Eazal listened, thinking it strange that the boy spoke as if he were not himself a child. But then, the spirit had no doubt existed for years. He was likely older than Eazal, though he’d not said so one way or the other. The way he spoke of events in a distant past betrayed his age. By now, Azhi was much less a child than Eazal himself, no matter the youthfulness of the voice in his head.
Finally, their long walk came to an end. Reaching the base of the Chains, Eazal stared at it. The trunk was as thick around as the Ten-Tiered Bazaar, the greatest of Oedija’s markets. Its bark, if it were truly bark, was smooth as stone and textureless as still water. For some reason, Eazal was loathe to come closer. Something about the structure seemed strange and malevolent. This was as much a product of magic as anything he’d seen. Surely only the gods themselves could grow such a tree.
Suddenly, a wind whipped up from the ground next to him, swirling the sand into a small squall. Eazal flinched and stepped away. There’d been no wind in all the desert; why would a gust rise now? The wind didn’t die away, but seemed to lazily float through the air, resolving into a strangely human form. Lips formed of gray sand smiled at Eazal. A chill ran down his spine as he stared at the desert spirit.
“Hello, Eazal,” a familiar boy’s voice said. It had a strange echo to it, but Eazal couldn’t mistake it.
“Azhi?”
The figure twisted his sand-shaped head to look at the great tree. “Our worlds are closer here. The Chains anchors them together. Here, I can almost be as I was in life.” The spirit looked back to him with swirling gray eyes. “I admit, sometimes I miss it.”
Eazal couldn’t explain the fear that stirred in his stomach. He wished they could be away from this strange tree. “This place makes me uneasy. Where is the thing you wished me to retrieve?”
Azhi didn’t respond for a long moment. Then he turned and floated over the sand to the base of the mammoth tree. “It is somewhere here, buried under the sands. But if the storm died after Famine departed, it shouldn’t be buried deep. Stand back and cover your eyes.”
Eazal obeyed, putting both hands over his face. A moment later, sand whipped against him, the force of it stinging the exposed skin on the back of his hands.
“Here,” Azhi said softly. “Come see it.”
He dropped his hands and reluctantly walked next to the sand spirit. At the bottom of a small pit, the smooth, white shaft of a scepter was exposed, seeming the bone of a long-dead creature. The object of their quest.
Still, Eazal hesitated to reach for it. “That’s the Binding Ruyi?”
“Yes. The scepter that once kept Famine sealed away for a millennium, and may do so once again. Will you take it, Eazal? Will you do what I, a spirit with no mortal hands, cannot? Will you help stop Taozu from consuming the rest of the world?”
Eazal sighed out heavily. He’d trusted Azhi this far. No matter his discomfort, he had to see this through. And why else had he come here? He hadn’t walked a thousand miles to turn aside from his duty. From his redemption.
“I’ll do what I can,” he spoke, almost to himself.
He eased his aching body down into the pit, sliding along it and barely avoiding stepping on the scepter at the bottom. Clinging to the eroding walls around him, he reached out and gripped the scepter, then pulled. It came free easily, as if the sand wished to be free of it. Eazal lifted it before his eyes. The haft was smooth, and all of it was white as bone. The end of it curved into the head of a threatening snake, its mouth open wide to strike, four long teeth protruding forth from it. As eerie as it had seemed above, it now seemed a small, delicate thing for such a large task. Could this elegant scepter possibly do what Azhi claimed?
“I have it,” he said. “I’m bringing it back out.”
He turned back to climb out of the pit. He didn’t see Azhi standing above, and wondered where he’d gone as he studied his escape. The walls eroded before his touch, but the pit wasn’t too deep. If he scrambled quickly, he could ascend it. He set his exhausted limbs to the task, taking care not to crush the scepter as he climbed.
It struck his mind, quick and deadly as a viper.
Pain as he’d never known burst through him, and he lost hold of his senses. He couldn’t tell if he screamed or if his limbs writhed. All his mind filled with it. Desperately, he sought an end, but wave after wave washed over him. Why? he cried out. Why must I suffer more?
As abruptly as it had come, the pain eased. Eazal slowly came back to his senses. But something felt wrong. Though he could feel the sand rough against his face, the breath rattling in his lungs, the exhaustion in his limbs, something felt broken. For no matter how he commanded his body, he couldn’t even twitch his eyelid.
Then his body moved of its own power, rising onto one elbow. “This body is heavier than I would have thought,” Eazal’s own lips muttered as he awkwardly pulled at the sand. His body moved as if for the first time. As if it had forgotten how.
The truth struck him as hard and sudden as the pain had. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t form the words. He felt the muscles of his face tighten, but it wasn’t his words that came out.
“I am sorry,” his mouth spoke. He felt the other presence move his tongue even as he heard the words. “I did not wish to do this, Eazal. You must believe me. But time is too short to hesitate.”
Every part of him roared against this intrusion. His own body, taken and controlled against his will! Like an animal in a cage, he battered what was left of himself against the invisible walls that penned him in. Or tried to. But as he sought his boundaries, he found he couldn’t understand his prison. There seemed nothing binding him, yet no way free. His anger melded into horror as he ceased to struggle.
A daemon had possessed him. Azhi, whose purpose he had taken as his own, whom he’d trusted with his life, had seized his body.
Eazal’s lips again spoke unbidden words. “Once, long ago, another spirit sought to do to me what I have done to you. She failed, and in doing so, allowed Famine to break free.” His head bowed forward against the sand. “No. That is denying my part in it. I let her whispers of glory manipulate me into believing I was something I knew I was not. I let myself believe that I had a greater part to play in the world, one only I could perform. In a way, she was right. I did have a part to play, great and terrible. For it was I who let Famine loose. And in doing so, it was I who doomed the Lower and Higher Planes both.
“So it must be me who rectifies this, Eazal. And to do so, I must have a body. I hope you will come to understand. I won’t harm you, nor your body as much as I can prevent it. And when the task is done, I will give it back to you so that you may live out your days in peace. Trust me as you have trusted me this whole journey. I did not lie when I spoke of the importance of this task. The danger to both of our worlds is the same. Taozu, Famine — he has come again, and will consume everything if he is not stopped. I ask no more sacrifice of you than I have given myself.”
Eazal had ceased to struggle. It was futile. The daemon had an iron hold on his body now. He could do nothing but listen to the boy’s lies, trapped in his own flesh.
“I can feel him, Eazal. Can you? He has broken free of the Yusishu who yoked him. Vusumuzi, a man of more strength than I have ever seen before, has finally succumbed to his struggle. And in doing so, he has fed the Dragon enough so that he can once again hunt. His presence cuts across the Higher Plane as he seeks worthy prey. It will not be long before he grows powerful enough to break free into your world. And when he does, I fear it will be for the final time.”
Eazal’s arm raised the Binding Ruyi before his eyes. His gaze traveled up its length. “We must find the Corrupted before that happens,” Azhi spoke through him softly. “We must seal him away, forever if we can. I hope we will do it together, Eazal.”
Eazal didn’t try to reply. If he was trapped, he wouldn’t assuage the daemon’s conscience, if one could exist in such a creature. He tucked himself small into the dark corners of his body where he r
emained. He’d watch and wait for his moment. Then he’d take back what was his, no matter the cost.
Azhi made him sigh. “Brace yourself, my friend. I have shown you much. But now you will see all.”
Eazal had channeled before, when Valem’s curse first manifested in him. He had felt the power of the Molten God run through his veins to burn at the single toe that showed his mark. But what he had felt then was but a fraction of the power that filled him now. As energy carved its way into him, he thought he would burn away before it.
Azhi raised Eazal’s arm with the scepter in it, then cut it sharply down in front of him. A tear appeared in the air before them. Eazal stared at it, numb with fear, wondering what he witnessed.
The daemon hauled his body up, reaching for the tear in the world. It swirled with shifting colors and light like a pool formed of pyrkin. He reached Eazal’s hand toward it. It was too much. Eazal threw himself at his cage again, begging Azhi not to touch it. He knew such magic must destroy him.
As his finger brushed the substance of the other realm, it seized him. Eazal felt himself pull away, then leave the world behind.
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World of Bones
Book III of The Famine Cycle
I drifted into the Pyrthae.
If anything should have focused me, it was the Council's discussion playing out in grand drama before me. If it could still be called a discussion. Tempers had long since flown out the windows. Kyros had bellowed his piece and stood in the corner of Jaxas' solar, stewing and staring over the smoke-obscured city. Feiyan looked at each of us in turn, a small smile turning her lips even now, even after what had happened, waiting for her moment. Jaxas, wan with dark circles under his eyes and a green crown that looked as heavy as gold, had leaned onto the table and stared at his steepled hands, as if hoping to find the answers there.
I blinked away my double-vision of the city and sat up in my chair. Nomusa glanced at me from where she sat at Jaxas' left, and Xaron's brow creased with concern as he watched me from across the round table. I gave a small shake of my head. My own problems could wait. I couldn't interrupt these proceedings.
“And the casualties were high,” Kelena was saying. “Dozens died, perhaps even hundreds.”
“How many were guards?” Feiyan asked.
Kelena’s jaw worked silently for a moment. I could guess what she was thinking. Being an honor herself, she was well aware how little the loss of one of her people’s lives mattered to people like First Consul Feiyan.
“Three,” she said finally.
Feiyan smiled and leaned back. “Well, that’s more than a fair trade, wouldn’t you say? Three lives for over a hundred traitors dead.”
Silence filled Jaxas’ solar. I stared around the room, hoping one of them would speak out. Nomusa, as Jaxas' Archon; Xaron, his First Warden; Isidora as First Watcher, leader of the new division of battle wardens under Jaxas' command; Kyros still as Archmaster; Kelena now as the sole First Verifier. All of them had titles and the right to speak during the Council meeting.
Though none had as great a say as Feiyan. The sly minx had worked her way into Jaxas' good graces so as to become his First Consul, his closest advisor and second-in-command. Only Jaxas, the Despot of Oedija and sole ruler of the nation, possessed more power than her.
All of them had titles that gave them the right to speak. I, on the other hand, did not, as Feiyan had endeavored to remind me at every meeting.
Two spans before, it had seemed reasonable, even noble, to refuse a formal position from Jaxas. I'd been sick of being up on a dais as First Verifier and continually failing in my duties. I'd thought I'd best oppose Famine by having no distractions and operating from the shadows. A good part of me still believed that. But when it came to these Council meetings, though Jaxas had extended an open invitation to me, my words had no more weight than a finch's chirp.
Then things happened like they had in Brinecoast, and I found myself sorely regretting my refusal of a position.
The Manifest Massacre, people were already calling it. Hundreds dead, as Kelena had reported, in a riot that had emerged from nowhere and accomplished nothing. It had begun with people gathering. Then, as city guards flooded the scene, they fanned the sparks into flame. Even an angry mob stood little chance against armed and trained men.
For all the titles at this Council, none here knew how to deal with the issue before them. I couldn't stay silent any longer.
Despite my head still feeling light and the danger of drifting again far from passed, I stood. "Despot Jaxas, if I may speak."
His hollowed eyes found mine. "Yes, Airene. Of course."
Ignoring Feiyan's small, wicked smile, I looked around the room. "We all know what's coming. Who is nearly on our doorstep. The reports have the Avvadin vanguard arriving tomorrow, with the rest of the armies following within the span. We can't still be waging war on another fronts when they arrive."
"Are we at war with the Manifest?" Feiyan asked pointedly. "I believe we just massacred their followers, or so the people say."
"But that's just it. The city guard didn't massacre Seekers. They killed our own citizens. Hundreds of them, if Kelena's initial reports are correct. The very people we need to support Oedija if we're to come through this."
"The very people who now support the Manifest!" Kyros broke in. "They're traitors! There's no question to it!"
I clenched my jaw and held my tongue. There was no winning a shouting match with the Archmaster.
Jaxas turned from Kyros to me. "I believe a proposal was forthcoming."
The rest of the Council looked back to me as well, their expressions a mix of apprehension and hope.
"Yes," I said. "There is. I propose we strike at the heart of the Manifest. If we gut their leadership, we can unravel them from within."
"Assassination." Feiyan's lips curled. "We've discussed this before and dismissed it. We have no assassins and no Watchers to spare. Where, then, would this assassin come from?"
I took a breath, wondering if I'd really thought through this, wondering if the idea wasn’t spewing from the same madness that seemed to be tightening its grip on me further every day. Nomusa and Xaron were watching with growing concern, realization slowly settling in.
I looked to Jaxas again. "I believe I have someone, Your Radiance. If I have your permission to proceed, I will inform them of it."
Jaxas' dark eyes had gone hard as flint. The Council had fallen silent as he considered, though Xaron looked almost bursting with words.
"Yes," he said finally. "You have my permission. When will it be done?"
I pushed down the fear long enough to speak. “Tomorrow night.”
***
Nomusa and Xaron pulled me aside in the hallway outside Jaxas' solar. Isidora lingered just out of earshot as she waited for Xaron.
"You can't mean what I think you did," Xaron said in a low voice.
"I did."
"You?" Nomusa looked me up and down. "You'd be killed at the entrance."
"Maybe."
Xaron shook his head. "Aire. I know Avvad is almost here. I know the Manifest Massacre just happened at the worst of times. I know you feel Famine now constantly, feasting and growing more powerful by the day. But this… this is throwing your life away. No one benefits from that."
"But it's not, Xaron. It's doing what must be done." I leaned in closer. "Ariston the Dishonored holds information that I need. Vusu told me to find his honor Seda and I would understand all he's done. Ariston holds Seda. So I have to get to her."
Nomusa leaned away. "You can't be sure she's in the Brinecoast compound. Ariston might be
, but he may keep Seda somewhere else entirely."
"But I do know. I found her."
They shared a look.
“’Thae-drifting again?" Xaron asked quietly. "Airene, you shouldn't. You've not even been a warden for a season."
"And yet I'm doing things that you've never even attempted."
Nomusa suddenly seized my arm. "Because you're reckless!" she hissed. "Don't do this, Airene! Please!"
I almost gave in. Seeing the desperate, anxious love in my friends’ faces, I almost said the words they both wanted so badly to hear. Instead, I lowered my head.
"I have to," I said to the floor, not daring to meet their gazes. "Or Famine will win."
The hallway was silent for a long moment. Then the door to Jaxas' solar opened, and Feiyan emerged. Her expensive, dark violet robes lined with silver swished as she turned and walked toward us.
"So here's our little assassin. Trying to talk her out of it? I wouldn't bother." She reached out and put a hand to my cheek. I flinched at her clammy touch, but didn't draw away.
"You were always a finch flying too close to the sun,” she cooed softly. "You were always going to destroy yourself.”
I opened myself, and felt power stream inside me. But instead of channeling, I pushed a thought forward instead.
Feiyan yelped and withdrew her hand, staring at it. When she looked up, her smile was gone.
I pasted a smile on my own lips. "I almost hope this is goodbye."
"It will be, if you dare to channel against me again." The First Consul swept away down the stairs without a look back.
Xaron and Nomusa stared at me. "Did you just—?" Xaron started.
"Yes. I did." I closed my locus again, and suddenly felt very weary.
Nomusa shook her head. "Airene, I love you. You know I do. Which is why you should listen to me when I say you're not well."
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