by Tammy Salyer
A stone slab large enough for the bodies of two adults lay at the top of the dais, visible to everyone in the courtyard stands. The Ecclesium had Ulfric’s body placed atop it, the cage still encompassing his head. For the first time, the Dyrraks reacted. Shocked, muted murmurs started among those with the best view of the dais. Most of the population of Elezaran had come out to watch Ulfric’s procession from the docks to the citadel over the course of three hours. Few would have forgotten the face of the one they believed to be the vessel of their creator.
Next to Ulfric’s slack body, the Ecclesium spread the Verities’ artifacts, and Ulfric and Urgo watched raptly. Among Vaka Aster’s artifacts, there were only four Fenestrii. Ulfric’s eyes shot to his body, which had been stripped of its cloak and map case. Secondly, the Ecclesium laid out Balavad’s Scrylle and the two celestial stones belonging to him. Ulfric wanted to have Urgo swoop down and grab as many of them as he could, but he doubted even a creature as swift as the bruhawk could outfly Balavad’s malevolence. He had to stay put, as difficult as it was. Look for a chance to free the Knights. But what he was seeing began to look more and more like the preparations for a sacrifice.
The Ecclesium stepped forward and raised his arms. The crowd’s silence came as swiftly as a blade through a neck.
“Warriors and servants of Dyrrakium.” His voice echoed inside the amphitheater bowl. “Our unending faith and devotion make us, all of us, the worthiest of all people in the Great Cosmos. We have never wavered in our devotion or service to our maker, and came to the aid of Vaka Aster herself when called. Because we are loyal! Because we are faithful! Because we do not shun our duty no matter how difficult or how much we must sacrifice. Is this not true, people of Dyrrakium?”
A cry of assent rose up, then stopped when the Ecclesium chopped his hand down. “For seven hundred and fifteen turns, we have listened to the wisdom of the greatest living Dyrrak, the Nazarian Most High, and we exiled ourselves from the lessers of Vinnr, not allowing their false faith to stain our six pure Lines or sully our own faith.”
He paced back and forth in front of the stone platform. “And so, it will pain every one of you as much as it pains me when I tell you that we, all of us, have been deceived.” He stopped and swept his cold stare over the crowd from the center of the dais, his black hair glistening under Halla. Voices began, a grumble of confusion that slowly, insidiously became one of anger.
“Vaka Aster has abandoned us!” he roared, drowning out the people. “You saw it yourselves just now. The maker fled from Vinnr, forsaking all of her people! This wilted flesh before you”—he waved a dismissive hand at Ulfric’s body on the slab—“is nothing but a false idol. And why were we deceived? To further distance the great and ever-faithful Dyrrak people from our destiny! This vessel behind me is a lie!”
The Ecclesium spun around and yanked Ulfric from the platform with such force that his body hit the first step, then began to roll down the stairway, gaining momentum. The amphitheater would have been dead silent, but the clanking sound of the iron cage on his head smashing against stone shattered it. When his body finally hit the base of the stairs, it lay motionless with his limbs bent awkwardly. From his perch, Ulfric saw blood coming from wounds on his head and arms.
“That is no Vaka Aster,” the Ecclesium proclaimed.
The Dyrrak people began to push forward toward the body, jostling each other down the stands’ aisles and into the stairways, some with murder in their eyes, others with tears.
The lies the Ecclesium spewed were incredible. Even if the Dyrrak leader believed Ulfric was not the vessel, that didn’t change the fact that he was—and if the Dyrraks carried out some misbegotten vengeance for deceiving them on his body, they would inadvertently destroy themselves, and everything else. Ulfric looked to Balavad, who remained shadowed in the background beneath the arches, where none would see him clearly. Surely, she would stop the Dyrraks from attacking Ulfric’s body, wouldn’t she? If she wanted Vinnr destroyed, she’d had ample opportunity to do so.
Ulfric couldn’t chance it. He poised Urgo to dive and protect the vessel, but it was the Ecclesium who stopped the Dyrraks.
“Stay back!” the Dyrrak leader commanded. “There is justice to mete out, yes! Not just to this cozening Knight Corporealis who faked divinity, but also to these other Knights for abetting this most abominable lie.”
He let the crowd settle as he turned and gestured for the Dyrrak Raveners on the platform to retrieve Eisa’s dangling body. She was brought forward and laid on the slab next and her cage removed. The Dyrrak leader then produced a vial from his robes and dumped its contents into her mouth. Eisa sputtered and choked, rolling off the flat stones as she heaved to get a breath. She seemed to come to and groggily used the platform to pull herself to her feet, swaying and blinking at the Ecclesium as if she barely knew who he was. She looked gravely ill to Ulfric, though not transformed into one of Balavad’s pets. Unable to stand by herself, she gripped the slab and breathed in gasps.
The Ecclesium eyed her warily for a moment, then turned back to the crowd. “But there is one witness to this abominable lie whose word is more sacrosanct than even my own. Our Nazarian Most High, heir to the Sixth Line, and kin to the last vessel of Vaka Aster before our maker abandoned Vinnr and abandoned us.
“You all came here today to see the Nazarian challenge me, the Venerable Domine Ecclesium who has longed served Dyrrakium as one of its most devoted leaders. Instead, it is we the faithful who challenge this betrayer. The Nazarian’s grace may have been stripped by her own duplicity, and we shall judge her not only as her own people, but as the greatest people in the Cosmos.”
He turned to face the ailing Knight. “What do you have to say for yourself, Nazarian? Why has our maker forsaken us? Was it the Knights Corporealis who created this rift between her creations and Vaka Aster? Did the Knights defy their oaths because you all lusted for the power to rule Vinnr yourselves?”
He grabbed Eisa by the back of the neck and dragged her to the edge of the steps. Her feet slid and caught, and she barely stayed upright. He held her before him like an offering and spoke in a tone that echoed throughout the amphitheater.
“Speak, Nazarian, and be judged by your betters for your crimes.”
Chapter Forty-Two
As a willful and determined nine-year-old, Eisa had once scaled halfway up the Citadel Suprima’s outside wall to prove to her trainer she was stronger and more agile than he thought she was. He’d warned her it was impossible and forbid her from trying it. So she did.
Going up had been easy. But coming down, she’d lost her footing sixty feet aboveground and crashed to the hard-packed arena courtyard. The only thing that had saved her life was the fact that the citadel’s outer walls angled slightly toward the pyramid peak overhead, slowing her descent just enough. She’d broken twelve bones and bruised her lungs, liver, and kidneys. But she’d never lost consciousness and had lived with the pain for several thirty-nights as she’d finally grown strong enough to walk again.
That sharp, driving pain from head to foot during that first few hours after she’d hit the ground was the closest she’d ever felt to this.
She wobbled unsteadily, grasping Penitence Rock—where those found guilty of high crimes or dishonors were flogged—for balance. The suffering induced by Balavad’s vile miasma still raced through her, wrapping her bones and tissues in febrile tendrils beneath her skin, but it was diminishing. The cool healing juice of the ong fruit, presumably administered to her by the Domine Ecclesium, had reduced the pain in her throat. Now it was the only part of her that didn’t ache, but she didn’t have the luxury of attending to her complaints. Not with the Ecclesium’s accusations ringing in her ears.
“Was it the Knights Corporealis who created this rift between us and Vaka Aster? Did you defy your oaths because you lusted for the power to rule Vinnr yourselves? Speak, Nazarian, and be judged by your betters for your crimes.”
Thanks to the ong, the curdled l
augh that rumbled out of her was tolerable. The bitter irony of being accused of the very thing she’d slain the Himmingazian Mystae for was too rich to hold it back. But then she glimpsed Balavad in the entryway, and her laughter dried up.
“Whatever that slaghammer told you is a lie, Starkas,” she grated out. “You’ll kill us all if you put an end to Aldinhuus.”
The Ecclesium released her and she staggered but stayed on her feet. Facing her, he spoke low so the crowd wouldn’t hear. “I know your Stallari is the vessel, Nazarian. And I know how easily and readily he turned on Vaka Aster, on his own maker. But he lied, you lied, all of you. The Knights are faithless and don’t deserve to be treated as anything but. Balavad of Battgjald, however, has not lied to me. Why should he? We Dyrraks have waited long enough for our maker to acknowledge us. Balavad did not make us wait, and he’ll give Dyrrakium everything we’ve ever desired.”
“You blaspheme. The usurper will only give you shackles and death. He’s a broken, corrupted piece of a greater whole. They all are.”
“Who’s blaspheming now?” He spun back to the crowd and said, “The fallen Nazarian has words.” Then back to her: “Tell them of the Knights Corporealis and their lies. Tell them who our redeeming Verity is, Eisa, and that they should trust and follow Balavad now. Not the Knights, not you. This is the only way to bring Dyrrakium back the world, and to better it.”
“Better which? The world or Dyrrakium? Or you?”
The cold grin on his face showed her that the answer hardly mattered.
She ground her teeth together and looked over her shoulder at her companions hanging like animals, then back down to the foot of the stairs at Ulfric’s battered form. If only he had trusted her more, and she him. If he’d shared the rite to build the Verity cage, perhaps she could use the celestial artifacts now lying on the platform and imprison Balavad. If only Griggory had found Lífs’s Scrylle and the banishment spell. If only she hadn’t killed Himmingaze’s Mystae and caused them to be lost in the first place. So many regrets.
Not the least of which was her regret for failing not herself but her companions. Stave, he was the stoutest man she’d ever met, and though she’d questioned his temperance, she’d never questioned his loyalty to his companions. And Safran, a child really, but the wisest woman Eisa knew, and always seeing straight to the heart of any matter. She’d been proud to be a Knight with the Ivoryssian woman, even if she’d never said it. And Roibeard…Roibeard. His stalwart devotion, his nobility, none could match them. He was a man she could have loved if their paths had been different. She could not denounce her companions, each as strong and as honorable as a Dyrrak, and each as devout. They should not be forced to pay for her mistakes, or for Ulfric’s.
Now, she was the last Knight standing. The last one who could make any difference. And her home, her birthplace and the empire she’d left out of duty, was the only thing remaining that still mattered to her. She didn’t know Bardgrim’s fate or his people’s, but it wasn’t hard to guess at it. Doomed like the rest of their kind. She had failed everything and everyone.
And it all led to this moment, with this one last chance to do something right.
“Let the other Knights go,” she demanded. “And I will proclaim your lies.”
“No. There is a price for what Aldinhuus did, and the Knights Corporealis must pay it.”
“Why am I addressing you, blackguard?” she spat. With more strength of will than of flesh, she leaped onto the slab and raised her voice, looking to Balavad behind her. “I will speak to you now, usurper. If you release the Knights and give them their freedom, I will not only renounce Vaka Aster, but I will serve you. Hear me? I will serve.”
She sensed the Ecclesium behind her prepared to grab her if told to but refraining. Waiting for orders like a good little pup. For the first time since Eisa had come to, Balavad showed herself. With a gait that seemed to be more float than footsteps, the Verity approached. Eisa held herself steady with the last of her fortitude. She would not cower. She would never cower.
The Verity did not need to step onto the stone to look her in the eye. Her body simply rose into the air and hovered before Eisa, an arm’s-length distant. Eisa found she could not help but stare into her illuminated eyes, no longer black but a cerulean so deep and liquid she thought she could drown in them. That burning smell struck her nostrils again potently, and she blinked, breaking the spell. As Balavad’s expression turned from thoughtful to decisive, Eisa’s heart beat crazily.
“Yes,” the usurper said, “creation of my quin, you will serve.”
Her arm extended, and from the corner of her eye, Eisa saw the Battgjald Scrylle lift from the slab and fly into her hand. Lightning fast, the Verity shot toward her and punched the celestial cylinder forward at Eisa’s chest, directly at her breastbone. Then into her chest.
Eisa screamed.
And screamed more.
The Verity drew back and pulled her hand away, leaving the cylinder in place, embedded between Eisa’s ribs. She collapsed on the slab, every rib splintered, her breastbone all but disintegrated. She could feel her heart beating like a caught hare’s against the celestial metal. Each pulsing brush of her heart’s meat against it burned like coals. Her throat locked and her vision blurred and broke into black dots. She welcomed the moment of death, the only thing that could make this pain bearable.
But she didn’t die. Something worse was happening. Filaments that felt like embers began to grow from the embedded Scrylle outward, crawling along her ribs, her heart, her lungs, and then onward. She felt the bone splinters knitting themselves together in an abnormal way, around the Scrylle itself, as if joining the metal and absorbing it as part of her body. And the tendrils of heat continued, to her fingertips and toes, her head, her hair. Whether she was breathing or not, she couldn’t tell, but she no longer felt the need to. She was simply living, her body becoming something new that had no need for air.
The agony had been replaced by the crawling sensation—which was so much worse—and she pushed herself to her hands and knees. Raising her head, she met the Ecclesium’s eyes, and the horror she saw in his face spread to her. What was happening to her? She looked toward Balavad, who now stood back with her feet on the ground, watching Eisa. The Verity clutched one of the onyx Fenestrii. Eisa could read the silvery runes that glowed on its surface.
“What did you do to me?” she whispered.
“I need a warrior to protect these,” Balavad said simply, waving a hand at the other celestial artifacts. “And you did offer to serve me.” She lobbed the Fenestros lightly upward, and the next instant, it shot into Eisa’s chest between her collarbones just above the Scrylle. The two artifacts connected. She was hurled off the dais and into one of the beams of the Birdcage, coming to rest on her back with her horrorstruck eyes wide open. Moments later, Balavad’s face peered down at her, and she heard her speaking—but not aloud. Her voice crept into Eisa’s thoughts as if they were her own.
What you did to that Vinnric woman was remarkable. A creature with your strength will be useful to me, but your creativity is the true fortune.
Somehow, she found some fight still in her. Get out of my head, fiend.
It is not yours anymore, Nazarian. In another moment, you’ll be completely mine.
She only had a second left, and she would use it. With a Scrylle at her disposal—in fact, actually part of her being—she chanted the words to open a starpath well. The sky was split open by a beam of light. As it reached for Penitence Rock, Eisa let her eyes find the rest of the Knights, and the beam seized them.
Find Griggory and Bardgrim and save us, friends, she thought. For Vinnr’s sake, keep your faith in this fight.
The last thing she saw before her mind gave in were the bruhawks, Urgo and Yggo, flying toward the starpath. Remarkably, draped around Urgo’s neck was…was it Ulfric’s Mentalios lens?
The world crackled around her as the starpath pulled the Knights inside—and then she knew herself as
Eisa, Stallari Regent of the Knights Corporealis of Vinnr, no more.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jaemus hadn’t had the chance to ask the all-important questions about returning to Himmingaze, such as where would they arrive and what should they expect?
However, as the wash of Cosmos-traveling energy dissipated and he opened his eyes, he realized how silly those questions were—because he was about to arrive the same way Ulfric had just a few short cycles ago. Face-first on the stone floor of the Creatress’s temple after a sudden and short fall from the ceiling.
THUNK.
Every iota of air left his body as though shot from a cannon. He rolled to one side and pulled his knees into his chest and wheezed and wheezed. Speckles of something struck him, and he looked up in time to see bits of broken masonry clattering down. Unlike Ulfric’s arrival, however, he seemed to have come through the roof rather than appearing suddenly beneath it.
The last loosened chunk landed nearby without harming him. As he looked up into the Glister Cloud, strange bright flashes lit up and faded, followed by a boom of thunder so loud it shook the ancient building. Then the sky began to literally rain people.
Before he could do anything to get out of the way, the Glisternauts poured through the hole in the ceiling and, unfortunately, through parts that had still been intact, coming to rest all around him with similar bumps and thumps. As much as he could while covering his head with his arms, he counted them. When the sound of landing bodies had ceased for more than a few moments, he finally tallied those he’d seen and those he’d heard and quickly deduced all were accounted for.
Amid the Himmingazians’ groans of pain and gasps of astonishment, finally, his chest unlocked and he pulled in much-needed air. “Cote? Glisternauts? Is anyone hurt? Is anyone missing?”
One by one, the returned Himmingazian people stirred and began to call out their condition. None seemed badly hurt. Jaemus stood, finding himself also none the worse for wear.
