by A. R. Knight
Dolan lifted the great sword, pulled it up and left, then stepped forward into hard swing at my head. Not something I could counter. So I rolled, fell to the right and let the blade whisk over me. Came up to a crouch and flicked the lash at Dolan’s ankle. Caught it as the spirit slowed his swing, and I pulled. Should have swept Dolan off his feet.
Instead, the spirit dug his heel into the dirt, halting my yank, and then swiped down with the great sword. I dropped the lash, so it fell loose and Dolan’s swing missed the cord. Didn’t want my weapon severed this far away from Nicholas, the only one I knew who could fix the thing.
I stood up, backpedaled as Dolan strode towards me, the lash dragging behind him. My empty right hand reached into my coat, pulled out Inman’s pistol. Properly loaded and ready. Aimed it at Dolan’s face, and he paused.
“You’re not fast enough to catch this,” I said.
“Resist, Carver,” Dolan replied. “This is not your doing.”
The problem with Dolan’s words is that they didn’t go into my ears. Or rather, the mind that heard those words was not my own. So I pulled the trigger.
Dolan staggered, the bullet punching a hole in his chest. No blood, of course, but every blow still hurt. More importantly, it kept Dolan’s attention on me. At least, until he heard the scraping sound of Selena’s cleaver leaving its sheath.
Dolan looked behind him, saw Selena moving into position. I saw in my love’s eyes the same spirit that had taken mine. Nara, watching from the edge of the clearing, held a small smile. Two new prizes to start her collection.
“Give it up,” I said to Dolan. “This is a fight you cannot win.”
“Don’t you understand?” Dolan said, holding the great sword in one hand, the other over the bullet’s wound. “She cannot leave if I do not let her. Or unless I am dead. Which do you think she has chosen?”
I struggled in that moment. Pushed against Nara’s voice, whispering in my head. Telling me to fire again. To knock Dolan down and allow Selena to end his misery.
Do it. Nara spoke in my mind. Let him free.
My finger tightened on the trigger. Dolan’s sad eyes watched, rimmed with the pale fire that had been burning him for a thousand years or more. And I stopped.
No. I replied.
Nara’s fury flowed through the bond, and I felt myself losing control. If Nara wanted to move me herself, I couldn’t stop her.
Dolan must have seen the flickering fight in my eyes, because he shifted his feet. Darted in an attack. But not at me. Not at Selena. At Nara. The great sword sweeping along the ground, burning with blue fire, to destroy our hope and our damnation.
My next bullet struck Dolan in his right shoulder, but the spirit barely flinched, racing across that clearing. A brief panic flashed over Nara’s face, and then a long knife appeared, jutting out of Dolan’s back, burning with blue flame. As Dolan crossed the last couple of yards towards Nara, he stumbled, the sword fell out of his grip, and as the fire began to crawl over him, the old spirit collapsed in the dirt at Nara’s feet.
Selena drew back her arm, empty without her knife, and watched. As did I.
Nara bent down, picked up Dolan’s head with her hand and angled his face towards her. I couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t read the pain on his face, could only feel the immense satisfaction flowing through my connection with Nara. Could only hear her words as they slipped out of her sanguine smile.
“Goodbye, old friend.”
Chapter 45
I slid the great sword into its sheath, slung over my back. Looked towards the break in the grain where, a moment ago, Dolan had disappeared on his vacant journey to the Cycle. A hand landed on my shoulder, light and firm.
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Nara said. “To have your weapon back?”
I nodded. My mind, otherwise, ran blank.
“It is a proper sword for a champion,” Nara continued. “Did Dolan tell you that part when he lied to you?”
“He did not,” I replied. Nara’s words prompted a question, a thought: lied to us? But the idea of asking it fled, vanishing from my consciousness without consideration.
“Riven used to be a bustling world,” Nara said. “Where every spirit had a home. A new beginning. A chance to pursue passions without the weight of reality upon their shoulders. With no need for food, for shelter, no fear of death or time, anything was possible. Until Dolan and Mali saw fit to destroy it. They were scared, I suppose. Thought my methods cruel. Dangerous. As do all who see things they do not understand.”
Nara turned me around to face Selena, who had put her weapons away and watched us with a solemn face. Waiting for the command of her leader.
“Until he decided on another path, Dolan was my sword. Was my champion. He protected my city, Carver. Now I ask the same of you,” Nara said, then broke into a low laugh. “Well, ask may be the wrong word. Once you’ve seen the faults in loyalty, it’s easy to see the advantages in obedience. In ownership.”
Nara pointed towards the grain, and we moved. I heard her walk behind us as my arms pushed the stalks aside. Clearing a path for Nara’s new freedom.
As we moved, I tested the limits of Nara’s control. She’d set me to a task - clearing the path - and within the bounds of that task, it seemed I could adjust my approach. Move a stalk with my left hand, then the next with my right. Or use both arms. I tried just bowling them over with my shoulders and that worked too. Try and stop moving, though, and nothing. My body simply didn’t respond.
Earlier, with Dolan, I’d felt Nara direct my thoughts. Alter my mind. My words. But when the spirit wasn’t focusing on me, my soul came back. Like waking up after a deep sleep, I had to connect with my senses, my limbs. Understand what I could and couldn’t do.
I glanced over at Selena, who marched resolute beside me. No idea if she was finding out the same things.
“Selena?” I said, more to see if I could speak than anything. I felt Nara’s glance snap to me as I said the words. Felt her mind press in on mine, searching for my objective. Relaxing when she found only curiosity.
“Carver?” Selena replied, meeting my look. “What are we going to do?”
“Whatever she wants us to,” I replied.
“Correct,” Nara said from behind us. “Take the opportunity to get used to your new existence. Understand that you are on a leash. One that can be long or short, according to your actions. I have no desire to hurt my champions, and would rather focus on things other than your next move, so please, treasure our relationship.”
“Treasure,” Selena said. “You just killed our friend.”
“No,” Nara said. “You did.”
“That’s a lie,” I replied. And then dropped to one knee. My eyes shut. Mouth clenched. Not my doing. My mind ran away from my body, curled up against a crushing headache. Dolan was going to the Cycle because of what Nara made us do. Right?
Or had we done it on our own?
Hadn’t Dolan turned on us? Drawn his sword while we spoke with Nara? Discussed the plan to save Riven?
He’d tried to kill Nara. Unprovoked. She had no weapon.
“We had to stop him,” I said to Selena. “There was no other choice. He would have ruined our last chance to save Riven.”
I saw Selena’s slow nod in reply. “I had to,” Selena said. “It was the only way.”
“Regrettable,” Nara said. “But we do not have time for grief. Come now, keep moving.”
I stood back to my feet, reached out, and brushed the next stalk out of the way. Put one foot in front of the other. Dolan had turned traitor at the end. Tragic, but inevitable. His plan had failed, after all.
Now we had a new leader.
Chapter 46
There were two guides waiting for us at the east gate. Watching to see if we had succeeded. One of them I recognized; the wiry guide that had worked with Piotr. Who may very well have killed me on the other side, trapped in the hotel room in New York City. The other I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter.
/>
“This is Nara,” I said as we walked up. “She’s going to save us.”
Polk looked past me, nodded at Nara. “Where’s the other one? Dolan? Where you all traveling together?”
“Dolan has to see some other problems,” Nara said. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Nara stepped forward and reached out her hand. Polk took it. I saw the change come over his eyes, the moment when he lost control. The moment when Nara took him for one of her own. The other guide, however, didn’t seem to pay much attention. He was looking at Selena, and I realized my love had drawn her cleaver.
“You won’t be needing that here,” the guide said.” “There’s no breach nearby. Kept it clean for you.”
“Just in case,” Nara said, placing her hand on the guide shoulder. In a moment he, too, belonged to her.
From down the street, we heard a noise. A shuffling as another guide stepped out of a squat guard post, just inside the gate. I knew him. Derringer. Only instead of friendly eyes, his face was covered with suspicion.
“Derringer,” I called. “Come here, say hello.”
“Don’t think I will,” Derringer said. “See, I saw a lot of Piotr’s work. Saw how those bound spirits reacted when he talked. Saw how those eyes matched his stare the way yours all match hers. I know what I’m seeing.”
And then Derringer ran. Nara didn’t speak, didn’t say the words, but I felt the order. The call to catch Derringer and bring him to heel. To make him respect our leader. So the four of us took off at a dead sprint. Chased Derringer over the wide stone courtyards between the Palace and the statues that made up Riven’s east side.
Derringer wasn’t a small man. Wasn’t slow, either. Chugged ahead, pumping his arms and his feet the way a true runner does. But he was human. His muscles burned. Selena and I picked up ground, running closer, harder. Derringer tried to duck behind columns, weave between streets and take back alleys at random, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t avoid our endless energy.
The streets had closed in by the time we finally caught up with him. Buildings lined either side of the broad avenue. The ashen flakes so common to Riven blew into my eyes. Then Derringer stopped, huffing, hands on his knees.
Selena and I came up behind him. I had my lash and knife ready, Selena with her cleaver. Inside my mind I felt Nara pushing me to end him. To burn him and turn him into a spirit that she could then rebind when she caught up with us. Beneath that call I felt my own boiling heat. Derringer had been with Polk, with my body in that hotel room. One of them had pulled the trigger, cut my cord to the other side.
I wanted him dead as much as Nara did.
“You know what happens if you kill us?” Derringer said. “The line’s barely holding at the west. It’s going to fall any day, any hour now. When it does this whole city will be razed to the ground by rampaging angry spirits. You think your new one can save it?”
“I don’t think,” I said. “I know she can.”
“Well this is a hell of a way to start,” Derringer said.
I raised the knife and Derringer glared back at me. Time to a erase that face. I moved forward, drew my arm back. And felt searing pain tear into my shoulder. I fell back onto the street, heard the gunshot’s echo as it ricocheted down the avenue. Not what I’d expected to happen.
“It’s not going to work,” said the familiar voice. “You are covered, Carver. Surrender, and perhaps we can free you from your curse.”
“Alec,” Selena called, and yes, she was right. I knew that voice. “You are in the wrong! Nara wants to help Riven!”
I counted faces in the windows, a number of them aiming long guns down at me. The resources they must’ve pulled from the wall at the west gate to wait for our return. A return they expected to be triumphant, to bring miracles. To save their dying friends on the other side of the city.
Now the west served only to safeguard the doomed.
“Selena, it is a tragedy to see you so,” Alec said, walking up the street towards us with a pair of guides on either side. “Our offer is for both of you. Put down your weapons. Talk peace with us.”
I stood up, the pain from the bullet starting to recede already.
“We cannot,” I said. “And you cannot win.”
One of the guides in the building next to us shouted and vanished from the window. Attacked from behind. Nara’s voice filled our minds, telling us to run. To pull back down the street and find her some blocks away. Another guide yelped across the way. As Derringer turned, as Alec turned to the noise, Selena and I bolted. I heard bullets strike the ground around me, but then we dashed into an alley and were gone. Blitzing through buildings and around corners and curves. The route Nara wanted us to run appearing like a map before our eyes. A compulsion telling me to take a left, then a right, then to go straight through a ruined store.
We found her at the top of the decrepit apartment, the haphazard stairs giving us a stumbling hike to the top floor. At the edge of the center of town. Nara stared out a window over Riven. Neither of the other guides were there.
“Two sacrificed for your folly,” Nara said. “Next time, catch your prey more quickly.”
Selena and I apologized. In unison.
“It seems your guides have improved over the years,” Nara said. “The kind of organization needed to have layered formations never existed in my time. Dolan must’ve been proud of his legacy.”
“The guides are strong,” I said.
“But not strong enough,” Nara snapped back. “Still, the guides need not be our first foe. There are easier paths for us to walk. Fear not, Carver. We will save your world and we don’t need the guides to do it.”
Chapter 47
We moved south. South and west, skirting the edges of the main guide territory around the clock tower. We stuck to alleys, to side streets. Cut through buildings. Crept along little canyons between ruined structures. Whenever we happened upon a spirit, Nara would have us restrain the lost soul while she bound it to her. Then she would send the spirit out ahead of us and in various directions, scouting to see where danger might be. We avoided breaches, which would attract guides. We dodged clusters of spirits that could be seen by others. Or that could, potentially, attack us before we were ready. But as we went further and further, and Nara bound more and more, I began to notice around the edges of my vision, in the windows of buildings we passed and down streets that we did not walk, spirits flashing by. They were always there, always watching. Forming a ring around us.
Nara did not speak, and Selena and I had no words to say. I felt a growing sense of despair. Despair that nonetheless mingled with the slightest hope. Nara herself may not be the savior we were hoping for. Neither, however, did she want to see Riven destroyed. She might save Riven, even if what remained wouldn’t be the world we knew.
We reached the Shambles and the southern gate, the beginnings of an army walking around us. Several dozen spirits trod in our wake, or led our advance. Nara bound everyone we came across. With a quick shake of her hand, a palm on an unsuspecting back, she added another one to our force. I began to see how she had accumulated so many spirits so quickly. How Dolan and Mali had grown to fear their friend. If in a matter of hours she could collect hundreds of souls, in a matter of days she could have thousands. Eventually, millions. Then there would be no force capable of stopping her.
Yet, I felt there was some chance of survival. The guides, after all, could cross out. Could leave Riven behind. If Nara ruled an army of the dead, at least they would not touch the other side. They would not come back to Earth.
We were not long into the forest, walking along the trail the spirits took to the Cycle, when a familiar rumbling shift the ground. The trees to our right emerged several ghouls. Ones I’d seen earlier, chasing Dolan and Selena on their quest to close the breaches.
“What should we do?” I asked Nara. She only grinned at me.
“Watch,” Nara said.
The ghouls stomped towards us, all three of them lar
ge, vaguely humanoid monsters with random collections of arms and legs. They pounded the ground and scooped up spirits as they went, devouring them into their bodies and growing larger with every one. Until Nara sent her wave.
Her new army moved in a giant cluster, charging and wailing and carving into the ghouls. They scaled those ghastly arms and legs. Clawed into their bodies and tore the ghouls to shreds. The giant creatures threw spirits off of them by the dozen, but two dozen more ran in to replace the ones lost.
In minutes, the ghouls had been shredded, scattered and broken into pieces. Nara gave us the command. Selena and I, with my lash and long knife, her cleaver, we went up to the broken ghouls and burned them in fire. Split them into their masses of spirits. Then Nara bound those too.
“Do you doubt me anymore?” Nara said to me when they were done. “Do you not think I can save your world?”
I could only shake my head. Nara was truly great, truly terrible. She was our Savior.
Chapter 48
The Mountain. The last time I’d seen the place, I’d been walking to my eventual death. It hadn’t changed much. Still the one entrance hollowed into its rocky walls, full of spirits walking into the Cycle. Spirits that were being bound one after another by Nara in a feverish blitz. From one to the next she took and chained their souls to her. Growing and expanding her force. Sending the new spirits to form ranks in front of the Mountain itself.
Just before the cavern entrance we turned to look at the force spread out in front of us.
“Do you see?” Nara said. “This is what you came to me for, Carver. This is what you needed. With these souls, we can clean our adversaries from Riven and take the world for our own.”
“One question.” I looked at the army, at all of the spirits standing with nothing on them. No weapons, no hooks, no swords, no sparkers. A mob, yes, but one lacking in the ways to wrangle spirits. “How will we shut the breaches?”