Darkrise

by M. L. Spencer

  He stopped, his hand releasing hers. He took a deep breath and held it in. Then he released it with a sigh. “I was a spy,” he admitted. “An assassin, actually. It’s not something I’m proud of. It’s just who I was, who they trained me to be. I’ve done things…” He shook his head with a scowl. “I’m not an honorable man, Naia. There’s a special place in hell for people like me.” He looked away without finishing the thought.

  She couldn’t blame him.

  He took her hand again, his grip tighter than before. “Let’s go. We’re almost there.”

  They walked forward. The sides of the passage became gnarled, rough and irregular. Naia reached out and traced the wall with her hand. It felt odd. It wasn’t rock, she realized. It felt more like bark.

  “What is it?” she gasped. “It looks like tree roots.”

  Quin stopped and knelt down, releasing her hand. He set both palms to the side of the passage, caressing the chitinous growth that encrusted the rock, winding along the side of their path.

  “This is one of the conduits,” he said, looking up at her. He scooted sideways, following the vine-like growth with his hands. Then he rose, motioning for Naia to follow as he moved forward down the passage, reinvigorated by purpose.

  Naia followed as the lava tube twisted around, finally opening into a chamber filled with thread-like filaments. Naia stopped at the entrance, glancing around. The cave was aglow with a shimmering spider’s web that seemed to ripple with every pulse of the magic field. All around, glowing fibers converged and twisted, interweaving in a luminous dance of color that lit the cavern.

  “We’ll set up here,” Quin said, nodding to himself and licking his lips. He swung his pack down off his shoulder and hunkered over it. He rifled through its contents, at last producing his roll of tools, which he untied and spread out in front of him. He moved his hands over the assortment of objects, pausing now and again, lingering over some, before finally selecting an instrument.

  He held up what looked like a gold necklace set with a crystal pendant. Only, instead of clasps, both ends of the chain were fastened to sharpened probes. He held one probe in each hand as his eyes scanned the chamber, taking in the glowing fibers that surrounded them.

  “What is this place?” Naia whispered, her own eyes sweeping over the cavern.

  “It’s a nodal chamber,” Quin said, running his hand along the root-like growth they had followed in the lava tube. The conduit unraveled into dozens of glowing fibers which in turn spread out into hundreds of gossamer filaments that crisscrossed the chamber.

  “Where does it go?” Naia’s eyes traced the conduit back toward the dark passage it had come from.

  “All the way to Aerysius,” Quin said. “Some come from Bryn Calazar … and all the rest of the world’s vortexes. They siphon power from the Circles of Convergence and deliver it here to the Crescent. They also feed it with information from all over the world.”

  Naia caressed the skin of the large coil of fibers. It felt like the hard shell of an insect. She retracted her hand. “Do they run beneath the ocean?”

  Quin shrugged, donning his spectacles. He held the necklace-like instrument up before him with both hands. “Something like the Catacombs, I suspect. It’s got to be spelled.”

  He leaned forward, probing the large braid of filaments closest to him. The instrument’s crystal came to life and began to glow. Appearing satisfied, Quin moved to another large braid, carefully probing it the same as he had the last.

  Naia followed him at a distance. “What are they?”

  Quin stood up, turning toward another bundle of glowing fibers. “This is what’s known as a hyphal artifact. It’s not carved or forged; it’s grown. Think of it like a fungus made of thousands of tiny hairs, each hair capable of drawing tremendous amounts of power and information.”

  He moved down the vine-like bundle, sticking his probes deep into the chitinous flesh of the conduit. This time, the crystal failed to glow. Frowning, Quin rocked the probe back and forth, feeling deep inside the braided strand. Still, the stone failed to react.

  “Here.” He held the dull crystal up for Naia to see. “This is broken.” He moved to the side, turning to probe another bundle of fibers. “And this one too.”

  He glanced up at her. “These conduits have been severed from their Circles of Convergence. That’s why Athera’s Crescent is failing.”

  “Can you fix them?”

  He licked his lips, shaking his head in an expression of uncertainty. “I’m not a hyphal architect; this isn’t my area of expertise. So I really don’t have a good idea of what I’m doing.” He took a deep breath. “That being said … I have to try. So there’s a very good chance I’m going to kill myself.”

  The statement sounded like his usual dry sarcasm. It took Naia a moment to realize that it wasn’t.

  “You’re not serious,” she said. The old pain came back, the same grief she had felt when Darien had left her behind in the chamber of the Well of Tears.

  Quin slid the spectacles from his face, setting them aside. He reached up and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked at her, his face earnest. “I’m going to have to form a link with the conduit to repair the damage,” he explained. “The problem is, the moment I fix it, the surge of power is probably going to kill me.”

  She stared at him in dismay. “No, Quin.”

  He put up a hand. “Naia, you can bring me back. The way you did with Sareen.”

  Naia was already shaking her head. “There’s no guarantee—”

  Quin’s expression hardened. “I have to do this.” Before she could protest, he rose to his feet. “You can bring me back. I know you can. That’s why Tsula is so afraid of you.”

  “I can’t—” Naia felt tears of frustration gathering in her eyes. They stung, hot and caustic, like the corrosive feelings eating her up inside.

  Quin clenched his jaw, his eyes moving over her face. He reached up and clutched her arms. “You can. You’re the chimera, Naia. Both priestess and mage. You didn’t abandon your goddess; she just chose you for a greater purpose.”

  “Quin—”

  He took a deep breath, eyes sad but resolute. “Just try. That’s all you can do. If you can’t … then I forgive you.”

  He released her and backed away. Despite the cold of the cavern, a trickle of sweat streaked down his face. With one last glance over his shoulder, he turned and knelt back down beside the conduit.

  Her emotions numb, Naia pressed her back up against the wall. She felt like she was still in Aerysius, in the chamber of the Well of Tears. Watching Darien turn his back and leave her behind forever. Nothing had changed since then. She was still there; she’d never left.

  Tears spilled down her face.

  She watched Quin lean forward, reaching deep into the conduit like reaching into the innards of a body. He felt around in there for a minute. Then he stopped, motionless. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. His shoulders relaxed, his breathing slowed, becoming deep and regular. He sat like that for minutes, slouched, as if in a trance. Ever so slowly, he began to glow.

  Argent light erupted from his body, saturating the chamber. Naia squinted, raising her hands against the brilliance of it. Beneath Quin’s fingers, the dark conduit gave the slightest flicker of life. Then another. Soon, it pulsed like a living heartbeat. Quin’s face wrinkled with concentration as the glow surrounding him strobed with the rhythm of the conduit, awakening every fiber in the braided strand. Sweat dribbled down his brow, dribbling from his nose and chin. His lips twisted, first in concentration. And then in pain. The light of the conduit swelled, the glow radiating from Quin swelled with it.

  Too late, Naia realized why he wasn’t moving. His body was locked rigid, his muscles paralyzed by the torrent of energy streaming through the conduit. Streaming into him. The light in the chamber became dazzling. Jaw clenched, Quin began to shake and groan, his body convulsing even as he maintained his grip on the lethal fibers of energy.

  There was
a brilliant flash.

  Naia screamed, throwing her arms up to ward her face. When she opened her eyes, her vision swam with black motes that swirled in front of her. Her eyes stung, full of tears. Dizzy, she collapsed to a crouch, feeling around at the ground with her hands. She scrambled forward on all fours, desperately searching, her vision too distorted to see.

  Her hand grasped a wad of fabric.

  Scrubbing at her eyes, Naia struggled to see. She could make out only patches of light and shadow. She used her fingers instead, exploring the fabric of Quin’s coat. He was lying next to her, face-down. Struggling, she rolled him over and pressed her hands against his chest, delving inside him with her mind.

  Only emptiness echoed back.

  Biting her lip, she probed deeper. Deep into the lifeless tissues, exploring, desperate to ascertain the type and amount of injury his ruined body had sustained. She wasted no time. Squeezing her eyes shut, she delved his flesh with all the brute diligence she could muster. She doubted if all she could do for him would come close to being enough. He’d taken so much damage.

  She didn’t know what to repair first. She started working furiously, first on the lifeless muscles of Quin’s heart. But it was impossible. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get his heart to beat. She went back and retraced her work, reexamining repairs she had already made … all for nothing.

  She tossed her head back, biting her lip in frustration. Minutes passed. Sweat ran down her face. Beneath her fingers, Quin’s body was still and silent. She pounded on his chest with her fists, more in anger then out of any delusion the action would help. It didn’t.

  Nothing did.

  She probed every organ, every tissue. All were perfect; there was nothing wrong with him. Nothing left to heal. Quin’s body was whole; only his soul had fled. And, no matter what she did, it wasn’t coming back.

  She collapsed over him and wept. She cried until there were no more tears left. Then she sat up, wiping her spilled grief off her face. She struggled to stand, blinking against the brilliant light that filled the chamber, so much stronger than it had been before. Quin had repaired the conduits before the power surge had killed him. They pulsated with a rhythmic, ethereal glow.

  She knew that she should leave. There was nothing more she could do for him.

  The priestess inside her wanted to turn back, to give him the proper care he deserved. To prepare his soul for its journey. But then she realized where that journey would lead him. Naia jerked to a halt, her heart wrenching. Quin wasn’t destined for the Atrament. If she left his body there on the floor, his soul would never know peace.

  She couldn’t leave him like that.

  She returned to his side.

  One last time, she prodded Quin’s dead heart with the power of her mind, coaxing it back to life. The heart muscle shivered and lurched in his chest. It staggered forward, settling into the semblance of a natural rhythm. Quin’s staring eyes slid closed and didn’t open again. His chest moved, but he didn’t awaken.

  At first, Naia thought it was a victory. Then she realized that it wasn’t. She couldn’t part the Veil of Death.

  Only Xerys could help His Servant now.

  Naia bowed her head and prayed for Quin’s dark god to show him mercy.

  No. His name wasn’t Quin. It was Shahin. Shahin son of Marthax.

  She leaned back against the cave wall, hugging her legs against her chest. She sat there for a long time, silently observing the rise and fall of his chest, watching his breath stir the whiskers on his face. Hours later, she fell asleep.

  Naia stirred, wakening slowly. She pulled herself upright and rubbed her eyes, blinking at the brilliant light that filled the chamber. As her vision swam into focus, she realized Quin’s body wasn’t where she’d left it. She stood up, glancing around.

  “Naia.”

  She whirled, flinching back before she recognized him. Quin caught her up in his arms, hugging her fiercely. Then he pulled back enough to stare into her face.

  “You really are the loveliest sight I’ve ever seen in my whole damn life,” he said.

  Then he kissed her.

  And she kissed him back.

  28

  The Path of Compassion

  Kyel crouched on the floor of the iron cage, his back pressed up against the unyielding bars. He’d been there for hours, staring down at the blackened, distorted shape that had once been Myria Anassis. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop looking. The grisly remains were morbidly fascinating; it was strange how her fingers were preserved in such detail: every feature sculpted as if from black marble. He could see every crease, every fingernail, each perfectly formed and perfectly blackened. Her face had been distorted into a hideous thing, a ghastly mask of horror that gaped at him eyelessly.

  The smell was sickening. The dungeon reeked of charred human.

  Kyel looked to where Devlin Craig lay fallen. The commander’s face was turned slightly toward him, staring with an unfocused, endless gaze into the shadows of the ceiling. A gray-fletched arrow pierced his neck, the same kind that stuck out from the back of the dead priest.

  Kyel’s gaze retreated to his hands, pondering them. The same hands that had nocked the arrows to the bowstring. He’d loosed them both without a second thought. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

  Now he knew what a terrible choice he’d made.

  The chain on his wrist was still in place, he noticed with relief. He hadn’t broken his Oath of Harmony; he hadn’t killed with his gift. But the conviction that held him to that Oath had eroded. He could feel it. It was like an infection, spreading like a malignancy under his skin. That was the reason why mages were forbidden weapons in the first place. Power was a temptation under the best of circumstances. Under the worst of circumstances, it was a temptation almost impossible to deny.

  Holding that bow had felt so natural, so right. He’d stood there in the doorway for minutes, watching as Myria burned. When the priest had raised his torch again, Kyel had reacted. He hadn’t been able to stand by and do nothing.

  He’d sided with a Servant of Xerys. He’d killed his senior officer. And then he’d regretted it all a scant moment later, when he’d seen Darien finish off Craig without hesitation or remorse. And then raise the necrators. Kyel had realized he’d made a grave mistake.

  Darien was evil. So was Craig. So was the priest. And so was Meiran. They were all evil, each in their own way. For whatever their respective reason, each had abandoned the path of compassion.

  He heard a sound: the muffled echo of footsteps approaching from the corridor. Kyel stared warily at the doorway until Traver’s face appeared. The man stopped between strides, staring in shock at Craig’s mangled body. With a shout, he shot forward to kneel at his commander’s side.

  Kyel drew his knees up to his chest, tucking his head, too ashamed to look. He sat there for silent minutes, drowning in shame as Traver grieved. He only looked up when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching his cage.

  “What the bloody hell happened?” Traver’s voice was hoarse.

  Kyel couldn’t look at him. “Don’t ask. Just get the keys. On the floor by Craig.”

  Traver looked at him sideways then glanced down at the charcoaled mass on the floor of the cage. His expression crumpled into something halfway between disgust and disbelief. He made a raspy, gagging noise way back in his throat, bringing his hand up to his mouth. Then he turned and picked his way slowly over to the body of his commander. He returned to the cage, holding his breath against the stench as he fumbled with the lock.

  Kyel rose and stepped over the blackened Myria-husk, anxious to be as far away from it as he could get. He slipped out the door as soon as Traver got it open. Once outside, he bolted toward the exit, wanting nothing more than to escape the dungeon and never look back. He forced himself to stop, turning to wait for Traver.

  The captain didn’t follow immediately. Instead, he went back to kneel at Craig’s side, bowing his head in re
spect. He unfastened his cloak and pulled it off his shoulders, then draped it like a shroud over the corpse. He knelt there a moment in silence. When he stood back up, Traver had a look in his eyes that Kyel had never seen before.

  “Darien did this?” Traver didn’t sound like he believed it. He glanced at the longbow on the floor.

  Kyel didn’t respond. He dropped his eyes to the ground, staring as if mesmerized by the patterns of the stonework.

  Traver strode up to him, squeezing Kyel by the arm. “This is bad,” he said. “But there’s worse up top. You need to come see it.”

  Kyel nodded, too ashamed to respond. He knew Traver suspected he’d murdered Craig. The captain didn’t have any proof to support his hunch, but the suspicion was there, written in his eyes. Kyel followed Traver out of the dungeon and onto the stairs, walking in silence all the way to the surface. They emerged from the stairwell into the fire-fed shadows of the courtyard.

  Kyel stopped and glanced around in an attempt to get his bearings. The ward was roiling with soldiers and smoke, the garish flames of bonfires casting tortured streaks across the ground. The scene was chaotic, a turmoil of commotion. There was a lot of dead, he realized. The bodies of the fallen littered the inner ward, blood winding through channels in the cobbles. In some places, the dead were piled up on top of each other.

  A gruesome corpse lay only paces from his feet. The face was locked in a rigid scream, the skin blistered and oozing. Kyel recognized the man: it was the soldier who had called him a darkmage to his face. He couldn’t guess the cause of death, but he could tell it had been awful. Kyel took a step back away from the corpse. Then another.

  “Kyel!”

  He turned to find Meiran rushing toward him, Cadmus following as fast as his portly carriage would allow. She looked relieved to see him. “Where have you been?” she demanded, looking him over as if assessing him for injury.

  Traver said warily, “I found him in the dungeon. Craig’s dead. So’s the priest.” He shifted his weight nervously over his feet, glancing sideways at Kyel.