Killers, Traitors, & Runaways: Outcasts of the Worlds, Book II

by Lucas Paynter

  Arronel, who had recovered from being flung across the room, clasped Crescen’s shoulder. “I’ll do it. Death is more my domain than yours.”

  Crescen nodded in gratitude and passed the blade to Arronel, who held it firmly in his cloven hands. He rudely pulled aside one of the Reahv’li and brought the dagger down.

  “Jean.” Flynn’s voice sounded faint. “Jean.”

  Another stab, and she looked at him.

  “I got Yetinau to tell me about this tunnel so we could escape unnoticed,” he reminded her. “If we wait too long, someone will find us.”

  She nodded, shaken by the brutality of what she’d just seen. She already knew there was no point in waiting—by the third strike, Yetinau was clearly dead.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Altars of Worship

  A snow-drifted canyon lay on the other side of Chot Vot, and it was a day’s journey before they found passage out, then another week to reach the northern coast. The news of Yetinau’s death had disturbed the entire party, but none more than Poe, who walked in silence, ruminating on the implications. Even as Thoris began to loom on the horizon, as vast as Shea’s tales had promised, he found himself more burdened by the weight of his blades and the question of whether, when the time came, they would do him any good.

  “Yetinau wasn’t a fighter,” Flynn assured him. “As for you … well, it’s part of why you were tapped.”

  “Even had Rousow better options, she’d have still chosen me,” Poe echoed. It was in no way comforting. “Is this the fate that awaits me? To ascend and face execution for it?”

  “They need you alive,” Chari reminded him. “Stabilizing Renivar’s trinity comes first, or there will be no reality left to house those he seeks to save.”

  Poe wanted to take comfort in that, but he knew the truth all too well. “I will stand only as a placeholder. When one among his people rises with the same potential as I, his Mystik-killers will seek to pry the godhood from my corpse.”

  “They’ll not have you as easily,” Flynn assured him.

  “You mentioned a girl before—that Yetinau performed his greatest errors after she approached him.”

  “Ezara Xevus.” Flynn dwelled on her for a moment before continuing. “It seemed like she wasn’t doing anything. And yet…”

  “I swear—that fucker who nailed Yeti in the leg?” Jean added. “Shot shouldn’t have landed. Like it was gonna miss. Barely, but just the same.”

  “What otherworldly power does she possess?” Poe asked. He reached back and drew the Dark Sword. “And if the dagger that ended Yetinau is of the same forge as my blade, have I any better chance at stopping her?”

  No one had an answer.

  The trees gave way to fields and those in turn to the lonely shores. Save for the waves, the only sound was that of distant cannon fire; within the first day of Yetinau’s demise, conflict had invaded his sacred lands.

  The great wall encompassing Thoris climbed so high that the clouds themselves scraped against it. It was not so perfectly sheer that it couldn’t be climbed, but the turbulent waves and protruding rocks that protected it made trying impossible.

  “So I’m thinkin’,” Jean suggested. “What we need is a rocket launcher. Bust a hole right in the fuckin’ thing.”

  “Keltia doesn’t have that kind of technology,” Flynn said with resignation.

  “Then what do you propose?” Poe asked. “Our intent was to approach by vessel, but it’s apparent now such a plan would be as foolhardy as swimming to Thoris.”

  “We’ll walk,” Zaja said. “Once we get close enough, I’ll place my hands in the water. I can freeze it.”

  “Even at the closest point, that’s still at least a mile from shore,” Zella said with some concern. “Can your body handle it?”

  Poe knew he should speak up, for Zaja’s gifts strained her even in short bursts. But they had come so close, and despite his fears and reservations about what future his ascension might now lead to, he still craved the power—and the freedom—that deification promised. So, even knowing what permanent damage Zaja might endure to get him there, Poe said nothing.

  This didn’t stop his companions from objecting, of course, but Zaja finally put her hands up to soothe their misgivings. “Listen: I’ve thought about this. It’s something only I can do, and unless anyone has a better idea about how to get there, let me have it, okay?”

  Before anyone could object, Poe offered a point of reason. “The Reahv’li are likely trailing us. The traitors among Yetinau’s congregation would have divulged our presence there. After all,” he concluded as he glanced at Zella, “we possess something they desire.”

  “Thing?” she snapped, insulted.

  “Poe’s right,” Flynn interrupted. “We didn’t come this far to get cornered now.”

  Shea took to the fore and pointed at a distant protrusion in the land. “Atvuon Peninsula’s just there. Closest point to Thoris.”

  It would take the remaining day to cross to the tip of the peninsula, and likely hours more for Zaja to bridge the way to the great wall. Their method of breaching it was not under discussion.

  As they crossed the peninsula, Chari made a casual observation. “It makes one wonder if the way beyond was not always flooded—if there was a way to Thoris once, one forgotten or lost.”

  This caused Poe to pause, curious. He drew a blade and, on a lark, thrust it into the ground; to his surprise, it struck something solid, buried in the golden sands. His arm stung from the pain of striking the obstruction, but he nonetheless knelt and began scooping away handfuls of sand. A yellowed stone came into view.

  “There was a road here, once,” Flynn concluded.

  “The people of Keltia were in communion with their gods,” Poe concurred.

  “Bugger that,” Shea countered. “Road here means road inside. Way through the wall.”

  Poe stepped back to survey the small pit he’d dug. The journey toward Thoris thus far had been a gamble, a speculation based on old lore that something might lay hidden. This was the first assurance that all they’d suffered might come to something, though whether or not it would provide the desired nexus of conduits to other worlds remained to be seen.

  For the first time, Poe’s burdens felt a little lighter.

  *

  Black clouds had rolled overhead by the next morning, and Zaja had no faith the weather would improve. She knew the cold climate and sunless skies would be better for the ice; it was no secret that they also made things worse for her.

  As she approached the peninsula’s tip, Zaja pulled her gloves off and felt the warmth they provided flee her hands. She knelt in the shoals and felt the icy wind and water caress her fingers. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled and felt the cold expand beneath her palms. Seawater sloshed onto the uneven, icy platform that was steadily hardening beneath her.

  She shuddered from this first attempt, and Poe draped his cloak over her for warmth. “I believe you can shoulder this task,” he told her.

  Chari walked up and pressed her foot on the platform. It held firm. “Remember as we spoke,” she said. “The ice must run deep, else the tides will shatter the bridge and dash us all upon the stones.”

  “I’ll do the best I can,” she replied with a nod. “But everyone needs to keep spaced out. I don’t know how much weight the bridge will hold. I … I’ve never done something like this before.”

  Chari took Zaja’s hands and healed her, visibly wincing from the chill that passed between them. Her ability to mitigate the damage held little comfort considering the distance that stood between them and Thoris. The inaugural platform was no more than a few meters long, and only inches deep.

  At first, Zaja tried to build a wall of sheer ice to connect them to the fabled continent, but this swiftly proved untenable. Generating so much ice caused a sensation akin to daggers shredding her arms, and it was harder still to push so deep in the ocean. For how taxing the work was, Zaja had to stop every few minutes to find healing and share in anothe
r’s warmth. During one of these rests, she remembered the rail bridges on Breth, and found new inspiration in them.

  From there, Zaja began to form the bridge in arches, rising and falling beneath her, creating pillared foundations in the ocean floor rather than one perpetual barrier. She asked the others to keep distant upon adopting this tactic, unsure how much weight the unfinished bridge could stand. Keeping the others away also allowed Zaja to hide the agony she was silently suffering; she didn’t want them to see her pain or worry about her.

  “You’re getting worse,” Chari observed during their next healing session. No matter how much Chari healed her, Zaja knew the damage she was inflicting on herself could not be entirely undone. The work was only a quarter of the way finished, and already her hands were riddled with tiny dark spots.

  “Don’t tell the others,” she requested.

  Chari clearly wanted to object, and looked guilty for not doing so. But she nodded in silent assent, and Zaja began her task anew.

  By the time they were halfway across, it was high noon, though the clouds in the sky did nothing to illustrate this. The base platform she’d started with was breaking away, but they were far enough along now that this was no concern. It just meant no going back.

  As they got farther along, Zaja needed to take more and more frequent rests. Her hands still shook even after Chari soothed her pain, and her determination couldn’t stave off the toll taken on her body. By the time Thoris was but a stone’s throw away, Zaja was trembling in the arms of Jean, who had rotated in to warm her.

  “You gonna hold up, Zaj?” she asked, worried.

  “I’ll do it,” Zaja promised as she shook. “I’ll do it.”

  She felt sick inside. She was terrified at the prospect of looking beneath her clothes and learning how much of her body had eroded in service to this task. She shook as she knelt, as she fought to force that last bridge through. She was half drenched in salt water, but pushed past the chill to concentrate on finishing the task.

  Back in Quema, there was a time when she’d welcomed every injection her parents had given her. She was still a child, and truly believed she would be the first to beat Nyrikon’s Syndrome. Her talent for freezing was something that had developed along the way, and stood diametrically opposed to everything she needed to survive. Even as it harmed Zaja, it had also helped her, only growing stronger since she’d left Oma.

  With the final connection to Thoris completed, Zaja scrambled up and huddled in a small alcove, shaking as she fought to pull her gloves back over her swollen hands. They were wrecked—almost entirely discolored, stiff and numb. Chari hurried to her side as Zaja slipped into a semiconscious state. She was only vaguely aware of being stripped out of her wet clothes, then wrapped up tightly for warmth.

  As her awareness returned, she could see Jean examining the alcove walls, shaking a bit more loose to expand the space around them.

  “Don’t see how we’re to get in,” Shea commented. “It’s Thoris. Better prepared have tried.”

  Jean jabbed her thumb at her own chest triumphantly. “One thing those fuck-heads didn’t have with ’em was me.”

  Zaja huddled wearily against the wall as her friends crowded Jean, praising or encouraging her. As the wall began to breach, Zaja heard Flynn thank Jean, saying, “We couldn’t have gotten this far without you.” And it was true.

  While Jean steadily opened the way, the stiffness in Zaja’s fingers receded, though little actual feeling returned. Out toward the Atvuon Peninsula, more than half the bridge was gone—melted or sundered by the waves. Night was falling, and she could see torches in the distance; she wondered if Yetinau’s killers were on their trail.

  “Fuckin’ bingo,” Jean boasted as part of the alcove wall crumbled. They began tossing pieces of it into the sea, and soon a dark tunnel was steadily revealed.

  Chari produced a flashlight and shined it inside.

  “It runs deep,” she observed. “Whether it runs through, we can only search and see.”

  While Jean put the finishing touches on the opening, Zaja tried to rise. She was exhausted—from the labor, from the cold—and her legs wobbled until she began to fall. Someone caught her, and it was Flynn she found keeping her steady. She turned away, ashamed to have been helped, but there was no condemnation in his eyes.

  “You’re important too,” he assured her. “Please don’t forget that.”

  Zaja’s pride softened and she accepted his help, climbing onto his back to be carried through the mountain passage. She soon drifted to sleep on his shoulder. She had done her part, and earned her rest.

  *

  Emerging from the other side of the great wall was like being reborn. Gone were the stormy skies and turbulent seas, along with the ceaseless wars of Shea’s homeland. What greeted her was not the gilded paradise of children’s stories, but a vast land overtaken by growth and devoid of human life. Yet there had been people here once; the very road they stood on was proof enough of that. It loomed several stories above the distant ground and ran for miles before meeting with another.

  “‘Garden of the gods’ indeed,” Chari muttered, scoffing at the overgrowth.

  “This it?” Shea asked. “No small thing, just … figured on more.”

  “If this truly is a garden of the gods,” Zella asked, “what became of the gardeners?”

  Shea looked over the railing to her left. The vast tracts below were so tangled in growth that the earth was all but drowned. From what little she could make out, there were remnant patterns in the soil. “Might have been farmland, once,” she observed.

  “Look at the carvings in the stone,” Flynn said as he let Zaja down from his back. The road was composed of a pattern of rectangular blocks two meters in length and half that across. “Each one is uniquely engraved. This isn’t the work of a meager cult—a whole culture lived here once.”

  “Safe to say they’ve been gone a long time,” Jean said as she knelt down to study a block. “Question is, what the hell…?” The moment she set her palm to the stone, she unexpectedly jerked it back. “Someone wanna give me a hand with this?”

  “Why not just smash it?” Zaja teased.

  Pale-faced, Jean shook her head. “Wouldn’t seem right.”

  As they fought to pry it loose, Shea realized it was not a thick block but a slab only inches thick. When it came free, a cloud of foul dust wafted out and drove those near it apart. The slab fell to the road and shattered in several places on impact. Shea shielded her face as she neared the opening, eager for a first look, and promptly saw what Jean had detected.

  It was the desiccated corpse of one of her own people, clad in ashen robes. Alone, it was only an oddity, but as Shea stepped back, she began to recognize that the carvings on the shattered lid were unique to it, and that the lengthy road before them was paved with the dead.

  “Answers that query,” she whispered.

  Poe looked to Flynn. “We’ve breached the wall. Do you sense anything?”

  Flynn seemed reluctant to reply but at last shook his head and answered, “No, I don’t. No gods, no pathway to another world … nothing.”

  Poe turned in place several times, and Shea watched as defeat clouded his face. As Poe’s gaze found Zaja leaning on the nearby rail, he seemed like a helpless child. She held up one shaking, damaged hand and told him, “I can’t get us back. Not now, maybe not…”

  Ever.

  “Might be something,” Shea suggested weakly. “Just got here, barely scratched the surface. Worth a look, ’least?”

  “A ‘look’ will still demand weeks of our time,” Poe replied tensely. “Perhaps more.”

  “Still, that there are no gods in this place tells us a great deal,” Zella said. “This land would not have been abandoned naturally—if there are no worshippers here, it may be there are none left to worship.”

  “You suggest they were struck down as Yetinau was?” Chari asked.

  “Or while challenging my father,” she confirmed. �
�There is a danger to those who become too enraptured in worship. As their gods flourish, so do they. So as their gods decay…”

  “We’ve seen proof of it,” Flynn agreed.

  “When the fuck was that?” Jean asked.

  “Back on Sechal,” he explained. Shea had heard stories of how they had set out from Earth, and of the first world they came to. The journey had culminated at the base of a mountain temple where a great war had once been fought. “The old worshippers of Airia’s trinity lived on Sechal, and when Taryl Renivar’s desires fell out of alignment with his counterparts, Sechal turned on itself.”

  It took Shea a moment to consider the weight of it, and to wonder at the consequences. She looked to Zella. “Said this Renivar has worshippers too, right?”

  “He does,” she confirmed. “I don’t know how many, but I believe there are millions spread across the worlds. Hundreds of thousands in Yeribelt alone.”

  Shea looked to Poe, hoping he followed her meaning. “What happens if you…?”

  “When I kill the Living God?” Poe asked, and shook his head with uncertainty.

  “What exactly would happen?” Zaja reluctantly asked.

  “If my father falls, his followers may meet the same end as those on Sechal,” Zella replied, glancing briefly at Flynn. “It may reflect the circumstances of his downfall, or…” She paused to look at the long and lonely road ahead. “It could be quiet.”

  With that, she began walking, and one by one, the others followed, until it was just Shea and Flynn.

  “Hardly seems like Keltia,” she commented. “Feels a world apart. Find a way off, won’t we?”

  Flynn was slow to reply. “It’s all silence. I can’t sense anything where we’re going, or where we came from. I…” He faltered. “I feel cut off.”

  She’d hoped he would reassure her; a lifetime trapped in this forgotten land was not the future she wanted. Then, seeing Flynn’s face, she took his arm to escort him down the path. “We’ll find a way,” she promised.

  *

  It had been decades since Zella had seen a sanctum such as this, and she felt sorrow for it. The domain of Thoris was truly carved for gods—far removed from the hovel that Yetinau Gruent cowered in, or even the shanty streets of Yeribelt over which her father presided. It was a land devoted to worship, and brought to surface memories of the great city of Remonstaire, where her goddess-mother had reigned like a queen, and Zella herself like a princess.