by Phil Tucker
The gravel crunched loudly with each step he took down to the lake. He didn't look at the other guests, but instead gazed down at where the young Fujiwara was awaiting him, a few yards from the water's edge. The Minister of the Moon and a dozen other impossibly important people were standing to one side, and everyone else had formed a circle beyond them.
A panel of three distinguished poets will judge the contest, and by their reaction the crowd will know which contestant has won.
Audsley almost nodded, but instead kept his expression as serene as he could, which wasn't very. And how do we duel?
As the wronged party, the Fujiwara will speak his lines first. You must then seize upon his imagery, metaphors, and allusions, and respond in as cutting yet refined a manner as possible. The contest continues until the judges deem one side to have irrevocably lost. The longest bout, to my knowledge, continued for three hours; I doubt this will last more than ten or twenty minutes.
Audsley groaned under his breath. Twenty minutes of declaiming poetry? He would die; he would perish from all the attention. He could feel the growing enmity of the stares. But of course. He was a nobody, a Noussian without title or rank who had come to the Minister's most private party and insulted him to his face.
You have a steep hill to climb if you are to turn this moment into a victory. I will admit that we begin at a grave disadvantage.
But you are sure we can win? Audsley tried not to sound pleading within his own mind.
Oh, yes. This young fool has no idea with whom he seeks to match wits. If he but knew, he would kneel and cry for forgiveness immediately.
Audsley blinked. You're known amongst the Aletheian poets? I thought –
Enough. Focus. The duel begins.
Audsley had reached the lake's edge. He resolutely ignored the Red Rowan, whom he espied a few rows back from the edge of the crowd. He didn't want to even glimpse her expression. Instead, he focused on the young Fujiwara, who stood as if posing for a portrait, shoulders back, chin raised, right foot forward.
Three older men moved into place, their backs to the lake, their hands linked, their expressions most grave and disapproving.
The distant sound of the waterfall was the only constant. The pressure from the intensity of everyone's gaze made Audsley want to round his shoulders and duck his head. Instead, he sought to mimic his opponent's pose. He could do this; all he had to do was deliver the demon's lines with confidence and élan. He would win the day, and then the doors to Aletheia's secrets would be thrown wide.
This was, in fact, perfect. The exact opportunity he had desired.
The judges nodded, one by one, and the young Fujiwara smiled cuttingly. "Pity the fearsome mists of Katar as they rise to blind one's path, for, lacking in substance, they can only contrive, and when contested, give way."
Not unimpressive, said the demon.
The judges remained impassive but, along with the crowd, turned their gazes to Audsley.
Very well. Hurry! My response?
You cannot deliver it with sufficient verve. Give me control of your body for this duel. I shall destroy him without hesitation.
Audsley forced himself to smile blithely as his mind reeled. Are you mad? No! Absolutely not. Tell me my lines, and I shall deliver them with all the élan in the world!
You cannot win this duel alone. Your timbre, your tone, your trembling – all will ruin the power of my words. It will only be for a few minutes, and I swear that I shall return complete control to you when I am done. Have we not become friends?
Everyone was watching him. The highest and most revered Aletheians in all of the Empire, the cream of society, their eyes glittering as his silence grew longer.
Don't do this. Not now. Please, just tell me my lines.
I'm sorry. I cannot bear to see you lose. You must trust me. Give me control of your body.
Audsley's smile was becoming a grimace. The Fujiwara poet slowly raised an eyebrow, an expression at once subtle yet punishingly supercilious.
I can't. I won't give you control. I can't trust you to return it! Please! My lines!
There was no response.
He had to respond. What had the poet said? Something about mist? Audsley cleared his throat and gestured vaguely out at the lake. "Ah, yes, the mists of Kana – I mean Kanta, which – while soft and subtle at a distance, can obscure the very gaze of – the gaze upon the myriad truths of nature herself."
Audsley felt his gorge rise and tasted something metallic at the back of his throat. The poet raised both eyebrows and turned to the crowd, his expression almost apologetic. "The brook's sweet voice may charm a weary wanderer, but mere moments by its side reveals that it does not speak, but only babbles."
Audsley felt himself blush anew. A woman fainted in the third rank to his left. The Red Rowan. He couldn't breathe. The poet wasn't even looking at him any longer. Nobody was, save for the judges. Had the demon said bouts could hours? This wasn't going to last even a minute.
Please, he said once more. I'll grant you my mouth, even my hands. What more do you need?
I have stated my terms, the demon said coldly. Grant me full possession, or I shall not waste my words.
Audsley felt a dull sense of horror burn through his mind. You planned this all along. To maneuver me into just such a situation and then blackmail me into submission. Had he blushed? Now he felt all the blood drain from his face. What a fool he had been. What a sublime fool!
This is your last chance, the demon said suddenly. Even now, I can wrest victory from the jaws of defeat. Without my aid, they will clap you in irons and drag you through the streets to the Solar Portals, and there cast you into ignominy forevermore!
Then, so be it, thought Audsley. I'll die before I birth you into this world.
He turned to the audience. "Your time is coming to an end. You won't believe me, but this feverish frivolity is the last gasp of a dying culture."
Even as faces grew taut with anger all around him, he addressed the demon who took the form of the Sigean monk within his mind. Will you grant me flight?
The monk stepped out of the gloom even as the Aletheian demon snarled in outrage. I sense my time is at hand. Patience has its virtues. Leap, and I shall catch you.
The judges had turned away in disgust, the Fujiwara poet was striding toward him, hand raised as if to deliver a slap, and the Minister of the Moon was gazing serenely out over the lake as if none of this concerned him. Audsley crouched, then leaped up and felt the demon's power envelop him. He flew straight up into the night, the wind whistling around him, leaving behind the lanterns and boats and the shocked expressions and cries that thinned out and soon were gone.
Despite his righteous words, he felt only shame for having lost. For having wagered that he could take on the best of Aletheian society and win. For having been duped so neatly into this trap by the Aletheian demon; for having been so ignorant, so naive, despite it all, despite Laur Castle, despite his every loss.
His failure would redound upon the Empire. When Iskra came, the rotten forces would still be in place. When she strove for reconciliation and reform, those forces would resist her and force her hand.
Audsley's failure had doomed the Empire, and as he flew, he closed his eyes and considered how futile his final resistance to the demon had been. In order to avoid damnation, he had done little more than damn the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Somebody kicked Asho in the side and laughed. Then he was levered up and dumped onto a body. His father's corpse. He was in a wheelbarrow, he realized; then the world tilted and he lost track of what was going on. He felt a sense of movement, of trundling. He drank every ounce of magic he could wring from the sterile air, wove it into his being, but it was too little. Far too little.
Darkness. A jolt, a flare of pain. Voices, more laughter. Stillness. Then movement again. His father growing cold and stiff beneath him. Fresh air. Jostling and rumbling over rock, then a yawning pitch and he fell, tumbled, rolled
down a sharp incline, his head cracking against some rocks, and finally lay still.
Asho fought to remain aware. His thoughts were reduced to primal impulses, the strongest of which was to draw on the magic and let it saturate his wound. He hovered breaths away from death. Each moment was agony. Only his brutal will and outrage allowed him to cling on, to remain. That dark core of black fury that had sustained him through so many years of abuse arose within him, a shadowy specter, and helped him hold on.
Asho sank into his own personal hell. He lost track of time. He stopped shivering, felt coldness seek to enter his limbs. He fought the lassitude that bade him relax, to let go. Over and over again, he played a single, searing image in his mind: Mikho plunging his knife into his father's eye. Each time that memory sent a spike of crimson fury through him, pushing back the dark.
He floated on a sea of pain with fever dreams clawing at the edges of his mind, trying to wreck his sanity. Old memories returned to him, colors oversaturated, of Kyferin Castle's training ground in one corner of the bailey. He was but a child, a sword in his hand that he couldn't lift. Around him were the squires to the Black Wolves. Their voices were unintelligible but clearly mocking, more akin to the squeals of pigs than anything else.
Sweat burned Asho's brow. He fought to lift the sword but couldn't. The shame scored him, tore at his flesh. The squires laughed and moved in to cut him down. Asho cried out, heaved at the sword. The squires prowled ever closer, never reaching him.
The dream lasted for what felt like years. He cried and moaned, fought and strained, but couldn't move, couldn't defend himself.
Finally, the fever broke, and the dream receded. His vision returned, blurred and unfocused. He was lying on his side. Agony buzzards were standing in a circle around him, their huge black eyes watching him inscrutably. For a while he thought it was a new dream, but no, he was finally awake. Something was keeping the birds from attacking him.
Asho gasped. His tongue was swollen and dry. His stomach was loose and liquid, his hands cramped into claws. With supreme effort, he looked down at himself. His shirt was stiff with dried blood. Crying, he moved his hand down and felt his stomach. The wound was pressed closed, though he could still feel the ridges of the punctured flesh.
He'd healed himself just enough to stay alive.
Gasping, he looked around. He was lying at the bottom of a shallow, rocky slope. There was no sign of his father. His corpse was gone.
Grunting, he levered himself upright. The pain was absurd. Whimpering, he crawled up the rocky slope. He nearly passed out several times, but after hours of struggling reached the top. Peering over the ridge, he saw a large boulder. A deep crack in its side faced him, and in its depths he saw a slender door.
The entrance to Mikho's stronghold.
A plan took shape in his mind.
Asho forced himself to rise to his feet, swaying and spitting blood as he did so. He should be dead; he should have died days ago. Yet he was still sipping from that black magic. He was still drinking like a wanderer in a desert from an ever-refilling thimble of water.
Turning his back to the boulder, he scanned the horizon. There was the cube city, perhaps half a quarter of a mile away, the Blade Towers rising beyond it, which meant the Portal home was over there, by that line of broken rocks.
He set out stumbling, dragging his feet, arms hugging his wounded gut. Head hanging low, he lurched forward, driven by his engine of hate and his overwhelming determination.
With every step he took, he grew stronger. Not by much; not enough to make any difference if he were accosted, but he gradually began to take deeper breaths and walk a little faster. His sense of balance began to return. It was as if his life force was reinforcing itself; the stronger he became, the faster he healed.
It took him forever to cross the plain to the far rocks, more hours of casting around to find the path that took him through the badlands toward the distant hidden stairway that led down into the Abythian Labyrinth.
He stumbled on, the aurora infernalis lighting his way. He never rested, never allowed himself to stop. To stop was death. Vision blurring once more, fatigue assailing him and seeking to drown his mind, he persisted till at long last, near the frayed edge of madness, he found the recess in which he had stored his blade.
Asho sank down alongside the rock face, down to his knees, and nearly keeled over. Grunting, he pushed himself back up and reached into the crack. His fingers closed around the hilt of his black sword, and he drew it forth.
Master, whispered the sword. What has befallen you?
Asho collapsed. Heal me.
There was a pause, then the world went away. Asho hung suspended in nothingness, the pain and weakness gone, a man with eyes of flame hovering before him.
To heal you, I must enter you.
Asho saw the blade sink into his father's chest. Oh, the rage, liquid and raw, returning now, burning within him so that his eyes had to flame like the demon's.
Heal me.
Something in Asho's voice caused the demon to take a step back. There is a way, but you must accept me into your soul. You must –
Asho felt a slow roar building within him, an anger that would not be brooked. He extended his arm. He knew not what he did, but he acted on impulse, sheer instinct. The demon's burning eyes widened in fear, and Asho appeared before it, not having bothered to actually cross the distance.
He closed his hand around the demon's throat.
No! I am willing! Let us converse. We exist outside of time. There is –
Asho squeezed his hand around the demon's neck and raised his other arm, hand open and stiffened into a blade. The demon fought him then, writhed and lashed and bathed him with flame, but Asho ignored it all. With a cry, plunged his hand into the demon's head.
The demon wailed.
Asho dug into the demon's very essence. Eyes narrowed, he found what he was seeking, a pulsing knot of oleaginous power. He closed his hands around it and squeezed as if it were a wet rag, a rotten fruit, and from its core poured out tainted magic.
The demon's scream rose to a terrible pitch. Asho bared his teeth and drank deep. He dimly felt his stomach burning and his skin crawling as it healed. A wicked heat sank into his bones, and strength flooded his limbs, might settling upon him like a cloak.
Still the demon thrashed, but it was growing insubstantial, the flames weakening then petering out altogether. It was reduced to a husk, a shell, and then its form fell apart and dissipated.
Asho opened his eyes. He stood blade in hand, and the demon presence was gone. The black blade was nothing more than a tool of steel. Asho, however, felt the demon's might raging within him, felt the demon's power dancing through his veins, flooding his senses, coursing through his very being.
Where before he had sipped desperately from that thread of magic, now he was saturated to the point of surfeit. He'd not felt this empowered since leaving the Black Gate high within the Skarpedrin Range.
He turned, eyes narrowed, and stared across the Badlands. A single, solitary boulder arose a quarter-mile outside of town.
Asho began to run. He tried to hold back to a jog, tried to preserve the reserves of might that he had wrested from the demon, but he couldn't. He ran faster and faster, his father's face hovering before him.
Faster.
Faster.
The balls of his feet barely touched the dirt.
Asho saw his father's slumped form, bound to his chair. He'd not had a chance to say goodbye. His father had been murdered right before his eyes, and for all his training, his magical ability, his experience and ability as a knight, he'd been unable to do a damn thing.
Hatred suffused him. Livid, pulsating hatred for the man who had murdered his father before his very eyes.
Mikho.
Asho sprinted across the Badlands. Distant columns of Bythians marching home might have espied him, but he didn't care. The boulder loomed ever larger. The sword whipped back and forth, keening as it parte
d the air.
Asho's lungs were burning, his legs were aflame, but he pushed himself harder, drinking deep from the demon's power.
Then, suddenly, he was there, rounding the humped boulder. He found the crack and walked down to the door. There was no exterior handle and the seam was barely visible. Asho traced its outline and then stepped back. He closed his eyes, breathed deep, once, twice, three times, then exploded forward, slamming the heel of his foot where the door handle should have been, powering the kick from his hips.
The stone door shattered, collapsing inward in a pile of rubble.
Asho sprang over it, the pain that raced up through his knee to his hip flaring and then fading away.
The passage was narrow and opened up into a small, square room. Three men were rising from their seats, cards in hands, candlelight illuminating their shocked faces.
Asho swung his sword, and the first man's head sailed free. The second man began raising his club, but Asho caved in the front of his face with a single blow.
The third man screamed and tried to stumble back, but Asho seized him by the neck and leaped forward, surged through the air and smashed the back of the man's head against the wall with such force that he dislocated the guard's vertebrae from the base of his skull, crushed his windpipe and pounded his own knuckles through the man's flesh and against the rock.
He opened his hand. The man stuck to the wall for a second and then slid down to the floor.
Asho turned to the single other door and pulled it open to find a hallway. It wound down and to the right, a candle burning every few yards. He reached the first door and pulled it open. Inside was a dark cube of a room, filled with shelves and boxes. Asho turned to the next door and opened it. This was a plain room containing a narrow cot. A Bythian was sitting at a desk, apparently penning a letter. The man turned in annoyance, saw Asho, opened his mouth to scream, and died.
Asho withdrew his blade from the man's open mouth and stepped back out into the hallway. A third door revealed another storage room. The hallway turned sharply to the left, and he walked into a large chamber.
