by Will Wight
The Great Elder smiled his gold-capped smile. “I have been called many things, but never ‘generous.’ I was compelled to appear before one of my…competitors should take your gift from me.”
“You should know by now that you’re my favorite customer, My Lord.”
“As you are starting to become mine.” Kelarac lifted the gray-green Heart in his fist, twisting it as though staring into a prism. “I tend to begin any negotiation by questioning my opponent’s goods, but I suspect you know exactly how valuable this is, don’t you?”
Modestly, Calder looked down. “I wouldn’t disturb you for anything less than the best.”
The Elder drew a sharp breath in through his nose, tilting his steel-shrouded head back. “I taste my sister’s agony in this. For one whose trade was death and rebirth, she’s having quite the trouble coming back to life, is she not?”
Calder and Kelarac laughed together, though the human suspected that he was missing out on quite a bit of context. One of the many things his father had taught him: people grow suspicious if you don’t laugh when they do.
“On that topic, My Lord, I seem to find myself in a bit of trouble once again.”
“Found out your wife was raised in a pacification sect, did you?” He managed to pull off a knowing look, even with his eyes hidden behind a band of steel. “Born and bred a slave to the wisdom of our race. Reminds me of an age long past, when not a one of you could start a fire without prostrating yourself before your betters for three days and nights.”
Anger flared up, matched almost instantly by fear. He spoke of Calder like he was worth nothing; like he was a blind, stupid dog that Kelarac enjoyed tormenting for his squeals.
That was the anger. On the other hand, there was the fear—that Kelarac could do exactly that.
“That’s not quite what I meant,” Calder said.
“I think you’ll be surprised with my perspective on pacification sects, boy.” Kelarac reached out and scooped up a handful of nuts from a bowl that rested on a soldier’s helmet. “What they seek is a world of harmony between our kind and yours. Admirable, if it weren’t entirely misguided. We require totally different conditions in which to flourish. The only place for a human is not beside me, it is beneath me. Reaching up. Giving me gifts, in exchange for the occasional favor.” He raised a fistful of the nuts to his mouth and crunched, crumbs raining down from between his ringed fingers.
While Calder searched for an appropriate response, Kelarac grinned. “That would be an excellent place for my brothers and sisters as well. I like this world, former Watchman. Slaves do not bargain. Free men do.” He held up the Heart again. “And they bring such treasures.”
Calder cleared his throat. “As I said, I came for help. Someone has summoned what I believe to be—”
“One of Nakothi’s Handmaidens. And it was your wife that did the summoning, though you knew that already, didn’t you? It was quite a surprise for her, I can assure you.”
He was sure that he was walking straight into a trap, but Calder had to ask. “What do you mean?”
Kelarac tossed a peanut into his mouth. “The device she used was intended to summon a lesser spawn of Othaghor, one that could lead her out of captivity and to her Soulbound Vessel. From there, she was meant to recapture Nakothi’s Heart and deliver it to her sect.”
The Elder leaned forward on his throne of frozen men. “But your kind understands nothing of the universe, and less of the powers you think you can use. She sent a call out while in the presence of one of Nakothi’s hearts…and during the Awakening of a blade that once pierced a different Heart of the Dead Mother. Nakothi held so much sway over that island at that place, in that moment, that she and she alone determined what answered that call into the void.
“That she sent one of her Handmaidens means that she wants everything destroyed. The island, the blade, her missing heart, and everyone involved in the whole event. She thinks she has a better chance of victory if she resets the board.”
He cackled while staring at the Heart in his hands. “Only you and I know that she’s already lost.”
“I need to escape the Handmaiden,” Calder said, when he finally thought he could get some space to speak.
“If you want to save your wife,” Kelarac went on, “you’ll need to hurry. The Handmaiden will seek her out soon.”
“I didn’t say anything about saving my wife,” Calder said, voice hot. “She dug this grave, and she can die in it. I will ensure the safety of my crew, and then I will leave.”
Kelarac nodded approvingly. “Good answer. Ignore her. That’s what I would advise you to do. Either way, you need a deeper link to the Lyathatan.”
One of the time-locked soldiers reached out a suddenly animated hand, grabbing Calder’s forearm. He tried to jerk free, but he couldn’t shake the grip loose…and then it was Kelarac’s hand, and the Great Elder was standing next to him with that gold-spotted smile on his face.
“I can help you out,” Kelarac said, and Calder’s arm began to heat up. In a few seconds, the pain moved from a sunburn to a red-hot brand pressed against his skin.
He screamed, frantically pulling at his arm as smoke and the smell of charred flesh drifted up, but Kelarac held on, unconcerned. Finally, after a minute, the Elder pulled his hand away.
The print of a hand was seared into Calder’s forearm…but it looked nothing like the hand that Kelarac had used. It was surely not the mark of a human. The red, burned flesh bore the shape of six clawed, double-jointed fingers, tipped in shallow claws. It looked more like the Lyathatan’s hand than any man’s.
Through the haze of pain, Calder remembered stories of Kelarac devouring people who were insufficiently grateful for his gifts. He tried to stagger out a thank-you, but it came out incoherent. He couldn’t stop holding his arm.
Kelarac waved away his thanks, vanishing and reappearing on his throne of long-dead soldiers. “Given the value of this offering, I will ignore your lack of any other gift. And, in fact, I think that still leaves me in your debt.” He tapped a ringed finger to his lips, and then leaned closer, staring at Calder through his steel blindfold.
“I can’t help but notice that you’re in need of a sword.”
Reaching to one side, he plucked a scabbarded saber from the grip of a nearby soldier and tossed it to Calder. He caught it on reflex, sensing the disquieting power of the weapon shivering through its sheath.
“You shouldn’t use this against the Handmaiden, because she will simply counteract its effects and tear you to pieces. But against lesser Elderspawn, it should serve you quite well.”
He spread his jeweled hands and dipped his head in a humble bow. “Until the next time, Calder Marten.”
~~~
The whole island shook, and dust fell like an avalanche from the ceiling of Jerri’s prison, but nothing came to free her. The circle of iron had crumbled to ash in her hands, and she’d instantly sensed the presence of Elders above her—more Elders than she’d ever felt before, and stronger. Nakothi’s power was so strong now that Jerri couldn’t help but wonder if she was about to bear witness to the resurrection of a Great Elder.
And still, nothing had broken her free.
This will free me. The cabal told me it would. I just have to be patient.
The room shook as though struck by a cannonball, and Jerri was flung from her bed. She tumbled over the floor, coming to rest on her back, a series of general aches and bruises covering her like the world’s worst blanket. She blinked up at the ceiling, squinting and raising her arm to keep dust out of her eyes.
When she finally managed to make it to her feet, she realized that there was light coming in from the corner of the wall separating her cell from Lucan’s. Not the bright yellow-white of sunlight, but the soft and steady orange of a quicklamp. The corner of the wall between them had fallen out, opening up a space about the size of her two fists.
Jerri heaved her cot up to the corner and stood on it, taking a look through the gap
.
Lucan’s cell was covered in dust and chunks of rubble. His books were shrouded in a thick layer of what looked like gray snow, his chair shattered, and his cot lying on its side. For a moment she thought he must be dead.
Then she saw the bars at the front of his cell. The door hung on its hinges, and she just caught a glimpse of a man pushing his way through the loosened door with a squeal. She could just see his back as he walked away.
“Lucan! Light and life, Lucan! Can you hear me?”
He was out of sight now, but he called back, “I learned a lot from you, Jyrine. I’ll be back.”
She pounded the heel of her hand against the wall in frustration. “No, let me out! Lucan! Come and get me! I’m a Soulbound! If you get me to my Vessel, I can fight my way free! Lucan!”
Except for the steady rain of pebbles from the ceiling, no sound came back to her. She was completely alone.
~~~
Calder snapped back to himself on the edge of the island, with the caged blob of skin and blubber raising a club at him. Only an instant had passed since he’d thrown the Heart of the Dead Mother into the ocean.
Yet everything had changed.
The handprint on his arm burned, and he sensed the Child of Nakothi’s mind. It wasn’t deep and fathomless, like Kelarac or the Lyathatan, but simple and focused.
Hunger. That was everything he sensed from this all-but-mindless creature. Not hunger for sustenance, but hunger for destruction, a deep desire to tear every living thing into a jumble of messy parts. This was the only purpose it had been given by its creator.
The monster lumbered forward, and Andel put a bullet into its belly. Milky white liquid oozed out, but the Child wasn’t fazed. Foster followed up with a shot to its tiny head, which took out an eye socket. Calder could see the forest of the Gray Island through the hole in the thing’s skull, but it wasn’t even slowed.
So Calder raised his sword.
It was a cutlass, like the one he’d used for the past several years, but broader and straighter in the blade. More similar to the saber he’d trained with as a child, at least in shape, but twice as heavy as either of the swords he knew.
Its blade was a mottled black and orange, its hilt solid black. And just by holding it, he could sense an ancient and focused Intent.
This sword had been forged for one purpose, and one purpose alone.
When the Child swung its club, Calder felt its attack a moment before and sidestepped, slicing his blade in a shallow cut along the side of its belly.
Then he wiped the blade on the grass and sheathed it.
The Child staggered forward another step, the wound in its side turning black. Darkness spidered out from the cut, crawling over the blue-white flesh like moss devouring a boulder. In seconds, the Child of Nakothi was covered in black.
It deflated, collapsing into a mess of ash and wet black rot. The club tumbled to the ground, the bone cage landing with nothing but refuse inside.
Foster gave a low whistle, and Andel tipped his hat. “Where did you get that sword, sir?”
“Bought it.”
Andel nodded as though that made perfect sense. “And the Heart?”
“That was the price.”
“I thought so. Can you call us a ride now, or should we keep running?”
His quartermaster would have more to say to him on this subject, Calder was sure, but for now the man was focused on escape. There was no blaming him.
Calder raised his marked right arm and gave a mental call.
Though it has been only a moment since the Lyathatan began to rest, he hears the summons of the human who holds his leash. And this time, it comes backed by the authority of the true master.
Good. The Lyathatan hastens to obey. The more the human bargains with Kell’arack, the closer his plans will align with the Lyathatan’s own.
That was too disturbing for Calder to think about at the moment, so he stored it away for another time. For now, he had to get Foster and Andel—and Naberius, he supposed—to the ship. Everything else could wait.
In only a moment, the Elderspawn stood underneath the cliff, holding up one chain-wrapped palm to the cliff. Its six black eyes were level with the rocks, its gills flapping in the breeze.
It hissed through its mouthful of needle-teeth, and Calder somehow realized that this was an expression of acknowledgement.
When Andel and Foster had stepped onto the Lyathatan’s palm, carrying Naberius, Calder gave another mental order. The Elderspawn slowly sank back down toward the ocean, carrying the three men with it.
Andel stepped out onto the base of a finger, shouting up. “What are you doing?”
Calder hefted his sword, eyeing the Children of Nakothi slithering out of the forest. “Retrieving my crew,” he called back.
And holding his new sword in his branded arm, he walked toward the monsters. “Gentlemen, I hope you’re ready to return to the Dead Mother.”
Something flapped loudly behind him, like a flag snapping in the breeze, and then a familiar weight settled onto his shoulder.
“DEAD MOTHER,” Shuffles bellowed, right into his ear.
Calder winced. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“LOOOUUUD!” the Elderspawn shouted.
Ducking the strike of a bony tail, Calder drove his sword up into the belly of another headless gorilla. This time, it went down in one strike.
Now that he could feel their intentions so clearly, this was even easier than training in swordplay with his mother as a child. Something like a bat with skin-tone wings and the body of a child swooped down, trying to take him from behind, but he slashed over his shoulder without even bothering to turn. A hideous spider crouched in a nearby bush, radiating its commitment to an ambush, and he fired his pistol blindly into the underbrush without stopping. His new sense told him that he caught it in the eye.
If he could continue like this, it didn’t matter how many Children of Nakothi stood in his way. As long as he could avoid the giant Handmaiden, standing head and shoulders over the tallest trees on the island, he could save Urzaia and get out.
Both of them, he thought. Like this, I could save both of them.
The prison was farther away than the arena, and he had intended to let Jerri rot. But then again, if she hadn’t intended to summon the Handmaiden in the first place…
That’s what I would advise you to do, Kelarac had said.
Why would he want to do anything a Great Elder wanted him to do? Shouldn’t he do the opposite? And besides, he was taking Kelarac’s word for everything: that Jerri had intended to summon something else, that she was in danger. He was the one who had brought up the idea of saving her in the first place.
Kelarac take me if I dance to an Elder’s tune, Calder thought, and then he paused. It was just an expression, but it sunk in like it never had before.
Kelarac really had taken him.
For a while he simply cut his way through Nakothi’s Children, still unsure. What did he even want to do?
Well, at least I can save Urzaia. I’ll decide my next course after that.
“FASTER!” Shuffles shouted, flapping in place. “FASTER!”
Shuffles rarely spoke on its own without repeating someone else. If he didn’t listen, it would just keep shouting.
He ran faster.
From what he’d seen earlier, there was no way Urzaia would lose in a one-on-one fight against the blond Consultant, but there was every chance they had prepared some sort of an ambush. Besides, the island was now crawling with an army of Elderspawn. There was plenty of reason to worry.
As he approached the house-sized boulder that concealed an entrance to the underground arena, he found another reason to worry.
The hideous Handmaiden was headed right for him.
Her bony arms brushed aside the tips of trees as though she forced her way through a field of wheat. She didn’t make the same motion a human would as she walked, instead rolling forward on her tentacles. Calder still couldn�
��t directly look at the Handmaiden’s face, but she let out a furious wail every few seconds.
Was she aiming for Calder, now that he wore the mark of Kelarac? Or were he and the Handmaiden simply heading to the same place?
Either way, it was good reason to hurry.
A hideous abomination of stolen flesh lunged up as soon as he walked around to the boulder’s entrance, flaring out into a flap of skin intended to swallow a man up like a net. Once he was engulfed in the Child of Nakothi’s horrific mouth, it would slowly digest him over the course of days.
If he hadn’t been able to sense all those details, it would have made for a perfect ambush.
Instead, as soon as the monster leaped up to grab him, it encountered the end of his orange blade instead. Seconds later, Calder was stepping over a stinking black mess that had once been one of the Dead Mother’s spawn.
Say what you want about Kelarac, but he doesn’t go back on a deal. The sword was an even better weapon than he had hoped. So much so that he began to second-guess himself.
How valuable was the Heart, that the Collector of Souls had given him two remarkable gifts? Calder had known he was overpaying, but he wondered if he should have held out for a third reward.
It only took him a few seconds to find the hidden entrance to the arena this time, and he made his way down the ladder quickly.
When he reached the bottom, he couldn’t help but stare. The ancient arena lay in ruins.
As he watched, Urzaia grabbed his opponent by the ankle and hurled her into a pillar, which collapsed. For a second, Calder was convinced that he’d witnessed his friend’s victory.
Then the Consultant burst from the rubble, launching a rock the size of her head with all the force of a cannon.
Urzaia shattered the missile in midair with one of his hatchets, but the debris still slammed against his face and chest, sending him staggering back a step.
…and that was all Calder had time to watch before he heard the howl of the Handmaiden above him. His time was up.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Urzaia! Time to leave!”
No reaction.
He felt like Foster, grumbling to himself as he descended down step after step, edging closer to the arena’s crumbling walls. “We have to leave, Urzaia! Woodsman! Let’s go!”
