by Alec Hutson
She sank to her knees, gently lifting the jagged metal and holding it up to the light. No face stared back at her, nothing to suggest this was anything more than a sliver of a broken sword. It felt empty, like whatever fragment of the soul that had clung to the shattered blade had finally let go and sank into oblivion. If that was true, Cho Lin hoped she had found peace.
Jhenna. In the annals of the Shan it was a cursed name, for according to the histories it was the name of the concubine who had tricked the emperor’s son into releasing the Betrayers and ushering in the Raveling. But what Cho Lin had just experienced was very different from the vague stories she had heard from her teachers. Jhenna had been trying to stop the suffering of these children who had been sacrificed to the thing that had torn itself free from the earth. It was the emperor and the warlocks of Shan who had created the Betrayers and birthed their hate and rage.
What had the shapeshifting demon said before he’d broken the Sword of Cho? She went to her death freely. At the time, she hadn’t understood. Now she did. The concubine Jhenna must have sacrificed herself to forge a weapon that could defeat and imprison the creatures she’d accidentally unleashed upon Shan. She had some hidden sorcery, clearly, and perhaps that was how the demon children had first fashioned a bridge to her from within their prison. For a thousand years her soul had dwelt within her family’s sword, infusing it with power. Now her part in this long saga was finally over.
Cho Lin leaned back against the robed legs of the statue. Where did she go from here? The sword was broken. Without it, she had no way to banish the Betrayers. She was cold and hungry and alone in a ruined city on the edge of the world. The demons would be laboring to bring about the same devastation that had consumed ancient Shan. What could she do? Cho Lin covered her face with her hands. The hopelessness of it all was overwhelming.
But was she truly alone? She looked around the silent, empty chamber, her gaze lingering on the pools of shadow where the moonlight did not reach. Something had led her to this room and healed her wounds. Something had brought the fragment of her father’s sword and left it here for her. Something clearly did not believe that she should abandon her family’s ancient mission.
What was it?
“We have to go back.”
Alyanna ignored him, her attention fixed on the landscape unfurling below. The red-tiled roofs of Theris and the towns clustered around the walls had vanished long ago, though Keilan hadn’t noticed exactly when, as he’d been busy helping Nel keep Senacus from bleeding to death. By the time they managed to fully staunch the paladin’s wounds, the strange disc carrying them had left the city far behind. Now they soared over a great crimson forest, though much of the canopy had been devoured by winter. There seemed to be little of any real interest beneath them, which was why Keilan thought the sorceress was simply ignoring him.
“We have to go back,” he repeated, louder than before.
Keilan could have reached out and shaken her, as she was sitting cross-legged on the edge of the disc less than an arm’s length from him, but he didn’t dare. Truth be told, even though Alyanna had saved them from the genthyaki, Keilan was still afraid of her. Here was a sorceress as powerful as Cein d’Kara and as old and mysterious as his grandmother. From the brief snatches of Jan’s memory that he’d experienced she was considered as ruthless and ambitious as anyone who had ever lived in the vanished empires. She had crafted the sorcery and led the cabal that had destroyed the old world. Yet she was smaller and slighter than Nel, and looked even younger.
Mustering his courage, he tried again. “Alyanna—”
She glanced at him sharply. “How do you know that name?”
Keilan swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “I . . . I saw you. Under the mountain.”
Her eyes widened, and he could have sworn he saw a trace of fear in her face. “With the kith’ketan? How?”
“No, no,” Keilan said, shaking his head. “With Jan. And there was a crystal . . .”
“Ah,” Alyanna said, and she almost looked relieved. “The queen used your power to break through the barriers in the bard’s mind.”
“Yes.”
“Clever of her.” She studied him, her lips pursed. “I’m surprised you came with me, then. You must know it was I who challenged the queen and brought the shadowblades into Saltstone.”
“You saved us in the lichyard,” Keilan replied. “Also . . . we didn’t have much choice. The Pure were coming.” He turned his gaze back the way they had come. “But we have to go back. My friend is being held captive in the temple in Theris. I can’t abandon him.”
“Was your friend the old man whose form the genthyaki had stolen?”
Keilan nodded.
“Then he is already dead,” Alyanna finished, turning away dismissively. “The genthyaki can only assume the shapes of those they kill. By drinking the souls of their victims, they absorb the knowledge necessary to mimic them perfectly.”
Her words were like blows to his chest, and Keilan found himself struggling to breathe. Pelos was dead? His oldest friend . . . no, more than a friend. He was like family. In the years since his mother’s death he had, in many ways, been more of a father to Keilan than his own da.
“You’re lying,” Keilan said fiercely. “I know the kind of person you are. I saw what you did.”
Alyanna snorted and shook her head. “I gain nothing by lying to you about this, boy. Even if your friend was still alive and scheduled to be executed at dawn tomorrow, I still would not return to Theris and save him. So at least you can take comfort that you did all you could.”
“Why would you not go back for him? He’s a good man.”
Alyanna looked at him like he was a simpleton. “I don’t care.”
Keilan’s anger rose, and he welcomed it, wanting it to consume the hollow ache inside him. “What do you care about?” he hissed, reaching out with his sorcery to try and wrest control of the disc from the sorceress.
She batted aside his attempt with contemptuous ease. “You won’t catch me off guard again, Keilan. You have power, but it is still raw and unrefined. And would you know what to do if you seized the chavenix? We would go plummeting out of the sky. I can fly on my own, if I must. Can you?” She jerked her head in the direction of Senacus, sprawled insensate, and Nel, who was crouched beside him holding a sodden cloth to the deepest of his wounds. Blood stained her arms up to her elbows. “Can they?”
Keilan let his sorcery recede from the bright pulsing core of the disc. “No,” he said softly, slumping in defeat.
Alyanna’s face softened, and she sighed. “I am too harsh. Your friend is dead.” She looked away. “I also lost someone recently.”
The sorceress grew quiet, and Keilan retreated to his own thoughts as well, his gaze drifting over the edge of the disc. A river flashed far below in the early morning light, a thread of gold set in the dark brocade of the forest. When they’d first soared into the sky he’d been terrified – the disc was barely large enough for all four of them and their travel bags, and if it had tilted only slightly they would have rolled off and tumbled to their deaths. He’d dealt with his fear by focusing on assisting Nel in saving Senacus. It had helped, though, that the disc seemed as solid as the ground, and some sort of invisible bubble surrounded them that kept the cold winds at bay, reducing the sound of their passage through the sky to a muted howl.
“It’s not dead,” Alyanna said abruptly.
“It?”
“The genthyaki. It used sorcery to escape, though in a manner that should have been impossible. It’s hurt, but those things are damnably hard to kill.” Her frown twisted into a wry grin. “But you must realize that. You were the first one who cooked it with dreadfire.”
“You know?”
She looped a strand of her black hair around her finger. “It was how I first learned about you.”
Keilan remembered that
terrible night: the wraiths swarming the caravan, men dying in the long grass, Xin convulsing as he felt his brothers’ deaths through the bond they shared. “That thing was your ally?”
“Servant,” Alyanna said bitterly. “Slave. It stumbled across you quite by accident – I had set it on another task. But once I was aware of your existence, I knew our paths would eventually converge.” She looked into his eyes, and he could not turn away. “There are not so many like us left in the world.”
“But now you and that thing are enemies?”
“It betrayed me. Or I betrayed it first, I suppose.” She waved her hand dismissively, as if it mattered little which was true. “I arrived in Theris a few days ago and discovered that the Black Vizier of Menekar was already here, accompanying the inquisition as it pursued something of great import to the empire – and I knew that the fat Shan was the form the genthyaki was now wearing. I was also watching the temple, waiting for my chance to strike, and then there she was” – Alyanna nodded in Nel’s direction – “leading the shapechanger away from the Pure and right to where you all waited. I suspected it had rather nefarious designs on you, and so I chose to reveal myself.”
“Why did you save me? Where are we going?”
Alyanna waved his words away, and for the first time Keilan saw how exhausted she was. “Later, Keilan. But be comforted that I bear you no ill will. Great and terrible things are happening, and if we want to survive – if anyone is to survive – we need to be allies.”
“You’re talking about those children.”
Again, Alyanna looked at him sharply. “You surprise me, Keilan. I see that we must share with each other what we both know.”
She gestured over the edge of the disc at the rolling forests far below. “I need to rest. Help me find someplace suitable, and then we will talk more.”
The midday sun was high overhead when Alyanna brought the disc down in the middle of an orchard. Through the rows of trees, a prosperous-looking homestead was visible. Like most of the farmhouses they’d seen in this part of the Kingdoms, it was constructed of stacked logs, with a fine thatched roof of white straw. No cries of alarm had gone up as they descended between the branches, so their arrival must not have been noticed.
“What is our story?” Nel asked Alyanna as the sorceress hopped from the hovering disc onto the grass.
“Story?” Alyanna bent down to scoop up one of the ridged green fruits littering the ground. After inspecting it for a moment and trying a tentative nibble she wrinkled her nose and tossed it over her shoulder.
“Yes, story. What do we tell these farmers when we show up at their door with a badly injured paladin? And how do we convince them to help us?”
Alyanna cocked her head, as if confused. “Convince them? I don’t plan on wasting my time ‘convincing’ them of anything. We need food and rest. Why do you think I chose this place, so far from any other farms or towns?”
“So you’re just going to take what you need?” Keilan asked.
“I’m not going to kill them,” Alyanna said, sounding slightly exasperated. “Unless they refuse my demands. Or annoy me.”
Nel stood up on the disc, her arms crossed, and looked down on the sorceress. “These are farmers. Peasants. I won’t steal what little they have.”
“What a kind soul you are,” Alyanna murmured, her voice dripping with scorn. “But the end of the world is fast approaching. I suggest you set aside your morals for now and accept that difficult choices must be made if any of us are going to survive.”
Nel held Alyanna’s gaze for a long moment. The knife was glowering, her jaw clenched, and the sorceress matched her. Keilan edged away from the two women, sliding from the disc. The dry grass crackling under his boots was a welcome sensation after so long huddled on the smooth metal.
Senacus groaned in his sleep, his face twisting as pain shivered through him.
This broke the tension, and Nel looked away. “Fine,” she spat out. “We get what we need, one way or another. But first we ask nicely.”
Alyanna shrugged, as if this was a barely acceptable compromise. She grabbed her sack and slung it over her shoulder. “Remove the paladin and your bags from the chavenix. Keeping it in this shape is tiring.”
Keilan and Nel wrestled the limp paladin from the disc, careful not to re-open his wounds, and then Alyanna stepped closer and began to mold the strange artifact back into a sphere. Keilan concentrated on the strands of sorcery as she lashed them together, trying to memorize the patterns she was making. There was a brilliant efficiency with how she manipulated the power flowing through her – even Cein d’Kara and his grandmother had not displayed such mastery. And her actions were effortless, like a skilled craftsman who had performed the same task so many times that the resulting perfection was the only possible outcome. A ripple went through the disc, and then it began to compress, folding in upon itself until it had returned to its original shape.
“What is that?” he asked breathlessly, awed by the beauty of her sorcery.
“A chavenix,” she said, slipping the sphere into the bulging sack she carried. Keilan couldn’t help but wonder what other wonders were inside. “A trifle, really. We used them to flit between the Star Towers during the years of the Imperium. Using them is quite draining, in truth, so they were never employed for longer journeys.”
“Speaking of draining,” Nel grunted, adjusting her grip on Senacus’s legs, “let’s get him inside.”
Alyanna trailed a few steps behind them as they carried the paladin to the door of the farmhouse. Sheaves of dried herbs hung from the eaves, a traditional warding in the Kingdoms against evil spirits. There was also a sunburst carved into the wood above the door’s iron knocker, and Keilan gave a little sigh of relief when he saw this.
Nel kicked the door hard. “Hello! Is anyone home?”
Frenzied barking erupted from somewhere inside.
“Please! A holy man of Ama is hurt! He needs help!”
Keilan thought he heard footsteps approaching, though he wasn’t sure, as the dog was drowning out everything else. His shoulders and back were aching from holding Senacus, and Nel also looked like she was suffering. She slammed her boot against the door again in frustration.
“Let us in, please! One of the Pure is dying!”
“The Pure?” It was a woman’s voice, soft and tremulous.
Nel leaned in closer to the door, her head nearly brushing the wood. “Yes, the Pure. We found him on the road to Theris. Must have been bandits.”
Keilan heard the sound of a deadbolt sliding back, and then the door cracked open.
“Malkin has a bow,” the woman said nervously through the gap. “He’s a good shot. And Jeremia will let Dog loose if there’s no paladin.”
“We understand,” Nel said, exhaustion weighing down her words. “Please.”
The door swung open. A tall, pale woman with long blond braids stood in the entrance, worry lines creasing her face. Behind her, in the entranceway to another room, a boy about Keilan’s age was holding a nocked bow, his eyes thinned with suspicion. Another much-younger boy with the same blond hair as the woman was straining to hold back the largest hound Keilan had ever seen.
“By the Radiant Father,” the woman murmured when she saw Senacus, sketching a circle in the air. Then she waved frantically at the older boy to lower his bow. “Malkin, they’re saying the truth. Oh, Ama save us.”
“Ama save him, you mean,” Nel said, moving into the house.
“This way, this way,” the woman said, motioning for Nel and Keilan to follow her.
They did, though Keilan nearly dropped Senacus as the black hound lunged at him, jaws snapping. “Down, Dog!” cried the boy, struggling to hold onto the leash.
It looked like the hound might rip free and attack them, but suddenly it whimpered and lowered itself to the ground, its head between its paws. The bo
y nearly fell over as the weight he had been straining against vanished.
Keilan glanced back to find Alyanna stepping through the doorway. The dog whined as she approached, visibly trembling.
“Good dog,” Alyanna said, smiling brightly at the boy holding the suddenly slack leash.
“Keilan,” Nel prodded him, and he tore his eyes from the puddle spreading under the hound. Together they passed from the small entrance room and into a larger space. Three straw pallets were arrayed beside a hearth, along with a loom displaying a half-finished blanket or tapestry. Stools were scattered about, as well as crudely whittled wooden figures.
“Lay him there,” the woman said, gesturing at one of the pallets, and then she went over to stoke the embers in the hearth.
With a relieved grunt, Keilan settled the paladin on the straw. Senacus squirmed in his sleep, his face twisting, but after a moment the pain seemed to pass and his expression grew calm again.
The woman was staring at the light trickling from his cracked eyes as if transfixed, her fingers clutching at her dress. She started when Nel laid a hand on her arm.
“Thank you. My name is Eria, and this is my brother Belgin.” Nel nodded in Keilan’s direction. “We are travelers from Vis.”
“Vis . . .” the woman murmured, looking away from Senacus and seemingly seeing Nel for the first time. She looked her up and down with wide eyes.
“Yes,” Nel continued as Alyanna entered the room. “And this is our servant, Gherta. She’s a bit simple, so please excuse her if she says or does anything strange.”
The woman did not even glance at the glowering Alyanna, instead staring at Nel’s blood-drenched arms.
“Are you . . . are you hurt?” she whispered.
“His blood,” Nel replied. “I did my best to stop the bleeding. But he needs better healing than I could give.”
The woman eyes fluttered, and she shook herself, as if coming awake. “I’ve some bloodmoss we can pack the wounds with. We should get some hot water going, and there’s Shalloch’s root for the pain.” She leaned over Senacus, her brow crinkling as she examined the cuts across his bare chest. “Don’t look like they were made by metal. Animal’s claws, I’d say. Maybe a bear . . .” Her face paled. “A big bear.”
