Prince of Time

by Tara Janzen

  Morgan understood the last, too well. “The dragons will eat him. They’ll eat his darkness, and after what we saw in Pan-shei, darkness is the most of him now.”

  “Exactly,” the High Priestess said, giving him a longer, more discerning look.

  “So why is he still here, knocking on your door?” Knocking was a deliberate understatement. An hour earlier the report had come that Corvus had shifted his troops to the east wall and Whitethorn Bridge, doing his best to gouge out an entrance into the temple complex. Cannon blasts could be heard on three sides of Claerwen, their echoes reverberating even into the innermost sanctum of the hall.

  “A chance,” she said. “Either he can destroy us, his hated enemies—and himself in the bargain, for he will not survive in any form of a man—or he can try to return through the weir to a place before Dharkkum took hold of him.”

  “And which do you think he’ll choose?” Morgan had never met the Warmonger, only heard the stories and dealt with the trader and a few minions. All he’d ever gotten from them was an appreciation for their fear of Magh Dun’s master. They had loathed him even as they’d been terrified of him—all that “left hand” business.

  Well, Corvus Gci had more than a dangerous left hand to terrify his minions with now.

  “His mind has grown too dark to penetrate,” the priestess answered. “It has become an abyss filled with evil blackness.”

  Considering the ease with which she’d just penetrated his mind, Morgan figured Corvus’s must be a tar pit to have thwarted the High Priestess of Claerwen.

  The old woman made a simple gesture, and the entire ranks of priestesses, wild boys, and Night Watchers rose to their feet.

  “Your escort,” she said. “It is time. The East Gate has been breached and the north wall is soon to follow. We’ve sealed off as much of the temple grounds as we can, but Corvus Gei is unlike any Warmonger who has come before him. No mere despot, he has been touched by the enemy, Dharkkum. Naas should never have sent him back to us, but then, mayhaps we should never have sent him to her time.”

  “ ’Twas the Council’s decision,” Avallyn said.

  “Aye, and because of it, all of time is in a tangle.”

  “Mother?”

  The old woman turned toward the windows framing a view of the canyon and the deepening shadows of sunset. “Corvus is growing more powerful by the minute. I can feel it. Dharkkum has always been alive and twisting in the past, but now we have it in the present as well, and there are no laws between a naked singularity and its spawn. Absolutely none. I fear the whole universe may turn itself inside out, or that as the Warmonger gets stronger, the years in between then and now will begin to disappear, one by one. He is dangerous, very dangerous, the situation full of uncertainty...” Her voice trailed off, her gaze slowly coming back to Morgan. “And Fate has sent us no more than a man to fight the enemy.”

  In the presence of the High Priestess, a woman who looked old enough and tough enough to have packed all the bones into the walls herself, Morgan realized his own doubts were as naught. No matter how long she’d waited for the Prince of Time, she didn’t think he had a chance in hell of succeeding in his task.

  And as for its being time, he wasn’t ready. ’Twas a damnable turn of events, but true. He simply wasn’t ready, not to face the worms, and not to leave Aja and Avallyn.

  With a sweep of her robes, the old death-witch started across the dais, for certes not caring if he was ready or not. Avallyn followed by her side, and he and Aja followed Avallyn.

  “Are you still of a piece?” he asked the boy.

  Aja flashed him a quick grin. “She stripped me down, Morgan,” he said. “Had me stark naked in her mind all the way down to my innards. Best trick I ever saw. Do you think she’d teach me how to do it?”

  “No.” Morgan tousled the boy’s hair, glad for his light mood. “But Sachi might.”

  The thought of Sachi captured the boy’s interest, and his grin turned mischievous. “Aye, she might at that.”

  Ahead of them, the High Priestess tilted her head toward Avallyn.

  “If Corvus Gei had not been so relentless in his pursuit of you, dear daughter, perhaps we would not have turned against him,” the crone murmured in a startling and unwelcome aside Morgan wasn’t sure he was meant to hear. “At the time, we thought the price he demanded for his help was too high, but now we wonder if losing you might not have been the better bargain after all.”

  Between one step and the next, Morgan had put the Magia Blade to the death-witch’s throat and pulled Avallyn behind him. Over fifty lasguns were drawn and cocked in response, no doubt all pointing at him, but he didn’t take his eyes off the old woman. Every muscle in his body was on alert, strung tight as a cocked bow, every instinct telling him the woman’s threat was no idle musing. She would throw Avallyn to the wolf before she let Claerwen fall.

  “She’s mine,” he said succinctly, from between gritted teeth; blood would be drawn before that fact changed. Give Avallyn to the Warmonger? Not while he lived.

  And after he left her? What then? he wondered. Was she truly only safe with him, no matter the danger they faced?

  The High Priestess held his gaze, her unconcern with the sword at her throat rivaling Tamisk’s utter indifference. Her eyes, though, were unlike the elf mage’s. Colder than a north wind, her gaze bore into him, pushing at him, probing his psyche in a manner she didn’t bother to hide. Her presence was an icy river in his veins, coursing beneath his skin—and growing colder, threatening to freeze him from the inside out.

  “Bitch,” he called her, and knew that here was the power of the Waste, beating in the depths of a wizened heart, ruthlessly focused on a single goal. Claerwen stood its ground in a desolate landscape of bones and desert, tempered by harsh storms and harsher duty, and ruled by a High Priestess whose every breath was law.

  “You’re weak,” she said, “and full of fear.”

  The icy river she’d made of his blood finished its circuit and began pumping back toward his heart, sure to kill him when it reached its destination. Still, he did not move, or so much as blink. He didn’t dare, not if he valued his life.

  “I could crush you,” she said, with negligent surety, as if he wasn’t worth the effort of his destruction. “And if I so choose, Avallyn will go to the Warmonger to appease his black soul.”

  “No,” he said, pressing the edge of his blade deeper into her papery skin, but to no avail. There was no cut, no blood, nothing to force her to withdraw. He was so cold, as cold as he’d been in the wormhole. Soon he wouldn’t be able to move.

  “She was all he ever wanted from the very beginning,” the old woman taunted him. “Corvus assassinated the previous Warmonger to safeguard Claerwen for Avallyn’s sake, brought the man’s bones in himself and set them into the north wall. ’Twould soothe him mightily to finally have her for himself. Mayhaps his desire would be enough to turn him back into a man and make him forsake the darkness.”

  “No.” Morgan ground out the word in a cloud of frozen vapor, pressing his sword edge deeper, and still not making a cut.

  “You are helpless to stop me,” she said, her thin lips curling in disgust, “as you will be helpless against Dharkkum.”

  She was wrong, and he’d friggin’ had enough. He was the Prince of Time. He’d survived the weir, ten friggin’ years of the future, and Tamisk’s melting of Scyld’s grip. He had to have some advantage he could use against the crone to keep her from freezing him solid.

  Ysaia’s firespell, cut into his skin with the dragons’ fire. Sweet Christ, it had to be worth something.

  “Ddrei Goch.” He invoked the red dragon’s name, filling his mind with an image of the beast. The words left his mouth in another cloud of vaporous cold, but he felt a spark of heat in his left arm.

  The High Priestess’s gaze narrowed.

  “Ddrei Glas.” He called the green dragon, and the runes on his right arm lit with the fire of their making.

  God save
him, he thought, stunned by the sensation of warmth traveling down his arms. Was this how magic was made, then? Were sorcerers no more than men rebirthed in pain and blood and fire?

  The heat flooded through him, down into his hands where they held the sword, and a flame kindled to life in the heart of the Magia Blade’s dreamstone grip.

  “Tamisk was generous, indeed,” the old woman said, a shade of fierceness retreating from her eyes. “Perhaps you will be of some use after all.”

  Slowly, the last of the cold left him, replaced by the warmth of the dreamstone. The High Priestess offered no apology, made no concession, and Morgan demanded none. His point had been made, but so had hers. She would sacrifice anyone, if she deemed it for the common good.

  He looked to Avallyn, knowing his plan had gone awry. He couldn’t leave her with such a threat hanging over her head—not even with the stolen vial in his possession, not unless he took the Warmonger with him.

  Bloody hell. His gaze dropped to the sword. ’Twas a magnificent blade, possessed of a power he could actually feel, but he was still doomed.

  “Light the fires in the towers,” the High Priestess commanded her troops. “Sound the Dragon Hearts to call the time worms. The Prince of Time has come and needs the way opened into the past.”

  What he needed was a way out, if one had ever existed. He thought not. All his roads of all his years had led here. He had only to feel the heat of the runes subsiding on his arms to know the truth of it. He had only to look at Avallyn to know he would change nothing.

  But Sweet Jesu, ten thousand years wrapped in the Warmonger’s black hold, only to face an even greater darkness when he reached the past? He’d long ago figured he was destined for a rueful end, but his imagination had failed him completely in light of the truth.

  ~ ~ ~

  Corvus recognized the sound before its first resonant vibration echoed to its end against the canyon walls—the Dragon Heartssss. Claerwen was calling the worms.

  His pulse quickened.

  “Vishab.” He spat the name and laughed. What did he need the witch for? He’d come farther on his own than he’d ever managed with her guidance. He’d breached the Bridge of Knells and the East Gate and was nearly at the inner walls of Claerwen—and the worms were coming. His days of being doomed were nearly at an end. The whole future could run itself straight to hell. He was going back to the past, where he’d been whole.

  “Captain!” he yelled.

  A squat, rotund man dressed in mail from head to toe hurried to the fore. Corvus didn’t recognize him, but the man was wearing the soot-grimed epaulets the last captain had been wearing when she’d collapsed on the floor. Apparently, this man had taken up the gauntlet of power.

  “My lord?” The fat man went down on one knee—a nice touch.

  “Call your sssoldiers and the sssskraelpack we left on the bridge. Get the prisssssoners. We’re going into Claerwen, to the towersss in the canyon where the firesss—Wait!” He held up his hand, his left hand, and the blood drained from the captain’s face.

  Corvus paid him no mind. The fool would soon enough realize he hadn’t been killed on the spot.

  “Do you hear it?” he asked, cocking a wispy ear toward the sound. The Dragon Hearts had been rung again, as they would be all night long until the worms came.

  He remembered. He remembered it all so clearly—the beating of the bronze gongs, the heat of the fires as they’d roared up through the towers to make the dragons breathe smoke and flames, the smell of chrystaalt. He remembered the chains they’d hung on his body, the manacles they’d clapped around his wrists and ankles, and how they’d staked him out on that windblown platform to meet his fate. He remembered the sand blowing all around, scouring his skin. He remembered Avallyn walking away, and he remembered fear.

  He would not be afraid this time. This time he was going down the worm’s gullet by choice.

  It was not too late.

  He could still be saved.

  Chapter 22

  Morgan kept a firm grip on Avallyn as they made their way through the corridors and levels of Claerwen, though for her reassurance or his he could hardly tell anymore. His mood had grown unbearably grim with the realization of how close he was to his terrible end.

  The priestesses had held the way open to the Dragon Hearts, though not without paying a price. Corvus’s troops had launched a fresh assault even since they’d left the hall, detonating a sonic blast inside the East Gate and proving the High Priestess right. He was coming into the heart of the temple, tearing down the walls to get at something, either Avallyn, the weir, or his chance for annihilation.

  Light shone through an arch leading into a courtyard, cutting a swath through the shadows in the corridor. Two of the Night Watchers ran ahead for reconnaissance, their soft boots silent on the stone floor.

  “Refectory courtyard clear,” the report came back.

  They passed through the arch five abreast and were halfway across the courtyard when a skraelpack broke through a gate on the north side. Soldiers and priestesses alike peeled off into battle formation, with a core of soldiers surrounding the High Priestess, Avallyn, and Morgan. Aja was too quick to get caught in the safety net, his lasgun already drawn and firing as the soldiers closed ranks behind him.

  “Har maukte har! Har! Har!” The skraelpack rushed into the courtyard, weapons firing.

  Morgan pushed his way out of the cordon that was moving the High Priestess and Avallyn back into the safety of the corridor, and went after the boy. Skraelings poured through the gate, lunging beasts slavering at their mouths. A priestess and a wild boy went down in front of him, strafed by lasgun fire. Morgan swung his own lasgun up and fired even as he pulled his carbine over his shoulder. One-handed, he locked in a charge and blasted a skraeling as the beastman fell on the downed priestess. ’Twas a skraeling’s greatest weakness in battle, its need to eat.

  He looked for Aja and saw the boy moving fast through the courtyard, catching the sides of the walls and lofting himself off, cutting down skraelings right and left.

  A lascannon mortar was launched over the north wall of the courtyard, catching the light in a blinding flash of silver before it detonated on the far side of the refectory. The dining area’s walls exploded into the courtyard, catching the pack of skraelings and blowing them to bits. Screams were heard from every quarter, the high-pitched squeals of skraelings dying in the rubble, and the cries of Claerwen’s soldier-priestesses fighting through the sudden destruction. Dust roiled up, choking the air and making visibility nil.

  Friggin’ Corvus had murdered his own troops to breach the courtyard, but he’d also bought the priestesses a moment of time as the next wave of the Warmonger’s troops readied themselves for a new assault.

  “Aja!” Morgan yelled over the chaos. “Captain!”

  A fresh tumble of stones and bones came crashing down ahead of him. He leapt to the top of the heap and tried to see across the destruction. Skraelings were the boy’s bailiwick, but Morgan feared that this time Aja’s speed had done him more harm than good.

  “Aja!” he yelled again, jumping down on the other side of the heap.

  To Morgan’s left, a crushed skraeling lay half buried under a rubble pile, his finger locked on the trigger of his lasgun, sending short blasts at the base of a nearby wall. Chips and shards were flying out of the stone like shrapnel, with the blasts ricocheting into the adjoining cloisters.

  Morgan swore and ducked, swinging his carbine around and leveling it at the skraeling’s hand in one move. A single shot silenced the beast’s gun.

  “Aja!” he shouted.

  “Here, prince,” a priestess called out.

  Morgan saw a hand waving through the cloud of dust and ran to where the woman knelt by a pile of stones. Next to her was a rumpled pile of boy and clothes crowned with a thatch of red hair. Sweet gods—Aja’s leg was trapped beneath a pile of debris. He fell to his knees and started digging, throwing rocks and bones to the sides.

&
nbsp; He put a hand to the boy’s neck and sent up a prayer of thanks when he felt a pulse.

  Two Sha-shakrieg came rushing up to help. The courtyard had been destroyed by the lascannon mortar. A count of priestess dead was being taken at the same time as the wounded were being checked and transported, the whole process carried out with a quickness and efficiency that reminded Morgan that the Priestesses of the Bones had been fighting Warmongers for centuries. They were a religious order honed for war.

  The Sha-shakrieg removed the last of the stones, and Morgan heard a faint groan from the boy.

  “Shh, captain.” He kept his hand on Aja’s chest and looked down the boy’s body. His leg was broken, the tibia at an odd angle. He was scraped up fairly badly, but nothing too deep, and he hadn’t taken any lasgun hits. His pulse was steady, though Morgan wished ’twas stronger.

  “Skraelings?” Aja whispered, and Morgan took hold of his hand.

  “All dead,” he assured the boy. “Claerwen made a clean sweep with this one, and you’re in luck—the place is crawling with medics.” He didn’t tell him all the medics were White Ladies of Death.

  He raised his head, looking for Avallyn. The soldiers had been moving her and the High Priestess back into the corridor at a dead run, the old crone carried by a Night Watcher. They must have made it.

  A movement from inside the refectory caught his eye, a dead wild boy being dragged across the floor by a hairy, clawed fist reaching out from behind what was left of the dining area’s south wall.

  “Friggin’ skraelings,” Morgan muttered, coming to his feet. Body low, he ran across the intervening space. Heat shimmered off the courtyard’s stones. Dust filled the air.

  The wild boy had nearly disappeared behind the wall when Morgan reached it. He pressed his back against the stones and set his carbine on automatic. Then he took a deep breath and stepped around the wall, firing.

  There were three skraelings at the picnic, none of them quick enough to save themselves. He finished them off and pulled the wild boy out from under the biggest one’s hairy fist, leaving him for the priestesses to pick up.