by Will Wight
Rasmus would show him.
He barely thought about it. It was more a surge of emotion, of inspiration, of something long hidden inside him lurching up and taking control for a single instant.
Rasmus took one step to the right and shoved.
Taichon had time for one startled, panicked expression before he went over the cliff. A second later, a cracking thud and two hollow thunks marked Taichon and his pair of barrels hitting the ground.
I’ve done it now, Taichon thought. I did it. His head felt like someone had pumped it full of smoke. Would the Travelers find him now? He had intentionally injured another student, after all. That was a crime. He had committed a crime in Naraka, of all places. What was going to happen to him?
No, not a crime. A punishment. After all, had Taichon not confessed to him that he had gone unpunished for hurting his little sister? Wasn't it a Naraka Traveler's job to arbitrate such cases? In fact, this was the best kind of penalty: one that fit the transgression. Taichon had pushed his sister out of a tree, and in just retaliation, Rasmus had pushed him off of a cliff. If the fates were kind, Taichon would suffer the same injuries as his sister. The scales of justice would be balanced. Rasmus might even be rewarded, for acting as befit a Traveler of Naraka.
That was when it occurred to him that he couldn't hear any of the noises he had expected from Taichon. No screams, no groans, nothing. Maybe he had hit his head, just like his sister. That would be for the best: maybe he wouldn't remember anything when he woke up.
Rasmus stepped around a wild ash hound as he walked toward the cliff, shoving the dog out of the way with one leg. He leaned down.
Most of Taichon's body lay pressed flat against the stone, but his head had twisted almost all the way around, as though he had tried to get one last look at Rasmus.
His killer.
Rasmus stumbled back from the edge, thinking fast. He would have to come up with a story that didn't make him sound like a murderer. He couldn't lie; the older Travelers had ways of finding guilt even through the most clever lies. He had to make the truth serve his purposes.
Taichon had fallen from a cliff, and Rasmus saw it happen. He wished it hadn't happened, he was full of regrets, and all that. It was true; he now wished he had waited for a shorter drop. He had never meant to have a body on his hands.
As cover stories went, that one would do. But he had to look like a real friend in grief. He threw his buckets to the ground, convinced that someone who had truly witnessed the death of someone he loved would have abandoned the buckets instead of carefully carrying them back. Rasmus then started to run. Someone in his position would be expected to go for help as soon as possible.
As he ran, he couldn't escape one thought: at least he would have something really good to confess in his Initiation.
He barely made it three paces before he was forced to stop. A trio of ash hounds, their manes burning, stood in his path. They stared at him with orange eyes.
That was odd behavior for the dogs. They were mostly scavengers, except under certain conditions, when they would work together to bring down larger game. They never stood and waited for something to come to them. Rasmus swerved to run around them, but another hound emerged from a nearby tunnel and glared at him with glowing eyes.
Rasmus spun around to try another route. There was a second tunnel back near Tutor Petrus' house; it took more time, but he could always explain that he had been forced to take the longer route.
As he hurried back, he noticed three or four more ash-gray shadows, smoldering gently and trailing smoke.
He ran faster.
He had passed the spot where Taichon's body lay before he saw the hound behind him. Now, how had it gotten through? It couldn't have passed him without him seeing it, and it couldn't have come from behind him: the only other thing behind this point was Petrus' house.
The tiny dog, barely more than a puppy, stared at him, its back burning with a line of embers. Something in its stance gave it away.
This was his ash hound, so to speak. The first creature he had ever summoned.
“I didn't call you.”
Rasmus sent a mental command before him, ordering the dog aside. It stayed where it was. Instead of moving, it lowered its snout to the ground and drew in a long breath through its nose. Once. Twice. All of the other ash hounds, in fact, were loudly sniffing the air and drawing closer.
Ash hounds could smell a murderer.
His stomach twisted, and his heart hammered through his rib cage. “No, it's not me. It wasn't me. It's not a murder, it was an accident.”
One of the largest hounds, whose fur was actually ablaze, let out a growl that sounded like distant thunder.
“He deserved it!” Rasmus begged. Sometimes, his tutors said, you could talk Naraka creatures into agreeing with your view of justice. You just had to make your points in the right way. Rasmus sent his sincerity into a mental pulse aimed at the ring of hounds; surely they could sense that he was right. “I gave him a just punishment. You see? I'm not a murderer! I'm a Naraka Traveler!”
One of the closest hounds lunged, knocking him onto his back. Its teeth in his shoulder felt like a handful of red-hot knives. Rasmus screamed as he'd never screamed before, a desperate sound that tore at his throat.
Another set of jaws closed around his ankles, and he thrashed physically and mentally, trying to shake them loose. They were going to tear him to pieces. This was how he would die: not like a Traveler, but like a criminal, torn apart by a pack of hungry dogs.
It took him a handful of seconds to wonder why more of them hadn't started biting him. Some had the tops of their heads pressed against his side. Were they trying to save him? Maybe a handful of the pack agreed with his version of justice.
Then he felt the tearing pain in his ankle, felt the stone scraping under his back, and he realized they weren't going to eat him after all.
He screamed louder.
With one final push, the pack of ash hounds hurled him off the cliff.
He only had an instant, twisting in the air, to see the coal-orange eyes of his summoned hound, staring down at him like an Arbiter in judgment.
Then he hit the rock.
Naraka Travelers believe that punishment should be like a well-executed crime: direct, focused, and brutal.
Very few of them have ever experienced real mercy. They are not to be judged for this, only pitied.
-Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 8: Blue
RAGNARUS
1st Year of the Damascan Calendar
1st Year in the Reign of Queen Cynara I
Winter’s End
Cynara of Damasca stood on the remnants of a wall that she herself had broken. Only a few months ago, Cana had been an enemy city that she’d paid dearly to capture. Now, it was her final refuge.
And not much of one, at that.
From here, she could see the enemy arrayed against her, a set of game pieces arranged neatly on a vast board. They stood in three distinct groups, as she would have expected, given their vastly different natures.
To the north, the Asphodel Incarnation towered over the rest. He looked like nothing so much as a cloudbank shaped into a robed scholar. His head scraped the sky, and at his feet, a colorful garden of deadly plants sprouted spontaneously. Serpentine shapes moved in the clouds of his feet, and flocks of birds wheeled in the Mist of his chest, but he was otherwise motionless.
To the south, a flashing thunderstorm followed the hordes of Endross. Wyverns flew and spat lightning back up at the clouds while, on the ground, giant snakes and draconic lizards frolicked in a spectacle of blue-white sparks. The Endross Incarnation was lost among them, but she supposedly had the face of a beautiful woman and the clawed limbs of a giant reptile. That was solely rumor, though; the last Endross Incarnation that Cynara had destroyed had been a man who looked like he was made of packed sand and pure lightning.
Directly ahead, between the other two camps, were the Elysians.
They were
divided into nine neat camps, color-coded for her convenience. She couldn’t make out the details of individual figures, but she could guess well enough. The Gold District would be made up of armored soldiers, some of which had the heads or bodies of animals. The Red District would be tiny, deceptively strong gnomes; the Blue made up of twisting vampiric sea creatures, and so on. After the campaign she had just fought, she was more familiar with Elysia than she had ever wanted to be.
The wind caught Cynara’s blond hair, pulling it behind her like a flag. She felt the icy winter wind on her face and didn’t flinch. It would be hot enough in the battle; she should cool down now, while she still could.
The Old Man’s laughter sounded from the swirling crimson portal next to her. “Don’t look so grim, girl. I would have thought you’d be happy. Only three Incarnations here, those are much better odds than you expected.”
Cynara kept her eyes fixed on the Elysia Incarnation, who at this distance was nothing more than a gold-and-white blur. “Three? That means six are free to rampage across my kingdom, killing freely.”
The Old Man smiled, splitting his gray-black beard in two. As always when she had seen him, he carried a simple wooden staff, despite the weapons available to him in his Crimson Vault. He wore simple gray robes, tied at the waist by a hemp rope, and his beard fell in a fan across his chest. From those features alone, he might have looked like a homeless beggar, but the whole of him was…majestic, somehow. As though he were a king who had decided to dress himself as a peasant to survey the common folk.
He turned his eyes to her, one an ordinary gray eye, and one a shining scarlet stone. “Truly, you always look on the sweet side of things.”
Cynara lowered herself to sit on the wall. No need to keep standing, and she would need all her strength for the upcoming fight. “Have you found a solution?”
“It just so happens that I have.”
She eyed him suspiciously. With the Old Man, things were never simple. “Is that so?”
He spread one gnarled hand, revealing a handful of blood-red seeds. They looked simple enough, like stubby beans. “It took me years to gather this many, but I’ve finally done it.”
She didn’t take them. “We’ve been down this path before.”
“There are nine here, Cynara. One to bind each of the eight lesser Incarnations, and one for Elysia.”
Cynara shook her head, watching the wind push the Asphodel Incarnation’s mist around. “Only nine? I would have thought you’d want a backup plan.”
The Old Man leaned heavily on his staff, making the wood creak. Or maybe that was his back. “The Hanging Trees work best in multiples of three. More than nine, and it may become unstable. You don’t want that.”
“I don’t want to pay that price at all,” she said. “We’ve spoken of this before. There’s only one life I have the authority to sacrifice.”
He nodded toward the three otherworldly armies. “How many lives have they taken, do you think? How many more, before you or they are defeated? I’m asking you to walk the path of lesser carnage, not greater.”
Cynara pretended to work that over in her mind, but the truth was, she had reached a decision weeks ago. She had only argued for the principle of it, to soothe her wounded conscience. He was right. In this case, a lesser sacrifice was necessary to prevent a greater.
And she would be the first. She would not let her people pay a price that she could not afford herself.
She reached out to take the seeds, but he pulled back his fist.
“So eager, all of a sudden,” the Old Man said. “You must first satisfy my price.”
Cynara glared at him, wondering—not for the first time—if his own weapons would work against him. “You may have my life. That’s all I have to give.”
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Well…not quite.”
Anger finally burst through her, sharp and hot. “This subject is closed!”
“You could rule when Elysia is deposed.”
“And become a tyrant worse than she could ever be!”
“Not a tyrant. A queen. An immortal queen, commanding a united land.”
Cynara stood, putting herself face-to-face with the Old Man’s crimson eye. “I will pay whatever price I must to keep my daughter and her kingdom safe. But that does not include becoming a monster. I would put her in even more danger than the threat of Elysia. I have put one amount on the table, now take it or begone.”
The Old Man’s red eye flared, and his gray grew suddenly piercing. “I see that I cannot sway you. Very well. You have forsaken life eternal, and Ragnarus will drink the last of your blood.”
She snatched the seeds from his hand.
“I hope you choke on it,” she muttered.
A horn drifted to her on the wind, sweet and pleasant as an angel’s song. Her heart turned to ice.
Asphodel and Endross remained motionless, waiting on the plains. They would be used as reinforcements for the primary assault. An assault that, she knew, would be coming any minute now.
The armies of Elysia had begun to move.
***
Cynara finally found her daughter racing through the twisting streets of ruined Cana. They had been searching for each other.
The fourteen-year-old girl collapsed into her mother’s arms, shaking uncontrollably. “I heard the horn. Everyone else is in hiding, but I had to find you.”
Cynara the First pushed her daughter out to arm’s length, the better to get a look at Cynara the Second. The girl had the same blond hair and piercing blue eyes as the rest of her family, and she was just as gangly and awkward as her mother had been at her age.
She smiled at her daughter, pushing a handful of eight seeds into the confused girl’s hands. “Take these. Plant them in bloody ground, then lure the Incarnations close. The Tree will bind them. They need to be fed, one life per year.” Their hunger would grow with time, but they were just a temporary measure anyway. Hopefully Cynara the Second would do what the First could not, and find another way to deal with the Incarnations for good.
The girl took the seeds, confusion plain on her face. “Mother, why…why don’t you…”
Cynara grabbed her daughter tight, hugging her one last time. “The others will follow you. I’m taking the easy way out, I’m afraid. I’m only dealing with one Incarnation. You’ll have to take care of the other eight.”
“Wait, please, I don’t—”
She placed a single kiss on her daughter’s forehead. “Rule wisely, Cynara the Second. May your reign be longer and more fruitful than mine.”
A terrifying screech sounded overhead, and Cynara spun, summoning the Lightning Spear into her hand. Its blade was worked with gold, its hilt black wood, with a bright ruby set into its head.
“Run, daughter,” Cynara said. There was a moment of hesitation, and then the slap of feet on stones as the girl ran.
Just in time. Something like a bright blue jellyfish the size of a horse swung up the side of a broken building, then scuttled like a spider down toward Cynara. At the same time, an animated suit of gold armor hauling a giant halberd came dashing down a side street, roaring a wordless war cry.
Cynara stepped forward, hurling the Lightning Spear. She felt the price immediately: her body was wracked with indescribable pain, as though her every bone had been shattered at once. The spear itself flew with a hundred times the force she had used, striking the charging armor like a thunderbolt and blasting it to red-hot shards of smoking metal.
The blue jellyfish made a wet, sticky, whistling sound and leaped, its tentacles curling in midair. The Spear was already on its way back to Cynara’s hand, but she couldn’t throw it again in time. So she raised her other hand.
The red wand drizzled sparks of red light, like glowing crimson tears.
Flexing her will, Cynara triggered the power of the Bleeding Wand.
With a shriek, the Wand’s power blasted forward. A wave of crimson light devoured the jellyfish, but it didn’t slow. It contin
ued forward until it hit the side of a three-story tower, which instantly dissolved and blew away as featureless gray dust. The tower stood for a second on three legs instead of four.
Then, with a great roar, the side of the building slid away. Rubble crashed into the street with a sound like an avalanche.
Cynara stood in the middle of a broken street as the Lightning Spear smacked back into her waiting palm. The bill for the Bleeding Wand would come due later, but she never thought she would be willing to pay it. The Wand devoured the user’s sanity with every use. In time, it would leave her a cackling madwoman eager to blast everyone to dust.
She’d never planned to use the Wand, but it was amazing how different the world looked in the face of her imminent death.
A woman’s voice, sweet and clear like the chiming of a crystal bell, sounded from behind her. “Your Territory is an abomination, Cynara. It thrives on blood and death.”
Cynara turned, a crimson weapon in each hand, to face the golden-haired Incarnation of Elysia.
“I’m not the one who destroyed this country, Rhalia.”
Rhalia’s eyes were cool, like a pair of gold coins. “Sometimes a mother must be rough with her children to show them the right way.”
She didn’t look monstrous, like many of the other Incarnations Cynara had seen. She wore a simple white robe, belted by a golden sash, and her skin was still clear and as pale as it had ever been. Her bare feet drifted six inches above the ground, with not even an orange glow to give her away, but Rhalia had always been skilled with the Orange Light. Even before Incarnation took her.
Cynara couldn’t help it: she let out a peal of laughter. “You see yourself as a mother, now? That’s how you justify wholesale slaughter?”
“Those who follow me are safe and secure. I’m building a paradise.”
“You’re filling a graveyard.”
Rhalia called a globe of golden light into one hand. The other writhed with knots of twisting blue. “Then let your grave be the last.”
The Incarnation thought she was being clever, but Cynara was ready for her. She sidestepped, blasting at the ground where she had been standing a moment before. The cobblestones disintegrated, as did the tentacles of blue light that had been waiting beneath them.
