sit up. His pale hair hung over his face, and his eyes were burning with a feverish light. Gritting his teeth, he hauled himself to his feet. With an arm around Kethe’s shoulders, he glared all around him.
“Cowards.” He spat the word with such ferocity that some of the others flinched. “You will not save the Empire? You refuse to do whatever it takes to protect the millions who look to you for help?”
Mixis took a step forward, but Tharok clapped a hand down on his shoulder, stopping him cold. “Let the man speak,” rumbled the kragh.
“I am so sick of you Ascensionists,” said Asho. “You turn to your religion when it’s convenient for you, and ignore it when it gets in your way. Thousands of demons are about to spread across our world. Zephyr may be about to open the Black Gate and invite thousands more to join them, and you refuse to stop them because it offends your sensibilities?”
The Ascendant pushed his shoulders back. “This solution destroys what it claims to save. We would emerge ruined, soiled, tools of this Artificer.”
“SO, DAMN YOURSELVES,” Asho bellowed, his voice emerging like a dragon’s roar, eyes flashing. It was all the more dramatic for how he was still holding himself hunched in pain. “Damn your souls, blacken them, risk being reborn as a Bythian, but save the Empire! Drink poison, commit heresy, cast yourself into the fire, but do it so that our people may live!”
Synesis’ hands dropped to her blades, but she stilled at a glance from Kethe.
“Do you honestly think that all those who will die over the next few weeks will be reborn? To whom? Who the hell is going to give birth to the millions who are about to be slaughtered?” Asho glared at the Ascendant, then raked Iskra with his glance and turned to stare at the Virtues. “Aletheia has fallen! Ennoia is beyond reach! The Empire is sundered. The very framework of your religion is coming apart, and still you want to pretend that nothing has changed? Answer me! Who will give birth to the millions who are about to die? What manner of world would they be reborn into?”
Nobody spoke. The wind whistled through the glade. The Ascendant stammered, trying to find an answer, but nothing came.
Asho hobbled away from Kethe, staggering toward where the Sin Casters were standing in a ragged group. “We do what we must. We suffer what we can. We take on the ills of the world so we may spare others from suffering. Pain. Loss. Confusion. That’s our lot. Over and over, again and again, till we can’t rise back up. Till we have nothing left to give. And then, do you know what we will do?”
He scanned the silent crowd once more. “We will give more. We will dig deeper. We will carve chunks from our flesh and throw them to the wolves. And if you’re not willing to do that, if you’re going to draw back, if in your arrogance and self-righteousness you’re willing to condemn everyone to die, well, fuck you all.”
The Ascendant’s head snapped back as if he’d been slapped, and Mixis slipped out from under Tharok’s grasp.
Asho reached a Sin Caster who was carrying a rucksack over his shoulder. Even as Mixis charged him, the Bythian pulled free a stake of black rock, reversed it, and slammed it into his chest.
“No, Asho!’ screamed Kethe.
Mixis was upon him, blade raised, burning bright. “Die, heretic!”
But before his blade could land, Asho burst up into the air in an explosion of black flame that sent the Virtue flying back to roll over and over across the grass and fetch up against the Ascendant’s feet.
Asho’s hair swam about his head, a white corona that contrasted with the black flames burning around him. His clothing snapped and rippled as if it were caught in a fierce wind, and darkness roiled beneath him, lifted him into the air as if it were bearing him aloft on a throne of night.
“I am going to fight,” said Asho. His voice was hollow with power. “Not for your Empire. Not for your creed. Not for Aletheia or the White Gate. I am going to fight for the people of Zoe and Nous. The innocents of Agerastos and Bythos. Even for the fools of Sige and Aletheia. I will do whatever it takes, including taking a demon into my heart and bearing the medusa’s Kiss, for I will not quit.”
Audsley’s skin crawled, and he saw the Ascendant take a step back.
“I will never quit,” said Asho. Then he floated forward and extended a hand to the Sin Caster who bore the bag. “Give me another spike.”
“Asho, please,” moaned Kethe.
In awe, the Sin Caster handed a long, tapering spike of black stone up to the Bythian, who plunged it into his other shoulder. He screamed, his back arching in agony, and fire began to weep from his eyes.
Blood, Audsley saw. Blood was beginning to run from Asho’s nostrils, from his ears. He was taking on too much power.
“Now,” Asho said, flying over to face the medusa. “Give me your power.”
Kyrra’s segmented tail rose up and rattled, an eerie warning sound, but she reached out and took Asho’s face between her hands and drew him to her. As the serpents that wreathed her head bent down and bit Asho on the shoulders and face, holding on as Kyrra brought her lips to his own.
Immediately, ribbons of crimson flared through the black aura that surrounded Asho. Veins of fire traced a path beneath Asho’s skin, flaring ever brighter, until with a gasp Kyrra fell back, a hand going to her mouth as if she was in shock over what she had done, what she had touched, what she had sought to dominate.
Asho drifted back, and the burning branches flowing beneath his skin darkened. As their light faded away, his skin grew black. It happened with surprising speed. In a matter of moments, the Bythian’s milk-white skin was turned the same soot-black as Tharok’s, the shamans’ and the Vothaks’.
Asho shuddered, hunched over, white hair hanging over his face.
Tears were gleaming on Kethe’s face as she watched him, her horror naked for all to see.
“Now,” whispered Asho. “Now, Artificer.” The Bythian turned around slowly, looking up at Erenthil, floating above them all. “Bring me your greatest demon. Go!”
Erenthil drifted back, and Audsley saw fear in the ancient Flame Walker’s face. That, more than anything else, gave Audsley pause. Had Erenthil not foreseen this development? Did this bode well, then, for Audsley and his friends? Or was Asho turning himself into something beyond anyone’s control?
Erenthil vanished.
“He’s run away!” Ilina cried, her voice a savage croak.
“No,” said Audsley. “No, not run away. Gone below to fetch what Asho demanded.”
“You,” Asho said, turning to his Sin Casters. “Your lives have already been shattered. You died in those cells. Now, you are walking ghosts. Souls who failed to Ascend, if you believe that drivel. Give yourselves to me. Become my brothers and sisters. Cast yourselves into the fire. Drink deep of power. Make your mark on this world. Save those who spurned you. Save them despite their ignorance, their hatred, despite how unworthy they might be. Come. Be Kissed, and join me in my war.”
The Sin Casters gazed up at him, overcome with awe. The power behind Asho’s words was otherworldly. Audsley saw that more than one Sin Caster was weeping, that some were hugging themselves, and others were shaking their heads.
The man at their fore, however, that emaciated ruin of a human being, his head more skull than anything else, staggered forward. “I thought I had nothing but death and damnation to look forward to,” he said. His voice was slight after Asho’s hollow boom. “Aye, I’ll follow you, Asho. You’ve taken me out of hell once already. The way I see it, you’re the only one in this world I trust. Where you go, I’ll follow.”
Then, limping, each step painful for Audsley to watch, the man made his way over to Kyrra.
The other Sin Casters followed, a dozen of them, each a tattered wreck of a human being, scarred and starved. Yet, as they lined up behind their leader, they fought to push their shoulders back, to lift their chins, to gaze up at their fate with some measure of pride.
Erenthil appeared. In one hand, he was holding what looked like a coin pouch. In the other, a gem that glowed like a drop of burning blood. “Here, Asho.” He raised the ruby high. “Contained within is a mal’orem. I enslaved him when I was young, when the Empire was but a dream in the first Ascendant’s heart. There is more power within this gem than in the rest of my gems combined. Take it!”
The Artificer threw the gem down at Asho, who snatched it from the sky. “How do I use it?” Asho asked.
“Swallow it,” said Erenthil. “Swallow it, and then use your power to incinerate it.”
Asho held the gem up, studying it in the moonlight.
“Don’t,” the Ascendant whispered. “This cannot be right.”
Asho popped the gem into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
Kethe sank to her knees.
“Now,” Asho said, leveling a finger at Mixis and Synesis. “You and your Consecrated. You’re next.”
“Never,” said Mixis.
The Ascendant moved to stand before them. “No Virtue will undergo this depravity.”
“Wrong,” Kethe said, rising to her feet. Her eyes were raw, her freckles stark on her pale skin. “I, Kethe, Virtue of Happiness, will do it. I’ll do whatever it takes to save our people. I’ll undergo the medusa’s Kiss.”
CHAPTER 29
Kethe
Kethe didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know if this was right – but she did know there was no coming back from this decision. It was terrifying to cast her fate and fortune into the wind and step up before the medusa, to gaze up the length of her swelling serpentine body to where her human form hung above her, glorious and fell. To meet her burning eyes and know that she was taking an irrevocable step.
“Kethe,” said her mother, taking a step forward and reaching for her. “No. Please.”
Iskra sounded just as she had moments ago, when she’d begged with Asho, a plea that was completely selfish. A desire to preserve, to deny the necessity of the moment. If anything, Iskra’s plea only hardened Kethe’s resolve. Asho was right: this was no longer about them, their lives, their hopes, their fears, their souls. This was about humanity, about their world, and when you placed such weighty objects on the other side of the scale, nothing you could come up with could balance it out.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, aware of the stares that were locked on her but not caring if they saw the tears brimming in her eyes. “There’s no other way.”
“There has to be,” said Iskra. “Tiron, tell her. There has to be another way.”
Tiron’s expression was as harsh as she’d ever seen it, but he didn’t leap to Iskra’s support. He stared at Kethe, and she was struck by a memory of them both on a spit of sand outside Mythgræfen Hall, swords drawn. Her whole being had been suffused with rage and a desire to kill him.
Another life, it felt like.
“This is beyond my ken,” he said heavily. “I’m sorry, Iskra. Give me a battlefield filled with men intent on killing each other, and I’ll tell you what should be done. This? Demons, medusas, the fate of the Empire?” He shook his head slowly. “I’m likely to trust Asho. This is his world, now. If he says it must be done, then I believe him. I’ll do what he says.”
Asho, hovering above them, bowed his head.
“Kethe,” said Iskra. There was no entreaty in her voice, just sorrow. Just anguish. Just pain. She’d let her daughter go.
Freed, Kethe turned back to the medusa.
The song of the White Gate rose within her. It was glorious and transcendent, and she felt like a flute of crystal through which a powerful light was shining, a vessel for a greatness that was not her own. She was but a chalice that could hold that glory for a passing moment.
“Now, this is different,” Kyrra said, lowering herself so that she was in front of Kethe. “I’ve never had a woman as dedicated as you are to the White Gate. Never tasted such refined fare. Come. Embrace me and taste perdition.”
Feeling stiff and awkward, Kethe allowed herself to be lifted up by the medusa’s surprisingly strong arms, and the world fell away till there was only Kyrra’s burning eyes left before her, eyes that were like the sun, that threatened to scorch her vision forevermore, so that no matter what she looked at in the future, she would always see those twin vertical slits hovering before her, mocking her, loving her, devouring her.
The medusa pressed her wide lips to Kethe’s own, and flames poured through Kethe’s body, a roar of carnivorous crimson that thundered around the core that was the White Song. The White Song’s pitch grew higher even as a crashing thunder akin to surf pounding on rock sought to drown it out.
Kethe lost all sense of herself, of the meadow and its occupants. She forgot about the medusa, about everything but the battle that was raging within her: the White Song versus a primordial lust. Crimson and white. Dimly, she sensed the medusa’s tongue slipping between her lips; at a vast remove, she felt her body blistering, seared to the bone by a fire that could not be denied – but her consciousness was held and shielded by the White Song.
Oh, glory. Oh, ruin. It was too much strain for one mortal mind, and Kethe thought she might snap, that she was being bent too far, that nothing could accommodate this tension of the soul.
Yet the crimson flames that bathed her were not wholly alien; she could feel an affinity for them, a shared commonality with the White Song. The medusa was of both the White Gate and the Black, and her Kiss granted an opening of the ways to both Gates, a lowering of the walls, an overcoming of one’s natural defenses.
The White Song grew more profound, echoing within the fastness of her soul even as she felt the dark fire that she’d always associated with Asho’s magic. The energies of the Black Gate swirled around her, fortifying her, balancing out the draining effects of the White.
When her vision returned, she realized that she was still standing before the medusa, her hand in the monster’s own, and an understanding filled her as she gazed up at Kyrra, a fleeting awareness of how she was straddling both worlds. Sympathy flushed through her and then was gone.
“Am I — is it done?”
When she raised her hand, she saw that her fingers and palm were pitch black, but the darkness lightened as it climbed her arm, becoming a rocky gray. Kethe pulled down her neckline and saw that her sternum was pale. It was her own skin, freckled and human.
“What does this mean?” she asked, looking up at Kyrra.
“
I’ve never seen the like,” said the medusa. “You have been Kissed but not subsumed. You retain some element of yourself. Your essence belongs to the White Gate. The rest – the periphery, perhaps, has become mine.”
Kethe closed her eyes and focused. The White Song rose within her, but now it didn’t sweep through her like a gale. Rather, it pooled in her core and was fed by the darkness that ringed it, that filled her limbs.
“This is like having a constant source of black formula within me,” she said, opening her eyes and looking at her pitch-black hands. “A source of strength that the White Song can’t drain.”
“Independence, then,” Audsley said as the Artificer floated down to stare at her.
Kethe looked past them to Mixis and Synesis. “I still hear the White Song.”
“You are polluted,” said Synesis. “Now, more than before.”
“Well,” Audsley said, bobbing as he stepped forward and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Let’s be quite honest. If I may, I imagine you both have been drinking, perhaps even quaffing, large amounts of black formula up to this point, have you not?”
Synesis scowled at him. “What of it?”
“Just that it seems rather hypocritical to assume a superior stance and lay claim to a state of purity when your whole essence, as it were, has been bathed for years in the tortured extracts of the Sin Casters.”
“Aye,” said the scarecrow Sin Caster, his teeth brilliant white against his now ebon skin. “Pretty rich, that is.”
“That doesn’t count,” said Synesis. “Sins committed by accident do not rank in equivalence with those purposefully undertaken.”
“I’m sure we could appeal to the Ascendant,” Audsley said, smiling apologetically. “But I don’t think he’s a neutral party in this. Suffice to say that if your best defense is ignorance, then your defense makes you look like a fool. The Fujiwara, at the command of Erenthil, here, duped you and polluted your souls long ago. One must assume, therefore, that any position of moral superiority has been lost. I might even hazard to say that your one hope of redemption might lie in purposefully sinning at this point with a mind toward saving innocents, so as to redress a life spent ignorantly sinning to no real purpose.”
