Ride the Storm

by Karen Chance

  Because everything had just gone black.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  I crashed down into a freezing flood. The shock left me gasping, the water I breathed in left me choking, and the confusion left me reeling. I just lay there for a moment, stunned and drowning, staring at the surface.

  And then I started thrashing my way back up.

  It was hard—way more than it should have been, since judging by the bruises on my backside, the water wasn’t that deep. But it didn’t seem to matter. It felt like all my energy had just been sucked out of me. And the thing was, I knew that feeling. I’d felt it before. But, like everything else, my brain wasn’t cooperating.

  Maybe because it was running out of oxygen.

  And then somebody jerked me up.

  I stared in confusion at a man’s unfamiliar face. It was too dark to see much, but faint traces of firelight from somewhere gleamed off the beads of water in his beard and the crazy in his eyes. Which quickly went from hopeful crazy to crazy pissed.

  “You’re not Dyfrig!” he said accusingly.

  I tried to answer, but all that came out was a flood of water, all over the man’s clothes. Not that it mattered; they were already soaked. But he didn’t seem to appreciate it, nonetheless.

  “Where is Dyfrig?”

  “I . . . don’t know,” I choked, which didn’t seem to be the right answer. Because he threw me against a stone wall, yelling the same thing, over and over. “Where is he? What did you do with him? Where is Dyfrig?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know!” I said, and then cut off with a pained cry when he started shaking me, and my head hit the wall. And then did it another time or two, because the man clearly didn’t care if he bashed my brains out.

  “Oh, Dyfrig,” I gasped, and grabbed his arms. “I . . . thought you said something else. I saw him . . . over there!”

  I didn’t even know where I pointed—it was dark, and my head felt like it had been cracked open. But amazingly enough, it worked. Crazy Man splashed off, and I fell back against the wall, dazed and panting.

  And very confused, because I wasn’t on the stairs.

  I was in a low-ceilinged, stone-built tunnel flooded with water and people unhappy about it. Maybe because more was pouring in every second, spilling through grates, trickling down walls, and gushing off another staircase-turned-waterfall at the far end of what I now recognized as the dungeons. The same ones Pritkin and I had just escaped from.

  And now that my brain was getting back to work, I had a pretty good idea why.

  And that was before someone chuckled in my ear.

  Someone I didn’t see, even when I whipped my head around.

  “That was clever,” a woman’s voice said as I stared at more darkness. “For a minute, I thought you were a goner.”

  “J-Johanna?”

  Genuine mirth echoed off the walls, free and easy and sincerely amused. “Of course. How many ghosts do you know?”

  “You’re not a ghost!”

  “Close enough,” she whispered as something detached itself from the ceiling, dropping down at me like a huge bat.

  I ducked down into the almost-waist-deep water, but it didn’t help. A spectral talon reached out for me and I slapped it away, causing my hand to feel like it had been flayed to the bone. And my attacker to give off a high-pitched screech and tumble through the wall, in a thrash of black smoke.

  “So it was true.” Johanna’s voice came again, sounding amazed. “You are a necro!”

  “So are you!” I snapped, trying to spot her in the darkness.

  “Ah, but I’m not Pythia.” The hateful voice echoed strangely in the confined space. “I wouldn’t even have been an acolyte if they’d known. Yet what do we have here? A filthy necromancer as one of the chosen! I had to see that for myself.

  “And now I have.”

  Her tone should have warned me, a second before something erupted from the water, clawing at me. I felt searing pain and the sting of lost power, before I managed to throw it off my shoulder. And to stumble backward, hitting the wall again. And staring around wildly, because I hadn’t seen where it went.

  “You should be more careful,” Johanna chided. “One more accident and you’re finished.”

  “That makes two of us!” I said, furious and afraid. Because that hadn’t been an acolyte. That had been a ghost. Like the one that had attacked me upstairs, not kicking me in the chest so much as diving right through it, mugging me of power in the way that only one thing could.

  And shifting me here in the process.

  Or no, not shifting, I thought. Phasing. Because she couldn’t afford—

  My thoughts broke off when two more shadows dove for me. And they were coming from both directions this time, too fast to dodge and too deadly to survive. I screamed, a sound lost among all the others, and started to shift—

  And stopped halfway through the spell, magic stuttering around me, when the shadows froze at a word from their mistress.

  “How am I finished?” Jo asked, after a beat. “From where I stand, I’d say I’m well ahead.”

  I didn’t answer, too busy struggling to breathe, because an aborted spell is a bitch. And because that wasn’t what she’d meant. She’d meant “You just traveled fifteen hundred years into the past and were mugged by a ghost. How can you shift?”

  Didn’t expect that, did you? I thought savagely. She’d known I was a necromancer, probably tipped off by something one of her ghosts saw. But not that I’d figured out her special way of slipping through the centuries, by just avoiding them altogether. But I had, and as a result, I wasn’t as exhausted as I should have been after a jump I’d never had to make.

  I eyed the spirits warily. They just hung there, barely a haze on the darkness, just one shade of black among many. And bigger than before, because they’d wised up. They were dispersing themselves, so I’d have a harder time grabbing them next time.

  And there’d be a next time, just as soon as Johanna figured out how to kill me before I brought the Pythian posse down on our heads. The posse that was mainly looking for me, but who might catch her in their net, too. And that would be inconvenient, wouldn’t it?

  Like it would be for me if they missed her.

  “Cat got your tongue?” she demanded, while I tried to watch both shadows at once.

  And therefore wasn’t watching the fey, who were going cell by cell now, doing a systematic search and pushing people this way. One of whom elbowed me as he passed, panicked and terrified. And caused me to stumble back into a cell.

  I recovered almost immediately, but it didn’t help.

  The ghosts were in the doorway now.

  “Give it up, Johanna!” I said, furious at myself. “When you thought you only needed the staff, you stood a chance. Grab it and run, before anyone knew you’d changed anything. But now—”

  “And what about now?”

  The voice came from somewhere in front of me—I thought. I couldn’t be sure because I still couldn’t see her. Because she was phased, and therefore just out of reach. Or was she?

  I had a flash of Lydia, the witchy-looking Pythia, slashing through the air and almost gutting me. Instead, she pulled me partly back into real time, because Billy’s paranoia had ensured that I was almost there anyway. And so was Jo; she had to be, or else how could she talk to me?

  And if she was close enough to talk, maybe she was close enough to make a mistake, too.

  I resisted the urge to finger my bracelet, and concentrated on locating that voice.

  “Now you need the whole suit of armor, or what’s left of it,” I said to her, my ears straining. “And every Pythia for the last fifteen hundred years is out there, just waiting for one of us to screw up. You’ll never get all four pieces before they grab you!”

  “Who says I’m trying to get any of them?”<
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  I kept searching for her in the darkness, but that threw me. Not just the words, but the tone. It said that one of us was delusional—and she didn’t think it was her.

  “You’ve been chasing the staff—”

  “Oh yes, all over the damn countryside, thanks to you.” The amusement was mixed with annoyance now. “The idiot fey. They had it in their hands, until they allowed some half-breed to steal it back. And the fey of our time couldn’t even tell me where it happened, since the idiots in question got themselves killed shortly thereafter! But my ghosts and I tracked it down nonetheless, painstakingly, over weeks. Just in time to see the half-breed taking it off to Faerie with you.”

  I had a sudden image of that night, the unnatural explosions, the fiery forest, the trees toppling in crashes that shook the earth and sent waves of sparks skyward. And Pritkin tear-assing down a river like it was a highway, with a bunch of murderous Svarestri on his heels. He’d picked me up along the way and we dove through a portal, because we hadn’t had a lot of choice. I’d had no idea that Jo was even there, but I really wished she’d come along for the ride.

  There was a good chance she wouldn’t have made it back.

  “You should have joined us,” I said, and heard her snort.

  “I preferred to take my chances at Nimue’s, where I knew the staff would show up eventually. The fey had told me that much, at least. But heading into that hellhole hadn’t been my idea of fun, either, until you forced it on me—”

  “And you failed again.”

  “I didn’t fail.” It was sharp. “I blended in perfectly, just another human slave. I might as well have been furniture! All I had to do was wait for the half-breed to bring the staff to me.”

  “Because that’s what was supposed to happen,” I guessed. “Before you and I got involved. He freed Morgaine.”

  I was trying to keep her talking, in order to pinpoint that voice. But it fluctuated in and out, one second a shout, the next a whisper. And sometimes sped up or down, like a kid playing with an old-fashioned turntable.

  Or like an acolyte having trouble straddling the barrier.

  “Who went on a tear,” Jo agreed. “And despite showing up a day late, when attacks from the covens had heightened security to a ludicrous degree, he somehow got in anyway. Both of you did. But you didn’t have the staff. I watched them search you, and later looked through your possessions, but it wasn’t there. How did you manage it?”

  “Trade secret,” I said, wondering if there was a reason the ghosts were framing the doorway, instead of standing in front of it. But if I sent my knives and I was wrong . . .

  I didn’t think it would be good if I was wrong.

  “Don’t tell me, then,” she said spitefully. “It doesn’t matter. I already won!”

  “You—” I stopped, halfway through a thought. “You don’t have the staff.”

  “I don’t need the staff. Do you still not get it? Something I did—or you did—caused it to end up in Nimue’s greedy little hands after the battle, instead of disappearing like last time. Morgaine was supposed to die valiantly, and her grieving grandma to forget to look for the staff until it was too late. By the time she did, somebody else had already snatched it, and it disappeared from history, seriously screwing up Aeslinn’s plans.”

  “His plans? Then . . . all this happened before.”

  “Of course! What do you think I’m doing here?” It was scornful. “They tried with three last time, which was all they had, but it didn’t work. They realized they had to have four, but although they searched for the missing staff, they never found it.”

  “But this time, Morgaine survived—”

  “And the staff went to Nimue,” Jo agreed, “who brought it here. That’s why she wants to fight Aeslinn tonight, before Caedmon figures it out and forces her to return it. It’s also why she insisted on the ancient rules, which allow almost anything—including using two godly weapons to your opponent’s one!”

  “But . . . the staff isn’t her element—”

  “Which means it won’t work for her as well as for Caedmon, but it will work. Enough to give her the edge. Or it would—if Aeslinn hadn’t spelled the arena! As soon as the duel starts, so does the breach. And from what he told me, it won’t take long.”

  “If he had all four pieces,” I said, feeling seriously off-kilter. Like my brain had noticed something, something important, but had too much to watch to figure it out. “And he doesn’t—”

  “Doesn’t he?”

  “That’s why you pulled me out! So we couldn’t get the sword—”

  “Is that what you think?” She laughed. “I pulled you out because you’re a menace! At the mill, at Nimue’s—both times it should have been easy. Just pop out and grab the thing. But then you showed up, no idea what you’re doing but shedding chaos anyway! But not this time. Everything is set up perfectly, and I’m not about to let you ruin it.”

  “It’s already ruined!” I stared around. “Missing the sword or the staff—it doesn’t matter! They’re still one piece short!”

  “Oh, but they’re not. Nimue is taking them the staff and shield as we speak, and Aeslinn already has the helm. And as for the sword . . .” She laughed again. “Arthur, the stupid prick, buried it. Under the sands of the arena—”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, I saw—”

  “You saw a pommel and a sheath. That’s all anybody ever sees. Otherwise, it sears your damn retinas out, like it almost did to me. That’s when he did it, you know? Last night, when we were wrestling in Nimue’s caravan, he was here, drawing the sword to replace the blade with another. The real one is now under the arena, where he plans to use it to fool Aeslinn. As if a being thousands of years old was likely to be taken in by any trick a human could devise!”

  “It’s already there?” I asked numbly, feeling hope erode. At the back of my mind, I’d assumed that Pritkin had it, that he’d hidden it somewhere, glamouried so the fey couldn’t find it. And maybe he had.

  But if so, he’d hidden the decoy.

  The real one wasn’t there.

  “So yes, he has them all,” Johanna said, sounding exultant. “Now all we have to do is sit back and wait.”

  “Sit back. . . .” I stopped, because suddenly, nothing made sense.

  And then everything did, and my heart froze in my chest.

  “You . . . you’re not trying to take the staff out of the timeline, are you?” I asked. “You’re trying to bring Ares back now. You’re trying to bring him back here.”

  It seemed impossible. Didn’t she get the implications? She was a time traveler. She had to!

  But it didn’t sound like it. “Why not?” The voice was amused. “In our time, the Circle is perfecting all kinds of nasty new weapons, and the demons are gathering in force. But here . . . who is waiting here?”

  “But this Ares doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know anything about you! If you bring him back now—”

  “Ah, still thinking like everybody else.” Johanna clicked her tongue in disappointment.

  “Then how should I be thinking?”

  “Like a Pythia! Or, better yet, like a necromancer.”

  “A necro—” I stopped.

  “Now you’re getting it.” She sounded like a teacher with a particularly dim-witted pupil. “If you’re outside time, you’re outside time. It has no hold over you. And right now Ares is outside time in his own universe, waiting for a door to open into this one. Any door. And it will be here, where the other gods are conveniently banished, where the magical community is small and divided, and where no one, no one at all, is expecting it.”

  I put a hand to my head. It was reeling so hard that I literally thought I might be going insane. “But . . . but even if you bring through the Ares from our time, he’s still planning to kill magic workers! All of them—or didn’t you get that?�
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  “Oh yes, I got that.” And suddenly, there was something besides amusement in her tone. “He’s planning to kill all the magic workers . . . like those who marginalized me, belittled me, humiliated me my whole life, because my magic was different from theirs? Those magic workers?”

  “But this is the past. Johanna, if the magical community ceases to exist, so do you! So do both of us!”

  “Do you think I care? Do you have any idea—no, of course you don’t.” It was acid. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up smarter than everyone else, more talented, more powerful—just not in an accepted way. So they shun you, or if you manage to successfully hide what you can do, they condescend—God, how they did! To me, who was a thousand times better than any of them!”

  I didn’t say anything. My heart was pounding. I had planned for a lot of things, but not this. To fight the battle where I had almost no allies and a thousand enemies—no. Not here.

  “I wanted to kill myself so many times,” Jo was saying. “Dreamed about it, lusted for it. But something always stopped me. Some rage at the unfairness of it all, the knowledge that I could die, but they would still be there, that they would win. Even if I took some with me, what was that? A handful out of a whole society? When it was the whole damn thing that had cursed me! Some passed the laws, others agreed with them, others just couldn’t be bothered to change anything, despite knowing they were wrong. When Ares was making his little pitch, trying to get us on his side, I was thinking the whole time—this is it. This is how I do it.”

  I tried to force myself to think, but this time, my brain wasn’t cooperating. Part of it was concentrating on the sound of the search growing closer: cell doors banging, people shouting, fists hitting skin. Another was watching the ghosts, who would be on me in a second if I didn’t. And a third just kept repeating: Not here, not now. Not here, not now. Not here, not now.

  “The others wanted prestige, power, fame,” Jo said scornfully. “Imagining themselves some conqueror’s queen, or listening to his empty promises of godhood. Or freaking out because he showed them visions of the destruction of his enemies. He planned to use us and then cast us aside, but me? I was sitting there the whole time, thinking about how I could use him.”