The Skyfall Era Trilogy: Books 1-3

by Matt Larkin

  And their conversation had started out so very well.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Halfway between the harbor and the palace Chandi had to pause to tread water and catch her breath. The guards hadn’t said why they’d closed off the entrance to the palace, but she’d figured she could swim, climb up to the roof garden, and get in that way. The guards wouldn’t expect anyone to try it. Because it was too damn far. Malin had done so, but he was Macan Gadungan.

  In the pouring rain she could only just make out her destination. Swimming in the sea during a thunderstorm might not have been her best idea. She’d never make it there, or back, without an edge. Perhaps that’s how Rahu became the way he did, every little need adding up to a powerful addiction. No, Malin was wrong, she was fine. Rahu must have taken Amrita again.

  Chandi was in control. She drew her Moon Blessing, relishing in the strength flooding through her limbs as she resumed her swim. She could have gone for phases like this. Why had she been worried about a little lightning, anyway?

  She had to see Naresh. He’d know what to do. She had to do something with the Amrita. What had possessed her to steal it? Stealing the mad king’s weapon will make him less insane? Maybe Naresh could use it, become a Moon Scion Sun Brander. She giggled, choking down a bit of water. It was his fault for spurning her before. And for sealing the palace. She’d make him pay for that.

  The patio off the Arun Guard’s lounge looked different from the outside. With the crystal pane over the window she couldn’t get in that way, but she climbed onto the landing anyway. While she caught her breath she wrung out her kemban. Reclothed, she shifted her center of gravity to the wall and ran up it to the garden.

  Her arms and legs aching, Chandi collapsed into the muddied grass. After a moment she rose and let the rain wash her clean. Then she continued through the garden to the stairs that led down to the fourth floor. Though some gawked at her for dripping water through the halls, and a few maids giggled at her stupidity for playing in the rain, no one stopped her progress.

  She had to wend her way through several palace halls to reach the suite she shared with Ratna. Pieces of a shattered glass pitcher littered the hall outside. When Chandi pushed open the door Ratna jerked and snatched a glass cup. Though she hefted it to throw, her arm fell when she recognized Chandi. Her cousin’s eyes were red.

  “What happened?”

  “She’s gone!” Ratna sobbed and ran to Chandi, almost collapsing in her arms. “He’s dead. They’re both gone.”

  Naresh? No, Ratna wouldn’t care so much. “Who is?”

  “Revati! He took Revati. He murdered my father!” Ratna pounded on Chandi. “Where is my daughter? Where?”

  Chandi murmured something not even she understood. “Who?” She almost choked on the word.

  “The Stranger.” Ratna was weeping into Chandi’s shoulder, her words hard to make out. “But it’s the damn Arun Guard. They let him. They were supposed to protect us. They let him. They took my daughter. They took everything.”

  Why would Kala do any of that? Why take Revati? Didn’t this hurt both sides? So they were all in it together, then. Everyone against her and Ratna. Malin, Semar, the Stranger, all working to destroy the cousins. And Rahu, her madman uncle, murdered.

  Ratna beat on Chandi’s back with balled fists, and Chandi held her cousin tighter. Where was Naresh? He was supposed to protect Revati. He said he’d protect them all. Kala couldn’t have taken that little girl. That poor, beautiful girl.

  “Chandi.” Revati’s voice echoed in her mind so loudly she looked around to see where the girl stood. But would she ever see Revati again?

  How had Naresh let this happen? Or had he made it happen? Perhaps he had punished her betrayal with his own. Not enough that he should scorn her and marry another. He had to destroy their family, as well. He’d do his duty no matter what. His duty against Lunars. They were all in on it. All traitors. They’d see what it meant to challenge the chosen of Chandra.

  Her arms fell away from Ratna. “I have to go.”

  “Punish them,” Ratna said as she fell to her knees. “Destroy them all, Chandi.”

  Oh, she would. She would make them all pay for challenging her!

  She rushed back through the palace, back to the lounge. When Chandi returned she found Landorundun staring through the crystal pane at the sea.

  “Where is Naresh?”

  The Guardswoman spun at her voice.

  “It’s been a long morning for everyone. He needed to think. We all do.”

  Chandi had no patience to sort through the strange emotions in the other woman’s voice. “Take me to him.”

  Landorundun rubbed her temples for a moment. “All right, Chandi. I have things I have to do, but maybe it would do him good to see you.”

  Do him good? Chandi followed her down the hall and around the corner. She stiffened when the Guardswoman patted her on the shoulder. Landorundun met her gaze, then left her standing there outside his door.

  Chandi pushed the door open. Naresh sat on a wide four-post bed, head in his hands. Other than the plush bed and drawings scattered on the dresser, he kept his chambers plain. His keris sat on the same dresser, pinning down a sketch of his mother and a man, perhaps his father.

  He looked up from a drawing in his hand as she strode over. “Chandi.”

  She looked down at his broken face. The sketch was of her. She slapped him.

  She had to take a step back as he rose, hand on his cheek. “That was uncalled for.”

  “You bastard.”

  His face grew dark. The Solars took parentage so seriously.

  “You were supposed to protect them. Protect us!”

  “Yes. I was. Protect the Solars. Protect the Lunars. Protect everyone, even from themselves. From the results of their own madness.”

  She drew her Potency Blessing and slapped him again. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and spun him around to land on the bed.

  He shook his head in a daze for a moment, then spat blood on the floor. “Oh, he was a madman, wasn’t he?”

  “And Revati!” Chandi leapt onto the bed and pulled him to his feet by his baju. “Was she mad?”

  Naresh looked away. “I didn’t know he would take her.”

  “Didn’t know? But you knew he would murder Rahu? Knew he would destroy our chance for peace? Destroy my family?” She pushed him off the bed and onto the floor.

  A grunt escaped him as he landed. He rose to his feet before answering. “Don’t trust Rahu. Isn’t that what you told me? You knew he was a lunatic and still followed him. So really, whose fault is it?”

  “How dare you! How dare you imply we are to blame for this?” She jumped off the bed and flipped over behind him. Her fist caught him in the jaw as he turned toward her, sending him crashing to his knees. “I loved you! You betrayed us!”

  She swung again as he rose, but he ducked her blow and caught her in the ribs with one of his own. He might not have her supernatural strength, but he was damn strong. “Stop it,” he said, his eyes glowing with the Sun Brand. “You act like a spoiled child.”

  Chandi panted, backing away to catch her breath. Ignoring the pain in her ribs, she drew her Blessings even harder. She pulled her toyaks from the back of her kemban and held them before her in a fighting stance. “Am I a child, now, Naresh? But I’ve finally learned the lessons you tried to teach me about duty.”

  She advanced on him. He stepped to the side as she leapt into the air. She shifted her gravity onto the nearest bedpost. Standing on the post, she lunged with one toyak. Naresh vanished, appearing the same instant across the room, near his keris.

  Chandi craned her arm around the bedpost and spun around it, then placed both feet on the post and ran up it. With a backflip she landed beside Naresh, even as he vanished again.

  Again and again he Strode as she attacked and forced her to dodge and evade, bending backwards and launching herself onto walls. Then she twisted, snapping her fist backward as
he vanished. It connected with his face as he reappeared behind her. She whirled to face him again as he staggered back to the wall.

  He wiped blood from his lip. “So be it, Chandi.”

  “How long does that Sun Brand last?” She swung again, and struck the wall.

  She couldn’t turn fast enough to keep his blade from tearing a shallow gash in her back. Another betrayal from a man she so wanted to trust.

  “Long enough.”

  She launched a flurry of attacks, but he was as fast as she was, maybe faster. He Sun Strode from side to side and behind.

  He appeared behind her and got a hand on her shoulder. And then her world spun as she appeared near the ceiling of the room. They were falling, but she kicked at him, shifting her gravity toward him the moment she connected. She landed in a roll and dodged his incoming attack as he appeared beside her.

  He leapt over her counterstrike and pinned her toyak against the floor with his sword. With one hand on the floor she kicked low, sweeping Naresh’s feet from under him. Using the momentum, she bounded to her feet. Naresh was falling when he vanished, appearing near the ceiling. After a mid-air twist he fell fist-first toward her.

  With a handspring Chandi leapt out of his range. She jumped to another bedpost. Her toyak caught him in the shoulder as he tried to appear behind her again. The sword slipped from his grasp and skittered along the floor.

  Chandi feinted toward him then flipped in midair toward the sword. As expected, he appeared on top of it and her stick struck him between the shoulder blades. Her kick caught him in the ribs as he dropped, hurtling him against the wall. Naresh landed hard.

  Nothing could stop her. Not even the Arun Guard.

  Naresh lay motionless, helpless. She advanced, toyak raised. Then she stopped.

  Was this what it felt like to become a lunatic? Had she used too much of the Blessings? Is this how Rahu had felt, looking down at her father?

  Violent shudders ran through her body. She released her Blessings. Her soul cried out in agony, demanding she redraw them all. Her stomach felt full of acid and her heart beat out of control.

  With a whimper she fell to her knees beside him. What had she done? Worse than Rahu. Had she killed the man she loved? His chest rose and fell. Slowly. She had to do the best thing she could for him. She ran.

  PART FIVE

  1194 AP, The Rainy Season

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  The pillars came into view as Malin crested the top of the path leading up to the Astral Temple. Below the path were the sprawling beaches known as Astral Shore. Three years would have washed away the blood, but Malin did not look at them.

  Instead, he continued up the path to the Temple. Not long ago he had helped tear down the wooden gate the Solars had built into the white granite wall. Now a pair of Macan Gadungan worked to repair it. Ketu wouldn’t trust ordinary slaves near the Astral Temple, not even for menial work.

  The Stranger—Kala, he called himself—followed some distance behind him, Revati in his arms. Malin had asked why he took the girl.

  “Cataclysm approaches these Isles, and Kakudmi would have his daughter far from it,” Kala answered. The child didn’t seem afraid of Kala. The two had spent most of the trip below decks in the hold.

  Ratna would be livid over the loss of her daughter, and Malin doubted Chandi would take it well either. But he had picked his allies, and it was too late to seek new ones now.

  “Wait here,” Malin said to Kala, as he approached the weretigers. Many of the Macan Gadungan remained camped on the mountainside outside the crenelated Temple wall. Making camp on the beach would have been easier, but Malin could not bear to rest on Astral Shore. None of the Macan Gadungan who had seen that battle would want to return there.

  Many of the weretigers waved at him, some even rushed over to greet him. He embraced one he had seen grow from a babe into a young man. Malin could smell tension on the boy, so he met the boy’s eyes and squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. “We will be ready.” Most of them were nervous, of course, though the older ones hid it better. He gave the Macan Gadungan the same instructions as the crew—never to reveal that the Stranger or Revati had come here.

  Malin left the camp and headed toward the Temple, waving Kala on behind him. The guards at the gates bowed as he approached. Even after all they had done to reclaim the Temple, Ketu still demanded the Macan Gadungan remain outside. Only his precious Moon Scions dwelt within the temple, but they would not try to stop Malin himself from entering. They would not dare.

  The Moon Scions inside watched him with wary eyes, however. And well they should. Malin bared his teeth at one who drew too near, in what he would have claimed, had he been asked, was a smile. The man scurried away and Malin headed on toward the eleven pillars at the heart of the temple.

  Malin took little interest in ancient history or theology, but he had been curious to learn that the script covering the pillars was not a single language, but rather that each represented the words of a different deity. Moon Scions gathered around one in particular, on the north side, jotting notes and conversing. Chandra’s pillar, then.

  Kala had told him to travel beneath the surface of the temple. “It’s where Rahu came from. And where I followed from. You see this place as a relic of the gods, but it is also a gateway. I will take Revati through, and you will not see either of us again soon.”

  Ketu would be down there, too, of course.

  Amidst the pillars the makers of this place had carved two hemispherical bowls into the ground, each lined with an unknown metal and carved with astral coordinates. Malin slipped into one and slid down to its center, nearly ten feet below. Kala already crouched at the bottom of the bowl, Revati in his arms. Malin hadn’t been sure if his distraction with the priests would give Kala enough time, but it appeared to have worked, and someone would have to stand on the edge of the bowl to see the foreigner now.

  The bowls were constructed of many sheets of metal aligned to appear almost seamless, but Ketu had discovered a secret years ago. Malin turned in place, searching for the correct sheet, then knelt and pressed down hard until the sheet gave way, pushing it down a handbreadth. He twisted the sheet under the adjacent one to the right, creating an opening in the bowl and revealing a hidden ladder carved into the rock wall.

  As far as he knew, Malin was the only non-Moon Scion to know of this place. Kala claimed he wasn’t a Moon Scion, that his abilities came from another land, another source. Perhaps that explained Rahu as well.

  From the top of the ladder Malin gazed into a fathomless pit. Even his eyes, well suited to dim light, could not see the bottom. With a sigh he mounted the ladder and began the long climb down. “Keep going down after I dismount,” he whispered to Kala. Odd to think he’d never see the man again. No—best the foreigner be gone. And Rangda take him if anything happened to Revati.

  As he climbed lower Malin could see torchlight on the level below. He stepped off the ladder and found Ketu studying the underground pillars. They were the same pillars that rose above ground, but here the scripts changed. They extended even to the lowest level, and there the scripts changed again. Thirty-three different languages, and despite the claims of the priests, no one knew where they came from.

  Ketu sat, legs folded, studying what would have been Chandra’s pillar above, making notes in a book. At a glance, it didn’t look like he had made much progress. He paid little attention as Malin neared.

  “Ketu, I bring news from Kasusthali.”

  Ketu did not look away from the pillar. “I told you to remain there and watch Rahu.”

  Malin knelt beside Ketu. “Rahu is dead. Murdered by the Stranger.”

  Ketu set the book down, then turned to look at Malin. “You are certain?” When Malin nodded, Ketu rose and ran his hands over the pillar, as though he might translate it by touch. “So they have betrayed us as we knew they would.”

  “Rahu was a lunatic. The Stranger did us a favor.”

  Ketu shot him a gla
nce over his shoulder, then beckoned Malin to follow him toward the ladder. Malin saw no sign of Kala. Chandra help them both if Ketu spotted the man. The priest stopped and handed Malin a torch, then began to climb down to the lowest level, his pace awkward with one hand. Even Malin found climbing with a torch in one hand difficult.

  “My brother …” Ketu paused, as if uncertain whether to continue the ruse. But his claim to the War King’s throne would be stronger if everyone believed he were Rahu’s brother. “Rahu was a lunatic, yes. But the Solars are still responsible for his death. Their favor must be repaid in kind. And we will have work ahead. I must prove to the Lunars my worthiness.” Ketu stepped off the ladder onto another stone level.

  Malin had never seen the lowest level, though he had heard of it. As expected, the pillars continued here as well. The rest was less expected. Metal doors led into side chambers, strange circular knobs and levers lined the walls, and blue crystals stood out in the center of the room. Never had anyone but Rahu and Ketu and their most trusted Moon Scions been allowed down here. If Kala told him the truth, he and Rahu had come from one of those rooms. Rangda alone knew how an empty room could send one anywhere.

  “Do you know where we are, Malin?”

  Malin shook his head, and turned about, taking in the strange room.

  “The gods built this place,” Ketu said. “Above, we can study the heavens. Below, we can control them. They entrusted us with the Pact, a pact of guardianship. But the Solars broke the Pact, and now this place is ours.”

  Malin paced the room. Light came from under one of the doors. Light and a faint scent, the same milky scent he had smelled on Chandi. The Amrita, precious secret of the Moon Scions. The lie that had separated them from other Lunars for centuries. It took all he had to force himself to keep walking. If he gave away what he knew, if Ketu saw it, he would not leave here alive, and his knowledge would never benefit his people.