Worldshaker

by J. F. Lewis

  Was that Vax inside Clemency? Vander asked.

  Yes, Kholster answered. Wylant gave him her flaming tresses this morning. Balance, you know.

  Smoke from the body worked its way across to Wylant in white clouds, which sank into her skin, giving it the slightest hint of blue. When Shidarva was ashes, Wylant pulled Vander to his feet, and they returned to the halls of the gods. Her hair flamed again, but it had gone azure.

  *

  “Where would you like to go now?” Kholster asked the soul of Shidarva in his best imitation of Torgrimm’s gentle tones. Down below the surface of the sea, the two of them stood on the remnants of the ancient temple at Alt, its white marble flecked with underwater life and the soil of the seabed.

  “Here is fine.” She knelt on the spiral pattern of the temple floor, portions of it whole and unbroken, depicting the whirling flow of her blades and the balance between Justice and Retribution.

  “I can make you mortal and hand you over to Torgrimm to be reincarnated,” Kholster said. “Aldo opted to remain a colony of ants. More orderly, I think he said. Nomi let him send her back as a human. Or . . . you would make a good Aern . . .”

  “Fine.” That drew a bitter laugh. “Make me an Aern then, or an elf, or even a manitou, but not a human. I want to last.”

  Kholster nodded, and she was gone, whisked away to wherever Torgrimm chose.

  How does it feel to be king of the gods? Vander asked.

  I would not know, old friend. Kholster brushed the algae from a statue with Shidarva’s face, her expression wise and aloof. Wylant is the ruler of the gods. I suppose that makes me her consort.

  Consort?

  Females make better leaders than males, Kholster thought. If I handed my army to Rae’en, why would you think I would try to keep my wife from kholstering my gods?

  Your gods?

  Kholster only smiled.

  What about Kilke? Vander asked. He was our ally, our confidante, and integral to our plan. Do you think—?

  I think we need to keep an eye on him, Kholster answered, but of what deity is that not already true?

  EPILOGUE

  RED EYES, BLACK WINGS

  Two blood-red eyes stared out into the torch-lit corridor and waited. The guards would, if his information was sound, soon be passing through this portion of the artisan gallery. The guard he was waiting for should be on this particular inspection as well.

  An owl hooted; to Caius’s surprise, a real owl. It seemed the nights of most cities, particularly the political ones, were always filled with the false cries of one animal or another as thieves, spies, and lackwit nobles went about their intrigues.

  Several times as the boy crept his way through the maze of pathways in Duke Eobard’s home at Castleguard, the desire to relieve the fine noble family of a few notable items had proved an unwanted temptation.

  In a glass case on a corner table in the duke’s private study, they had an inherited bone-steel mask that was of considerable interest. He loved the look of it, the pearlescence. Who had given such a thing to the duke? Why? He took it, examining the smooth blankness of the face. Who had made such a thing, and why did the duke have it?

  He froze, lithe body flattening against the wall, the well-oiled leather of his armor silent as shadows. Bitterness filled his mouth, hackles rising. They hunted him. He slid the mask on and smiled at the feel of the metal against his skin.

  Caius felt them, their minds, questing for his down dirty streets and bleak alleyways. Especially the sad woman with the tricolored hair. Father’s taint stank, a presence in her mind the boy could not abide. Anyone who’d ever known Happrenzaltik Konstantine Vindalius, who had spent time with him long enough for his words to stick and take root, was worth avoiding.

  Not now, he thought. Eyes closing to slits, he dropped further into himself, so deep, so still, his breath made no sound but the wind’s, his boots on the stone noiseless, his wings tucked in, his eyes, if one thought they saw them, twin fireflies, flashes of inconsequential flare in the black. The mask did not obstruct his vision at all. . . . How had that been possible? It felt like it had been made for him.

  He smiled, the feel of the questing minds even stronger. You will not find me, Caius crowed to himself. No Long Speaker can.

  Tomorrow would be time to move again, as a precaution, slip out of Castleguard and back to the Guild Cities or even farther from Midian and the Dwarves’ bridge to Scarsguard or the human lands on the other side of the Sri’Zauran Mountains.

  This chill evening, however, he had a mark, and when he was on the hunt, his clients could always rely on his ability to focus, do as he was instructed . . . kill whoever he was sent for, and then leave.

  The darkness called to him as he waited, breathing softly into his bone-steel mask. Maybe the Bone Finders would come after him, too, for stealing a relic of bone-steel. He relished the thought.

  As the wind howled outside, Caius checked to ensure his long, black hair remained securely tied beneath his hood and that only a short braid of false red hair showed beyond the hood’s silken confines. At the same time, he checked the tightness of his belt and looseness of the two slits of fabric in the rear of his tabard to make sure that his leathery wings could spring free very easily if he found himself in need of a swift escape.

  A quick check of the more-mundane portions of his equipment helped him pass the time until muffled footsteps echoed down the passage. The guards were right on schedule.

  The tension in his body palpable as he prepared, Caius focused on the sounds of their footsteps, hoping to learn something about the men he would momentarily be fighting through the cadence of their gait. It would be all he would ever likely learn about the way they fought.

  Sliding deeper into the shadows as they passed, Caius fell into step behind them, the weighted iron hilt of his throwing dagger coming down hard on the base of one guard’s neck where skull and spine met. That man was safe from him, but the other was the one whose death was a greeting on the tip of the Harvester’s tongue.

  Shalka, he believed the man’s name was, drew his sword as he turned, freezing when he felt the cold steel of the assassin’s blade drawing a thin line of blood at his throat.

  “Not a word,” the assassin spat. The man remained motionless as he considered his options, neither lowering his blade nor making any effort to close with his assassin.

  “Sheathe the sword, then undo your sword belt.”

  For a moment, the guard hesitated. In that micro span of time, the hooded boy saw defiance light the man’s eyes, could almost feel the sinews tense and muscles move as the sword stroke began.

  “A waste,” Caius whispered, slitting the man’s throat and swatting away the guard’s sword with a bat of one newly freed wing. As the body hit the ground, the crystal twist was already down the hallway on his route to the roof.

  He’d wanted to know what the guard had done to inspire a duchess to pay for his death. Now all he had were guesses, but guesses were fine. Curiosity did not always need to be satisfied; it was okay to wonder.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the surprised shouts of two guards who were definitely well behind schedule. Maybe if he had not been so involved with his own thoughts, he would have heard their voices up ahead.

  There were three of them, meaning that somewhere a patrol was one man short, or perhaps they were a whole patrol short. Head cocked to one side, he ran through the possibilities, saw himself fighting the guards, saw himself flying away. He picked a third option.

  His throwing knife took the first one through the throat, but somehow the man still managed to scream an impossibly intelligible “INTRUDER!” as he died. The other guard froze in his tracks and choked out one word, a simple whisper of terror. “Malvolio.”

  Where do they keep getting those names? Caius laughed, a dry rattle.

  “You’ve heard of me?” Caius asked, leaning in close. The stench from the guard’s trousers and the puddle forming at his feet answered the question w
ell enough. Standing there in his studded leather and black, with the bone-steel skull mask and graceful black wings, it looked as if a Bone Finder had come to collect.

  He disemboweled the man as an afterthought, then took wing, flapping toward the Garden of Divinity. If he was lucky, he would make it in time to see the Changing of the Gods.

  *

  From the shadows, Three-Headed Kilke watched Caius Vindalius fly, admiring the lad’s capacity for death. The other gods could wash their hands of the games, but with his last piece still on the board, well . . . it would be rude not to continue.

  Even as the boy flew overhead, Kilke saw Tyree and Cadence making their way through the streets after him.

  Tyree called the assassin’s name. The boy looped in the air, reversing direction, plunged toward them both. He caught Tyree in the throat with one dagger and the heart with another. The human fell to the street, blood welling through Tyree’s fingers as he collapsed, clutching at his throat.

  “Stop following me.” The boy stood across from his mother, daggers drawn, blood-red eyes glaring at her from behind a mask. “Or you will die, too, next time.”

  “Wait!” Cadence shouted as the boy took wing. She reached for him with her Long Fist, trying to pull the boy back to her, but the power slid off, unable to grip him. She tried to reach him with Long Speaking, but it was as if his mind was not even there.

  Sitting up blearily as his wounds closed, Tyree frowned at the blood on his newest shirt, “We’ll get him next time,” Tyree said.

  “Next time?” Cadence peered out into night after her son. “This is best look I’ve gotten of my son since he was a baby, and you chirp, ‘Next time’?”

  “Would you rather I assume that we’ll never find him?” He put a hand on her shoulder, and she fought the urge to pull away.

  Please, she thought to her abilities more than to herself. Show me whether we ever—

  Whatever powers her son possessed had made it harder to catch glimpses of his possible futures, but she caught an image of him smiling in the sun, wings outstretched, a hand in his. It was not much, but it was enough to keep Cadence going, to give her hope.

  “If it helps,” Tyree said, “I’ve been a paid killer before, and I turned out pretty well.”

  Cadence wished Tyree was joking but knew better.

  “I just wish I knew what Hap did to him.”

  “I think I have an idea what the boy might have done to Hap.” Tyree touched a hand to his throat, the wound already gone.

  Had Caius killed his father? What had Hap done to the boy? She did not know, but she was determined to find him and undo whatever damage had been done, to give Caius the same chance at happiness and freedom she had been given by a pair of Aern who had not ever met her before that day, but who had looked into her eyes and known.

  “Was that a bone-steel mask he was wearing?” Tyree asked.

  Cadence nodded. She could not track her son’s mind, but now that he had bone-steel, she knew who could track the mask.

  “We’re going back to Scarsguard,” Cadence told him. “I need to borrow a Bone Finder.”

  *

  On a berth in the cave-dark tunnels of the barracks at South Number Nine, Kholster slept soundly on the hard stone. Reaper lay along his right arm, his hand resting lightly on its haft. He wore freshly steam-washed jeans, his boots lined up neatly along the side of his berth, his shirt folded tightly atop them.

  Worldshaker stood in a specially carved niche across from him, its blued surface covered in dynamic lines, enhancing its leonine appearance, the helm in the likeness of an irkanth, its mouth closed, its gaze impassive, its mane white and clean.

  The clearing of a throat broke the silence of four hours. Blue, flickering light as if from a pure-gas flame accompanied the sound.

  “Come to bed,” Wylant told her husband.

  “Yes, kholster,” he teased, rolling off of his berth and taking her into his arms. They kissed, and then together they took a step and were gone.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This was the hardest book I’ve ever written. During the writing of Worldshaker, my health issues became more prominent, limiting not only my writing time but also the time I have to spend as father, husband, and friend. It is exceedingly irksome to sit down to write and have nothing to show for it hours later and, on occasion, to not even have the memory of what I did while I was sitting there.

  But all that aside, this book, more than any of the others, would not exist without the patience of my dear friends and family, my Overwatches: Mary Ann, Rob, Dan, Karen, and Richard (it is still all his fault).

  My wife, Janet, spent hours on end, listening to me, consoling me, and generally keeping me alive and functioning, all while being a wonderful mother to our two boys and an excellent teacher. She is the love of my life, my best friend, Prime Overwatch, and personal grammarian with a dash of editor in chief. She, along with those listed above, had the mixed blessing of listening to all my bad ideas and helping turn them into good ones.

  This series would not be the same without my sons, Jonathan and Justin, either. Kholster would not have been Kholster without them and the things they have taught me about love and fatherhood.

  Thanks are also due to my long-suffering editor, Rene, who waited much longer than expected for the manuscript. She is aces.

  And, as always, thanks to my Mom and Dad, Martha and Ferrell Lewis. Without you, there would have been no me.

  Last, but never least, thanks to you, the reader. Without you, I am just a crazy old dude typing in the darkness. (Don’t forget to post a review, okay?)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo by Janet Lewis

  Alabama madman J. F. Lewis is the author of the Grudgebearer Trilogy and the Void City series. Jeremy is an internationally published author whose books occasionally get him into trouble. He doesn’t eat people, but some of his characters do. After dark, he can usually be found typing into the wee hours of the morning while his wife, sons, and dogs sleep soundly.

  Track him down at www.authoratlarge.com.