by Becky James
Aubin looked at the pairs of doubles, his soul and her alt next to him, the Evyn being held by the guard and the Evyn standing freely at his side, and myself and alt-Thorrn kneeling in the sand. Finally, he looked at alt-Aubin’s body. “Am I in a dream now?”
“No. This is the real world,” Waker said.
“How do I know? There are duplicates here staring me in the face. I’m dead on the stairs. How can that be real?”
“They are alt-history versions. That’s all.” Waker sighed impatiently. “The deal isn’t going to be there forever. Sign now or I will take it away, and destroy the dreamland that they are in.”
“So, they aren’t real? Or they are?”
“They exist in a dream. A dream which can be real for you.” Waker held out her hand.
“But how did Evyn and Thorrn steal a dream?”
Waker snarled. “Are you signing? Because your children are calling for you while you harp on about details.”
“Details matter,” Aubin pressed, shoulders shaking. “They do matter, and this whole time, Evyn did not try to escape or sway me. She helped me.” Looking down at her hand, Aubin’s let Evyn go.
Waker snarled, “She’s tricking you. Making a fool of you, even now.”
Evyn spoke softly. “What do you think, Aubin? You can trust yourself in all this.”
Aubin rubbed his eyes. “I think I’ve made a huge, costly mistake.” Turning to Waker he said, “I’m not going to be signing anything. You’re lying to me.
“You tried to make me believe I could be happy, the ultimate lie. Happiness is a fantasy, it’s imaginary, however much we wish it wasn’t sometimes.” He balled his fists, shoulders tense. “You tried to make me hurt someone for something that isn’t real, made me believe in a lie by showing me a perfect life and taking it away, but it was never real. I should have known that life could never be like that, not for someone like me.”
“It can, Aubin,” Evyn said, stepping closer to him. “It’s hard, right? Your brain can be telling you all the time that something is wrong, that you are wrong, that it’s better somewhere else or that there is something out there that will fix you and make you just like everyone else. But the real change comes from inside. You are worthy of it, you know. Love.”
“No, I’m not,” he said, without rancour. “But I am going to make sure I balance out my mistakes.” Pulling out a knife with a shaking hand, he lunged toward Waker. A guard stepped in front of her to face him, and Aubin went still. “Evyn, leave now. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, young love. It does conquer all.” Striding through the sands came Luc.
“About time,” I grumbled at the mancer.
Luc dusted off his shoulders. “I said I was walking.”
Waker paled. “Luc, what are you doing here?”
“Someone left the door open, so I decided to call in. I have intelligence that you have a lady here you’re trying to get a secret out of, and I’m going to be putting a stop to that.” He put his hands behind his back.
Despite the distance between them, Waker took a step back. “Rose. The… yes. Fine. You can have her. Take her and leave.”
“Just like that?” Luc cocked his head. “Waker, it’s as if you’re afraid of me.” His gaze swept the dais. “I’m afraid I’ll need all the, ah, ‘informants’ you have there. Can’t have the secret slipping out any other ways, now, can we?”
“These are mine. Don’t worry; I’ll be killing them soon enough.”
“I’m afraid I must insist.” This time I welcomed the smirk on his face, which was aimed squarely at the rogue MasterMage.
“Then I’m afraid you must die,” Waker hissed. She tossed her head, and some of the guard hurried down the steps toward him.
Gavain drew his sword, approaching Luc along with the Palais guards. “I wouldn’t get close if I were you,” I told him.
“Shut up. You’re next.”
“I did warn him. Did you hear me warn him?” I asked alt-Thorrn.
“Yes, I did, heard it loud and clear.”
“He’s next, then you,” Gavain hissed at him.
Luc merely watched while the guard circled him. When one tentatively put out his sword, Luc reached into his guard and touched his finger, and the man fell screaming and convulsing to the ground.
“Oh,” I said, my eyes going wide.
“Yes, indeed.” Alt-Thorrn shuddered. He looked away as more men thudded into the ground.
I was morbidly fascinated. “He’s going through them like a butterknife through hot butter!”
Alt-Thorrn made an odd choking noise about that for some reason.
Gavain backed away. “Kill him! It’s what you do!” Waker screamed at him.
“I regret to inform you that I cannot hold this line,” Gavain called back.
I snorted. “Press, press, press, Gavain!” He snarled at me, raising his sword –
Shearing the cord holding my hands tied, I blocked his overhand swing with my bracers. Alt-Thorrn freed his own arms with a sharp tug.
“Thorrn!” alt-Evyn yelled.
“Yes?” We both replied. Gavain backed away from us, sword up in a guard.
“Oh, sorry… alt-Thorrn!”
“Coming!” He bounded toward the dais.
I harried Gavain using my forearms to block the swipes he made with his sword. The bracers did not have the same repulsion factor that the armour had had; I could do little to disarm him, so I pushed him back to the foot of the dais, Luc walking casually behind me.
My Evyn grabbed Aubin’s arm, gesturing to alt-Aubin. Aubin nodded once and hurried down.
Waker screamed at alt-Thorrn as he leapt up five stairs at a time. “Stop! Stop right there! I order you to stop, I have your soul!” Alt-Thorrn did not slow, passing by my Evyn and Aubin. “Shadrow! Shadrow, use your power!”
Taking a step across, Shadrow put her finger on alt-Evyn’s cheek. “At once, Mistress.” Alt-Evyn closed her eyes. Shadrow blinked. “I can’t!”
“You… can’t?” Waker took another step back.
“He’s got an Earthian soul companion, so he’s immune!” Shadrow looked up at alt-Thorrn open-mouthed as he gained the dais.
“I’ll be taking Evyn, Shadrow,” he told her firmly, glaring at the guard holding her. The man let go and backed away hurriedly.
Waker and Shadrow both recoiled. “Rhona!” Waker called.
The monster reared its head over us, Rhona astride it. I backed Gavain up, up, up the stairs, up to where Evyn and Aubin knelt next to alt-Aubin’s body with alt-Tuniel. So close now. I pushed Gavain back, back, back, never letting up, never letting him get too far away to regroup.
“I know what you did for Al,” I panted. “I was there.” Gavain’s eyes widened. “No one else is here, Gav. I know you don’t really want to fight me. You’re not lost.”
Gavain snarled, shoving my forearms away. “You killed the guard in the cells fulfilling his orders, against a tenet you keep dear. You’re the one who is lost! You lost your way the day you broke the tenets to disobey the king because it didn’t suit you! We are Special Forces; we obey and we keep to our tenets above all else. Above our souls, above our lives!”
“And that’s what you were doing when you saved Al? Obeying mindlessly?”
Gavain hesitated. My heart thrilled to see that he did.
But then Luc spoke. “Those soldiers made it across their little island,” the mancer observed.
“They’re called Special Forces,” I grunted. The best part of half a contingent – over a score of men – ran toward us.
I turned back to my oldest friend. “Gavain, stand down. Please.”
Staring at the men pouring in, he sank into a guard stance. “You cannot hold against Special Forces. Men, to me!” he bellowed.
I turned away from my brother-in-arms, heart hurting. “Can you down them?” I asked Luc.
“By myself? No. I’m running low on energy.” He stood stiff-backed with his arms folded, watching as the sea of men a
pproached.
“But you only… I mean…” Mancers! I shook my head, eyes stinging from sweat and hair in my eyes.
Above us, the monster’s head plummeted toward the steps, aiming for Evyn with jaws wide. “Evyn!” I screamed.
Gavain chose that moment to slash at me. I barely managed to block, his sword slipping up my bracers and biting into my shoulder. I yelled, and Evyn’s attention snapped to me as I Called from the pain. “No!”
The monster’s jaws smashed into the dais with a sickening crunch as it took a huge bite, wood and stone snapping and screaming in its maw.
Chapter 31
Gavain leapt from the stairs to regroup with Special Forces. I held my hand to my bleeding shoulder, staring, tottering backwards. My knees collapsed.
Above me, Luc scowled. “Well? Why are you just sitting there?”
“She’s dead,” I breathed.
“Is she?” Luc seemed utterly uninterested.
“She’s dead. She…” The monster pulled its head up and out from the wreckage. I couldn’t look. My soul’s mangled body would be in there, or maybe in the mouth of the monster.
The bracers started burning. I tried pulling them off, but the metal hurt my hands. Flailing around, I tried to shake them off, and then I looked up at Tuniel, standing at the top of the dais. “What do you want?” I screamed at her.
“They are down there! I can Find Aubin.”
Painful hope flared in my chest.
Tuniel picked her way down the stairs, jumping through the wreckage. I put out my hands to catch her, but she twisted away. “You’ll cut me to pieces with those on. Listen, Evyn must have pinged them through to the Labyrinth underneath us. She and Aubin, alt-Aubin and alt-Tuniel as well. Alt-Tuniel can find them a way out.” She pointed back at the dais. “Meanwhile Shadrow can find souled individuals.”
The Journey Mage of soul searchers conferred with Waker.
I rasped, “Evyn’s alive?”
“Yes, of course,” Tuniel said. “Now, give me your hand—”
Sweeping up her hand, I pressed it firmly to my lips. “They’re alive! They’re alive!”
“Do that again and I’ll… I’ll…” Tuniel spluttered, pink-cheeked. “Come on, enough nonsense, let’s go.”
“I still have to stop Waker,” Luc said, his arms folded, tapping his hand on his forearm.
“Well, we’re going to go get Evyn and Aubin. You can stay here with Special Forces,” I told him.
“Thorrn!” Gavain shouted, advancing once more now he had regrouped.
“And him, you can stay here with him.”
Luc’s lip curled. “Not likely. And in any case, Waker and Shadrow are making their way in.” He nodded toward a small door at the back of the seats, towards where MasterMage Waker and Shadrow hurried away.
“And Rhona.” Tuniel pointed at the Journey Mage of Monsters riding her beast over the walls of the arena. “She’s heading for the big tear in the ground I made earlier.”
I grimaced. “So that’s Waker and Shadrow, Rhona, and soon to be Special Forces, all in the Labyrinth closing in on our souls.” My heart pounded in my chest.
Tuniel nodded. “But I know where they are, and I can get us there. And they have a me as well, who can move them around.”
I grinned at her, wiping my forehead. “Has anyone ever told you how amazing you are?”
“Shut up, Shardsson.” Pink from her graceful neck to her hairline, Tuniel waved her hands. The floor cracked and we plummeted. I managed to roll, picking a cursing Luc up from the floor, but Tuniel was unaffected.
I lifted my forearm. “Not that I don’t appreciate these things, a great deal in truth, but can I have something other than the bracers now?”
“Such as?” She raised a delicate eyebrow at me.
I glanced up at the hole above us. “My father’s sword is up there. I need a weapon, a sword, please.”
“I can’t make weapons,” she said, shaking her head, “not good ones, not while I’m this distracted.” Her face was flushed and her breathing shallow; there was a lot going on for all of us, and we were all tiring soon.
I took this moment to regroup, putting my hand to my hip, when alt-Evyn peered over the top above. “Hey! Where are you going?” she asked.
I waved. “Well met. We’re going to get my Evyn! Want to come?”
“Sure!”
“Do me a favour, throw the swords down first.”
“Okay.”
Alt-Thorrn also dropped his sword and alt-Aubin’s Battlemistress blades in. I picked up my father’s blade. “What’s going on up there?” I asked.
Alt-Thorrn scanned behind him. “Gavain is getting the troops to split. Uh, there’s a bunch headed this way.”
“Drop down and I’ll close it,” Tuniel said, beckoning. Alt-Thorrn lay on his stomach and helped his Evyn dangle down. I caught hold of her legs and put her to the floor just as alt-Thorrn thudded down beside me.
“So, immune to soul searchers.” I nodded to him, impressed, as Tuniel closed the cavern above us with a crunch. Sand sheeted down briefly, and I shook it out of my hair.
Alt-Thorrn coughed. “I’m immune to a lot of things unless Evyn is touching me. Then I’m susceptible again,” he said, voice low.
Luc reached out his hand toward my alt. “Hm. I wonder…”
“No you don’t.” Evyn slapped his hand away. It was the first time I had ever seen her really angry.
Luc rolled his eyes. “I am not going to hurt him. I wanted to see if I could sense him.”
Fists raised she snapped, “Spoiler alert, you can’t. Don’t you dare put your hands on my soul.”
She trembled, but it heartened me to see how she stood between her soul companion and what she saw as a threat.
“Alt-Evyn. Remember this isn’t your Luc,” I said gently. “He hasn’t done the things yours has done.”
She still glared at him. “But he’s capable of it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Because we’re different.” Luc turned his gaze to the walls.
“Not that different. Not where it matters.” Evyn sniffed, tossing her hair over one shoulder and marching away with alt-Thorrn.
Luc sighed. “I get the feeling I really disagreed with them at one point.”
“Great observational skills,” I murmured.
Tuniel moved with purpose toward a vein of stone, stroking it to ignite light in the depths of the stone. We followed her down through the caves. My heartrate slowed, but I used the pain in my shoulder to keep myself on edge, ready to fight at any moment. Tuniel had both her soul bond and her stone sense to rely on, shifting rocks every so often to move us to another path.
“Where is she taking them?” the mage asked.
“Our Tuniel knows about these caves,” alt-Thorrn said. “I wouldn’t think she has a detailed knowledge of them, though.”
I pressed hard on my shoulder; the smell of blood got stronger. Increasingly, I become more and more distracted trying not to bleed too much.
Eventually I said, “Journey Mage of Stone, a moment, if you would.” She paused, one hand on the walls. “Could I get that armour back? The one that deflects everything?”
Alt-Thorrn chimed in. “Yes, that would be really helpful.”
“Fine.” Feeling the reverse of what I’d felt earlier, it was as if her fingers traced up my forearm and bicep, massaging my shoulders, lingering on my pectorals. She shuddered, fingers scrabbling against the wall for purchase.
“Tuniel!” I caught her shoulders. “You know, if you want me to hold you, you can just ask.” But my joviality died when I saw her face. “Journey Mage? Tuniel?”
“She’s used a lot of power. She has a great deal of it, but not infinite,” Luc said.
Alt-Evyn peered up at her. “Do you need a pick-me-up?” she offered with a smile.
Tuniel bit her lip. “No. I’m tempted, but no. Perhaps if we meet a significant threat.” Relief unspooled in my stomach and I smiled at her. Alt-Evyn looked pl
eased as well. “Put me down. Let’s continue.”
“How about you direct me, and I’ll be your legs,” I said.
“Oh, Shardsson, if you wanted to hold me, you could just ask,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“Very well, Journey Mage of Stone, I’d like to hold you. Would you grant this request?” I swung her up into my arms, holding her against my chest.
She huffed. “I don’t have the energy right now to describe what you are, but it’s being added to the list. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
I walked on with Tuniel in my arms. She closed her eyes briefly, the grey pallor to her skin getting worse. Quickening my steps, I realised my shoulder wasn’t protesting or bleeding anymore.
“Hypothetically, if your skin armour comes into contact with an open wound, what does it do?” I asked.
Her eyelids flickered. “Probably nothing good. I could see it fusing with the skin, becoming permanent.”
“That’s not good.”
“I know. I can try and change its properties next time, but there’s iron in blood and there’s a sympathetic reaction with the—”
“No, I mean, that’s not good, that’s great.” I grinned. “Guess who has permanent shoulder armour.”
“Oh, Thorrn.” Alt-Evyn sighed.
Tuniel put her hand over her eyes. “Do you understand? What do you call this? Help me out, alt-Evyn.”
“Irrepressible? Irresponsible?”
“Irreprehensible?” I offered.
“I think it’s only reprehensible. You can’t negate it like that, strictly speaking,” alt-Evyn said.
“At least your colour is getting better,” I said to Tuniel. “Quick, think of more ways to describe me. I’m thinking we use words like ‘dashing’ and ‘daring’ next.”
“Shh,” alt-Thorrn said. We instantly fell silent.
Something huge moved in the corridor ahead, slithering and sliding along, scraping the sides of the walls.
It had to be Rhona and her monster. Retreating a few steps, I put Tuniel down and drew my sword, moving in front of her. She batted me out of the way to see and narrowed her eyes. With one flick of her hand, the corridor collapsed, to an inhuman cry of pain.
“Was that the monster, or Rhona?” I asked.