Dark Immolation

by Christopher Husberg

  “There are too many important things, these days.”

  “Things have been changing around here,” Astrid muttered. So much, in barely two weeks. “What’s the population at now?”

  “Almost four hundred. Three hundred and ninety, according to the records.”

  “Our very own census. Who’s running that operation? I can’t imagine you and Cinzia are doing that, too.”

  “A young woman Cinzia met has taken charge of the census. Arven. A sharp one, if a bit… eccentric.”

  They continued walking for a few moments longer, the darkness encroaching upon them. Astrid found it comforting. But there was business to attend to. She pulled out the voidstone, holding it up to Knot.

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “This is it,” Astrid said. “This is our connection to the Nazaniin. Shall we?”

  Knot looked around. “Now?”

  “Might as well get it over with,” Astrid said.

  Reluctantly, Knot nodded, and Astrid let herself slip into the Void to make the connection. While psimancers could hold a voidstone conversation internally, within their own minds, others that were connected to the Void—like Astrid—had to speak aloud, and the voice from the other end was heard audibly from the stone. That was normally an inconvenience, but at least this time, with Knot present, he would be able to listen to the conversation.

  After a moment, she heard a man’s voice, quiet and calm.

  “What’s taken you so long to report?”

  Astrid and Knot looked at one another, unsure of how to proceed.

  Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea, Astrid thought.

  Fortunately, Knot took the reins. Given the nature of Astrid’s connection to the voidstone, his voice would be heard on the other end as well.

  “This is Knot,” he said.

  “Knot? Who? How did you come across this voidstone? Where is Ferni?”

  “You know me as Lathe Tallon.”

  Then, silence at the other end.

  “Lathe. Of course.”

  “Who am I talking to?”

  “You sound… different. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You are speaking to Rune, of course.”

  “Are you in charge?”

  “Am I in… am I in charge? What do you mean?”

  “I need to speak with whoever is in charge.”

  “The rumors are true, then. You’ve lost your memory.”

  “Are you in charge or not?”

  “Well, Lathe… or Knot, however you prefer to be called… I’m a member of the Triad. Along with Kosarin, and… you really don’t remember?”

  “None of your business,” Knot said. “Are you going to tell me what I need to know?”

  “That depends, Knot, on what you want to know.”

  “Why are you after me?”

  “Strictly speaking, we aren’t, at the moment.”

  “But you were. Why?”

  “We thought you had defected. A simple mistake on our part. We are sorry about that.”

  A “simple mistake” didn’t begin to describe what had happened with Nash and Kali. Astrid wondered why this man—a voyant—couldn’t have seen that in advance.

  Then, she realized, she had not told Knot everything. She had not told Knot that the man he was communicating with would most likely be a voyant.

  She mouthed the word to Knot, but he was not paying attention to her. She kicked him sharply in the shin, which certainly got his attention. Knot scowled at her.

  “He’s a bloody voyant,” Astrid whispered.

  “Ah, someone else is there with you. Who else am I addressing?”

  Knot frowned at Astrid, his jaw clenched. “You’re a voyant, aren’t you, Rune? Why don’t you figure it out?”

  “Ah, yes. Either you’re remembering, or you have a very helpful friend. Either way I have some bad news. For whatever reason, my powers have been blocked from you since you, er, became as you are now. I can’t see you, not in any way that makes sense. And as for whoever is with you…ah, yes. A vampire.”

  Astrid and Knot looked at each other. Astrid shrugged.

  “From your silence I take it that I am correct. I usually am—a shame you don’t remember that. But… what has happened to you fascinates me. We want you to return. We have many questions.”

  “Ain’t letting you experiment on me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Our view of you has changed. We think you could still be a great asset to us. And while our experiments might be… vigorous, I promise you they would not last long. We would find out any information we could about what happened to you, and then send you on your way.”

  “I’m not coming in,” Knot said flatly. “You can forget about that.”

  “I thought you would say that. Even without true sight of you, I have some semblance of who you are. Very well. What is it you want of us then, Knot?”

  “Leaving me alone would be at the top of my list.”

  “I can guarantee nothing in that regard. But if it is information you want… I could send the nearest cotir to help you. The acumen in Tinska is of reasonable strength.”

  Astrid frowned.

  “How did you know we were in Tinska?” Knot asked, voicing Astrid’s question.

  “Just because I can’t see you does not mean I can’t locate the voidstone you’re using. Simple psimancy, my friend.”

  Astrid shook her head. Another cotir? The psimancer groups had been nothing but trouble to them; she didn’t relish the idea of facing another one.

  “If it’s information you want, they could provide you with better material than I have.”

  “Can they tell me what happened to me?”

  “I can’t guarantee anything, but as I said, the acumen is reasonably powerful. If anyone could tell you more about your… condition… it would be him. Unless you want to visit us in Triah, of course. But I must say… I am the wrong person in the Triunity with whom you should discuss this particular subject.”

  “Who should I be talkin’ to then?”

  Rune cleared his throat. “It’s ‘to whom,’ Knot. There really isn’t much of Lathe left in you at all, is there?”

  “The way I speak ain’t your concern,” Knot said.

  “Ain’t? Canta rising… Well, Knot. Let’s make a deal. Meet with our cotir. We will give them some information about you, about who Lathe was. They may be able to tell you more about what happened to you as well.”

  Knot was looking at Astrid, eyebrows raised.

  What could she say to him? It was his decision, ultimately. She shrugged.

  “And what do you want from me?” Knot asked.

  Astrid nodded. What Rune was offering was certainly not going to be free.

  “The same thing we’re giving you: information. What happened in Roden? My sight can’t discern it. Help us understand what happened, and we’ll help you understand who you are.”

  Astrid watched Knot as he considered this.

  “Very well,” Knot finally said. “I’ll meet with your cotir.”

  There was a pause on the other end, and Astrid was not sure, but she thought she heard voices in the background.

  “Splendid,” Rune said, after a moment. “The leader of this cotir is named Cymbre. Don’t worry; she is far more pleasant than Kali was.”

  “We can meet them in Tinska,” Knot said. “Just tell us where.”

  Rune laughed. “I can send them directly to you at Harmoth, Knot. I knew I’d be sending a cotir to Harmoth weeks ago, but I didn’t know why until now.”

  Rune started to say something else, but Knot gave a signal to Astrid, and Astrid severed the connection.

  “What do you think?” Astrid asked, looking up at Knot.

  He shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “When do you think this Symbol person and the cotir will arrive?”

  “Cymbre. And I don’t know. If they’re from Tinska, they could arrive any day.”

  Astrid shook her head. “I don’t like it.
We have no control over this. Cymbre and the cotir may help you, but what if they don’t? What if they arrive with a dozen bloody cotirs? We might be able to handle one, but more than that…”

  “We will have to prepare for that, then,” Knot said.

  “That’s all you can say? That we’ll have to ‘prepare for that’?” How in Oblivion are we going to prepare for an army of psimancers?”

  Knot began walking, and Astrid followed him. “There wouldn’t be anything we could do if they sent an army, anyway. But now we might have a chance to reason with them. Negotiate with them, even learn from them. They seem willing to cooperate. Apparently I might have information that they value, too.”

  “They told Winter and Lian they were willing to cooperate. Look where it got them.”

  “If you don’t agree with what I’ve decided, what do you think is best?”

  “It’s not that I don’t entirely agree, it’s just that I don’t know if it was the best idea, I—”

  “Then what is the best idea?”

  Astrid frowned. The words of the Black Matron echoed in her mind. Get him to Triah. He needs to be here. We need him.

  “We should go to Triah.”

  Knot laughed. “Why in Oblivion would we go to Triah?”

  “To find the Nazaniin where they live. Rune said that was an option.”

  Knot shook his head. “If you’re worried about facing a Nazaniin army, I think Triah is the last place you want to be.”

  “Or, if we’re going to face one either way, we might as well surprise them.”

  Astrid looked up at Knot, watching him. He did not suspect anything of her. He couldn’t. And yet she wondered.

  “You’re serious about this.” Knot was frowning.

  “I am. I think it would be best.”

  “And what about Cinzia and Jane? What about what is happening here?”

  “What about it? It’s none of our business. We have our own problems, we don’t need to be bogged down by theirs, too.” Astrid hated herself even as she said it. She had come to enjoy their company—or at least Jane’s company, anyway—and having seen what she had seen in Roden, having seen Knot be healed of his episodes time and again, she figured there had to be something to what Jane and Cinzia were doing.

  But, ultimately, that did not matter. Astrid had debts to be paid, and she had her own salvation to worry about.

  Nothing could be more important than that. Nothing.

  “You really think we could just leave them?” Knot asked.

  Astrid did not want to seem completely ruthless. But if she could instill some of that ruthlessness into Knot…

  Do you realize what you’re trying to do? You’re trying to turn this man, this man who wants to be better, who doesn’t want to kill, into the exact thing he does not want to be.

  The thought came with sharpness and fire, but Astrid couldn’t let such thoughts dictate her actions.

  “Goddess rising, if you really want us to go to Triah… I’ll think about it, Astrid. But it won’t happen anytime soon. We have far too much to do here. I have far too much to do here, even if you do not.”

  Astrid glowered at the ground as they walked back to the house, saying nothing.

  35

  The Void

  WHEN WINTER FINALLY RETURNED to the Void, it was by accident. One morning shortly after moving to her new bedroom in the palace, Winter found herself in the dark expanse, and she had no idea how she’d gotten there. She had been sleeping, and dreaming, and Winter’s dream had not been her own dream, but the dreams of dozens of other people. Winter had seen faces she did not recognize, heard plans and desires and fantasies that she had never known or cared about. And now she was here, in the Void.

  Accessing acumency in her sleep. Winter shivered.

  The blackness surrounded her, a blackness that at first Winter had difficulty distinguishing from the terrible darkness that Daval had shown her. But while Daval’s darkness was terrible, threatening, this emptiness was nullifying and indifferent. The numberless lights stretched out before her. A part of Winter wanted to leave before she saw Kali again. The woman was supposed to be dead. What could she possibly want with Winter?

  But why not stay? she thought. See what happens. Nothing wrong with a little chaos.

  Sure enough, within only moments, a shape coalesced before Winter’s eyes; the same dark, indescribable something began to shimmer and take color into itself, slowly forming a figure in the darkness. The figure, becoming more and more tangible the closer it came, made ripples of light in her wake, and then Winter found herself face to face with Kali.

  The face shifted, just as it had before. Sometimes it was an older, wiser woman with graying hair, other times the woman Winter had met in Cineste, tall and dark with frosty eyes, and other times the girl Winter had watched die in Izet, slight and blond. Winter saw hints of at least one other woman there, too, and Winter wondered what relationship existed between what Kali had been doing—procuring multiple bodies for one sift—and what had happened to Knot—multiple sifts crammed into one body. If she had seen Knot in the Void before he died, Winter wondered what he might have looked like, shifting back and forth between his many sifts.

  “Hello, Winter,” Kali said, smiling just enough for her shifting eyes, from blue to green to gray to brown and then a frosty blue once more, to sparkle and reflect the thousands of lights in the Void.

  “Hello, Kali,” Winter said.

  “You recognize me,” Kali said.

  “Well enough. Looks like you’ve invaded more bodies than just the two I knew you in?”

  “Invaded? That is too strong a word, but, then again… it might not be.”

  “Why are you here, Kali?”

  Kali looked Winter up and down. “You’ve changed, Winter. You’re different.”

  “I’m no longer a victim of your lies, for one.”

  Kali raised an eyebrow and paced around Winter, her footsteps rippling with color. “Not exactly the change I think I see in you, but true nonetheless. How is that frost addiction going, by the way?”

  Winter’s cheeks grew warm—she didn’t know that could happen in the Void. “Just fine.” I have all the frost I could ever want and more, she wanted to add, but knew it would be silly to admit. “You didn’t answer me before,” she said. “Why are you here? We thought you died in Izet.”

  “You mean when Knot killed me in Izet,” Kali said sharply, stopping in front of Winter.

  “So you’re dead?” Winter asked, a strange hope blossoming deep inside of her. “Do… do dead people come to the Void?”

  Kali sniffed. “Dead people don’t go anywhere,” she said. “Let alone the Void. When I died—when your husband killed me—I tried to send my sift out again, into another body. But it all happened too quickly; something went wrong and I found myself here.”

  Winter smiled. The idea of Kali failing so spectacularly was almost joyous.

  Kali’s face darkened. “It seems you’ve changed a bit too much for my liking,” she muttered.

  “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me,” Winter said.

  “We have our differences… but you looked up to me once, did you not?”

  “Before you betrayed me, yes.”

  “I was following orders. I don’t expect that to make you feel better, but it’s the truth. If I don’t follow orders, what—”

  “Orders are for fools. Going against them is so much more fun.” Winter almost laughed. She had never said anything like that before.

  “I don’t wish to argue, believe it or not,” Kali said. Winter realized that Kali was reaching for something in her breast pocket, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She seemed to realize what she was doing, and stopped immediately. “I believe I can help you. I think we can help each other, to be more accurate.”

  Winter laughed. “You’ll have to explain that to me.”

  “You are using acumency,” Kali said. “Who better to teach you, to help you hone
your skills, than one of the most skilled acumens to have ever lived?”

  That certainly got Winter’s attention. She wanted to ask how Kali knew she was using acumency, but she had a feeling that it had to do with the Void.

  “Even if what you say is true,” Winter said cautiously, “what do you think I can do for you?”

  Kali looked down at herself, spreading her arms wide. “In the spirit of being honest, I’ll tell you this: I don’t seem to have corporeal form here, except when you are present. I don’t know why. I have never experienced anything like this before, nor heard tell of it from other psimancers. It is uncharted territory. But… there is some power within you that makes this,” Kali patted her chest with one hand, “possible. I want to understand it. And, maybe, if I can understand it, I might be able to figure out a way out of this place and back into my body.”

  Winter narrowed her eyes. “Back into your body?”

  “Or a body, if you want to get technical.”

  Winter shook her head. “How do I know you won’t choose me as your host?”

  “Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could,” Kali said. “It may take you some time to believe me when I say that. I suppose you may never believe me. But I have no ulterior motives, here. I’ll eventually find another body to inhabit, yes. But it will not be yours.”

  “I have no idea how I could help you,” Winter said. Kali was making it seem like this would be a trade, that Winter would have some information or power to give her in exchange for training in acumency. If that was the case, Kali would be sorely disappointed. Winter had nothing to give.

  “I don’t either,” Kali said. “But I’ve learned to trust my instincts, and right now they tell me that you’re my best chance.”

  “I could just leave you here,” Winter said. Looking at Kali, especially at the blond version of her, the one that had confronted them in Izet, she couldn’t help feeling angry. “For trying to kill me. For trying to kill all of us. I could just leave you here and never return.”

  “Could you?” Kali asked, one eyebrow raised. “Once you experience the Void, it is… difficult to stay away. I believe you already know this. But… I’ll freely admit that if you somehow did find the strength to stay away, even just to spite me, I would deserve it.”