by Ginn Hale
The woman in front of him glared at him. Dozens of other women stood behind her, all of them armed with pistols and spears. They wore their hair back in fighting braids and some carried long black knives. These were the holy sisters, John realized. These women carved and guarded the issusha’im. John didn’t know why, but somewhere in the back of his mind he’d expected them to be sweet girls in flowing white habits. The woman in front of him barred her filed teeth and shoved her spear deeper into John’s lung.
John pushed himself to his feet. He grabbed the shaft of the spear and ripped it out of his body. The nun thrust the spear forward through his hands and slashed the razor point into the side of John’s neck.
“Bitch,” John growled. He yanked the spear from her hands and hurled it behind him. The nun stepped back and John lunged forward to punch through her chest. He hardly touched her before an old instinct surged through him and he pulled back. He had never, in all his life, hit a woman.
The nun didn’t hesitate. She stepped up against John and drove her curse blade into his stomach. Pain wrenched through him as she twisted the knife in his guts.
“Die, you Fai’daum dog,” she spat.
John caught her neck in his hands and crushed it. He dropped her and jerked the curse blade out of his body. Immediately, the other nuns opened fire. Their bullets ripped through John and he charged them. His inhibition about doing violence to women fell away as they impaled him and carved open wide wounds in his chest, throat, and back. At last his rage and pain were too much. He slaughtered the nuns just as he had the ushiri’im. He tore through their ranks, crushing and burning their bodies until the wide corridor was slick with blood and littered with broken corpses.
He bent over, coughing out his own blood. His head reeled and for a moment he thought he might lose his balance. He leaned against a wall. Molten seas and shattered mountains flickered through his thoughts. The screams of the issusha’im rebounded through his head like a pounding headache. They never stopped. Intermittent bursts of bells rang out alarms farther away. And now John could also hear the roar of the godhammers clearly. The noise was almost overwhelming.
John thought he could smell black powder and smoke creeping through the pungent odors of the convent. He wondered how far Sabir’s troops had gotten into Umbhra’ibaye. How far had Fikiri gotten? Had he already found Laurie?
John’s hope for a guide through Umbhra’ibaye lay ruined with Nuritam’s dismembered body. He would have to find his own way through the convent.
Then John heard one voice, drifting in the chaos, filling the brief instances of quiet. John heard a syllable and then another. He straightened and concentrated. The voice rose, soft and faint, little more than a whisper, and yet John could not help but recognize Laurie calling out his name.
She wasn’t far. John followed the sound of her voice through the twisting corridors. Pairs of holy sisters guarded the doorways. They attacked John and he killed them quickly. He only paused to listen for Laurie’s voice. As he searched, the screams of the issusha’im increased. He realized he was getting closer to them.
Ahead of him, a massive set of white doors loomed up. Ten holy sisters stood guard. John tore through them and kicked the doors open.
The issusha’im went suddenly silent.
Soft gold light poured out from between the shattered doors. The light seemed to emanate from the walls of the huge white chamber. The humid smell of flowers and meat rolled over him. John stepped into the chamber.
For a moment he had to shield his eyes. As his vision adjusted to the brilliance, John realized that the walls were gigantic tapestries of human skeletons and copper wires. They arched up nearly two stories to a massive dome, where the countless red wires stringing the bones together converged in a spiraling knot. Long wires draped down from the dome and dangled over the partially dissected remains of the women lying on the stone tables below. The nuns standing beside the tables stared at John.
John hardly took the vision in before the nuns attacked. They used long dissecting knives. Sharp pain flared through his muscles as the nuns whispered curses over his wounds. John caught the nuns, one after another, and crushed them. He ripped their knives and scalpels from his body and threw them to the floor.
“John.” Laurie’s voice rose from one of the stone tables.
John rushed to her but almost turned away when he reached her side. Waves of nausea and horror rocked through him.
From her waist down Laurie was nothing but carved bone and wire. Pieces of organ meat spilled out from the gaping cavern of her flayed ribs. Her arms were exposed bone all the way to the elbows. But the rest of her was whole.
Her eyes were wide open.
“I want to go home,” Laurie said.
“I…” John didn’t know what to do, much less what to say. He reached out but paused, afraid of the damage he might do to Laurie’s already ruined body. If he lifted her off the table would she simply fall apart in his arms?
“I think there’s something pinning me down,” Laurie said.
John could easily see what held Laurie to the table. The ends of the copper wires that held her body together were lashed together through an iron rung and then woven into the thick cord of wire that rose up to the massive knot at the ceiling.
“John, don’t just stand there,” Laurie whispered. She said something else, but John didn’t hear it over the loud crash of mortars and godhammers.
“I don’t know what to do.” John’s voice shook.
“Get me out of here,” Laurie said firmly. She closed her eyes. “Do whatever you have to, but get me out of here.”
John gripped the wires and tried to loosen their countless loops and knots. The wires kinked and twisted against his fingers. Laurie flinched and clenched her jaws against a cry of pain.
Another volley of explosions burst through the air. John heard the deep, low moan of stone walls cracking. The ground shook beneath him with the force of an immense impact. The smell of smoke grew even stronger than the rank perfume in the chamber. The issusha’im remained silent, but John noticed their bones writhing over each other. Their wires flickered and tugged.
“They’re burning the convent. I can see the fires spreading,” Laurie whispered. “Hurry.”
John fumbled with the wires, but they resisted him like living things.
“I can’t do it,” John admitted at last. “I can’t get you free without breaking these wires. I don’t know what that will do. It could—”
“Break them,” Laurie said. “I don’t care. I just want out of here.”
John gripped the wires. They seemed to pulse against his hands. He ripped them apart and sharp, hard shocks shot through his arm. Laurie, the women lying on the tables, and every one of the issusha’im screamed. The shriek stretched out and echoed through the chamber. It rebounded and boomed, falling on John like a physical blow. He staggered back.
Their long, unified cry suddenly broke into a cacophony of shouts and moans. Above him the issusha’im twisted against each other, ripping themselves free of the wires that bound them together. One tiny skeleton dropped to the floor. She hissed at Laurie and slashed out with her long finger bones. John blocked the blow and the tiny issusha jerked back from his touch.
“It kills us!” she shrieked and then she turned and skittered through the broken door out into the dark corridor.
Other issusha’im followed the first one down to the floor. Their copper wires hung like the broken strings of marionettes.
Kill her now, one hissed and lunged for Laurie. John didn’t know why they were so intent upon harming Laurie, but he wouldn’t allow it. He punched through the issusha’s outstretched arm, shattering the bone. Shocks bit into his fist but the issusha pulled back. More issusha’im worked themselves free from the walls.
Kill her. Kill her now, the issusha’im whispered.
“John.” Alarm rose through Laurie’s voice. She twitched and flopped on the stone table.
“I won’t le
t them hurt you,” John assured her.
John knew he was far stronger than they were, but there were so many issusha’im that he doubted he could keep every one of them from reaching Laurie. He had to get her out of here. He scooped Laurie up in his arms. She smelled strongly of blood. John tried not to think of the soft, wet mass of her organs as they fell against his chest. Her hard bone fingers dug into his shoulder. He could see the pain on her face as he shifted her weight.
He needed to get her to Ji. But it would mean leaving Umbhra’ibaye before he found Ravishan. John glanced down at Laurie’s face and he knew he had to help her. Ravishan would have done the same.
John sprinted for the stairs. The sounds of explosions rocked through the air and shook the floor. Then John heard the sharp wrenching shriek of the Gray Space opening behind him.
“Give her to me!” Fikiri screamed from behind John. John ignored him and kept running. He took the stairs in a gust of smoke-choked wind.
“It’s all right,” Laurie whispered. “It’s just Fikiri.”
“He’s not our friend,” John replied. He didn’t say anything more before the Gray Space again ripped open behind him. John felt Fikiri plunge a long blade into his back. Pain shot through John and he felt the stones cracking beneath him. The rage of hurricanes and earthquakes glinted through his thoughts.
“Don’t tell her your lies!” Fikiri shouted. John turned, but Fikiri had already dropped back into the Gray Space.
John rushed through the cracked, burned hallway and then sprinted up the stairs towards the gate. Halfway up, he heard Fikiri burst from the Gray Space. The agonizing edge of a Silence Knife gashed through the back of his knee and John’s leg buckled under him. Laurie cried out, clutching John’s shoulders as he stumbled and then caught himself.
“It’s all right,” John said, but he knew it wasn’t. The rage inside him felt molten and alive. John pushed himself back to his feet and ran. He knew the stairs were shattering beneath him. He could feel fine cracks spreading up the walls as he passed them. He charged up into the chamber. The yellow arches loomed up ahead of him.
Then he saw the shudder of a distortion in the air. He heard the Gray Space tearing. As it opened, John struck with all of his force, driving his hand through bone and flesh.
Ravishan’s eyes went wide with shock and pain as John’s hand split through his chest. John pulled his hand back. Dark, hot blood gushed up around his fingers.
“I didn’t mean…” John couldn’t go on.
“No.” Ravishan hardly mouthed the word. He sank to the floor. His blood pooled out around the stones of the arch.
“What did you do?” Laurie asked. “Oh my God, John, what did you just do?”
John was shaking too much to hold her. He lowered her to the floor. She staggered and then caught herself, balancing on her thin white legs and leaning against the yellow archway.
John stared down at Ravishan’s still form on the floor.
He hadn’t—he couldn’t—he—
He felt fire and storms surging through him. He felt the ground shudder and the sky split open. He felt the earth shaking the convent. The floor buckled. None of it mattered.
John knelt down beside Ravishan and pulled him into his arms. Ravishan’s body splayed limply against him. His dark eyes stared past John.
“I’m sorry…please don’t…” The words came out of John in a whimper.
He couldn’t be dead. John refused to accept it. He pulled Ravishan tight against him.
“Don’t die…” John whispered against Ravishan’s cool cheek. Stones all around John split and charred. Black smoke curled into the room. John clenched Ravishan against him, desperately trying to feel a single breath, the slightest kick of his pulse. Anything.
The explosions of the godhammers were drowned out by a deafening roar of thunder.
“Please…” John whispered.
“John.” Laurie sounded alarmed. “We can’t stay here!”
John glanced up at Laurie. He could hardly see her for the tears in his eyes. Her face was white with fear. She swayed as the floor shuddered. She couldn’t stay here. He had to get her to Ji.
The thought of Ji offered John a desperate hope.
Ji had brought Ravishan back from the brink of death once before. Maybe, somehow, she could do it again. It was only the thinnest thread of coherent thought, but John grasped it desperately.
“We’ll go to Ji,” John said quietly. “She’ll know what to do.” He lifted Ravishan but didn’t dare to look down at the gaping wound in Ravishan’s chest. Ravishan still felt warm in John’s arms. John fought to maintain the illusion. It was all he could do to keep himself moving. Laurie gripped his arm and followed him into the archway.
John felt strangely numb to the Gray Space. Its suffocating embrace curled around him, but all he thought of was Ravishan. He saw Ravishan’s slight smile break into a look of shock. He remembered the terrible heat of Ravishan’s heart as his hand curled around it. Ravishan’s wide dark eyes. His heart ripping apart beneath John’s fingers. The moment played again and again through John and he knew that there was nothing Ji could do.
He staggered from the archway, tears streaming down his face.
He saw the priests, a dozen lowly ushvun’im in their simple gray robes, as they took aim with their rifles. The first shot tore through John’s chest and he barely felt it. But the next bullets ripped into Ravishan. John cradled Ravishan against him, feeling the bullets ripping through his arms. A bullet pierced Ravishan’s stomach. Another cracked through his temple. Bullets shredded his flesh. Black wounds burst open across Ravishan’s body.
Fury surged through John. Visions of magma and hurricanes rose before his eyes. Mountains cracked apart and the sky burned. John didn’t fight them.
He screamed, an inhuman agonized howl, and released the unbearable pain within him. The archways behind him shuddered and then shattered as other massive yellow stones crashed through them. White pillars split through the tower walls. Huge sections of the floor dropped away and the ushvun’im fell. John heard the priests screaming, but he was past caring.
A wild wind ripped away sections of the cracked walls, exposing a black sky and blood-red fissures, opening like wounds in the mountain side. Black iron supports suddenly shot up through the side of the tower. Below, the earth buckled and shook in the throes of John’s horror.
Ravishan’s corpse hung in John’s arms and John screamed out his loss. He wracked the land with fury at what he had done with his own hands.
He felt the tower crumbling and welcomed his fall. He longed for the impact of the ragged stones below. White arcs of lightning split down and struck him, burning through his body and yet never purging the horror.
“John.” A voice called from behind him. It was Laurie.
John looked at her terrified face and pulled in his rage.
“Get out of here,” John whispered to her. “Get as far from me as you can.”
“What’s happening to you?” Laurie asked.
John didn’t answer; he concentrated on the furious and raging wind, pulling one current down from the roiling storm. He wrapped it around Laurie and lifted her away from Rathal’pesha.
The moment she touched the ground, just a few miles south of Gisa, John dragged the full force of the storm down onto himself. The tower collapsed and he fell against the stones. His body broke. The pain was blinding and yet moments later his bones slid back together. His muscles and tendons reunited and his memory came rushing back. Ravishan’s corpse still lay perfectly protected in John’s arms. How could he keep the corpse safe but fail to save Ravishan’s life? How could he—how could he have murdered Ravishan?
John howled in rage and tore the mountain open, blasting sand to obsidian and burning stone to magma and searing the cliffs down to the cold gray sea. Snow and boulders tumbled down. Stone and ice engulfed John. He sank into it, losing himself beneath the expanses of iron and granite.
Arc Seven: The Haunted R
uins
Chapter One Hundred and Three
Kahlil regained consciousness slowly, his body aching and resisting even the small exertion of lifting his eyelids. A damp chill hung over him. He felt droplets of water strike his face and bare chest. He imagined it might be rain, but the smell was dank and filthy.
He finally opened his eyes and stared up at the cracked spiral carved in the ceiling. Through the dim, greenish light he made out the thin black lines of hundreds of wires hanging over him. Beads of condensation dripped from them. Another drop splashed against Kahlil’s forehead. Others dribbled down onto his bare legs and stomach. Kahlil tried to sit up. Hot pain flared through his wrists and ankles. He lifted his head weakly and saw that engraved iron shackles locked him to a stone table.
Ugly black bruises and fever-edged gashes mottled his naked body. The muscles of his neck trembled. He lowered his head back to the stone table.
Despite the cold, he felt beads of sweat gathering at his hairline and in his armpits. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see the walls of the huge chamber. Obscene English words cut through vast tracts of the holy Basawar script carved into the white stone. Over that hung tangled human skeletons, some missing limbs and many burned black. This had been Umbhra’ibaye. The broken skeletons above him would have been the issusha’im or all that were left of them. Kahlil searched the tangle of knotted wires and blackened bones for Rousma’s tiny skeleton, but he could hardly tell one body from another.
Kahlil closed his eyes and sluggishly dredged up memories of Fikiri’s skull cracking beneath his hands. Then the white forms of hungry bones looming over him. He remembered them slashing open deep rents in his chest and hammering him to the ground again and again. He should have died. Fikiri had already shot him.
A weird, fevered recollection seeped through his mind. A boy had screamed and cried as Loshai had dragged him to Kahlil’s side. Loshai had whispered rasping Eastern incantations, tracing her skeletal fingers over Kahlil’s open wounds and the boy’s bare chest. The boy had trembled and howled as Kahlil’s wounds had split open across his body. His blood had gushed over Loshai’s bone hands, soaking into the incantations carved over her fingers and disappearing.
