by Sarah Ash
“I don’t want to fight you. I want us to be free!”
As if in answer, Eugene slewed around and snarled fire. The blast hit Gavril and sent him hurtling back over the waves. He tried to twist, to rise above its destructive power. But instead he fell into the sea. And before he could lift himself from the water, he saw Eugene bearing down on him, his Drakhaon eyes blazing bright with the ecstasy of the fight.
“Eugene!” he shouted again and sent an answering burst of blue fire straight toward those triumphant green eyes.
Eugene was too close to avoid his counterattack. He jerked as the bolt of fire struck home. For a moment, Gavril thought he too would tumble into the sea—but then he righted himself and with slow, strong wing-beats began to rise again.
Rocked to and fro by the tide, Gavril strove to find the energy to take to the air once more. He struggled out of the water, the pain in his burned shoulder making him catch his breath with every wing-stroke.
Above him, the sky darkened as the great winged form of the Drakhaon Eugene hovered overhead, those malachite eyes gazing down at him, triumphant and cruel.
“This,” he said, “is for my fleet. For Froding and his Light Infantry. For Jaromir.” He breathed down fire again.
Flames scorched Gavril’s skin. Tainted smoke smirched his vision, and he fell.
“Forgive me,” Khezef whispered. Their fusion faded and Gavril felt his daemon-form melt away as he hit the water.
“Is he gone, Linnaius?” cried Eugene. He had seen Gavril Nagarian fall from the sky into the sea a second time. There was no sign of his enemy, in human or Drakhaon form.
“This time,” Linnaius said in a trembling voice, tottering toward him, “I believe he is finally gone.”
Even so, Gavril Nagarian had cheated him of the coup de grâce. Even at the end of this bitter and protracted duel, he had not allowed him to relish his final victory. Why had he not finished him in one final burst of fire, and seen him writhe and burn, as he himself had burned on the escarpment outside Kastel Drakhaon? He was still possessed of this daemon-fueled rage; still obsessed with the driving impulse to destroy anything that stood in his way.
The sinister rumbling began again. The ground began to shake.
Other influences were at work here.
“Linnaius,” Eugene cried, “the volcano! Climb up on my back and I’ll carry you to safety.”
“I fear I could not cling on for long enough to reach land, highness,” said Linnaius. He looked very pale around the lips. “I will follow in my sky craft.”
Black clouds had come swiftly rolling up, hiding the sun.
“A storm?”
“Not of my making,” said Linnaius, shivering. “We should be on our way.”
Eugene took to the air again and hovered close to the Serpent Gate, until Nagar’s Eye bathed him and the twisted, tortured stone-daemons in its bloodied light. Beyond the Gate he could see nothing but a turbulence of wind and shadow. He reached out for the Tears of Artamon, to prize them out with his talons. Then he tossed them down to the Magus.
“Keep them safe for me, Linnaius, till we get back to Swanholm.”
“I will guard them with my life,” replied the Magus.
Then the Drakhaon Eugene turned his head to the north and with slow, powerful wing-strokes began the long flight across the Azure Ocean toward the cooler shores of distant New Rossiya.
CHAPTER 35
Kiukiu wandered on over the dunes, lost in the Realm of Shadows.
“I mustn’t give up,” she said to herself. “I know I can find my way back to the way I came in.” A whirlwind came twisting across the arid plain, a dark spiral of swirling shadows. She raised a hand to her eyes, trying to keep out the dust and grit.
To her horror she saw agonized, distorted faces in the spiral, heard distant cries, high and inhuman as the shriek of the merciless wind. And it was coming straight toward her.
She began to run, her feet slipping in the dry grey sands, trying to find a place to shelter. But whichever way she turned, the whirlwind seemed to follow her. And now it was gaining on her. It would sweep her up and she would never find her way back. . . .
She could hear the roar of the fast-approaching funnel; she could feel the pull that would suck her up and spit her out far away from her only way home. She threw herself to the ground, burrowing into the sand with both hands like an animal.
The whirlwind passed on across the plain, and she came up blinking from her burrow, spitting out grains of sand.
And then she saw a luminous glimmer of gold and blue through the blowing dust. Those brilliant colors, so bright in this dull place . . .
She began to stagger toward it, one hand outstretched. The dust clouds parted a moment and she saw the Drakhaoul in all its shimmering daemon-splendor—and borne in its powerful arms was Lord Gavril.
“Gavril!” she screamed, trying to make herself heard above the shriek of the wind. “Gavril, I’m here! Can’t you hear me? It’s Kiukiu!”
He lifted his head, almost as if he had heard her. But the howl of the winds was so loud that her voice was drowned. And as she stumbled on toward them, she saw the Drakhaoul winging away into the distance.
“No!” she cried. “Don’t leave me!” Another whirlwind was spinning fast toward her. Why couldn’t they see her? “Gavril!” She tripped in the sand and fell. The deafening drone of the whirlwind bore down on her. This time there was no escape. She was sucked into the spiral and borne fast and far away over the bleak plain.
“Gavril, I’m here! Can’t you hear me? It’s Kiukiu! Don’t leave me. . . .”
“Kiukiu?” He can hear her distantly calling to him through a roar of wind and dust. “Where are you?”
“Wake up, Gavril Nagarian.” The repeated command inside his skull brought Gavril back to his senses. He was lying on his back on the volcanic sand of Ty Nagar, washed up by the receding tide. “Wake up!”
He spat out a mouthful of seawater and tried to roll over. Pain shot down his shoulder and arm, ending in an agony of fire. He began to realize he had been badly injured in the battle with Eugene. “But still alive,” said Khezef wryly.
“Are you sure?” he murmured in a charred voice.
“Belberith has gone.”
“And with him, Eugene.” Gavril wanted nothing but to crawl back into the sea and lose himself in its cold depths. “I failed. I failed to stop him.”
“This time, maybe. But your world is changing. It’s started. Already.”
Overhead the sky had gone dark, as if a storm was on its way. A cold, dry wind tossed the branches this way and that. He had heard a wind like that when he was drowning . . . and the Drakhaoul had brought him back to this world. That was when he heard her calling to him.
“Kiukiu,” he said. The Magus had been here with Eugene; Gavril had glimpsed him far below, watching their duel. Where was he now, damn him? Had he gone too, well-satisfied with the evil deed he had helped his master commit? “We must go back to find her. Must go to Swanholm. Before Linnaius gets back.”
The sky grew darker.
“Is it night?” Gavril slowly dragged himself up the shore.
“Not yet.”
“Then what? . . .” He raised his head and found he was staring through the blasted trees directly at the Serpent Gate. The darkness was seeping from the Gate itself, from Nagar’s gaping jaws. The red eye no longer shone like a beacon. But on either side of the arch he became aware of a ripple of movement. Grey stone had melted to translucent color. Daemon-eyes glimmered in the darkness: scarlet, gold, and violet. Each distorted form was slowly uncurling from its rigid position beneath Nagar’s outswept wings.
“Khezef, what’s happening?”
“Eugene opened the Serpent Gate. He set them free.”
Gavril heard the words but did not fully understand.
“But—you told me the Gate was the way home. You told me, you told my grandfather: ‘wFind the Eye, open the Gate and then, I promise you, you will be
free.’ “ Had Khezef been deceiving him?
“The Gate leads back to the Realm of Shadows, our eternal prison.”
“So it was never your way home?” All the time Gavril was speaking, he was watching the Drakhaouls unfurl transparent wings, stretch slender arms, taloned hands. Colors swirled through their limbs like oil spilled in water. They were possessed of a deadly beauty; he could sense the raw power that emanated from them.
Suddenly all three rose from the stone arch and swept toward Gavril, enveloping him in a swirling cloud, fiery colors and emotions mingled, so brilliant and intense that he nearly fainted.
“My brothers,” he heard Khezef cry. “Araziel. Nilaihah. Adramelech.”
“Brothers?” Gavril echoed. The daemons circled his head once more and then swept away across the sea like a whirlwind.
“We were banished from our true home long, long ago. I do not know if we can ever find our way back.”
“But—but you told me you cannot survive for long in our world on your own.”
“It is true. Now they must find human hosts.”
“Khezef—you lied to me.” He felt betrayed. “You told me it would be our final parting. That I would be free—and so would you.”
“Don’t you understand, Gavril Nagarian? Any kind of existence is preferable to the Realm of Shadows. We are creatures of light. The Realm of Shadows is torment, a living death to us. Now that the Gate has been breached, others will follow.”
Gavril sank down, hands clasped to his head. “What have you done, Eugene?” he murmured. “What have you unleashed on us all?”
And then, in the depths of his mind, he thought he caught a last, faint cry: “Gavril . . . don’t leave me. . . .”
He could do nothing now to stop Khezef’s brothers. But he could use Khezef’s strength to help him find Kiukiu. Damn it all, he would force Khezef to help him.
“Swanholm,” he said. “We must make Swanholm.”
Celestine de Maunoir stood outside Kaspar Linnaius’s rooms, her hands raised, testing. The Magus’s wards had repelled her every time she had tried to break them before, sending unpleasant shocks through her hand and arm that lingered for hours afterward. But this time, armed with the only keepsake her father had left her, his grimoire, which he had hidden in the mattress of her little bed the night he was arrested, she had found an incantation, “To Break Down Mysterious Barricades.” She murmured the words three times, knocking on the invisible door in the initiate’s fashion.
No one had challenged her. All the servants were busy clearing up after the ball. Many of the household were wandering dazedly around as if still in a drunken stupor. But then, she was well-known here as the Empress’s intimate companion. Why should they wonder what she was doing?
Although she saw nothing alter, she felt the air ripple as though an invisible curtain had been drawn back. And when she raised her gloved hand to open the door, she met no resistance. The gloves were another precaution; Linnaius was almost certain to have left some trace of alchymical poison on the handles to snare the unwary.
The door swung inward. She went in, muttering the incantation again, just for good measure. And then she let out a cry of surprise.
“Well?” said Jagu, who had been waiting at the foot of the stairs.
“Come and see.”
A young woman lay on the bed, still as death, her skin pale, her eyes open and staring, as if at some horror only she could see.
“Is she dead?” Jagu asked. “If so, we have more than enough evidence against him.”
Celestine knelt and held a glass to her lips. “Look,” she said, showing him the blurring made by the slightest trace of breath. “She’s alive.” She touched the young woman’s shoulder. She shook her. “Wake up!” she cried. The young woman made no response at all.
“Alive, yet not alive,” said Jagu. “He’s stolen her soul.”
“What has he been using her for, I wonder?” Celestine said with a shudder of disgust.
“Is this hers, do you think?” Jagu pointed to a painted wooden zither that lay on the table. He plucked a few notes, which resounded with a strange metallic timbre. “It doesn’t look like the kind of instrument a Magus would play. It’s too crude, too unrefined. And it needs tuning,” he added dryly.
Celestine rose. “We have much to do. He could return at any minute. Is the carriage ready?”
“Are we just going to leave her here like this?”
“We must travel fast,” said Celestine, “and she would only prove a burden. She must have family close by; let them care for her.”
The Drakhaon Eugene flew over the red deserts of Djihan-Djihar, making for the coast. Ahead lay Smarna and the cooler shores of his empire. His veins pulsed with daemonic power. His whole body was filled with energy and light. He felt invincible.
He had drawn the Smarnan rebels’ teeth. Or, more precisely, he had beaten Gavril Nagarian into submission. Now Smarna had no daemonic powers to defend it, and the rebels would be hunted down one by one and tried for their crimes. Pavel Velemir must have compiled a sizeable dossier on the ringleaders by now.
He still relished the moment he had swooped down on Gavril Nagarian and seared him with Belberith’s virulent green fire, sending him crashing into the sea. The sky duel was the most exhilarating battle he had ever fought.
That just left the unannounced presence of the Francian fleet off Smarna. And what better way to determine their purpose than from the air? If there were just a few ships escorting their king on his pilgrimage to the ancient holy sites and temples, then New Rossiya had nothing to fear. But if the ships numbered more than a dozen . . .
The waters beneath him were a softer green now that he had left Djihan-Djihar far behind, no longer the intense, hot blue of the distant Azure Ocean. And the rocky outline of the distant shore, with little bays and inlets, must be Smarna.
“But what are all those ships?”
White sails billowed from a forest of masts. And on each mast flew the flag of Francia, a golden salamander on a white background.
“Enguerrand!” he hissed.
He circled high overhead, counting the ships in the bay beneath. There were two dozen men-o’-war, bristling with cannons and at least another dozen frigates. At the center of the formation was the royal flagship, flying the black and gold pennant of the Commanderie. They outnumbered his Southern Fleet by four to one.
“And if Gavril Nagarian hadn’t sunk half my warships in this very bay . . .” He began to descend, seeing the shadow of his great wings darkening the water. Fire filled his mind, fire and destruction. He could take out the royal flagship and set the sails alight on the men-o’-war.
“Drakhaoul,” he cried aloud, concentrating his sights on Enguerrand’s ship.
“No.” Belberith’s voice whispered. “You do not have enough strength for another attack.”
“Not enough strength?” Eugene had thought the Drakhaouls invincible, their power inexhaustible.
“You have barely enough strength to reach your home without replenishing yourself.” Was that a tinge of mockery in the daemon’s words? “You must conserve what little energy we have left between us. If you attack these ships, you will fall into the sea and drown.”
Even as Belberith spoke, Eugene realized he was right; his wings were beating more slowly and his sight was less clear, as though a sea mist had hazed his vision. And now he could feel his own heart laboring in his breast to keep himself aloft.
And for the first time since he fused with the Drakhaoul Belberith, he remembered Gavril Nagarian’s warning, spoken back in the prison cell in Mirom.
“It winds itself into your will, your consciousness, until you no longer know who is in control.”
Who is in control now? Is it me—or Belberith?
CHAPTER 36
The sky craft flew on above the clouds. The Magus lay slumped inside, one hand feebly guiding the rudder. He felt ill and old. The journey to Ty Nagar had left him depleted of strength. He d
esperately needed to take some of his precious elixir of youth . . . but the little phial was in his laboratory at Swanholm and he was still too far from Tielen.
He must have breathed in some of the deadly drifting smoke from the Drakhaouls’ battle. Why else would he feel so weak?
At last he landed in a grove of parkland trees at Swanholm and began to make his way toward the palace, stopping frequently to rest and catch his breath, leaning against a tree or slumping down on one of the benches.
He was within sight of the palace when he was forced to sit down again on a garden seat of wrought ironwork at the edge of the formal gardens. Closing his eyes, he took in a few shallow breaths, trying to calm his juddering heart. The sun seemed so bright, and the riotous colors of the flowers in the beds and tubs so intense they made his eyes ache.
“You don’t look very well. Can I help you?”
Linnaius slowly raised his head, squinting in the bright sunlight. A young man, pale-faced and garbed in black, was bending over him. Linnaius didn’t recognize him, though from his sober attire he guessed he was either a lawyer or a cleric.
“I’m just a little . . . fatigued.” He forced himself to his feet, clinging to the side of the seat.
“Here, let me take your arm.” The young man steadied him. “Are you going into the palace?”
Frustrated by his own weakness, Linnaius nodded his agreement. He was ashamed to have to lean on the young man’s arm, and yet he knew he would never make his rooms without assistance. They set off at a slow pace toward the stables, and it was only as they passed under the archway that Linnaius began to wonder why they were going this way.
“Just a little farther now,” said the young man easily.
A black coach stood in the stable courtyard, horses in harness, ready to leave. The coach door opened and a young woman descended.
“Good-day, Kaspar Linnaius,” she said. “We have been waiting for you.”
