Heram said nothing, only glared up at her.
“Won’t you play?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
Reyna sighed. “I imagined this would be more entertaining.”
Heram turned his head to the side and spat. It was a symbolic gesture. Nothing came out.
“You could run,” Reyna suggested.
Heram tapped his chest. “Get it over with. I’m sick of listening to you.”
Reyna scowled and flicked her finger toward him.
Heram exploded in a spray of dried flesh. Shrieks came from the other Children and they broke and sprinted for cover.
“Stop!” Reyna shouted, flinging out her will.
They froze in place, trapped by her power.
Reyna surveyed them. “I could destroy you all right now.”
Whimpers and renewed struggling greeted her words.
Reyna frowned. This was not at all what she had imagined. For three thousand years she had conspired with and against these very same people. She had exerted all her will and cunning playing the only game that gave life in the prison any meaning at all. It was what had kept her sharp. Not just that. It was the one thing that kept her going when the despair tried to drag her down into madness and surrender.
“Is that all you have?” she implored them. “Don’t you have anything else?”
None of them would even look at her. They kept struggling, but it was utterly futile. She was too strong.
“Fight me!” she screamed.
Nothing.
Reyna looked around wildly. On the ground to one side was one of Heram’s forearms, the hand still attached. She bent and seized it, then looked around for more. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t die. If she could find enough pieces, maybe she could put him back together. She saw a foot over near the wall and she hurried and grabbed it up.
Forgetting about the rest of the Children, she released them. They stampeded, trying to get as far away from her as they could.
Reyna saw what looked like a shoulder and snatched it up, looking desperately around for more.
But the rest of the pieces were too small. When she tried to pick them up they fell from her fingers back into the dirt.
She went to her knees and screamed her despair at the sky.
Fifty-six
Cara was helping an elderly woman when a new tremor, harder than the rest, shook ki’Loren. The elderly woman stumbled and Cara barely caught her before she fell.
“What was that?” the woman asked.
Cara thought of the hunched man clinging to the side of ki’Loren. What could she tell the woman? “It’s probably nothing,” Cara replied. But then people around her started looking up and pointing and when she did what she saw made her grow cold inside.
Ki’Loren didn’t have a sky in the normal sense. Instead, the area where the sky would be had a diffuse, uniform, yellow glow. Now though, there was a gray blotch on one section, and it was visibly growing larger. Ki’Loren had an abundance of wildlife, including creatures that were similar to birds, though they seemed to float through the air—propelling themselves by flapping unusual flexible wings—rather than fly. While Cara was looking, a bright orange bird flapped across the front of the gray blotch.
The bird immediately plummeted to the ground. It stumbled around on the ground, clearly dazed, its movements stiff and uncoordinated. Most disturbing was the fact that all the color had leached from it.
“Oh dear, that can’t be good,” the elderly woman said. “Look, it’s coming down the hillside now.”
Like oil sliding across the surface of the water, the gray blotch was spreading onto the land. As plants were engulfed in it, they changed. Their leaves and flowers shriveled and fell off. They lost all color and turned gray.
A four-legged, furry creature, kind of like a large rabbit, emerged from a clump of bushes that had been touched by the blotch. Large clumps of its fur had fallen out and its movements were erratic and unsteady. It spooked and bolted down the hill. People cried out and hurried to move out of its path.
As it approached Cara and the elderly woman, they could see that its eyes had turned white. It ran headlong into a tree, fell over, then struggled back up and continued running.
“We haven’t gotten away after all, have we?” the elderly woman said.
Cara squeezed her arm. Inside she said, Come on, Netra. You’re our last hope. “The gray area is getting closer. Let’s keep moving, shall we?”
“Maybe a little further,” the elderly lady agreed. “But I am mostly done. This doesn’t seem to be something you can run away from.”
Ya’Shi and the Ancient One were outside ki’Loren, sitting on its highest peak, looking down at Josef. Josef had sunk halfway into ki’Loren’s side. Periodically, it was as if a wave came off him, radiating outward. With each wave, a shudder passed over ki’Loren and the gray area around him grew larger.
“If he cannot have the world he remembers, he will remake it in a new image,” the Ancient One observed.
Ya’Shi snorted. “Now, when we’re both about to die, you want to waste our last moments stating the obvious?”
“It is what I’m good at,” the Ancient One agreed.
“Well, I want in.” Ya’Shi sprang to his feet. “We’re all about to die!” he yelled. “Help, help!” He stopped and looked around. Josef didn’t respond. There were sea gulls in the distance. They didn’t respond either. He sat back down. “That actually felt pretty good.”
“It’s too bad, really,” the Ancient One said. “Many people will miss this world.”
“Not once they’re dead,” Ya’Shi corrected. The Ancient One nodded. “So you don’t think that Netra will figure it out in time?” he asked her.
“Who’s Netra?” the Ancient One asked.
“The young Tender with the giant bodyguard.”
The Ancient One looked at him quizzically.
“The one that visited here awhile back. Haven’t you been paying attention?” Ya’Shi’s voice had risen.
The Ancient One shrugged. “I am very busy.”
“Doing what? All you do is sit here!”
“Jealousy is an ugly trait, old friend.”
“You’re right.” Ya’Shi sat down abruptly. “Getting excited is very tiring.”
“See? You’re learning.”
“She may still figure it out,” Ya’Shi said. “Nothing we can do now but wait.”
“And sit,” the Ancient One added. Ya’Shi nodded and they both sat there looking at the sky.
Fifty-seven
“I can walk on my own,” Melekath said when they were outside the building. “Put me down.”
Shorn paused and looked at Netra, who nodded.
Back on his feet, Melekath looked shaky, but he stayed upright. He turned to look back inside. “I never thought he was so far gone.” He looked at the two of them. “If you are waiting for my gratitude, you will be disappointed. It was only what I deserve.”
“We’re not here for gratitude,” Netra said. She was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. The edges of her vision were starting to go black.
“Why are you here then?” Melekath asked. He peered more closely at her. “I remember you. You broke Sententu and opened the prison.” Netra winced at his words. “I suppose I do owe you some gratitude after all.”
“This isn’t the place to talk,” she said. “I have to get out of here. This place is killing me.”
“I would remain here with my Children.”
“Too bad,” Shorn said, taking hold of his arm.
Netra was already starting down the broken street. Shorn propelled Melekath after her. Melekath offered no resistance.
Netra was running by the time she reached the edge of the city. She burst through the shattered opening in the prison wall, made it a half dozen steps into the cavern beyond, then sank to her knees, gasping, her heart hammering. It still wasn’t pleasant, but she no longer felt like she was drowning. She could feel th
e wall of the prison at her back, a cold deadness that made her skin itch, and she crawled further away from it.
She stood up when Shorn and Melekath emerged. It struck her then, how small and frail Melekath looked. She had been raised to believe unquestioningly that he was the embodiment of evil, but he didn’t look evil. Mostly he looked sad and old. He was bent over, his face lined with deep wrinkles. His clothes were little more than rags. There was a huge wound from his shoulder down into his chest that had only partially sealed closed. In his torso were half a dozen puncture wounds from which something clear seeped.
She was surprised to discover that she felt sorry for him.
Shorn let go of Melekath’s arm and the old Shaper straightened himself and faced Netra. “I figured it out. I know why you’re here. You have come to ask me to undo the Gift.”
Netra nodded. “You don’t know what they’ve become. There’s nothing we can do to stop them. They just keep getting stronger and stronger.”
Melekath shook his head.
“Why not?” Netra snapped, suddenly angry. She gestured toward the prison. Lurking in the shadows of the doorway was a woman, her hair and teeth gone, her face a ruined mess. Both her legs were missing. She whined and held up a hand to Melekath. “Look at her! How can you not see that your Gift is a curse! You claim to love them; why won’t you free them?”
“You misunderstand me,” Melekath replied, giving the woman a pained look. “I would undo the Gift if I could. Don’t you think they begged me for death, over and over during the centuries we were lost in there? Don’t you think I tried to give it to them? If I could undo the Gift, even if it cost me my own existence, I would do so. But I can’t. It’s hopeless.”
“It’s not hopeless,” Netra said stubbornly. “It can’t be. There has to be a way.”
“There isn’t. There’s nothing you or anyone can do. Leave here. Go to your loved ones, if they still live. Spend what time you can with them. That’s all you can do.”
Netra sagged, the faint hope she’d felt on the way here evaporating. Everything she’d been through, all the running, all the suffering. All of it for nothing.
“No,” Shorn said abruptly. “You will not quit now. So long as you draw breath you will not quit.”
“You heard him,” she said bleakly, not meeting his gaze, not wanting him to see her failure. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“I heard the words of one who has already given up, who is already dead. I will not hear those words from you.” He sounded angry.
“Then what do you want me to do?” Her voice rose. She wanted to scream. “Because I can’t see anything at all.”
“The yellow-skinned fool, Ya’Shi. He said you were the key, the doorway for them to return.”
“I thought you said his words were nonsense,” she retorted.
Shorn came closer and put his hand on her shoulder. With his other hand he lifted her chin so she would look into his eyes. “They are. Most of them. But I believe in this he was saying something important.”
“Then why didn’t he just tell me what to do? Why cloak it in a riddle? ‘Be the doorway for them to return.’ What does that mean?”
“I don’t know why he did it,” Shorn responded. “But I think he does not much care for the world either way.”
“The doorway for them to return?” Melekath said, looking thoughtfully at Netra. “Did he know you were the one who opened the prison?” Netra nodded. “You tapped the power of a trunk line to do that. Not since the earliest days has any human done so and lived.” He rubbed his chin, thinking. “Is it possible?” he murmured.
“Is what possible?”
He looked back up at them. “With every living thing, even if it avoids all injury and disease, eventually the akirma grows brittle with advancing age. Sooner or later the akirma fails, Selfsong flees the body and that which was alive is no longer so. When I sought to create the Gift it was my thought that if I could find a way to make the akirma stronger, impervious even, I could end death.
“It took many years, but eventually I learned how to do this. I discovered that I could dissolve part of myself—not this body you see standing here, but my fundamental self—and then share that. I could make others more like me. It made me weaker to do so, but I counted that as no real cost.”
“Is there a point to this?” Shorn rumbled.
“I’m getting to it,” Melekath replied. “My Children don’t die because each carries within them some small part of my essence, woven into their akirmas. The problem has always been how to remove that part, to return them to what they once were. That was the part I could never figure out. But I think I know now how to do so.”
“How?” Netra asked.
“They must be washed clean.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“The Gift must be washed from them. But there is only one thing I think would be able to do this: the River.”
“The River?” Shorn asked. “The place where Song comes from?”
“Yes,” Melekath said.
“And the Children must be put there?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“It is not possible. They are too strong now,” Shorn said.
“You must understand that the River is not an actual thing set in an actual place,” Melekath said. “It exists everywhere and nowhere.”
“This makes no sense.”
“It’s okay, Shorn. You don’t need to understand it,” Netra said. To Melekath she said, “I still don’t see how we can possibly get each one of them to the River.”
“You also misunderstand me. I am not saying you bring them to the River.” Melekath looked from one to the other. “I am saying you bring the River to them.”
Netra stared at him openmouthed. “That’s even more impossible,” she said at last. “No one can control the River like that. No one can even touch it. Anyone who tried would be torn apart instantly.”
“You’re right. No one can control the River.” Melekath gave an odd little half smile as he said it. “And anyone who tries to touch it will be torn apart.”
“You begin to sound like Ya’Shi,” Shorn growled.
Netra was starting to have a terrible feeling. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that someone will have to throw herself into the River.”
“You mean me.” He nodded. “Why don’t you do it? You’re basically a god.”
“You know I cannot do that. I am not a living creature. It would tear me apart instantly.”
“But you think I can.”
“Ya’Shi thinks you can.”
“What do you think?”
“I think that as a living thing, you are part of the River and it is part of you.”
“There’s no way I have the strength to do that. I took hold of a trunk line but the only reason I could do that is I…” Her voice caught. “I killed all those people. I would have to kill thousands more to do what you say and I will never do that. Not even to save the world. I will not make that mistake again.”
“You are still thinking of control. Even if you held the Selfsongs of every person in the world within you, you would not have the power to take hold of the River.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Surrender. Enter the River knowing there is nothing you can do. Enter knowing that if you try to fight it you will be destroyed. Enter knowing that you belong there, that you are of it and it is of you.”
“That sounds crazy.”
Then Melekath did smile. It was painful to see. “It is crazy,” he whispered.
“And then what? Say I enter and am not instantly killed. Then what do I do?”
Melekath shrugged. “Be the doorway.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But somehow you will have to immerse my Children within the River’s currents.”
“And that will wash them clean.”
He shrugged again. “Maybe.”
“I have never fought my enemies in such a way,” he replied.
“You think it’s crazy too.”
“I did not say that. The way I have always fought will not work here. Anyone can see that. A new way always seems crazy the first time.”
“But I can’t…” Netra said, thinking of the immense power of the trunk line, how close it had come to shredding her. And the power of the River was far vaster than that. As well compare a drop of water to the ocean’s vastness. “I don’t see how I can possibly do it,” she said softly.
“Then my Children will destroy everything,” Melekath said sadly. “And still they will live on. They will never be free of the prison I made for them.”
Netra turned away. Her eyes fell on the broken woman lying inside the doorway. She thought of the Children, perhaps even then loose on the palace grounds, devouring everyone. “I have to try.”
“No,” Melekath said. “You cannot try. You have to surrender. It is your only chance.”
Netra thought about how long she had been running and fighting. How everything she had tried had only made things worse. There was only one exception, she realized. When the blinded man held her captive, about to burn her alive, her spirit guide had appeared to her and looked at her with its glowing eyes. It had assured her she knew what to do.
If she would simply let go and do it.
It had been simple to burn her bonds away then. Effortless. The one time she let go was the one time her bonds disappeared.
“Okay,” she said, turning back to them. “I surrender.”
Fifty-eight
Reyna stood and threw down the tattered pieces of Heram’s body. She knew with utter certainty that no one and nothing on this world could challenge her. She could crush all who stood in her way. She was a god.
And it was all utterly pointless.
With no one to scheme against, no one to test herself against, there was nothing left for her.
She looked to the south. Somewhere down there was the Gur al Krin and underneath that the prison. Melekath would be there. There was nowhere else he could have gone. His guilt would demand nothing else.
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