Bardian's Redemption_Book Four of the Guardian's Vambrace

by H. Jane Harrington

  She hadn't counted the minutes, but Soreina guessed at least six or seven had dissolved away by the time she finally grew bored. She could almost imagine a ghostly timepiece, ticking down the last beats of the cocky Warrior Princess' depleting heart. The princeling cried out in distress amidst the urgent commands, curses and pleas of the chamber's many occupants.

  “Please! Cease this useless spectacle and release her!” Vannisarian cried. His voice sounded cracked and hoarse.

  “Useless? We are companioned with a dragon. You should be enthralled! Perhaps you need another show...”

  For the pleasure of exhausting more time and watching the Kion fly, Soreina threw another Enhancement into the air, coating her overhead threads that webbed the entire ceiling of the chamber. It wasn't necessary, but it was a delight. The dragon ascended in a graceful, undulating wave of its body that seemed to have a rhythm of its own. Soreina laughed gleefully as the flames consumed the Forbidden residues coating the webbing. She had a plaything in the Kion, the grand toy she had always wished for. It was another form of puppetry.

  The occupants of the chamber oozed dread from their pores, and their shoulders sagged in fatigue. Such a pity they weren't enjoying the show. How often does one have the chance to sip royal blood while a dragon soars above? It was Soreina's delight.

  “Soreina, avast!” Inagor spat. “You've had your fun.”

  “Oh, I can do this all day,” Soreina replied casually, trailing her tongue along Soventine's blood that painted her fingernail in her favorite shade. “But your royal whorelet can't, I'm afraid. The longer we enjoy the Kion dance, the closer she gets to depletion of the heart-staggering level.”

  “I'm willing to bargain. Let her go!” Vannisarian commanded.

  “My contracts always come with a hefty price. I daresay, it's within your means, but at the limits your coffers can afford. You have a choice to make, Vannisarian. It's time to ask yourself what value you place on your love,” Soreina said sweetly.

  “What do you want of me?” the princeling choked, though his face said he already knew.

  “A trade. Your vessel, of course, in exchange for Kiriana's life. I'll cease the Forbidden spells and allow my precious pet to his vambrace's duty. Your affianced will be released from the Kion's death dance, alive and whole. All you have to do is give yourself to Alokien.” She jiggled the nousectional, replete with their God's impatient soul, before her.

  The Guardians spat insults and threats, the typical blather Soreina always heard from the mouths of the losers.

  “You would rather her soul be rent asunder, then? For no mere mortal can tame the fires of the Gods,” Soreina demanded, quoting from the Book of Order. “She's running out of time. How long does it take for a royal avatar of justice to be consumed by the power of the Kion, I wonder?”

  Vannisarian was beside himself. His voice trembled as he begged in the most pathetic, disgusting human manner. “I'll do anything you want. Just release her. You can have me. Alokien can have me. I'll spend an eternity in oblivion. Just let her go.”

  The chamber erupted with protest and panic. Soreina basked in the glorious sounds of her victory. She stepped toward the princeling to begin the exchange.

  A tingling warning at the base of her skull bade Soreina turn. As fast as she was, she was a second too late. Inagor materialized just behind the Princess. He was holding a riftjump cufflet. Soreina's riftjump cufflet. He had rummaged through her tool satchel to find a way to transport himself inside the webbed cage.

  Inagor's Guardian sword, glowing and swirling with alien Kionfire embers, sliced cleanly through the Marionette Line that tethered Soreina to her royal puppet. It was impossible. The threads were so thin they were almost invisible to the naked eye, but she had a perfect Enhancement spell saturating them. There was no way to cut the link with any blade of steel.

  The sword and cufflet clattered to the ground as Inagor wrapped his arms around the flaming harpy's waist from behind, silencing the Kion. As the winds whipped about the chamber and the dragon retreated, the depleted wenchlet collapsed into his embrace.

  “How?!” Soreina screamed. “The Enhancement makes the threads impenetrable. They cannot be severed!”

  The fiery Guardian sword. It had been coupled with the Kionfire. When invoked to protect the Guarded, there was no telling what that damnable magic was capable of. It was the only explanation for why the impermeable threads could have been cut so easily. It was some manner of combination spell. The Guardian magic was more powerful than she could have guessed. Something stirred in Soreina's gut. A staggering debility of a magnitude she did not recognize. Could it be fear?

  Inagor knelt with his royal whorelet cradled against his chest.

  Cradled in Soreina's place. Inagor was her pet. Her captive. The greedy harpy had no claim on Soreina's favorite prize.

  “Kiriana?” Inagor coaxed anxiously, rubbing her arms for stimulation.

  The Princess responded weakly, rousing from her languor. “I'm drained dry, but otherwise I'm fine,” she whispered. “Thank you for that.”

  “What are Guardians for?” Inagor quipped nervously, his teeth baring in a grin that Soreina had never known before. He had not once offered her that pleasure, even when she had ordered him to jollification.

  Intense craving, blinding and white, overtook Soreina's senses. An all consuming urge washed out her jealousy. Suffering. She had to induce suffering. It was the only way to beat the harridan.

  Kiriana Ithinar... Ellesainia or whatever she was called now... had weathered torment, almost savored it. Soreina understood. She was a sister-in-pain, herself. Bodily tortures would not be sufficient here. There was only one means of punishing this quarry and it wasn't physical. Soreina would strike where the royal whorelet was most vulnerable.

  She would kill the princeling.

  Alokien wouldn't be pleased, of course. He had been set on wearing the boy's vessel for a few decades, but the retrieval had ultimately failed. If Soreina had been consulted before the moonless night, she would have devised a foolproof plan. Alokien had created a mess, which he seemed to revel in. Simple was not to his liking. He basked in Chaos, naturally. Soreina didn't favor complications as he did. She liked calculation and definite outcomes. If not for this mess of Alokien's, she wouldn't be forced to act.

  Alokien had other vessels in line. By Soreina's calculation, Vannisarian's was no longer worth the risk. He had too many supporters, too many blades around him. Too much filthy, disgusting love. Soreina didn't understand why Alokien was so infatuated with that body. Killing the princeling wasn't ideal, but Alokien would forgive her. Once he was established in his new form, he would see the logic in her situational response.

  Vannisarian's death was the only way to utterly destroy Kiriana. It would devastate Inagor, too, which was an added bonus. The power-hungry hellion had snatched him away, so Soreina would take him back. Inagor's torment in the loss of his adopted son would be delicious. She couldn't wait to break him all over again.

  How to go about it? Forbiddens, naturally. The Guardians would be too busy dragon taming to prevent Soreina's timely escape. The cufflet that Inagor had dropped would still have plenty of energy remaining in its capacitor, so she could retreat and come to collect her Guardian prizes another day.

  There was one Forbidden spell that Soreina had always wanted to try. With all the myriad wickedness in her repertoire, she had never taken the opportunity, saving it for a special occasion. She had named it the Havocaris, the destroyer. It was one of the deadliest castings she could think of. The spell would concentrate energy in the nervous system of the victim, overloading it to the point of complete rupture. The nerves would essentially explode from the inside out. It was a beautifully horrendous way to die.

  Soreina began to brew the spell, ripening the energies. Castings of such intensity, like a Ruptor or Havocaris, took longer in their seasoning, for the sheer amount of mana it took to fill. She allowed her wo
ven hair barrier to fall, granting a direct path to the target of Vannisarian's chest. He was standing before her, wide-eyes parked on his beloved, steadied at the arm by Malacar.

  Soreina assigned the form, without pausing to grant notice or farewells.

  The moment the spell was assigned, the royals' eyes flared, but in the containment of their Guardians, the Kions stayed put. It didn't matter. The spell had launched, and Vannisarian was about to meet his end there.

  Soreina cackled to the ceiling.

  -58-

  The Summit of Redemption

  Epic achievement demands epic sacrifice.

  - Excerpt from The Book of Order, King Loran Edition

  Standing beside Malacar, Scilio closed his fingers around Vann's shoulders. Through the vambrace, he commanded the Kion with the power of his intention, completely uncharacteristic for a man who had spent his life communicating with the power of his words. The gyrating pressure of the whirlwind felt heavy in Scilio's throbbing head as the Kion subsided. He wasn't sure how he was still standing upright.

  Kir's dragon continued to fume, devouring her energy to feed its own. They knew, with stark clarity, what would happen if the dragon was left unbridled. Kir would die.

  Scilio fancied himself a practical, forward-thinking man, but there was no time for strategy here. Inagor needed a diversion to get close to Kir, so Scilio would provide.

  It's better to be fast and wrong than slow and dead, so Kir had once advised. It probably didn't fit the situation, but it was the first thing that sprang to mind as Scilio released his grip on Vann and bolted toward Soreina. Her hair rope moved in like a living appendage and wrapped around his ankle. Perhaps if he were fresh and unscathed, he might have been able to dodge it, but such was not the case. The deep slash he had taken along the hip from Grent's Cortler Segue strike had compounded with the other wounds to sap his strength away. His leg was ripped from under him just as a second assailing tendril hammered his diaphragm.

  The sparkling flecks in the chamber walls swirled as Scilio went down. He gasped and choked, wheezing for the air that was reluctant to sate him. Shiriah's dulcet voice screamed his name from somewhere far away. Scilio blinked to awareness, finding himself staring into the blank, open eyes of Soventine. The man he once had thought to be his friend, despite all the reasons to believe otherwise. He had been so hungry for accolades to further bloat his inflated ego that he had forgotten to first be a Guardian. The only approval he ever should have sought was Vann's. He was a Guardian first now, and evermore. He would rather die a forgotten pauper's death than to betray Vann again.

  Scilio's consciousness wavered in and out as he lay there, face to face with the dead King. He could hear shouting, cursing, pleading. He was able to follow the gist of what was happening, as though he were observing from a distant place. His diversion had not worked, but he was inside Soreina's woven hair barricade. At least that was something. Kir had long talked of advantage in battle, and Scilio recognized the favor of his position. It did little good. His awareness began to erode away.

  After some immeasurable time, Dailan's chastising voice echoed in his head. “Don't be letting the pixies at your eyes just yet, Tosh. I heard somewhere that you shouldn't sleep if your brainworks been jostled.... I say don't go to sleep. For a while, at least, 'til I'm positive you won't keel on me.”

  A brain-bang, Dailan had called it. Some ironic little place deep in Scilio tried to chuckle at the boy's creative description. In that surge of humored energy, Scilio roused from the comfortable blackness. Something had changed in the chamber. The dragonfire was gone. Inagor had managed to find a way into Kir's proximity and she was cradled limply against his chest, free of Soreina's spells, liberated of the Kion's wrath. Scilio did not announce his relief and applause. He was considered a discard, out of play and forgotten to the game. The key was choosing the exact moment to become the wild card. He waited, pretending oblivion, for his opportunity to strike.

  It didn't come. Before he could find an opening, Soreina began to develop an unfamiliar spell of some complexity. By the size of the mana she coaxed, and by the renewed flaring of the restrained Kion in Kir's eyes, it had to be something Forbidden, catastrophic, and it was likely her final gambit. The end game was at hand.

  Soreina locked onto Vann and raised her hands to launch the spell. It was a vibrant invitation of death that crackled there, and Vann was the recipient. Such a spell could not be Shielded or repelled. Not even the Diminishing spell that Galvatine began to cast could dissipate it enough to matter. It was a Forbidden, and so for good reason.

  Scilio was the only one close enough to Soreina to intercept the blast. The only Guardian not burdened with restraining a Kion. The only one unnoticed and able to strike without warning. It was suicidal, but even if he were one of many able to do it, he would gladly choose to be the one. To be Vann's savior.

  Epic achievement demands epic sacrifice.

  Scilio had once wondered how Kir had risen from her fall and discovered her door to absolution. It had not happened in a single action for her, requiring a long journey with many keys to collect. Scilio had started down the path, but the end of the trail was before him. He had found the summit.

  It would be the ultimate redemption.

  He cast a Wind Wisp to propel himself upright and gain momentum as he flew toward the cackling Soreina. Galvatine's Diminishing spell arrived just before Scilio did, making little impact. Scilio's arms encased Soreina and her spell, taking it into his own chest through the royal seal on his tabard. Some of the white energy was shared with her, rattling between them. He squeezed his eyes shut, ready for the explosion that would obliterate and atone.

  Every minuscule fiber of Scilio's being felt as though it were being rent apart. Even with his advanced vocabulary, he could find no word to adequately describe the level of exceeding agony that reached to the depths of his creation. At any moment, he knew and prayed, the screaming white torture would vaporize him from existence.

  Any moment...

  Something seemed to concentrate the surge, and Scilio realized it was his own intuitive drive to harness the throes that threatened to shred him to his very soul. He could hear Kir's voice course through his mind, echoing her lesson from the edges of an Arjo forest, so long ago. “This is only a moment. Moments pass, and the pain will pass with it. Master the moment, Toma. Focus on my voice and wrap all your pain into the grip of my hand. Contract that big hurt into a tiny point and shrink it away with the moment.”

  Kir had taught him well. She had given him Kionara, and he was instinctively mastering his own moment.

  He seemed to be drifting along in his head, as though traipsing through a dream. In the folds, reproachful old Master Tutor Jyler seemed to materialize from mist or mana, perhaps guiding him into the hands of the Collectors? Scilio had not kept up with the man, who may well have been dead by now. Did the Soul Collectors come in the form of departed loved ones? He would have expected to see his human father, Safnir, at the transitioning, rather than the old professor (who, quite honestly, had not been an incredibly influential or lasting part of Scilio's childhood).

  “Master Toma,” Jyler said in his tutorial cadence, “There is a moment for standing still and a moment for pressing on. Decide which is your moment. When you seek enlightenment, you simply need open your eyes.”

  Open your eyes.

  Scilio obeyed the command, forcing them wide in the dream and in every moment of his being. Rather than ripping from his cells, the energy that he had concentrated came roaring forth through their only outlet, the weakest point, the door that Scilio had opened.

  A violent scream pierced his ears as the Forbidden spell pierced his eyes, washing out all sense in a white veil of shadow.

  Scilio closed his eyes one last time, and knew no more.

  -59-

  Heavenly Bed of Camellias

  As a young bard of the lonely road, having relinquished claim

  to
my birthright, I have little to leave behind. I have no estate, no

  heirs, no land of my own. I have not yet written my magnum opus, nor

  given my name to my heartsong. My ballads will die on the

  lips of bards, my plays turn to dust on the abandoned page.

  But I have worn a vambrace, and that will be my legacy. If my

  name abides in no other form but in the engraved nameplate of the

  Guardian tombs, I am fulfilled. For I have loved someone more

  than myself, and I have given my all for him.

  - Toma Scilio, Guardian of the Crown

  Toma Scilio had always believed the avenue of the Soul Collectors would be lined with lotuses, which had long been considered a Godly bloom. Instead, the predominant fragrance was the lavish, gently fruity scent of camellias.

  His eyes had not yet adjusted, his vision blanched in gentle gray shadows on a whitewashed backdrop. Perhaps the soul was not meant to know what wonders lay beyond the veil. He could feel the silken shrouds that swaddled him, supine, to his heavenly carriage. There was no sense of movement so Scilio assumed his soulferry had come to a stop.

  Was this the transitioning, then? The reckoning. The weighing of his soul. The moment his destination would be selected and thrust upon him. To which level of the Hells would be be cast, he wondered? Might he be granted clemency for his failures, though his absolution had come too late? Perhaps he would be sent to the afterfields, or on to the nextlife, reborn with another chance to make worthy his soul.