by Rachel Aaron
“We watched your fight,” Slorn said, unflinching. “The girl you call Nico has another name here. The Shapers call her Daughter of the Dead Mountain, and if the Lord of Storms hadn’t finished her, they meant to.”
Josef’s face turned murderous, and the old man beside Slorn drew himself up. “It would be our right,” he said. “Almost three years ago, that creature led the demon’s assault on the Shapers. She slaughtered the Teacher’s mountains, eating them like sheep as she carved a path from the Dead Mountain to our very slopes. Had the League of Storms not stopped her, she would have attacked the Shaper Mountain itself. She is our enemy, but worse, she was our child.”
The old man stopped a moment, and when he continued, his voice was softer. “Before the demon took her, the girl was one of our own daughters. A child of the mountain, precious to us and to the Teacher. Killing the monster she became would not just be vengeance for those she killed, but vengeance for the girl she had been, our daughter whose soul was eaten by the demon and replaced with his black seed.”
“Nico’s bounty,” Josef said, his voice dangerously strained. “That was you?”
“It was,” the old man said. “I am Ferdinand Slorn, Guildmaster of the Shapers. I gave the order then just as I would have given it now. Had the Lord of Storms fallen, we would have come forward to kill the demonseed ourselves. But then, things changed.”
“The seed was ripped out,” Slorn said, picking up the story. “But Nico didn’t die.”
“Of course she didn’t die,” Josef snapped. “She’s a survivor.”
“No, swordsman,” Slorn said, shaking his head. “A demonseed’s host dies the moment the seed is removed. Always. That’s why a demonseed is a death sentence. Even if the seed is small, the moment it is implanted, the seed’s life becomes tangled with the host spirit. Removing the seed kills the soul and destroys the host body. This is a universal truth. Or so we thought.”
Josef folded his arms over his chest. “Nico proved you wrong.”
“Nico is no longer a demonseed,” Slorn said. “If she were, she would have died the second the seed left her body. But the seed is gone and her soul still lives. Actually, I’d say she’s more powerful now without the seed than she was when I saw her at Izo’s camp.”
Eli winced, remembering the enormous black monster with its hideous yellow eyes, the black mouth roaring as it devoured the forest. He glanced at the bone metal box on the floor between them. He didn’t want to see something more powerful than that.
Slorn took a long breath. “The truth, swordsman, is that we didn’t decide not to kill Nico out of kindness or respect to you or her. We can’t kill her. It’s my belief that she is no longer a demonseed inside a human host but a fully fledged demon in her own right. She is the very thing we have feared for so long, the thing the Demon of the Dead Mountain has been striving to create since his imprisonment began. And with this demon as with the other, none of us, not the Shapers nor the Teacher nor the League nor the Shepherdess herself, has the power to destroy her. Not without striking so hard we break the world in the process. The best we can hope for now is to contain her as we contained her father.”
“So you’re just going to keep her in that box forever?” Josef shouted. “Not a chance! I won’t allow it.”
“You don’t get a choice,” Slorn said. “This is larger than us now, Josef Liechten. The thing in that box isn’t Nico anymore but a predator capable of devouring everything we call reality. It is by pure good fortune that we had a vessel capable of containing her ready before that happened. Letting her out is simply not possible. We’re lucky we got her in.”
“She’s not a monster!” Josef roared, grabbing Slorn by his collar. “And she’s still in there. Nico doesn’t lose to anything!”
Slorn didn’t answer, nor did he pull out of Josef’s grasp. He simply stood there, brown bear eyes staring into Josef’s until, at last, the swordsman let go. “I’m not giving up,” Josef said, sitting down on the white stone beside the chain-swaddled box.
Eli, Slorn, and the Guildmaster exchanged a look and stepped back, moving quietly to the far end of the white room, giving Josef his space.
“I want to say he’ll come around,” Eli said, scrubbing his hands through his hair in frustration. “But I don’t think he will. I don’t know that I will. After everything she’s been through, all the fights she won, I can’t believe Nico’s lost now.”
“I don’t know what her future holds,” Slorn said. “Something like this has never happened before. But I do know we cannot afford to take chances, not with things as bad as they are.”
“There at least we agree,” Eli said. “All this aside, though, I’m very glad you appeared, Slorn. I have some news I need to tell someone, and I think you’re the best choice by far, but first”—Eli folded his arms and gave the Shaper a piercing look—“how did you get the ability to cut the veil? Did the Lord of Storms finally convince you to join his club, or does everyone get those now? Because I swear I saw a Spiritualist use one just before everything went south.”
“I don’t know about the Spiritualists,” Slorn said. “But to answer your question, no, I’m not in service of the Shepherdess, League or otherwise. Other than the ability to move through the veil, I am the same as I was last we met. That power was granted me only recently by the Master of the Veil himself in order to make the bitter work we’re about to embark on a little easier.”
“Wait,” Eli said, holding up his hands. “Wait, wait, wait. What work? And Master of the Veil? I know I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but what are you talking about? Who’s the Master of the Veil?”
I am.
Eli jumped a foot in the air. The voice rang through his head just like the Shepherdess’s, but where hers was a woman’s cold soprano, this was a steady tenor. Beside him, Slorn and the old Guildmaster were lowering their heads in reverence. Eli followed their eyes and found himself face to face with an old man.
He was as tall as Josef, but frail with age, his limbs thin and bony. Even so, his shoulders were straight, his hands steady, and his white skin was as luminous and unblemished as Benehime’s. His hair was white, too, as was his beard. They covered him from head to toe just as Benehime’s hair covered her body when she wished it covered. But even without all this, Eli would have known what he was. There was nothing else in the world with those white eyes, the irises outlined in a faint shadow of silver. The man was one of the brothers Benehime had spoken of. Another Power of creation, but which one?
I am the Weaver, the old man said, answering the question before Eli spoke it. I am responsible for the world’s shell and the veil that hides it from the spirits within, who are the Shepherdess’s domain. And you would be my sister’s favorite, are you not?
“Former favorite,” Eli said. “But why are you here?”
It is true I have no place within the sphere, the Weaver said. But I’ve always held a special fondness for Durain’s children, especially his human ones. I consider it vital to my purpose to remember whom my weaving protects, so I have maintained a closeness with the great mountain over the years. Even had I not, though, I would have come now.
“Because Benehime is calling back the stars,” Eli said.
The Weaver’s bright face darkened as his fine brows fell into a scowl. Sadly, that is but the final stroke of her betrayal. The Shepherdess has been negligent in her duties for many years, but after she allowed the Daughter of the Dead Mountain a near total awakening, I knew I could no longer stand aside.
Eli swallowed. The Weaver was talking about that business up at Izo’s. “Well, if you’re here to try and talk the Shepherdess into doing her job, I’ve got some bad news for you. Just before we got here, she took me back to her white place.”
The Between, the Weaver corrected.
“Whatever,” Eli said with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, the floating sphere she’s always looking at, that’s our world, isn’t it?”
It is, the Weaver said.
The Weaver frowned. Why would she do that?
“Because she’s going to join them,” Eli said. “She told me she was tired of being Shepherdess and that she was quitting to go live in this new paradise she’s made.”
“Quitting?” Slorn said, horrified. “You don’t just quit being one of the three Powers of Creation.”
“That’s what I said,” Eli replied. “But she’s completely serious. That was why she snatched me up. She wanted me to go to paradise with her.”
“But you’re still here,” Slorn said.
“Of course,” Eli said. “Living with Benehime forever in a world full of spirits who worship at her feet? That’s not paradise. That’s torture.”
The Weaver chuckled. I suppose that explains the “former” part of your status as favorite.
“She was the one who decided I was her favorite,” Eli said, crossing his arms. “I got away from that as soon as I could.”
The Weaver’s chuckle grew into a full laugh. I was prepared to hate you, thief. I blamed you for my sister’s distraction, but now I think I have gained a greater understanding. As for the news she means to leave this world for another of her own making, we already suspected she had a plan of that sort.
Eli blinked. “You did?”
“There was nothing else she could be doing with the stars,” Slorn said. “And you don’t ruin one world without having somewhere else you’re planning to go.”
“Well, if you know that, why are you still here?” Eli snapped. “She’s got just about every star now.”
All but one, the Weaver said, his white eyes drifting up. Durain, Teacher of the Shapers, Lord of all Mountains. He is her oldest star, and the last to answer her call. He’s been resisting her pull for days now to buy us time.
“Buy time for what?” Eli said.
For my brother to arrive.
The Weaver said this with such reluctance that Eli realized he’d been thinking about this all wrong. “Wait,” he said. “You’re not just going to go lecture her, are you?”
No, the Weaver answered, his eyes sad. My sister has chosen to abandon the world our father left her in charge of. That is a path that cannot be ignored or forgiven. I would stop her myself if I could, but I cannot. The Creator in his wisdom made his children to live in peace, and to that end, he made us equals. My power is as great as the Shepherdess’s and not a hair greater. Any struggle between us would end in stalemate and likely destroy that which we were created to protect in the process.
“But you’re not alone,” Eli said. “There are many spirits, powerful spirits, who would be more than willing to rise against the Shepherdess.”
That may be, the Weaver said. And that would be useful were the Shepherdess’s realm any other than what it is. But the Shepherdess commands the sphere and the spirits it contains. No soul in this world can raise a hand to harm her, no matter how justified. Even if I had every spirit behind me, they could not act against their Lady.
“So what are you going to do, then?” Eli asked. Because this was all starting to look pretty hopeless.
I told you, the Weaver said. We are waiting for my brother, the Hunter. The Shepherdess rules over the spirits who live within the sphere. I, the Weaver, maintain the boundaries, constantly rebuilding the world’s shell as it is torn down. The Hunter lives outside the world, defending the shell from those who would break it.
“Outside the world?” Eli said, his voice trembling.
The Weaver sighed. You would call it the other side of the sky. This world, all that you know, is but the last, tiny outpost of what was once a vast creation. The shell is the boundary between this world and what lies beyond, a wall against the dark created for your protection, you and all spirits. The Hunter is the one who protects the wall.
Eli was starting to feel wobbly. “So,” he said, “if the Hunter’s job is to protect, what’s he protecting against? What does the Hunter hunt?”
Such things are not to be discussed and have no bearing on our current predicament, the Weaver said coldly. The important thing is that the Hunter is returning to our world very soon. His rests are sacred and seldom, but this situation is serious enough to warrant interrupting him. I’ve already woven a message into the sphere itself for him to come to me as soon as he is inside. When that happens, we shall be two against one, and the Shepherdess will be completely overpowered.
“And what happens after?” Eli said, staring at the Weaver with growing horror. He hated Benehime, hated her for everything she had done, but he couldn’t think of her being killed.
“That’s what I was for,” Slorn said, his voice low and growling. “I was sentenced to life imprisonment for disobeying the mountain and fleeing with my wife after she became a demonseed. The Teacher offered to rescind that punishment if I helped the Weaver construct a prison capable of holding the Shepherdess.”
“Prison?” Eli said, astonished. “You’re going to put her in prison?”
We must, the Weaver said. We are Powers, created from the body of the Creator himself. Even if I wanted to kill my sister, I could not. We can restrain her, overpower her, but nothing in creation can kill a Power.
“So, what, you’re going to lock her up for a few thousand years and see if she won’t come around?” Eli said. “What are you even going to put her in?”
The Weaver’s eyes fell to the bone metal box, and Eli stiffened. “Ah,” he said. “I see.”
“I am the only thing in this world that can Shape bone metal,” Slorn said. “The Weaver cannot change spirits, so the lot fell to me.”
The substance you call bone metal is not actually metal at all, the Weaver said. At the beginning of this world, as the Creator fought to make the sphere, his hand was torn off. It fell to the ground. His bones are all that is left, and just like the Powers or the black cores of the demons, they cannot be destroyed. This bone is the only substance that the Shepherdess cannot shatter.
“Hold on,” Eli said. “If Slorn can Shape it, why can’t Benehime?”
Slorn looked at his hands. “All wizardry comes from the Shepherdess, even Shaping. But to Shape bone metal requires more than will and power. It requires sympathy. Sympathy, and a deep understanding of the spirit’s true nature. That’s why it is the perfect prison for the Shepherdess. If she was capable of the kind of sympathy needed to bend bone metal, we wouldn’t need a prison in the first place.”
Eli glanced at the bone metal coffin with an enormous sigh. “That’s all well and good,” he said. “But aren’t you overlooking the part where your box is a little occupied at the moment? Unless you have a second one hidden away somewhere, we’re in a tight spot.”
Slorn shook his head. “It took all the bone metal known in the world to make that one.”
Eli cursed under his breath. He didn’t like where this was going.
This is why we told you the truth, Eli Monpress, the Weaver said gently. You now understand the desperation of what we are about to attempt and how vital it is that we succeed. It was a lucky stroke that we had the box ready when your demon was born, but we cannot keep her there. Once my brother and I overpower our sister, we will have to move the demon to a new cell.
Eli brightened. “You have a new cell?”
Slorn and Weaver frowned in unison. We have a vessel that will suffice, the Weaver said. But you must understand. When the first demon was discovered within the shell, it took all three Powers to seal it away with the Shepherdess taking the lead. This time, however, our sister will almost certainly not help. As such, down a third of our power, it will be a very delicate operation. There will be absolutely no room for outside forces, especially those who would seek to aid the demon.
At that, the Weaver’s eyes moved pointedly to Josef.
“You must control your swordsman when the time comes, Monpress,” Slorn said, laying a large, heavy hand on Eli’s shoul
der. “Nico must be bound, but with only two Powers to seal the prison, one swing from the Heart would be enough to tip the balance. I wish we could give him more time to come to terms with his loss, but the Hunter is coming very soon. We must move now.”
The timing is both fortunate and unfortunate, the Weaver said. The Hunter is allowed to leave his duties for only one hour of rest every hundred years. That hour falls today. Had Benehime decided to turn traitor at any other point, we couldn’t have dealt with it. But my sister and the Hunter were always the closest of us three. I can only guess she still loves her brother enough that she could not abandon him without saying good-bye. That sentimentality may be the only thing that saves us.
That explanation didn’t sit well with Eli, but the Weaver didn’t give him a chance to comment. The Power leaned forward, his white presence overwhelming Eli.
That is why we must move now, he said, his deep voice thrumming in the air. If we miss this chance, the timing won’t line up again for another hundred years, and the Shepherdess will be free to make her escape. Even if we could somehow get her back, the world cannot live so long without its Shepherdess or the stars she’s taken with her.
“The demon has already pushed our timetable to its limits,” Slorn said. “Once the Hunter enters the sphere, we’ll have one hour to work. We must move the girl the moment he arrives so the box will be empty in time for the Shepherdess’s imprisonment.”
“I understand that,” Eli said. “But—”
Your swordsman is now a true master of the sword he carries, the Weaver said right over him. The Heart of War is very particular about its loyalties. An outburst from them could ruin everything. You must restrain your swordsman when the time comes.
“Why are you so worried about me going crazy?”
Everyone jumped, even the Weaver. Across the room, Josef was sitting beside the coffin, glaring daggers at them. “I have pretty good ears, you know.”
So it seems, the Weaver said.
Josef stood up, settling the Heart on his back as he walked with a dangerous grace that made even Eli uncomfortable. When he reached them, he crossed his arms, glaring at each of the men in turn. “How bad is it going to be?”