When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  She immediately began the rights to charge her next set of spells. Unlike her enemies, she needed no rest and never lost focus. She pulled in possibilities and primed them in her sphere of probability. She kept building spells, preparing ever more magic for destruction and protection. If they assaulted her now, they would die. Then she would gather her students, and they would pledge themselves together as Athaym’s apprentices.

  A week passed as she waited, but no one else came near Seredith’s halls. They were foolish. They let her prepare for their next onslaught, and any advantage they had earlier from her unpreparedness had been lost.

  Then an owl landed on Seredith’s balcony. A white crane followed.

  Seredith regarded them curiously. Why would such an odd pair of birds land?

  They seemed familiar, somehow. The owl stared at her as if he could see through her soul. He hooted once, but stayed there.

  The white crane suddenly shifted, and a young seelie woman crouched and raised a rifle on Seredith’s position.

  “Fernwalker?” Seredith intoned with her raspy dry voice. She had not expected Aradma’s daughter, who had been gone for years in the south to fight for Artalon.

  The queen is dead, she realized. They sent word and called for help.

  The young woman with the green hair didn’t respond. A light sparkled in her rifle’s scope.

  Seredith raised her wand, but Fernwalker pulled the trigger.

  The bullet burst forth in a flash of light and—musical notes?—and flew from the barrel. It seemed as if time stood still for a moment as the revenant watched the projectile fly faster than her wand could move.

  They must know, she thought, I cannot be killed by—

  The bullet entered Seredith’s chest. It wasn’t the lead that she felt, however. It was the burning of the strange light that Fernwalker had charged in her bullet.

  The magic of her being unraveled. The light charged within the bullet held some sort of resonant dissonance that untangled the knot of twisted bonds that kept Seredith trapped in her body. She fell over from the bullet’s impact, and a burning sensation spread from the wound.

  The life force of Fernwalker’s magic tore at Seredith’s being. The revenant dropped her wand and clutched her chest as the power of Life imbued in the bullet ripped through Seredith’s soul. The released starlight—for that’s what it was—somehow untangled and unfastened the ties that held Seredith’s soul to her already dead body.

  Seredith fell to her knees and then on to her face. Her head twisted on her neck, and she saw the owl’s eyes regarding her as darkness crept over her vision. The light in her eyes faded, and she died.

  25 - Rifts

  Anuit floated through the gateway to Dis and out onto the scorched plain. A sickly yellow-green hue that might have been pretty on an olive stretched dreadfully from horizon to horizon across hard sand beneath a gray sky.

  She hovered above the ground and looked down at herself with curiosity. She had consumed Belham’s essence in a moment of anger, but now her mind returned to some semblance of calm. Her new demonic countenance had incorporated elements of Belham’s form, and beneath the shadowy smoke she had absorbed from her first demon’s death, a shadow knight, her skin was now the smooth dark blue of the imp. Her slippered feet hung loosely, toes clearing the ground by inches.

  She relaxed her mind and gently descended to the hard sand. She closed her eyes and found her center. The demonic features vanished, and she was simply Anuit once more.

  “You’re losing yourself,” Arda said coldly from behind.

  Anuit turned to see the paladin standing there, regarding her without expression.

  “You ate your imp!” Arda accused. “That’s not normal. You’re not normal.”

  Anuit drew back. With anyone else she would have launched a few choice words, but she had no defense against Arda. The paladin’s accusation sank like a knife through her heart. “You’ve never… said that to me before,” she said reproachfully.

  Arda looked around at the flat landscape. The horizon extended to a straight line that met the sky in all directions. Not a single mountain or hill could be seen. The paladin turned back to the sorceress. “Your eyes are black like mine,” she stated coldly. “It must be this plane of existence bringing out the damage sorcery has done to your soul.”

  “Why are you saying this?” Anuit asked. “Belham betrayed us; you heard him. And we need to uncover Artalon’s secret.”

  “Because the more you indulge, the more you slip away from your humanity,” the paladin replied. “I sometimes wonder how much of you is left in there.”

  Anuit was about to reply, but the darkling wouldn’t let her. Arda pointed past the sorceress. “There,” she said. “The fissure. It is Dis.”

  Anuit turned and saw the gash in the ground. “Dis…” her voice trailed away. Arda’s words cut at her, but the sight of the chasm’s edge pushed the conversation away from her mind. From here, she could see no detail other than the break it made on the ground’s surface. “What’s beneath?” she wondered.

  “The twelve rings of Dis,” Arda replied. “One for each demon lord or lady, and in its center lies the Abyss where Malahkma is bound.”

  “How do you know this?” Anuit asked, suddenly suspicious.

  Arda regarded her silently for a moment, her black eyes showing no emotion. Then she closed her eyes, her face softened, and her tail twitched. She took a breath, and opened her eyes again. “We’ve all read many books in the dark library.”

  Anuit frowned and then set her fear and hurt aside. “The Darkling library affected us and started to turn us against each other,” she said. “This place will even be worse for it.”

  “Let’s go,” Arda answered. Was she ignoring Anuit’s effort to reach out and close the gap once more? The paladin headed towards the fissure without another glance, and Anuit followed.

  The sorceress’s heart thudded in apprehension at her lover’s sudden distant air. It’s just this place, she told herself. We’ll take Artalon’s secrets from the demon lords together, and then we’ll leave and this will all be over.

  The demon lords, she realized, would probably not be so willing to give up that secret. She steeled herself. She hoped it wouldn’t come to direct confrontation—her sorcery would be tested here—

  “Oh gods!” she exclaimed.

  Arda turned. “What?”

  Anuit closed her eyes and reached out with her senses, checking to see if her sudden realization was true. “There are no dead souls here!” she said fretfully. Her main source of power, gone. “I—I can’t use necromancy to tap into the Dark!”

  “You’re limited to your own ability?” Arda clarified.

  Anuit nodded.

  “Good,” Arda stated. “That was too much power for you anyway. Let’s go.”

  Anuit’s eyes moistened in anger after Arda turned her back again. The sorceress followed and wiped the glistening from her cheeks, determined not to let Arda see. What is wrong with you?! she thought silently at her lover. Then she reminded herself: I need to focus. This is the worst place to lose my emotional center. Damn you, Arda! She couldn’t stop feeling the heartthrob of this sudden lover’s spat. It would have been better if the paladin hadn’t followed her through the portal.

  Bryona, she summoned. Come to me. She would need the succubus’s strength given the lack of dead souls here, and she wasn’t about to let her only remaining demon sit this one out.

  The demon did not come.

  Anuit vocalized the sorcerous words to compel the succubus, yet still, the demon did not appear. She couldn’t even feel her minion through their pact-bond.

  This place. The rules are different here. She wondered if Bryona was stuck behind on Ahmbren.

  The two of them made their way to the fissure’s edge. It was larger than it had looked from a distance. Its edges cut jagged lines in the otherwise uniform land, but all along their sides, narrow footpaths revealed themselves and invited them into a
network of treacherous trails leading into the depths.

  “It’s not guarded,” Anuit remarked.

  “I don’t think getting in is going to be difficult,” Arda replied. “Getting out on the other hand… Where’s Bryona? Why don’t you summon her and ask her for help? She could guide us.”

  Anuit shook her head. “I can’t reach out to her,” she confessed. “The rules seem to be different here.”

  “That makes sense, I suppose,” Arda replied. “It’s Dis. It’s their world, not ours.”

  Anuit felt an intense longing for the comfort of Bryona’s presence. She didn’t like feeling alone here.

  I’m not alone. Arda’s with me! Yet she felt more isolated than she had in a long time.

  Arda stepped forward on one of the many paths and descended into the fissure. Anuit hurried to follow, not wanting to be left behind. She had the uncomfortable suspicion that time and space did not flow the same here as they did on Ahmbren. The very air had the same disorienting quality of a strange dream, and she worried that if she lost sight of the paladin, Arda would suddenly disappear. And then she really would be alone.

  The fissure was unlike anything Anuit expected. As they descended, it seemed as if the very reality of the space between the various pathways widened, until theirs was the only trail that existed. Below them was the pitch black of the Void, and the trail grew steeper until it changed from a path to stone steps, just at the moment where it would have been too steep for her to keep her footing. She was envious of the apparent ease with which Arda navigated the treacherous surface.

  Beneath them loomed lightless depths. Only their enhanced vision allowed them to continue without worrying about losing sight of the seemingly floating flagstones that made the stairway. Anuit made the mistake of looking back up. She gasped.

  “What?” Arda asked. The paladin stopped and also looked up, seeing what had startled the sorceress. “Oh.”

  Instead of cliff walls leading back up to the fissure’s contours, Anuit looked into a nighttime sky with constellations unlike any she had seen on Ahmbren. Torn into the sky’s fabric of reality was the gray daylight seeping through the jagged fissure. All the different trails led back up to the tear in the cosmos, but they were not joined to each other. Her path seemed to be suspended in the emptiness, and the stairs that descended from the sloped trail hovered in the air, not supported by anything.

  A sinking feeling pulled through Anuit’s heart, and she suddenly grasped the steps behind her. She turned and realized that the stairway had grown so steep it was almost like descending a ladder. She hugged the flagstones, keeping her feet firmly planted. With one hand, she felt between the flagstone, tracing all around its contours, both above and below. It was indeed suspended in space.

  “Come,” Arda stated coldly. “We’re here for a reason.” The paladin continued, and Anuit could hear her boot steps swiftly descend into the expanse.

  “Wait!” Anuit called out. “Don’t get too far ahead. I don’t want to be separated.”

  The darkling didn’t answer but she slowed.

  Anuit closed her eyes, calmed herself, and moved down again. How had the stairs suddenly gotten so steep? She didn’t remember them getting like this… but now they really were almost like a ladder, only more awkward. It seemed as if any moment her feet would slip off the alarmingly small flagstones, and every once in a while she could swear the staircase was sheer, or even leaning into her. On more than one occasion she felt a brief fall backwards, and she grabbed onto the floating stones until she could find her center once more. She would close her eyes and then open them to find the stairwell was not nearly as steep as she imagined.

  Yes, like a dream.

  A nightmare.

  It’s Dis. I’m in Dis.

  No, she wasn’t in Dis yet. She descended into Dis. How much worse would it be there?

  Hand over hand, foot over foot, Anuit kept going. After some time, she was suddenly aware that Arda’s footsteps had grown much fainter. The dark-skinned sorceress looked down and caught her breath. Arda had receded into a faint shadow, far below.

  “Arda!” she called out. “Arda!” she yelled louder this time. “Wait! We’ve become separated.”

  The paladin looked up at her, darkling horns poking out on her silhouette. She seemed to stop moving. “Anuit!” Her voice seemed very far away. “Keep coming, I’ll wait… How did you get so far behind?”

  Anuit looked past Arda for the first time and saw their destination.

  “Oh my gods,” she breathed. Her knees went weak, and she almost slipped.

  There, suspended in the center of black space among the stars, was a great steel sphere. She couldn’t fathom how large it was—it must have been miles across. From its surface, spindly towers jutted, each with their own narrow spines bursting every which way, without rhyme or reason. Their tips were needle-thin spires, thousands of feet above the sphere’s surface. Each of them seemed to have trails leading to far off fissures of their own.

  The stairway descended to the needle-spire, but it was too far away to see how it connected. The sudden sense of height above the sphere made Anuit swoon, and she tightly clung to the flagstones once more as they again seemed to sway back and tilt the incline against her.

  When the world righted itself, she looked down again. She could see lights on the towers, tiny windows with pinpricks of unholy color showing out into the emptiness.

  Arda was an even smaller dot below, and she was moving again!

  Anuit set her fear aside and move her hands and legs swiftly but carefully over the floating stair steps.

  “Hurry up!” Arda’s voice sounded, very faint and far below. “I’m waiting!”

  But she wasn’t waiting! She was moving, and no matter how fast Anuit tried to descend, the paladin kept slipping farther away!

  Oh, what have we gotten ourselves into? she thought in a horrifying moment. They could have just stayed and fought the bloody war and put up with gods in the world. Anything was better than this soupy darkness!

  Anuit moved and breathed, and then her moving and breathing were the only sounds. Arda’s footsteps no longer carried through the void.

  Anuit was alone. She looked up, but the light of the fissure was so distant as to be almost an afterthought in her vision. Closer was the tower below. All she could do now was go forward.

  The stairway finally landed at a small balcony at the top of the tower’s needle-nose spire. Anuit stepped onto the flat surface, breathing a sigh of relief. She looked up at the stairway and was surprised to see another shadowy form descending.

  “Anuit!” a familiar voice rang out. “Anuit! Oh, thank Dis!” It was Bryona. The woman appeared in her natural form, cloven hooves and all. She hurried and descended to the balcony. “I’ve been trying to catch up with you!” she said. Her eyes shone with concern and compassion. “Where’s Arda? I saw her go into the portal after you.”

  Anuit shook her head. “It’s… I don’t know. I lost her.”

  Bryona bit her lip. “It’s like that here.”

  Anuit frowned. She still couldn’t feel Bryona’s presence through their pact-bond. “Why didn’t you just fly down,” she asked, pointing at the succubus’s wings.

  “I can’t,” Bryona said. “Not here.”

  Anuit arched an eyebrow.

  Bryona fidgeted uncomfortably. “I’m not yet a citizen of Dis.”

  “Yet?”

  Bryona’s brow crinkled in embarrassment. “You’ve read the books,” she said. “Only if you give me your life would I be welcome here.” She looked down to the ground and then back up into Anuit’s eyes. “I’ve accepted not becoming a citizen. I don’t want to do that to you.”

  “Really,” Anuit stated skeptically.

  “I know you don’t trust me,” Bryona said. “You shouldn’t; I understand. But it doesn’t matter. You’re different, and you’ve made me different. I will help you. I’m just glad you’re okay. We should get moving if we’re going to
find Arda.”

  Anuit nodded. “Any ideas on how to find the temporal records that will show Artalon’s secret?”

  Bryona cocked her head and raised her eyebrows quizzically. “Maybe find the demon lord that used to be Desdemona’s incubus?”

  Anuit sighed. The succubus had no clue either. Well, that was as good a start as any.

  She leaned over the side of the balcony and looked down. The tower descended through the ground. From Anuit’s guess, there was at least a half a mile of clearance between the steel sphere’s surface and the tower’s side. The only way down was into the sphere itself; how one might walk upon the streets of its steel surface was anyone’s guess. But if Anuit had to hazard one, she wagered their target would be far within Dis’s center, close to the core.

  She reached out to the Dark. She couldn’t channel the fullness of power to which she had grown accustomed in Ahmbren without the dead-soul matter in the air, but she could still touch its source. She felt through the shadows and discerned the tower’s inner staircase was empty of movement. Cautiously but deliberately, she moved down the tower steps with Bryona following, hoping around each turn she might find Arda again.

  The stairs descended to a level midway down the tower and stopped. The walls formed a triangular archway, and beyond lay a wide circular chamber. At its opposite end, Anuit saw another similar archway and then more passages.

  “There must be another stairwell,” she whispered.

  Bryona nodded. “Be careful,” the succubus whispered back. “There’s no telling what may be hiding in there. Something feels wrong about this place.”

  Anuit regarded her servitor for a moment, meeting Bryona’s green eyes. “You mean even more wrong than that we’re in Dis?”

  The demon woman nodded. “Something is out of place.”

  “How would you know?” Anuit challenged. “You didn’t exist before I gave a piece of my soul to the demon lords.”

  “I’m still a demon,” Bryona responded earnestly. “There’s a part of me that is of this place. There are things I know in my soul because of what I am.”