Ruler, Rival, Exile

by Morgan Rice

  Stephania knelt by the healer, checking for a pulse. When she found one, she shook her head. The woman knew too much about her to be allowed to live, of course. That much was simple sense. Stephania owed her a debt, though; this woman had saved her life.

  That made it worse, not better.

  Stephania drew a sharp knife and sliced it across the other woman’s throat.

  It was regrettable, but it was simply what was necessary.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The waters churned around Ceres as she sailed to the island. They pushed at her small boat, almost as if the currents themselves had been crafted to keep people away from this place that was meant to be neither living nor dead.

  Perhaps they had. Ceres had seen stranger things.

  She found herself thinking of Thanos as she sailed toward the shore. He’d seemed so certain when he’d asked her to marry him. Right then, Ceres didn’t feel certain about anything. It felt as though everything that had happened since the start of the rebellion had left her feeling as though her life was a thing of shifting sands, with no room for anything permanent built on them.

  Ceres pulled her attention back to what she was doing in time to move the boat around sharp-edged rocks. She circled the island, looking for a place to land.

  From the water, it looked a forbidding place. The rock there looked almost burned, as if some impossible heat had been applied to it all at some point in the distant past. Here and there, Ceres thought that she could see stands of trees sticking up from the island, but they seemed to shimmer and twist, there one moment, then gone the next.

  She saw a beach ahead, and it was impossible to say for sure whether it was a thing of golden sand or white bleached dust. One moment, seals appeared to bask on the rocks near it, the next they were gone. The whole island seemed to be caught between two states, simultaneously a place of perfect, vibrant beauty and a blasted, ruined thing.

  Ceres wasn’t sure what to think about that. She had seen amazing things before. She’d seen the Forest Folk on their progress to becoming trees, and the stone gardens of the Isle of Mists. She’d seen men baffled as she and her friends disappeared. This felt different though. It felt wrong.

  At the same time, it might be the only hope against the invasion that was coming to Haylon. Robbed of her powers, Ceres hadn’t been able to save Delos. With them, she might be able to help the island.

  She pulled her boat up to the beach. It continued to shift as she stepped onto it, and for a moment, it seemed as though she was in the midst of another invasion. This one featured brightly shining beings, resplendent in their power. Dragons with rainbow scales flowed above them, swimming through the air as much as flying. Birds with wings of fire flew low over the water, turning it to steam as they passed.

  The image gave way to the reality of broken rock and white sand. Ceres started her way up the beach. The sand gave way under her feet, making the going hard, but ahead, she thought she could see a path up through some rocks, heading up to the main body of the island.

  The past blended with the present as she walked, and Ceres found herself having a hard time telling one from the other.

  Figures continued to charge up onto the island. Magic struck at them, and Ceres could feel the heat and power that came from it. She saw an Ancient One torn apart by invisible forces, felt the heat of dragon fire as it lashed down across some of the rocks in front of her…

  …and saw the scars that it had left on the blackened rocks in the present as she climbed upward.

  The battle flashed in and out of existence, but there were other elements blending with it now. Ceres had thought that it was just one moment of the past, trapped as if in ice, but it was more than that. Echoes of other things seemed to be everywhere. She saw a ghost panther slip through solid rock, leaping after a lion with the hindquarters of a goat. She saw a butterfly flying unhindered through what seemed to be the heart of the battle, and guessed that it was two different moments from the island mashed together, still alive in the deadness of the island.

  It made navigating her way across the broken landscape harder than Ceres could have believed. It wasn’t just that rocks lay across the path wherever they had fallen as a result of the forces unleashed by the battle, or the melted patches, some of which still seemed to glow red so many years after everything that had happened.

  No, what made it difficult was the other landscape that flashed in front of her with every step, so that Ceres found herself stepping out of the way of trees only to walk into rocks, or climbing over rocks only to pull back because there were creatures sitting on them that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  It was a very different landscape, although it was a strange one too. Things Ceres assumed were trees turned out to be mushrooms that towered over everything else. Grass shone in purple and gold as well as green. It looked like a place where beings with almost godlike power had decided to experiment with the very landscape.

  Perhaps they had. This was the island where sorcerers had built their weapons, after all. Perhaps they had decided to experiment with other things, from the plants and animals to the landscape itself.

  Ceres stood at the top of a low rise, watching creatures go past. There were animals down there that seemed like impossible combinations: climbing squirrels with birdlike heads, snakes with feathers running along their backs. She watched as a herd of deer with single spiral horns ran past, and ignored the muscular half man, half cat that stared at them from a rock near her.

  Then it leapt at her, and Ceres realized that she wasn’t just looking at the past.

  She flung herself sideways, rolling and coming to her feet as the creature snarled. It swiped at her with dagger-like claws and Ceres dodged back. Her swords leapt into her hands. She’d been so struck by the contrast between the dead island and the living past that it hadn’t occurred to her that anything might still be here.

  The beast lunged at her, and Ceres dodged again, her nearest sword cutting across its back in a line that brought blood up to its fur. The creature spun again, fast and deadly, leaping at her with a mouth open to reveal fangs.

  This time, the speed of its attack was too great to avoid, so Ceres didn’t even try. Instead, she dropped back, thrusting up with both of her blades. She felt the jarring impact as the great cat’s momentum drove it onto her weapons. It snarled, trying to reach for her with its claws, and Ceres found herself thinking back to when this had all began, fighting an omnicat in the Stade and hoping to impress Thanos.

  This cat died above her, and as it did, all Ceres could think about was how she wished things could be that simple with Thanos again. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, it seemed, wherever she went.

  Maybe she ought to say yes to him. Maybe she would, if she got back.

  But first, Ceres had to get back, and she wouldn’t do that if she couldn’t focus on what was happening in front of her. Whether it was Thanos or the strange creatures that seemed to flow out of the island’s past, this was a place where any distraction could kill her as surely as an enemy’s sword.

  Above her, the predatory man-cat died, and Ceres pushed it away, breathing hard. With her powers, it would have been an easy fight. As it was, she had scratches on her arms, and could feel bruises rising from the impact of the thing.

  She kept going, and in the absence of any real idea of where on the island to go, Ceres followed the flow of the ancient battle, watching the terrifying impact of weapons that ripped people to pieces, and the counterstrikes of the Ancient Ones’ creatures. Worse still were the weapons that seemed to kill without leaving a trace; that just ripped the life from their foes, leaving nothing but husks.

  Ceres saw bodies as she walked now, although these clearly hadn’t been there since the battle. There were men and women in armor, and others in the robes of scholars. Not many, but they were spread out along the path wherever they had fallen. Ceres could see the wounds that had killed some, pointing to animal strikes or conflicts between them. A
few were little more than bones, with no way to know what had happened to them.

  It seemed that it was true: people didn’t come back from this island.

  Ahead, Ceres heard the sound of rushing water, and she hurried toward it. She came to a spot where a river dove down into a gorge in a waterfall that seemed to stretch out in an endless arc. She could see stairs on the far side of the gorge, cut into the rock, although something had blasted many of them away, while others were covered with vines and grass that hadn’t been present on so much of the rest of the island.

  “Is this it?” Ceres asked. Given the strangeness of the island, she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear an answer, but instead, there was silence.

  She didn’t need one, though. Far below, Ceres could see a doorway. It seemed strangely pristine against the rest of the island, its supporting columns seemingly worked from blue crystal, while the door itself was carved with designs Ceres couldn’t make out at that distance.

  It had to be the place. What else could it be?

  Finding out for sure meant climbing down, and that was a long way from being easy. Ceres made her way around to the stairs, pressing close to the rock wall and hoping that they would hold as she made her way down.

  They didn’t. One crumbling step gave way under her feet and Ceres found herself grabbing for the rock. She felt her palm tearing open under the sharpness of the rock, but she clung to it nonetheless, searching around with her foot until it found solid ground again.

  She kept going. The stairs were still her best route down, even if they had gaps that gave way to vertiginous drops, and even though they were slick with the water from the waterfall.

  She made her way down step by step, leaping over the gaps where she had to, stepping over them where she could. Twice more, the steps beneath her gave way, but Ceres was ready for it now, and she kept her hands close to the walls, where they could grab for handholds. She stepped around grass and over vines, being careful not to touch any of the thorns that stuck out from one patch of creepers. She didn’t want to think about what kind of poison might be lurking on them.

  She made her way lower, until now she could see the pool that lay at the base of the gorge, swirling in dark water as the waterfall hit it. Her concentration was on the door, though, which seemed far larger down here than it had at the top.

  It wasn’t a solid thing, Ceres could see now. Instead, the door seemed to be created from line after line of squares, each one bearing a symbol in a language Ceres didn’t know. She knew without being told that it was some kind of lock; one that would require her to touch the right sequence in the right order or…

  …or what? Ceres wasn’t sure about that part, but she doubted that it would be good. This was meant to be a safe place for the sorcerers who had taken on the Ancient Ones. Yet as her vision shifted to the echoes of the past again, Ceres could see that they had found a way inside.

  “Once we have the door,” one of the Ancient Ones said, “we must be ready with the magic. Do not hesitate!”

  He moved to the door, touching stones in sequence. Ceres saw them shift backward as he pushed, locking into place with distinct clicks. The image shimmered, and Ceres saw the door swing open.

  She moved to the doorway, pressing the stones in the same order, hoping that it would be right. She saw her blood smearing on the door as she did so, and felt the hum of power beneath her hand.

  Nothing happened. Ceres had been so certain that it would open for her. She’d gotten the sequence right. She’d—

  The door glowed, then disappeared as if it had never been. Beyond, there lay a gaping tunnel mouth, within which there was just enough light to see the stone walls extending into the distance.

  “Welcome, child of the Ancient Ones,” a voice said. It sounded as though it could have been just the wind coming from the tunnel, but the words were clear. “At last, one of your kind has come to unlock this torment.”

  Ceres shook her head. “That wasn’t what I came to do. I came to recover my powers.”

  “But it is what you will do,” the voice replied. “End this pain. End it, and we will give you what you want.”

  Ceres hesitated there. She didn’t know what waited inside, or what this voice was. She didn’t have any clue how she was supposed to undo the damage of the island, either. But she knew that the invasion was coming. If she didn’t take this final step, she might as well never have come here.

  Taking a deep breath, Ceres stepped inside.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Thanos sailed closer to the island where the request for help had come from, hoping that he would get there in time. He wasn’t alone. Jeva stood by the tiller, guiding the boat with what seemed to be an expert hand. She’d been waiting on the docks when he’d left, and had jumped onto the boat without a word.

  “Why did you come?” Thanos had asked.

  She shrugged. “It is you I owe my life to, not the others.”

  It was as much of an answer as she’d been prepared to give. Thanos was grateful for the help, although he wasn’t sure how much one extra person could do there if this turned to violence.

  He had no illusions about the dangers that they might be facing. He’d seen what Felldust’s fleet could do, and how little mercy its warriors had. He knew Jeva knew that as well, because she would have died at their hands if he and Ceres hadn’t saved her.

  They pulled closer to the island, and Thanos wasn’t surprised to see people coming down to meet them on the beach. They mostly looked like sheep farmers and fisher folk, ordinary people rather than warriors.

  “They won’t add much to the swords defending Haylon,” Jeva said.

  “That’s not why we’re doing this,” Thanos replied. “We’re doing this because these people need our help. They’ll die without us.”

  Jeva looked a little confused by that. “Perhaps it is their time to die. You are a strange man, Thanos, but I will help you.”

  They pulled onto the beach, and Thanos leapt clear, feeling the water lap at his ankles as he hauled it up there.

  “Where are the others?” one of the men called. He was an older man, dressed in the rough oilskins of a fisherman. “Are you scouting for them?”

  Thanos shook his head. This was the hardest part of it: telling these people that help wouldn’t be coming. That Haylon had abandoned them. He stood silently for a moment, trying to think of the best way to put it.

  Jeva didn’t have the same problem. “There are no others. Thanos is here because he is foolish about these things. I am here because he is here. You will save yourselves, or you will die.”

  Thanos looked over at her, then back at the men and women on the beach. “Jeva has put things… harshly, but what she says is true. It’s up to us to get you off this island.”

  He heard the murmur from the people there. They obviously weren’t happy. More than that, Thanos could see their fear, and he couldn’t blame them. The hammer blow of Felldust’s fleet was coming, and they would need more than just him to stand in the way.

  “Do you have any fishing boats?” he asked.

  “A few,” one of the men said. “But they are not warships.”

  Thanos shook his head. “Forget about fighting. There will be time to fight later on. For now, the goal is to get everyone off this island before the enemy comes.”

  He marched up the beach, with Jeva following. As he’d hoped, the villagers started to come with him. He needed to put his worries aside now, and provide the leadership that these people needed if they were going to get out of this alive.

  “Right,” he said. “I want you to gather every boat you can near mine. Every boat, no matter how small. Send out people to gather up any stragglers on the island and tell people to gather their belongings. Only what they can carry, and as much food and drink as possible. Find a man with good eyes and put him on a high point. Go!”

  Almost to Thanos’s surprise, they obeyed. He hoped that his instructions would be enough. He followed the inhabi
tants of the island down into their village, which was in truth barely more than a hamlet. There were a few people there, standing around with bags that suggested they’d already prepared to leave. A few had scythes or harpoons, but there were no spears or swords there.

  Thanos was about to relay his orders to them, when a boy came running into the heart of the houses. He couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve years of age.

  “I’ve seen them!” he called, pointing “I’ve seen them! Ships are coming!”

  Thanos looked over at Jeva, then started to run for a nearby rise. She kept pace with him easily, and the two of them sprinted to a point where it was possible to look out over the ocean. There were indeed ships closing in. Half a dozen of them, rowing closer by the second, growing from dark dots to slender galleys.

  “These are just scout ships,” Jeva said beside him, with the confidence of someone who had seen the whole of Felldust’s fleet. “They don’t think there are enough people on this island to be worth their full fleet. These will kill everyone here, and then the rest will go past in safety.”

  She said it as calmly as if she were discussing the weather.

  “Six ships of troops are still too many to fight at once,” Thanos said.

  Jeva took her time answering, as if unwilling to admit it. “I suppose so. We must help them flee, then?”

  Thanos nodded, running back to the village. People were already starting to snatch up their belongings.

  “There’s no time now. Get to whatever boats we have, as quickly as you can. Anyone with a weapon who wants to try to slow them down, with me!”

  A fraction of the men responded, but there were far too few. They would never be able to hold against the enemies coming at them. Even so, Thanos drew his sword and waited while around him, villagers started to flee. Some ran, but the oldest and the youngest could only move slowly.