Russ’s front door stood open, and an orange glow peeked inside, dancing as flame. A flickering shadow pranced into his living room and smoldered a pile of kindling. Gray smoke billowed from it before it finally caught fire.
“Sie”—he coughed again before he could finish the name.
The fire’s smoke vacuumed outside through the door’s narrow opening. Russ pushed at it, but no more would it open. He looked out the window. Darkness spread over his untended land. In the distance, orange flame advanced across the countryside, and at its heart, a pyre blazed high above the rest. The kingdom burned. Russ pounded on the glass, but his fists made hardly a sound. He punched and caused not even a crack.
Two shapes sped from the right: a Karlian backpedaled against a demon that towered over him and swiped at his face with unholy speed. Her claws tore through the fabric of space and rent the air with Fel. Arms reached through the tears, grasping; a terrifying face peeked from under them. He could not fit through, but as D’niqa cut new holes, M’keth came closer to grabbing the holy warrior, the dark lord moving through the nether in tandem with his servant.
They stopped, D’niqa locked against the knight, whose feet drove into the soil against her might. She spoke. He spoke against her. Russ could hear neither, but the Karlian held his ground. Just keep holding, Russ thought. Something bad would happen if the warrior failed.
D’niqa reached over him and opened a nether gash with a swipe of her claws, and M’keth finally wrapped his fingers around the Karlian’s neck. His helmet sparked and unfolded, and the knight fell to his knees, still holding D’niqa away with his hammer. Mania greased M’keth’s face as he reached, but his claws only grazed the man’s hair.
Russ recognized his old friend. “Grenn?” How long had it been? The younger man’s hair had grayed, that atop his head and across his face more white than brown. A scar ran up his neck to his left jaw and eye. The one on his right cheek still gleamed against his weathered skin. His eyes burned gold and etched shadows into the lines on his face.
D’niqa leaned closer to him and spoke, a wide grin across her lips that showed fangs too many for her mouth. Russ only heard her final word: “Burn.” With her left hand, she hooked a barb under Grenn’s jaw and pierced into his head. His mouth hung open, and surprise blended with the fear that veiled his face. D’niqa jerked her hand upwards, and the Light left Grenn’s eyes.
“No!” Russ shouted. He pounded on the window, willing it to break, but it made nary a sound.
Grenn’s arms fell away from the defensive posture he had held, and he dropped his hammer. D’niqa pulled her fingers from his head, blood trailing from his neck to her hand, and she kicked his chest. The old man flew backwards, then he collapsed and moved no more.
“Grenn!” yelled Russ.
M’keth’s hands hung from different tears. He cackled, clapping with glee. A grav-engine’s whir filled Russ’s ears, and the world grew dark.
The bitch raced toward the window and reached into it. Glass molded around her arm. “Wake up!” she screamed. The world became a negative of itself.
Russ covered his ears against the sound. The image of Grenn’s lifeless body burned through his squeezed-shut eyes. He slumped backwards, his body weak.
“Wake up!” the master yelled again.
Russ did not need to see to her face to know it morphed into the ghastly redness she had taken each time she had commanded him. “Grenn,” he said, his voice growing weaker. He raised his arm and hoped it would be enough to stop her from reaching him.
But the glass cracked. His lungs burned and would not fill enough to yell. Panic gripped him when something grabbed his legs. He kicked, but his muscles tensed barely enough to scuttle a bit further away, not enough to free himself.
“Cannot kill you if you are asleep. Not the right way, at least. We attack at dawn. Now wake up.”
The world flashed to blackness. “Understand.” Russ’s mind filled with a final scene.
She leaned against a wall at the back of the room. Shadows snaked up her legs like vines, pitch black even in the orange glow. D’niqa waited—for what, only M’keth could see. The avatar stood before her, speaking with the goblin-frog.
“Our agents have informed me that both Arnin and High Tower are readying for potential mobilization,” Granech said. “The former is even rousting their governments in Yarnle. This could be the time to set up our garrisons on the world’s other side. With Your permission, my Lord”—
“No,” said M’keth. “We shall wait. I won’t fight this War against the Light and the young king. Our power must remain here, for if we do not defeat the Grand Master, our show at strength is for naught. We already hold the piece to keep him in the fold. All we must do is wait for him to awaken, which D’niqa has informed me is imminent.”
Granech turned his gaze to the bitch, but he said nothing.
“No need shall there be to fight,” M’keth went on. “Nilrius has given a gift unassailable. They will simply concede in the realization that nothing can stand against us this time. D’niqa shall deliver the final blow, and with it, so too shall we seal the fate of this world for our own. They will see my might and tremble at my name.”
“They already do, our Lord,” D’niqa said. Her word charmed Him, she knew.
M’keth smirked, a fiendish gash across His face. “It’s time they realized our new power. With the Grand Master out of the way, we will need only to wait for those in play to finish”—
In the last moments of Russ’s slumber, a woman appeared from the darkness, her form pure in his pitted dreamscape. She stood in front of him, her black hair pulled into a high ponytail, wearing a corset and leather pants. In her hands, she held a dark stone made of glass, larger than her fist. Russ saw her for only a second, then he awakened.
The sun shined through a window to his right. A sheer curtain moved in an imaginary breeze. He tried to sit up, but the bedding hemmed him in place, and he fell against his pillow, disoriented. A cream ceiling loomed above. His body weakened as he wriggled against the comforter, and his chest rasped, aching for air his hot prison wouldn’t let him have. After a few seconds’ tension, it loosened from under his body, and he tossed its edge away.
“Good man awake. Yay!” Tiny applause pressed against the room’s stuffy quiet. “Toss and turn and toss and turn, then awake!”
Russ sat up and slid his legs over the bed’s edge. A dark shape gained form as he blinked. On a stool near the end of the bed, his cheeks round for the plate of cut fruit and vegetables, sat Burth.
“Jooky?” the serren asked. He held up a piece of meat between his front paws.
Russ stretched, moist with sweat. His muscles burned as he used them, and he grunted against a pain in his right shoulder when he pulled too hard against himself. The world spun, and his throat caught on a lump when his stomach twisted. Dizzy man wakes up from a bad dream and thinks he’s all right. Though his head hurt, he laughed.
He wore a matching set of pinstripe pajamas, the sleeves of which hung past his hands, but his pants cut off at mid-calf. The runes on his arms shined through the cloth. His thoughts stayed away from him for his wanting order of them. He needed to tell someone—something.
“Who dressed me?” It hurt to speak. A coppery taste filled his mouth when he swallowed. “What’s the time?” He looked to the serren for an answer.
Burth shrugged as he nibbled on a piece of pineapple.
“Grenn,” Russ said. “Where’s Grenn? And Kendra? Willa?”
The serren stared at him, and Russ wondered if he still dreamed. He watched the creature eat while he worked to clear the fog of his imagination from his waking mind. How much had been nightmare? Grenn couldn’t be dead. Had Kendra survived? And Willa? Surely if the serren had, they made it out, too.
All of it. Yes, he is. And no.
Russ shook his head. That can’t be true. He stood and caught his unbalance against the window. Foot- and street-traffic passed, perfectly unaware and uncon
cerned of the danger they all faced. In the western sky, the comet, its tail now long and wide, shined as a pearlescent wing in the world-made-broken. Should he have viewed it as a sign? Going there—how many days past?—when Karli had shown him a warning. Because it had to be for him, if for anybody. But no, Russell Hollowman couldn’t be that important, not so much that the Goddess would paint the sky for him.
The stone Lillie had given him rested on the bedside table. He pocketed it before he shambled to the door, which opened it at his touch.
Outside, quiet blanketed the hallway. “Grenn.” His voice didn’t echo. It just disappeared down the hallway’s length.
He’s dead. What did we tell you?
Russ leaned against the wall as he walked. “Kendra,” he said, sotto voce.
Gone. They’re all gone. Left you to rot.
He turned the corner to a lobby, where a door pitched open to his left. People spoke on its other side, but no one noticed him slip in. Around the hall, Karlians and Priests spoke with their mates as they ate. Most crowded around tables, both standing and sitting, on the main floor and on the entresol that ran around the room. Is this Karhaal? Russ searched hopelessly for any sign that he’d not fallen into another dream.
Relief welled against his throat when he saw Grenn. “Grenn.” The young Karlian didn’t hear him, but the mech that perched on his right shoulder and watched their table’s conversation peered in Russ’s direction. Her eyes lit when she saw him, and she buzzed to Grenn’s face.
“What is it?” Grenn asked. A response from Xenia guided Grenn’s gaze to Russ. The young Karlian stood, quick enough that his chair hit the girl’s behind him.
“Hey!” She turned toward him, annoyed.
“Sorry,” said Grenn, unnoticing of the small spectacle he’d made. He sidled between two tables and made his way toward Russ.
Annoyance panged ran through the Grand Master as he watched the young man come, fully armored, but he desperately needed answers to his questions. “Where’s Kendra?” he asked, Grenn still ten feet from him. “I need her.”
Surprise sprang across the young Karlian’s face. “She’s not here.” A few at Grenn’s table saw where he went, and others followed their gazes. They whispered between themselves, watching. Grenn closed the distance between them. “But holy shit, you’re up.” He looked at Xenia. “Go find Markil.” Xenia flew past Russ and down the hallway from which he’d come. “He was supposed to let me know first thing when you woke up.”
“Not here? What the fuck do ya mean? Is she all right?”
No, she’s dead, remember?
A different voice noted, You also said Grenn was dead.
“Yeah, yeah.” Grenn tried to sound assuring. “She just—she left after you guys got back from wherever. Wouldn’t say a fuckin word about anything except to keep you safe, and a few hours later, Order members started showing up. I don’t know if that’s connected, but then more and more got here. Didn’t know what to think.” He breathed. “It’s so great to see you awake.”
“Why?” asked Russ, gesturing to the tables. “Why are they here?” To die, of course.
“Said they came at the Grand Master’s call. To help.”
“They can’t.”
“With the—with the War? Why not?”
Willa appeared from around the booth to Russ’s right. “Russ,” she said, wonder imprinted across her face. “Wheh—when did you wake up?”
“A few minutes ago, apparently,” said Grenn.
“Willa,” Russ said. “Goddess, you’re all right. What’s happened? How long was I asleep?” He remembered a part of his nightmares and grabbed at Grenn’s hair. “None of this is gray. It can’t have been long.”
Grenn pushed at Russ’s arm, confused. “Yeah. Goddess, I know shit got weird in the forest, but”—
“Grenn, stop,” said Willa.
Russ waited while the other two played eyes at each other. “What the fuck’s happened?”
“For us?” Grenn said. He considered. “Not much. Around the world? A whole shit storm. Manifeld called a session—he didn’t have a quorum, just like you said—and what happens when he does? A Leynar walks in like she belongs there and refuses to speak with anyone but the Undertaker, who she apprised of the situation here in Tanvarn. Then the Undertaker called for a vote of no confidence in the Chamberlain, and it passed.”
“What? That can’t”—
Grenn held up his left hand. “But now Manifeld himself is contesting the vote because they performed it during, as he’s called it, an illegitimate session, which, everyone knows, he called. It’s been a fucking mess, especially with all the Towers coming back online. And Arnin wants an update from you—said they got a cryptic message—and all this has been coming through me because someone told ‘em that the dumbass with the scar is the Grand Master’s squire.” He gestured around. “Do you see any other dumbasses here with a big scar on their face?”
We see a dumbass whose neck is prime for the cutting, Russ thought. Though he didn’t want Grenn to die, something in him wanted to kill him. Everyone in this room. We could take them all in a Fel swoop. He counted. Seventeen, if he tried. The rest would overwhelm him, but he could at least get a handful. They’d come here to eat, and he could make it so they came here to die. Any of them. And if he died, all the better for it. Grenn spoke, but the sound around Russ became a rush of blood in his ears as he struggled against his own mind.
The girl knows something’s off. Willa watched him, her brow creased, her eyes sharp. We should get her first. Russ moved his right arm, and he saw Willa see it. They stared at each other. He smirked, daring her to move first. But what would he do if—No, look at her, she’s ready; so when—she protected herself against him? Willa wore her armor. And we lack our claws.
But Russ checked his right hand. He didn’t have claws.
Adrenaline sluiced through his chest, and from outside himself, like his inner monologue had split in two, a different voice spoke to him.
Damn it. Almost had you fooled, didn’t we? D’niqa’s voice became her own.
Russ’s consciousness recoiled from her. Get out of my head. He panicked. Willa’s ears flicked when his expression changed from malice to fear.
You ruined the surprise. We were hoping to get you to kill someone, at least.
That would never happen, Russ thought, but he had never felt less sure of anything in his life.
Okay, she said. Say this next—
“Fuck off!” Russ yelled. The conversation around him quieted. Dozens stared at him, whispering to their table mates.
“Russ,” said Grenn.
The Grand Master pulled himself away, his breathing strained. A bead of sweat ran down his neck. He walked a precipice, struggling to distinguish reality from obscenity.
“You all right, man?”
D’niqa laughed. Yes, Grand Master, are you sure you’re all right?
“No.” Russ grabbed his own head with both hands. “Get of my head, you bitch!”
“Russ, please,” Willa said. She put a hand on his upper arm.
Russell batted it away and looked upon her with unfettered hate. He struggled to keep out D’niqa’s whispers, strained the muscles in his neck and face to keep his thoughts his own.
Grenn stepped between them. “Russ, come on. Maybe you should go back to bed.”
Russ’ gaze flicked between Willa and the young man. Concern daubed their faces. “They’re coming.” He turned and spoke to no one. “They’re coming.”
“Russ,” Willa said, “who”—
He crashed into a waiter carrying a tray of food, and they tumbled to the floor. Russ’s hand closed on a few pieces of soft bacon, which he shoved into his mouth as he stood. “Temple,” he said to the man on the ground. “Where is it? She can’t follow me there.”
“Which one?” said the waiter, annoyed. He picked himself off the ground and wiped at the food on his clothes. White gravy stained the front of his monogrammed shirt. “Catch
a cab or something.” An urlan had already knelt next to the mess and started cleaning it, stacking dishes and wiping up food with dictated efficiency.
Outside, Russ—“Temple. Stay away.”—hailed a cab and climbed on. “Temple. Stay away.”
“Sir, the temple’s”—
“Just drive! Go—go to the temple. Stay away.”
The cabbie pulled away from the curb. Through the entire ride, Russ repeated to himself, “Temple. Stay away,” and a short time later, the cabbie stopped in front of a temple in Tanvarn.
Without paying, Russ stepped off the shuttle and stampeded into the holy place, the doors of which had barely opened enough for him to side-step past them. The effort to keep D’niqa at bay lessened. He crashed into the first prayer room’s door and found it occupied, the next one as well. At the third, the door opened, and he locked it shut behind him.
The room, simple, white, and featureless, with a high window that let in the morning light, had only a nightstand at its other end. Russ rummaged through it to find a stick of incense and a box of matches. He fumbled them in his tortured haste.
Bit of a hurry, aren’t we? D’niqa said, her voice cool and distant. She laughed.
Russ dropped his first stalk, and he knocked the next one off its pedestal when he couldn’t get a match to catch fire. His will held the next in place, and he singed his fingers lighting a match for it. His shaky hand almost put out the flame before the cane caught cinder. The incense wavered as he backed toward the room’s center, where he sat and closed his eyes. But D’niqa invaded his head further until her thoughts again became his, and Russ couldn’t let loose his own mind.
If we can’t have our own, neither can you. The incense wavered in its bowl.
Beads of sweat coated Russ’s brow as he struggled to keep focus. “Lillie!” he shouted. “Keep her away from me!” He put his hands over his ears and screamed for the person with whom he most needed counsel. “Jeom!”
The Demon's Call Page 42
