The Reckoners

by Doranna Durgin

  They held none of the regard she’d seen in them so recently, none of the tempered strength.

  They held blood lust.

  ::Thinkthinkthink!:: Sklayne pleaded.

  No, there was no thinking behind those eyes.

  He shouted a battle cry and charged into the midst of them.

  ::Stop stop stop!:: Sklayne squirted out from the tangle of them, staggering slightly as he bumped up against her. He reared up on his hind legs, stopping himself just short of putting a pleading paw on her leg.

  In the scramble, the fighting too close and dirty for either swords or knives, Trevarr snarled a wordless curse. He dumped a Krevata over his back, slammed his elbow into the nose of another. A third tried to fade into ethereal form and flee, but Trevarr snatched it by the scruff as if it had been perfectly solid and slung it against the wall.

  Sklayne wailed, ::If he kills them he can’t return them!::

  “Oh, crap,” Garrie said. “The portal. I’ve got to —”

  Trevarr leaped at a Krevata, right inside the creature’s guard, plunging his knife deeply into its nose. It wailed in agony.

  ::Can help!:: Sklayne’s mind-voice took on a frantic note. ::Permission? Permission?::

  “I’m trusting you,” she warned him, as two Krevata slung Trevarr hard a wall, but as he slid down, he also flailed out, already struggling to his feet. “But hurry!”

  She barely noticed Sklayne’s touch at first. But suddenly she didn’t feel so full, nor so lightheaded. Sparks grew at the ends of Sklayne’s reddish hairs; his hair puffed out from head to toe. On the other side of the room, Trevarr took a hard blow to the cheek from a sword knuckle guard and laughed it off.

  Not the sound of a man in control.

  The priest reached for another oval. Trevarr skidded across the floor on his shoulders, flipped back to his feet, and charged into the fray. One of the warriors slammed against the wall, gone limp, the contents of his belly flopped out onto the floor in a puddle of that clear liquid.

  Sklayne made a moaning, yowling noise. ::No breaking them!::

  Garrie inhaled into the newly empty parts of herself and reeled back, percolating with energy, her vision all gray and sparkly. The priest looked wildly around, reaching for his sword.

  ::Slower!:: Sklayne said, sounding frantic. ::Already full here. Took the sucks-life door.::

  Swallowed it whole, as she dimly recalled. No wonder he had indigestion. But once that priest reached her — if the portal wasn’t closed by then, it would never be closed at all.

  She thought she’d found the wall at her back. She thought she’d slid down it. The earth’s heady rumbling vibrated along her spine, a disturbance so deeply in process that reducing the portal hadn’t calmed it.

  Maybe closing the portal wouldn’t even do it. Maybe it was just too late.

  Priest, looming large.

  Garrie took a deep breath, and breathed in the rest of the portal. Every bit of the energy keeping that abomination open, she took into herself.

  Every bit.

  Surely it was closed. Surely.

  She glimpsed the priest’s arm drawn back, ready to strike, and barely heard Sklayne’s distant mind-voice.

  ::Run! Crawl! Do!:: His claws flashed out, lightning fast, to slash across her ankle.

  The priest struck. Reflex saved her — Garrie cried out in fear, diving between his awkward legs and torquing herself around to bring the sword down on his hamstring — the grim slice of sharp metal through flesh, and the leg gave way above her.

  Suddenly not such a good idea.

  She had a mere instant of oh crap before the Krevata fell on her — obliterating her breath, her thought, and her half-formed cry of alarm. The energy broke through her control, broke wild — flaring into white nuclear hot heat, eating her up inside.

  :The Garrie!:: Sklayne shouted, not to her. ::Come back! Help the Garrie!::

  White sparklies mixed with fade-to-white. Inner whirlies wrapped up with pain, an inside-out ice cream cone swirl of flavors covered in one musky, stinky Krevata who writhed beside her. She slapped at the floor, groping for freedom.

  The weight, too profound. The Krevata, blade still in hand, wrenching around to bury it in her if he could. Sklayne, yeowling terribly. And all of it fading, the foreign energy within her turned consuming, the whole of it too much for one small person of much power to bear.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 35

  Feral, Raging Rock

  Certain lines should not be crossed.

  — RRose

  Oh, that pesky sanity.

  — Lisa McGarrity

  Sklayne couldn’t hurt the Krevata. Couldn’t even act against them. Nothing but watching.

  Watching while the Krevata priest floundered around beside the Garrie, his ruined leg flailing so he couldn’t regain his balance, portal energy convulsing inside her.

  Not right.

  Trevarr couldn’t hear Sklayne’s pleas for sanity. Raging in a different kind of convulsion, the uncontrollable aspects of his being released — the part of him that others always feared. Two essences in the same person... made him strong, gave him skills neither halves of his lineage could match, but always the danger that the war between them would go wrong.

  So wrong.

  Sklayne couldn’t reach through that. He shouted as if at rock.

  Feral, raging, damaged rock.

  Glyph-blocked and not allowed to help Trevarr. Not right. Not allowed to help the Garrie. Not right.

  Sklayne gathered himself, buzzing with energy, buzzing with fear. Defy the glyph shackles, then what? How hard the price, then?

  But how much harder for the Garrie? The Garrie, who burned to save the world.

  Do it. Risk it.

  Sklayne leaped. High and strong and true, feet reaching, claws extending to land and latch.

  Right on Trevarr’s shoulder.

  It was red-black with slick blood and clear Krevata gore, but not immune to those claws — nor the ear to that feline yowl, right in his ear. So sensitive, those ears, when the other part of Trevarr rose to the surface. The eyes, the patterning of feathery scales. More quickness, more strength... less thinking. Much less thinking.

  Truly, no thinking at all.

  But plenty of hearing. Plenty of feeling.

  Trevarr spun, trying to dislodge him; he slashed a Krevata forearm open along the way. Sklayne dug his claws in deep, hind legs scrambling along Trevarr’s back. ::Go to the Garrie!:: he cried, and threw himself open as a conduit, ramming the Garrie’s blind-white pain and incoherently fading thoughts straight into Trevarr. ::Feel the Garrie!::

  The Garrie’s terror for Trevarr, her wild need to know him safe, her wild need for his presence.

  Trevarr faltered. He flooded Sklayne with confusion; with dim and abrupt awareness of how much his arms suddenly weighed and how rubbery his legs had become and the overwhelming realization that he’d left the Garrie alone against the priest. Sklayne jumped lightly to the floor as Trevarr whirled around to her, the Krevata instantly rallying at his back.

  Now the hard part.

  Sklayne... not allowed to hurt. Not allowed to act. But threat with no intent? Startle with no sharp behind the claw? Maybe.

  He bounded at the clustered Krevata, stiff-legged. He whirled in mid-air, front paws spread wide, claws extruded — grabbing hugely at invisible air-prey, face snarling horribly. Bounce, leap, twist, roll. It held their attention, if only for an instant.

  Long enough for Trevarr to drag himself to the floundering priest and clamp a hand around the arm about to strike the Garrie. To wrench at the sword there, yanking the priest off-balance and away and instantly following through with the sword, ramming it through the priest’s shoulder.

  Long enough for Trevarr’s regret and fear and oh something new, deep and tearing, to rush through Sklayne and leave him reeling with it.

  But not much longer.

  Sklayne gathered himself, hiss and spit and spark, keep them bac
k and leap into the air with paws armed and outstretched, a wild feint. If it went beyond what was allowed...

  The glyphs struck back, a deep disemboweling slash of pain; he dropped out of the air as if gravity had suddenly discovered him, crouching stunned and bewildered. Only a smallish cat shape after all, the spark blown out of him.

  One of the Krevata kicked him across the room.

  ~~~~~

  “Atreya.” Deep voice, that. With the rumble behind it. With a catch behind it. Pain everywhere, Garrie’s and Trevarr’s and Sklayne’s. That and the distinct impression that she would fly apart into a million disparate pieces — dissipated, just like a problematic ghost.

  Trevarr’s head bent close to hers and his arms slid around her, full of wood smoke and leather. His breathing wasn’t good; his arm didn’t move right. His words seemed to come with effort. No longer controlled by the darkness, but still battling it. “Stay here, atreya. We have yet to finish this.”

  The portal, she wanted to ask him, but her thoughts were in no way connected to her mouth. She pointed, her finger merely twitching in response.

  He laid his hand over hers. “Closed.”

  She’d done it. She’d killed that portal dead.

  “Now,” he told the Krevata, for all they might understand him. “Now we finish this.”

  ~~~~~

  Broken again. Stunned and powerless. Red-buff fur piled together in no particular order, punished by glyphs and damaged by foot.

  Easy to drift out and see beyond.

  Sklayne found the halls in an uproar, cyclonic winds driven by ghostly rage and retribution. Spirits riding the winds, scraping the walls with kinetic energy, raising welts in wallpaper and scorch marks on painted plaster, leaving smoke trails behind them.

  The Drew person huddled in his corner, battered and marked and crying out, spirits piling atop one another in their efforts to reach him.

  The Lucia person wailed, her remaining voice little more than a creaky whisper in a room literally dripping of ghostly disdain. The tour group huddled off to the side, crying over the convulsing body of a child; the medium rocked back and forth on the organ seat, her eyes rolled back in her head and her fingers digging into her own arms.

  “They die, they die, they die,” she chanted, a moan of words strung together until they barely had meaning, the house jerking and groaning around them, ghosts clamoring and one barely formed little girl ghost crying, “Please! Please!”

  The house began to lose its battle, dropping ceiling plaster in the quake-damaged section, cracking walls throughout. Black fog leaked from the cracks, filling the house with new stench; the swarm beetles scuttled from those cracks and began hunting — scenting prey and heading for it.

  For the tour group. The ballroom. The Lucia person. The Beth person. The Drew person.

  Not that any of them would notice, once the arriving chakha found a host. Or the swamp chimera broke through the door and started crunching bones. Or any of the other things suddenly emerging from the connection between two dimensions gone twisted and wrong.

  Sklayne pulled himself back. Effort, that took. Back here, the Krevata priest was pinned to the ground by his own sword driven deep. Another of them crumpled dead nearby.

  And back here, Trevarr was almost himself — the eyes still full of unearthly glow, but that happened sometimes. Teeth still a little fangsome, but that, too, happened on occasion. The feather-scales receded into faded marks on the backs of his wrists. His knife was close to hand; the sword again in his grip as he prepared the ekhvia to capture and contain the rekherra Krevata.

  Still alive, the Garrie. So completely bursting with energy that it blurred her edges.

  Sklayne could not help her. The glyph shackles had slammed away every last bit of power, leaving this body as vulnerable as any to the damage it had taken.

  Bodies die.

  The surviving Krevata made no attempt to flee, or to reach for their weapons. Disconsolate, broken... draped around their compatriots. Except that one. Staggery, standing there, reaching in his belt pouch for the thing the Garrie had thought of as gun.

  Hurry, he told Trevarr, though his mind-voice didn’t reach outside his head. O hurry.

  But Trevarr fumbled the ekhevia, and the Krevata’s gun spoke so loudly the room shuddered with it. Mortared stone spat chips at Trevarr, making dark runnels of blood down cheek and neck, strong straight nose.

  Sklayne inched forward, every twitch an agony, particularly intent on the vulnerable soft spot between the tendons of the Krevata’s fetlock.

  Another shot hit stone.

  Sklayne won another four inches, panting. He peeled back his lips, made sure his jaws still worked.

  The Krevata steadied its hand. It tipped its massive head sideways slightly, refining the aim of nearsighted eyes.

  Aim corrected. Trigger pulled.

  The third bullet hit home. Trevarr jerked with it, eyes widening — but his fierce smile barely faltered, and he lifted the ekheria to pull the Krevata in. Fierce.

  The ekheria yanked its target to the ethereal, shedding energy in a flare of pale green light. It made a conduit to Kehar, pulling the rekherra straight to the council — straight to those who would wield pleasure and pain and questions.

  Straight to those who had set Trevarr to this task and held so many lives as the reward. Do this or never come home. Do this or know your people will die.

  The second Krevata wailed and tried to run even as the ekheria shifted him.

  The third went with less dignity yet, trumpeting a nasal lament as it made a mad and ultimately futile lumbering dash for the hallway. So went the next, and then the priest, and by then Sklayne had gained a few more inches on the way to the Garrie’s limp shining form, and by then Trevarr had slumped against the wall into grim determination and much blood.

  But the earth still screamed around them. The spirits still screamed through the house. And death still glowed inside the Garrie.

  Trevarr’s eyes rolled back and he struggled with a groan, his hand leaving a bloody smear over the Garrie’s bare belly skin. “Fark,” he said. “Damned well farking hurts.”

  ::Hurts.::

  “Garrie — ?”

  ::Broken.::

  Trevarr’s head tilted on a wobble; he battled it. “No,” he said, even if the word barely came out, just a scrape of vocal cord and in their own sweet language. “Not like this. Not her. Not —” His hand tensed against the Garrie’s skin, smearing the black-hued blood they’d once tried so hard to hide from her. He managed to say, “Not any of us.”

  ::Broken,:: Sklayne said, and this time it was apology. He could do nothing, not for any of them.

  “Don’t,” Trevarr told him, a harsh word edged by desperation.

  Sklayne understood. After all these years, he understood. No apologies, that’s what. But he wished he was there, not these inches away. One not-cat paw touching. That’s all.

  Then Trevarr got that look.

  Sklayne had sometimes hated that look, but right this very moment he loved that look. Stubborn. Rule-breaking. Risk-taker look.

  About to do something that someone would be sorry for look.

  “The stored plasma —” Trevarr stopped, closed his eyes; shifted his legs in restless pain. “Can you take — ?”

  ::Give me.::

  Trevarr opened his eyes, finding focus. Finding it with such purpose that Sklayne followed his gaze.

  The Krevata trunk. Full of collection ovals.

  Across the room. So far.

  But Trevarr took several deep, hitching breaths. He moved the Garrie off his legs — so carefully, as if jarring her might make her explode.

  It just might.

  He tried crawling, but instantly clutched his side, tumbling over to mutter singeing words. The ceiling rained dust on his face and he rolled back to his belly, dragging himself. Leaving a long smear of blood across the dirt floor.

  But not heading for the trunk. He came the short distance to Skla
yne, and then with great effort, slid Sklayne over beside the Garrie.

  Right beside her. Touching.

  Oh. Gift for Sklayne.

  Sklayne rested his nose against the Garrie’s arm, his whiskers caressing her skin. He was vaguely aware of Trevarr crawling to the trunk, of a particular gasp of pain, and then of a quiet string of tight, hoarse curses. Farking.

  And suddenly then there it was. A storage device.

  Right in front of his nose.

  Smeared with dirt-gritty blood, cradled in a hand without strength or grip.

  But right there.

  “Snack time,” Trevarr said, and passed out.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 36

  Do Something!

  Avoid abuse of your advantages.

  — Rhonda Rose

  Superpowers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

  — Lisa McGarrity

  “I don’t —” Garrie said, sort of. And then, “Wha — ?”

  In the basement, in Trevarr’s lap, the world still rumbling around them, the scent of blood in the air.

  ::Not dead,:: said Sklayne, oh so helpfully.

  “I can’t —”

  Think. See. Feel.

  Warm hands closed over hers. Sticky, gritty hands. She felt that. She knew those hands. She knew why they were sticky, too.

  Do something for him! she told Sklayne.

  ::Already,:: he told her. ::What I could. Now it is you who need something. You and house, and friends and world. All breaking.::

  But the portal... I closed the portal...

  But she already knew it hadn’t been enough.

  ::Fix yourself. Fix world. Give energies back to it.::

  She clutched Trevarr’s sticky hand. No! What it does to him... what I did to him — !

  A strong hand closed around her wrist, tugging. She fought without sentience, full of kick and scream and the underlying certainty that she couldn’t —

  Her foot landed somewhere yielding and evoked a strangled, gasping sound of pain.

  ::No, no, no.:: Sklayne’s voice was disapproving as she’d ever heard it. ::Atreyvo already leaking there!::

  The scent of blood, the remembered sound of gunshot.