by Alec Hutson
It was another chamber, illuminated by shafts of sunlight falling through holes in the domed roof. There were no other entrances to the chamber, but the woman was not here. Where could she have gone?
The statue of a robed girl stood in the center of the room, its arms held out with its palms upraised, as if it had once carried some burden. At its feet was a stone basin overflowing with water. Cho Lin was suddenly painfully aware of her thirst, and she pushed herself through the rift in the wall and limped across the chamber to the looming statue. Her body burning in agony, she lowered her face to the basin and scooped water into her mouth. It was sweet and surprisingly warm.
She drank deeply, and then with her head whirling she laid herself down between the statue’s bare stone feet. The darkness she’d been fighting so hard to keep from swallowing her crashed over Cho Lin like a wave, and she knew no more.
The bright yellow moon hung heavy and swollen in the cloudless sky, gilding the tombs and graves of Ama’s lichyard. Unlike in life, the poor and the rich existed here side by side: many of the resting places were marked simply by unadorned stones chiseled with the names of the faithful, while above other graves loomed elaborate statues, representations of the Aspect of Ama which the dead had once embraced. There were even a few stone houses set into the side of the hill, the names of rich Theris families carved above the locked entrances.
Keilan hunkered in the shadow of one of these tombs, his eyes on the temple of Ama below. It was a sprawling edifice, so large that it blocked much of the view of the city beyond. Thin minarets pierced the night sky, rising up around a great copper dome that glowed with a spectral radiance in the light of the moon. Most of the windows of the temple were dark, though a few small flickerings suggested that some mendicants were up late, perhaps studying the Tractate, or with a candle beside their bed to keep the night-terrors at bay.
Was Pelos sleeping somewhere inside? Senacus had said there were underground cells where the inquisitors of Ama plied those who had knowledge they desired. Would they be allowed to rest at night, or did their tortures continue unabated?
Keilan swallowed back a sudden ache in his throat. This had happened because of him. And Pelos must not have told them where Keilan had gone, otherwise the fish monger would have returned to Chale. He had stayed strong. Somewhere, Nel was creeping through the darkened corridors of the temple, following the route Senacus had mapped for her. Keilan desperately hoped that the Pelos she found was still whole in mind and body, and that whatever scars he bore were not too deep.
Thinking of Senacus made him cast about for the paladin. Keilan found him quickly, even though he had donned the bone amulet that hid his radiance. The Pure had not moved very far since Nel had slipped away into the darkness. He was a shadow kneeling before a shrouded statue, some Aspect of Ama, and from the way his head was bowed, Keilan thought he must be lost in prayer.
Or perhaps he begged for forgiveness. Killing another of the Pure had taken a terrible toll on the paladin – Senacus had not spoken of it on the road to Theris, but his haunted eyes and haggard face told Keilan that he suffered terribly. Keilan still felt some lingering resentment for what Senacus had done on Niara’s island, but it pained him to see the paladin so distraught. And again, his grandmother’s death was truly his fault. Tragedy clung to him like a funeral shroud, destroying the lives of those around him. Xin would still be alive if they had never met along the Wending Way. Keilan scratched absently at the scar on his arm as a wave of guilt and self-loathing swelled within him.
Maybe he could save Pelos. Or at least Nel could. If anyone was capable of sneaking inside a temple of Ama and freeing a prisoner of the inquisitors, it was the knife from Lyr. Muttering a prayer to the sea gods of his father, Keilan drew his cloak tighter and waited.
“Keilan.”
He came groggily awake, for a moment confused as to why he was huddled against a stone slab, his head pillowed on his pack. Then it all returned in a rush. Pelos. Nel. The inquisitors. Senacus crouched over him, his face shadowed.
The sky was just beginning to lighten, and the copper dome of the temple was infused with a pale pink. Shreds of dawn were creeping over the distant horizon, revealing the red-tiled roofs of Theris and the mighty keep of the ruling duke. Keilan’s clothes were damp from the morning dew, his exposed skin cold and slick. He shivered, uncoiling from the uncomfortable position in which he’d fallen asleep.
“Nel’s back?” Keilan murmured, blinking away the gumminess in his eyes as he peered down the gravestone-littered slope of the lichyard.
“There,” Senacus replied.
Keilan followed his outstretched hand to where two figures were laboring up the hill. Relief washed through Keilan when he recognized the spindly-legged and barrel-chested shape of Pelos. Nel was holding tight to the fishmonger’s arm, and from the way he was struggling, that might have been the only reason he was still upright.
“Pelos!” Keilan cried, coming to his feet.
“Quiet,” Senacus hissed, but Keilan ignored the paladin, nearly slipping in the wet grass as he rushed towards his old friend.
The fishmonger paused, swaying, then raised a shaking hand when he noticed Keilan approaching.
Keilan couldn’t hold back his tears. Pelos looked like he had aged a dozen years since he’d seen him last. His once-dark hair and beard, which had always been threaded with gray for as long as Keilan could remember, were now bone-white. Lines creased his face, and purple blotches shadowed his red-rimmed eyes.
Careful not to knock over his friend, Keilan embraced Pelos. Beneath his filthy clothes he was shockingly thin, and Keilan could feel the bones of the fishmonger’s back through his shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” Keilan whispered into the old man’s shoulder.
“It’s all right, boy,” Pelos replied hoarsely. “I’m still here.”
“Just barely,” Nel said, stepping away from Pelos. She folded her arms across her chest, leaning against a cracked grave marker. “I thought he was gone when I found him hanging there in the catacombs. But the old man is stronger than he looks.” She ran a hand through her hair, and Keilan saw how exhausted she was as well.
“We can’t stay here,” Senacus said, staring down at the awakening city. “Perhaps we can find a room in an inn for the day.” Abruptly, he turned towards Nel. “Did you kill anyone?”
She shook her head, and at least some of the burden the paladin was carrying around seemed to lift.
“Thank you,” he said, the relief plain in his voice. “There are many good men in the temple.”
“More of your brothers,” Nel said. “I saw two of the Pure, and there may be others.” She glanced at Keilan. “I wouldn’t use any of your sorcery until we’re well outside the city.”
“Let me sit for a moment, boy,” Pelos said, clutching at Keilan’s arm as he stiffly lowered himself onto a stone slab, the base for one of the Aspects.
“Rest,” Keilan murmured, peering at the sprawling temple below. He couldn’t see any activity – no lightbearers or mendicants were boiling from the doors searching for Pelos, so it seemed his escape had so far gone unnoticed.
When he looked again at the fishmonger, he saw that Pelos had placed his elbows on his knees and was leaning forward, his head hanging down. For a moment he was so still that Keilan thought his exhaustion might have overwhelmed him and he’d somehow fallen asleep while sitting, but then the old man spoke.
“So did you discover where your mother came from?”
Keilan rubbed at the back of his neck, where there was a knot of pain from how he had slept. “I did. I met my grandmother, Pelos. She was a sorcerer, too.”
“Was?”
“She . . . she died. Her name was Niara.”
Pelos fell quiet again, but to Keilan’s surprise his shoulders were moving up and down. Was he sobbing? Keilan stepped closer, concerned, and laid his hand lig
htly on his old friend’s head.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Pelos reached up to grip Keilan’s arm. Slowly he turned his face, and Keilan saw that his cheeks were indeed glistening with tears. But there was no sadness in his expression – rather, his smile was broad and his eyes danced with humor. Unease filled Keilan. Had his ordeal broken him?
“Niara,” Pelos said, rising. His hold on Keilan’s arm tightened. “I always wondered what happened to that strange witch.”
“What?” Keilan managed, and then his shoulder was wrenched from its socket and he was tumbling through the air.
Blinding pain overwhelmed him as he struck a grave marker, the bones in his side crunching. Keilan gasped, points of light exploding in his vision, his fingers clawing weakly in the wet grass. He tried to push himself to his hands and knees, but the arm that Pelos had ripped loose betrayed him and he sprawled face-first, tasting dirt.
No. Not Pelos.
His old friend was gone, and in his place loomed the creature from Keilan’s nightmares. The genthyaki, Seeker Garmond had named it. Leathery wings unfolded behind a gaunt, scaled body pocked with curling thorns. The thing was still smiling, but now its leer was filled with sharp, yellowed teeth. A long arm roped with muscle lashed out at Nel; the knife ducked, and the genthyaki’s talons shredded the face of an Aspect statue like it was truly flesh and blood, chunks of stone falling away. Before Nel could recover, the monster’s stunted tail whipped around and caught her, tossing her aside like she was a cloth doll. Keilan moaned when she smashed into one of the tombs, the back of her head bouncing off stone. She slumped to the ground, unmoving, the daggers she had somehow managed to draw sliding from her limp fingers.
“Nel,” Keilan whispered, scrabbling for his sorcery, but the throbbing pain in his shoulder made the magic run through his fingers like water.
Senacus and the genthyaki circled each other among the gravestones. Dawn light slid along the length of the paladin’s white-metal sword, and the radiance of Ama spilled once more from his eyes.
“I will drink you, burning man,” said the creature in its ragged voice. “Your soul will never walk through the gates of the Golden City.”
Senacus lunged, his sword flickering, but the genthyaki seemed to flow out of the way of the blade. It gave a croaking chortle, the spines on its back flaring.
“You are just a sad, crippled thing. They cut away your power and turned you into this abomination. A shadow of what you could have been.”
Senacus lashed out again, and the genthyaki twisted away. Keilan’s breath caught in his throat as the monster swiped with its talons, almost too fast to see, but somehow the white-metal sword was there and with a rending shriek deflected the blow.
The genthyaki hissed in what sounded like frustration, then came again at the paladin in a flurry of arcing claws. Senacus gave ground, catching one swipe with his sword as he dodged behind the same shrouded stone Aspect he had been praying to the night before. With contemptuous ease the genthyaki curled its talons against the statue and shoved it hard to the side; a crack sounded as the Aspect slid from its base, toppling, and before Senacus could react the monster surged forward.
Blood sprayed as claws as long as daggers sliced through the Pure’s armor, and Senacus reeled away, just barely avoiding being disemboweled by the following strike. The genthyaki followed, scenting weakness, but the pale crescent of the paladin’s white-metal sword flashed and then it was the genthyaki stumbling back, its black blood steaming in the cold morning air. Roaring in pain and rage, the monster leaped forward, batting aside the Pure’s sword and sending it spinning from his hand to clatter among the stones. Senacus cried out as the genthyaki’s claws sank into his chest, shredding his white-scale cuirass and piercing the flesh beneath. Weakly, he raised his blood-stained arms, as if this could ward away the demon swelling above him.
Bracing himself on a grave marker with his one good arm, Keilan hauled himself to his feet and screamed, desperately attempting to distract the genthyaki before it killed Senacus. The shapechanger ignored him, wings flaring as it reared back with its claws upraised.
Strands of squirming darkness slithered from elsewhere, sinking into the genthyaki’s back and wrapping around its arm and neck. The beast keened as flowers of black blood bloomed across its body, shaking itself violently to try and dislodge where the shadowy ropes had plunged into its flesh. A few came loose, but like serpents they struck again and again.
“Mistressss!” the genthyaki screamed as the strands pulled hard in unison, hurling the monster backwards to crash amongst the graves.
Keilan stumbled towards Senacus, cradling his dislocated arm. He searched frantically for what had attacked the genthyaki.
A slight woman with dark hair and dusky skin was calmly threading her way between the stones of the lichyard. She was dressed in a simple brown tunic and dress, like a peasant of the Kingdoms might wear, but there was nothing common in her looks or bearing. She was beautiful, and she held her head high with her shoulders thrown back as she approached the genthyaki. The writhing whips of darkness all emanated from a gleaming black rod she held. Over her other shoulder was slung a bulging sack.
“Do you remember that sting?” she called out, tossing the sack into the grass as she halted a dozen paces from where the genthyaki huddled behind a partially collapsed monument.
“You were Cleansed!” shrieked the monster as Keilan reached Senacus and knelt beside the paladin. The Pure’s armor was in tatters, riven by great bloody gashes. His chest rose and fell weakly, though, and the light still trickled from his eyes.
An explosion sounded, and Keilan was nearly knocked over by a rolling wave of force. Slivers of stone pelted him, opening tiny gashes where his skin was uncovered. His head ringing, he tried to focus on what had just happened.
The monument that had momentarily shielded the genthyaki was gone. The young woman – the sorceress; Keilan could feel her surging power – stood with her arm outstretched, her dark hair coiling in the air like the strands of her strange weapon.
And he knew her. This was the same sorceress he had seen in the memories of the immortal Jan. She had brought down the cataclysms that had destroyed the old world, and then emerged a thousand years later to challenge the Crimson Queen.
Alyanna.
Blue lightning arced from the genthyaki’s talons, shattering against a shimmering barrier that flared into existence around the sorceress. It crawled briefly along the edges of the ward, as if looking for a way inside, and then dissipated.
Searing lances of red power erupted from Alyanna, pummeling the suddenly visible shields protecting the genthyaki. The monster staggered as cracks spread across its wards, but Keilan did not know whether its weakness was from the sorcerous assault or the wounds pockmarking its flesh.
“You thought I did not have the will to recover what is mine?” cried Alyanna as a hot wind rushed over the lichyard. “What is my birthright?”
She was swollen with crackling power, an enraged goddess. Awed, Keilan at first did not feel the tugging on his hurt arm. Finally, the pain squirmed into his consciousness, and he turned to find Nel crouched beside him, her eyes wild.
“We have to find cover!” she screamed at him over the rising wind.
“Senacus!” Keilan shouted back, but Nel shook her head fiercely.
“The sorcery can’t hurt him! But it will tear us to pieces! Come!”
She pulled him away from the paladin, and together they stumbled towards one of the tombs. They collapsed behind a stone wall just as a fresh barrage of spells shook the lichyard, bright colors flaring in the sky above them.
Keilan winced as Nel’s grip on his arm tightened, and she finally noticed something was wrong.
“You’re hurt.”
He nodded, his thoughts scattered from the intense pain in his shoulder and the overwhelming rush
of the sorcerous battle raging nearby.
Nel gripped his dangling arm and then gave it a hard shove, and Keilan felt a click as it slipped back into place. The rolling waves of intense pain lessened immediately, and he gasped in relief.
“Thank you,” he managed.
“Not the first shoulder I’ve fixed,” Nel replied.
Keilan realized that they were no longer shouting. The thunder and wailing of the sorcery crashing together had suddenly and eerily stopped. He peeked around the edge of the tomb’s wall, afraid of what he might find.
The lichyard had been devastated. Only rubble remained of the gravestones and statues, and the ground was churned as if it had been plowed by teams of oxen. Alyanna stood among the ruin, blazing with sorcery, the strands of her dark flail writhing in the air around her. The genthyaki crouched amid the shattered stone, its huge body folded into an impossible tangle of thorns and scales. It looked beaten. Whipped.
“Beg for mercy,” Alyanna commanded.
The genthyaki whined and shifted. Gleaming black ichor pulsed from the wounds lacing the monster, and Keilan wondered how it still clung to life.
“Mercy, Mistress,” it hissed, edging closer with its twisted arms outstretched in supplication. “Enslave me once more. Grant me existence and I will be your servant again, your most valued servant. As it was before.”
Alyanna sneered. “Some deeds cannot be forgiven. You tortured me. Cut away my sorcery, and to reclaim it I was forced to sacrifice the only one who had always been loyal. Who needed nothing from me and gave of himself whatever was asked.”
The genthyaki tilted its monstrous head to one side in a surprisingly human-like motion. “The swordsinger,” it rasped.
“Yes,” Alyanna said, stepping forward. Keilan saw the sorcery swelling in her like a cresting wave.
The genthyaki must have seen it as well. The monster uncoiled with blinding speed, thrusting its claws out towards her. Glistening black energy englobed its talons, a terrible emptiness that plucked at some primal fear deep within Keilan. This was a sorcery unlike any he had seen before.
