“The dissension has begun.” Evetherey’s voice startled Quarrah, seeming suddenly invasive in her rattled mind.
“Over what?” Quarrah muttered aloud, knowing that Evetherey couldn’t possibly hear her from that distance. “He never said it.”
“Some believe that Prime Isle Trable knows the word Ardor Benn spoke of,” she continued, as if perceiving Quarrah’s question. “They are curious enough to interrogate him, while Centrum is convinced that no word could hold such power. He doesn’t want them pursuing this avenue any further.”
“He’s scared,” Quarrah whispered. Because, what if there really was a way to change the mindset of the majority?
Quarrah stared at the group. Maybe a thousand skulls were lit now, a visible statement that they stood with Garifus. But it wasn’t nearly enough. They needed nine times that number before Evetherey would dare smother them with a Visitant cloud and drag them into the Sphere.
Along the straight row of Glassminds, one of them stepped forward, putting herself equal with Garifus. Her smooth skull was dark, but Quarrah could see a bold expression.
“Stay!” Garifus shouted at her. “Stay where you are, Sorama!”
But the woman strode forward with her head raised high in defiance. Behind her, Garifus grunted, his face strained so severely that the golden veins on his neck bulged.
He can’t kill her, Quarrah realized. Too few of the Glassminds had weighed in on this matter. Without the majority’s consensus, he couldn’t extinguish her mind.
The woman, Sorama, paused before the wall of humans who raised their clubs at her, bravely holding the line.
“I desire to speak to the Prime Isle,” she said. “Stand aside or I will destroy you.”
“Sparks!” Garifus screamed, his skull suddenly going dark. Then his hand came up, a wave of Barrier Grit flowing from his fingertips. It ripped through Sorama from behind, spattering the front row of fighters with gold blood as her headless body toppled sideways.
At once, skulls across the field began to ignite, spurred into mental judgment by Garifus’s bold execution. Quarrah couldn’t count them from inside her Barrier. And it occurred to her that the glowing glass didn’t necessarily mean they were siding with Garifus. Represented, too, would be those opposing him.
Quarrah’s face felt numb and tingly, wracked with sobs she hadn’t even been aware of. But in a moment, she stilled, a single thought breaking through the cloud of grief.
He did it.
Ard had been so sure that he could convince the Glassminds to turn on each other, and that was exactly what was happening. Surely, not in the way he had expected, but it was working nevertheless.
Ardor Benn, running a ruse, even from beyond the grave.
“There is something else,” Evetherey’s voice interrupted Quarrah’s thoughts. “The Othians are no longer blocking the Moonsick ones.”
No sooner had the words entered Quarrah’s mind than a human figure came hurtling through the Glassmind ranks. With horrifying speed, it launched itself across the space between armies and tore into the front line of unsuspecting citizens.
Screams rippled through the crowd of survivors. Before Quarrah could see the outcome of the attack, a dozen more Bloodeyes appeared through the line of Glassminds. They closed the gap to the human side with jerky movements, as if their madness compelled them to run at a speed at which their rotting bodies could not quite manage.
They clashed with the humans, with no concern for their own bodily harm. Their tough, leathery skin turned the primitive wooden weapons, but a few metal spearheads found their marks. Blood flecked the faces of the unprepared fighters. Several of the Bloodeyes broke past the untrained line, the screams of fear turning to pain as the first citizens fell dying.
From the helpless confines of her Barrier dome, Quarrah’s shock over Ard’s death compounded with the horror of the attack and she felt like she might never be able to draw another full breath. More Bloodeyes were breaking through the Glassmind ranks, passing the enhanced beings as if they were nothing more than trees in a forest.
But another fight was just beginning.
Two Glassminds, both of their heads glowing, had broken their unified line to face one another. They were shouting in the flowing language of the Othians, but there was nothing elegant about their exchange. Beyond them, Quarrah saw the same dissension manifesting itself throughout the entire group. Glass skulls glimmered. Some merely flickered, as if the individual could not decide which side of the argument deserved their lethal vote.
Within seconds, it came to blows.
Heavy fists striking with merciless precision. Quarrah saw a skull shatter, the light from within leaking out like a wisp of steam.
In moments, the entire area around Oriar’s Square had turned into a mighty hand-to-hand brawl, the Glassminds unable to manipulate their internal Grit while ignited in judgment.
Still, it was an elegant and complex combat, the scope of which made the human survivors struggling against the Bloodeyes look like Karvan lizards scratching at each other in the ring.
Something slammed against the side of Quarrah’s Barrier. She turned with a startled yelp, adrenaline piercing through her grief, snuffing out her tears like a detonation of Null Grit.
A Bloodeye was pounding against the transparent shell, clearly puzzled by why it could not reach the human it sensed. The creature had been a noblewoman, by the looks of it. Chunks of her dark hair had been ripped out, leaving scabby yellow pockmarks in her head. The fine dress she had been wearing was mere strips of dirty silk now, her mangled feet bare. Her jaw looked broken, unhinged. And her left arm was completely missing. But through it all, she’d somehow managed to keep a string of bloodstained pearls around her neck.
Quarrah stared at her sightless crimson eyes, momentarily wondering what kind of person she’d been in life. Had she refused Garifus’s offer to transform? Or had the Glassminds not found her until it was too late?
A human fighter sprinted past, and his fresh wounds must have drawn the attention of the Bloodeye woman. She leapt away from Quarrah, latching on to the man’s back and dragging him out of sight.
Before Quarrah could catch her breath, a Glassmind man, his head glowing brightly, slammed against the outside of her Barrier. His opponent loomed over him, an Othian woman with her fingertips sparking. At once, she extinguished the light in her red skull, desperate to harness the full range of her Grit manipulation.
Visibly panicking, the Glassmind man extinguished his own light, reaching back with one hand. His fingers pressed against Quarrah’s shell and he absorbed the detonation, throwing it in front of him, formed like a flat shield as the woman brought down a great blade of manipulated Barrier Grit.
Without any protection, Quarrah rolled away from the fighting duo. She scanned the line of humans, hoping for an opening to duck into the crowd without getting skewered by a spear in the untrained hands of a frightened youth. But her eyes caught something else…
Lyndel.
She was surrounded by a cluster of her Trothian warriors, standing as a bulge in the human line of defense, facing a trio of Bloodeyes with much more precision than the Lander citizens.
A great fury boiled up inside her again. Quarrah had almost lost it for a moment, drowning in grief, shock, and the need for survival. But now that she saw the Agrodite priestess once more, her conviction to avenge Ardor Benn redoubled.
One step into Quarrah’s path of vengeance, the noblewoman Bloodeye appeared out of nowhere, single arm flailing in dread fury, unhinged mouth dangling in a silent scream. Quarrah reeled, hand darting to her thigh pocket out of pure instinct. Her final teabag of Grit formed a Drift detonation around her. Quarrah sprang upward, using the weightlessness to aid her jump as the Bloodeye tumbled into the cloud.
The noblewoman lost her footing, turning head over feet in an uncontrolled tumble, while Quarrah exited the Drift cloud near the top, a height of about twelve feet. Quarrah dropped to the grass, landing in a cr
ouch not three yards from where the Bloodeye rolled out.
In the distance, one voice had risen above the rest of the chaos. Quarrah knew it was Garifus, but he was screaming something in the Othian language.
“Our moment is almost at hand.” Evetherey spoke into her mind. “Centrum calls for a show of loyalty. He instructs his true followers to cease fighting and cast their final votes in judgment. He believes that the majority will rule in his favor and they can smite this insurrection with the power of their unity.”
Quarrah heard the uneven shuffle of the Bloodeye’s footsteps from behind, but something glittered in a patch of tall grass in front of her, a flash of red catching the morning sun. Leaning forward, her heart caught in her throat as she saw what it was.
Lyndel’s Moon Glass knife. The blade that had taken Ard’s life. Probably thrown to this spot in Garifus’s first cloud of Void Grit.
Quarrah grabbed the wrapped handle, the rawhide still wet from the ruse artist’s blood. She spun, catching a glimpse of the world through the flat of the wide blade. Seeing like a Trothian—the energies of every living soul.
She saw the powerful aura of the Glassmind army, each being exuding the exact same vibration and hue. Then she saw the darkness of death overcoming the human survivors. But there was an array of color there, too. A multi-prismatic show of frailty and strength, cowardice and bravery.
Individuality.
Quarrah brought the knife around and plunged it into the Bloodeye’s throat. It slid through the tough skin with surprising ease, and through its lens, she saw the corrupted life drain from the noblewoman’s ruined body.
She pulled out the glass blade and let the woman’s corpse fall to the ground. Stepping away, Quarrah gasped for breath. The knife dripped in her right hand, and her left clutched the string of stained pearls.
Old habits, she thought, pocketing the jewelry.
Behind her, the Glassmind conflict had changed. She couldn’t spot Garifus, but a large group of the Othians were retreating to a tactical position where they could execute the rebels with their thoughts alone. There were thousands of them… at least, it was a number well beyond Quarrah’s count. Certainly enough to exchange for the human survivors if Evetherey could net them into a Visitant cloud.
But Quarrah had one more thing to take care of.
Turning, she glimpsed Lyndel again. A few of her Trothian warriors had fallen, but the group had managed to kill two of the attacking Bloodeyes.
Good, Quarrah thought. They were just clearing the way for her to reach the priestess. Tucking the glass knife into her leather belt, she set off at a sprint, hoping the element of surprise would be enough.
She was almost there, feet touching down on the first stone pavers of Oriar’s Square, when Lyndel vanished.
Not just her, but the entire army of human survivors, along with the number of Bloodeyes they were fighting… All gone in a wink.
Oriar’s Square was suddenly empty, an eerie quiet replacing the chaos of battle. In front of her, the haziness of a Grit detonation filled the entire area.
Oh, flames. Quarrah had been left behind.
She glanced over her shoulder to see that the congregation of glowing Glassminds had also disappeared into the Visitant cloud, its manipulated shape carefully encompassing them while leaving behind those who hadn’t lit their skulls.
“Make haste!” Evetherey’s voice spoke in her mind. “I cannot extend to your position for fear of the unlit Othians at your flank.”
With her heart squirming up her throat, Quarrah scanned the distant empty stage for any sign of the dragon goddess. Too far to see. Maybe Evetherey was speaking from within the Sphere.
Shaking aside the panic, Quarrah resumed her sprint. She was arm’s reach from the edge of the cloud when a powerful force seized her from behind. The familiar pull of Gather Grit dragged her legs out from under her, throwing her facedown on the ground. Yanked backward, she felt the skin peel off her chin as she tumbled across the stones, hands clawing for any kind of hold.
With a scream of defiance, Quarrah managed to dig her fingers between two flagstone pavers, holding fast against the draw. Dry leaves whipped past her, and her eyes watered from the dust and wind.
Turning her head, Quarrah saw the source of her struggle. A face she recognized.
Garifus Floc’s arms were outstretched toward her, making himself the center of the Gather detonation, inevitably drawing everything toward him. To use Grit like this, his skull was dark. He hadn’t been taken by the Visitant cloud like the others. His loyal followers had risked everything for him, and Evetherey had stolen them away. But he was still here.
“Coward!” she screamed, her voice instantly whisked in his direction.
“You don’t understand, child,” he said. “Your Drothan goddess has taken the majority.” His face tightened in a grimace. “But they were not mine.”
What?
So Centrum had lost the battle, after all! His announcement to cease the fighting and ignite their minds had caused the opposing side to do so as well. And when Evetherey saw that their numbers were greater, she had taken them instead of Garifus’s loyalists!
“Haste!” Evetherey urged again in her mind. “One of them is approaching the cloud.”
Quarrah’s fingers were scraped and bleeding, the flat paver stone beginning to pull loose from the ground. Her clothes were plastered to her body, the glass knife digging into her side.
“But all is right again,” Garifus chimed behind her. “Your Drothan has done us the favor of purging the gangrenous limb of disunity. Those that remain have now been tested and proven. Our minds are one. There is no defense against the transparency of our red glass.”
Red glass…
Her mother’s voice came racing back to her, hallucinated words from inside the Ucru that suddenly made sense after so much time.
Sucking in a deep breath, Quarrah risked letting go of the flat stone with one hand. She didn’t have to focus or aim—Garifus was doing that for her. All she had to do was rip off her belt. Her knuckles raked across the buckle, loosening it just enough for Lyndel’s glass knife to come free. Instantly, the weapon was caught in Centrum’s Gather, whisked toward him before he could stop it.
The blade passed his outstretched hands, its momentum driving the tip home through Garifus Floc’s right eye. Quarrah heard the shattering of glass as the knifepoint smashed through the back of his skull.
“Point into the Homeland.”
At once, the detonation of Gather Grit lost its hold and she tumbled forward. Getting her feet down, Quarrah Khai ran the final distance and leapt into the Sphere as it closed behind her.
Still, it doesn’t make it easy to say goodbye.
EPILOGUE
This was the treasure?
Five cycles of planning to get past eighteen temple guards, six flights of stairs, nine locks, and a Void Grit trap that had nearly blown her halfway back to the old timeline. And this was all Evetherey had been hiding?
A book.
Quarrah really didn’t have time to read anything right now. Raek was at the temple entrance, distracting the guards with some great hullabaloo. Probably another doctrinal tiff with Isle Halavend. Six stories up in Evetherey’s Drothan temple and Quarrah could easily hear the big man’s voice. If he’d still been a Glassmind, Raek’s shouting probably would have deafened everyone within a quarter mile.
She took a cautious step forward and lifted the book from the little stone table in the center of the room. Particles of dust swirled in the glow of her Light Grit detonation. No matter the treasure, it felt good to be thieving again! It scratched an itch that had been bothering her for more than half a year now. Sure, she’d swiped a few goods in the last cycles, but it barely satisfied. Most of the people weren’t even protecting the common things she’d nabbed.
But in this windowless stone room, she could almost pretend like she was back in Beripent—the old city, with its noises and smells. Its bustling crowds and
an energy that filled its labyrinthine streets all the way up to a damp smoky sky.
Not enough places to hide in this new world.
And not nearly enough things to steal.
Turning toward the doorway, Quarrah cracked open the book. Might as well have a peek at the first page. She stopped, frozen as if in Stasis, except for the pounding of her heart, which suddenly increased tenfold.
That was Ard’s handwriting.
She snapped the book shut. Sparks, did she even want to read this? Time was softening the pain. Would reading something he’d written only dig it up? And what was it doing here at the top of the Drothan temple? Evetherey was guarding Ard’s words?
Never mind. She could talk it over with Raek. They could read it together.
She had taken only one more step when her hands opened the book of their own accord. And once she saw her name written there, she couldn’t help but read on.
My dear Quarrah Khai,
You deserve the truth, so I’ll do my best to lay it all out for you. Consider this my glass mind. No tricks. No lies. All my barest intentions made plain even to the simplest of human minds.
Just to clarify, I am in no way calling you simpleminded. Sparks. One paragraph in and I’m already making a mess of things. I never could keep my silver tongue around you.
I’m feeling heavy tonight, yet there is a strange freedom in this weight upon my shoulders. Centrum and his Glassminds will probably strike in the morning—if not sooner. I have made every necessary arrangement and I believe we will succeed.
By the time you read this, you’ll either be safely settled into your new world, or… Or I guess you’ll be erased along with all of existence. I sure as sparks hope my plan works. Evetherey seems confident. She already peered through the Sphere and found the place—and time—where all the survivors can exit.
You’ve actually been there before. You’ll find yourselves back on the bottom of the InterIsland Waters in a time long before the islands and the seas. It’ll be a sweeping, expansive landscape, safe from the Red Moon, which will have returned to its original position on the dark side of the world. Evetherey has told me that civilization will be protected as long as people don’t go beyond the sea to the east, and the mountains to the west.
The Last Lies of Ardor Benn Page 64
