Autumngale

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  He’s remarkably receptive to listening to requests from spirits. All I had to do was ask.

  She’d brought him there to help. Marielle, that was genius!

  But that wasn’t all, was it? The world still tilted and rocked wildly under their gondola, but the buildings around them were not the white army-filled streets of Choan. The streets around them were empty – except for burnt-out husks of buildings. What had happened to Choan?

  I learned the Grandfather’s trick. This isn’t Choan. I’ve brought you to me – to H’yi.

  Tamerlan cleared his throat.

  Hurry!

  And then she was gone from his mind, pushed out by another spirit.

  I’ll take it from here, Deathless Pirate said, grabbing Tamerlan’s body and shoving Jhinn aside to seize the oar and begin to steer the gondola in the wrong direction.

  No! This was wrong! Wrong!

  His companions were staring at him open-mouthed – all but Jhinn whose eyes had narrowed speculatively and Etienne who was frowning in judgment. They knew what was going on.

  He’s mine! Tamerlan stumbled as Lila took him over so forcefully that it was a wonder his mind was still in his own body. He leaned over the edge of the gondola and vomited, his belly upset from the sudden switch.

  “He’s finally gone mad,” Liandari said, worry in her eyes. “We need to put him down like a dog.”

  “No!” That was Jhinn. “Give him a moment.”

  There was a shove again and then Lila was gone.

  I can’t hold them off for long! They want to have you. Hurry!

  Marielle! She was fighting for him.

  There had to be some way that he could fight, too. There had to be some way to stop being an innocent victim and start getting back some control.

  I trust that you’ll find a way, Tamerlan. Keep fighting!

  Tamerlan dropped the oar like it was hot, holding his hands up.

  “I just need to get the Grandfather into the clock,” he said as the water beneath the gondola tipped, sending them speeding down the canal. The entire canal rose up and leaned toward the center of the city like a flowing river, spilling up over the shelf and into the streets which were usually high above the water. In the boat, everyone grabbed for something for support while Jhinn fought the current, grabbing the oar again, steering the gondola along the surge of water.

  Liandari gripped the gunwales of the gondola with a fierce look in her eyes. “This dark magic ends now, Etienne. I don’t know where you’ve brought us or why you did it so dramatically, but this ends now. The world is ending! Do you not see it heave and roll beneath us?”

  “I didn’t bring us here. And don’t you know that beneath the city lies a dragon?” Etienne said, face pale. “It’s waking.”

  “Dragon?” Anglarok said. His eyes were wide with fear, but he clenched his jaw powerfully, unwilling to give in to it. “Here, too?”

  Tamerlan ignored them, reaching into the bottom of the boat to lift the Grandfather to his shoulders again. He could see the clock ahead and whether it was a dragon propelling them toward it or not, he knew what he needed to do. He felt with one hand for his knife – still there. He’d be ready.

  “What do you think makes the city shake and roll?” Etienne asked. “The dragon is lifting from where he slept beneath H’yi. And no wonder. No one has been walking the mandala. The ancient pact our ancestors made with the Legends to keep the dragons down is gone now. He is rising into the air!”

  It was never a pact, Marielle said in my mind. It was forced on them. They were trapped into it. They didn’t choose this selflessly. Or at least, not all of them.

  Who could force a Legend to do anything?

  Who do you think? The unnamed one. The one who hates dragons with all his heart!

  Was she saying that Ram the Hunter had trapped them as avatars to bind the dragons?

  I love that you’re quick. You keep up.

  But he didn’t have time to enjoy the compliment. They were nearly at the clock’s base. Jhinn steered them roughly toward where the steps – mostly underwater now – led up to it from the canal.

  “I’ll try to stay here, but with these waves, I can’t promise anything,” he panted. He was holding the rail beside the steps, trying to keep the gondola against them as it bucked in the haphazard waves.

  Tamerlan nodded and jumped up. He didn’t look back as he ran up the stairs with the Grandfather in his arms. His leg muscles screamed with effort.

  The ground bucked under him, forcing him to one knee. He bit his tongue in the jolt and tasted blood, but he struggled up again, forcing himself upward, each step an effort in determination.

  Behind him, he heard Etienne demanding that he wait. “You don’t have to do this alone!”

  Marielle’s presence vanished from his mind at the same moment that he was taken over again.

  Deathless Pirate heaved the Grandfather off Tamerlan’s shoulder, letting him fall heavily to the ground.

  No! Not now! This timing was terrible!

  “No one deserves to be caged!” Deathless Pirate drew Tamerlan’s sword, spun and lunged toward Etienne, but a sharp pain stopped him in his tracks.

  He roared in agony as pain flooded Tamerlan’s mind. Deathless Pirate spun again to see Liandari pulling her sword back out of his thigh where blood poured down, soaking his leg. She’d come out of nowhere!

  He leapt forward, but he was pulled back immediately, a thick forearm wrapping around his neck.

  “I told you he was insane,” Liandari said coolly, wiping her blade on the edge of Tamerlan’s cloak as if he were a curtain or a rag. “I don’t know why you associate yourself with him.”

  And just like that, Deathless Pirate was pulled away, flung out of Tamerlan’s mind like an enemy tossed away by a great warrior. He reeled from it, sinking into Etienne who had him by the neck.

  “Easy Tamerlan, easy!” Etienne hissed between clenched teeth. “Fight this back or I’ll slit your throat myself!”

  Was he seeing things, or had he actually seen Deathless Pirate pulled away and thrown back over the Bridge? Was he seeing him now as he fought Lila Cherrylocks, scrambling in unarmed combat with her like two drunks fighting in an alley? Or was he just going mad?

  You see true. Chaos rules once more. And the dragons rise. Ram the Hunter’s voice echoed through his mind.

  “Get the old man,” Liandari commanded as she bent to take the Grandfather’s shoulders in her hands. Anglarok stooped for his feet.

  “When you put the old man in the clock, you must be careful,” Ram said with Tamerlan’s voice. “And you must be quick.”

  “Shut him up,” Liandari growled. “I don’t take orders from the insane.”

  “Come on,” Etienne said, pushing Tamerlan in front of him as they climbed the steps just behind the Harbingers. He was more gentle than Tamerlan had expected. “We started this thing together. Let’s finish it.”

  Tamerlan felt ill. He could feel the other Legends tugging and pulling him even as Ram stayed in control of his body. He had to keep them at bay. He had to take control of himself. With all his might he pushed, sending everyone back over the Bridge. He was gasping for breath with the effort as they climbed step after step.

  “If you ever touch that mixture again, I’ll kill you myself.” Etienne’s voice as grim.

  “It got us here, didn’t it?” Tamerlan protested. What else could he have done? If there had been any other viable choices – any at all! – he would have taken them, but the only other choice would have been to give up. And Tamerlan wasn’t the type to give up.

  The ground rolled under them as they reached the street above, and it took all their concentration to keep their feet. There was no looking back. No time for it. No energy for it. Anglarok and Liandari struggled up the steps, carrying the Grandfather awkwardly between them.

  What would they do to escape this city once Marielle was out of the clock? Would she still be able to hop people through time and space?
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  No time to worry about that. Ram shuddered as he tried to get back into Tamerlan’s head. When he finally broke through, it was so sudden that Tamerlan’s eyes widened with surprise.

  “When you open the door to put the Grandfather in and take the girl out, it opens a wide door for the Legends,” Ram said with his voice. “It’s a trap for fools. But it is also a way out for anyone clever enough to jump from the other side. You must all stand clear of the clock – as far back as you can. Don’t give them a way out! Make your minds tough! Concentrate on what you are doing and nothing else. Do you hear me? Nothing else!”

  Liandari cursed and Anglarok shot him a worried look. They thought he was insane. But better that than to tell them the truth. After all, they were looking for the man who had opened the Bridge of Legends and if they knew that was him – well, they’d razed a city looking. If they’d do that to the people in their way, what would they do to the person who opened the Bridge?

  They hurried up the last steps to the clock. Etienne’s grip was still tight on Tamerlan’s neck. The Grandfather was beginning to stir, babbling slightly as they reached the top of the steps.

  He’d worked so hard to get here. He wanted to be here in person – not as an avatar for a Legend. He shoved mentally at Ram with all his might. The Legend fell away and Tamerlan stumbled in surprise. How had that worked?

  Hurry! Ram said as he was flung from Tamerlan’s mind.

  Tamerlan had the strangest sensation of being able to see – though he saw nothing – and what he felt like he could see was a group of Legends charging the Bridge as Ram fought to defend it.

  If he failed, Tamerlan would fight, too. He wouldn’t be their plaything. Not now.

  They reached the bottom of the clock to where the ghostly Marielle winked in and out of existence as the pendulum passed through her.

  A tingling sensation washed over Tamerlan as he drew closer. They were finally here. After everything that had happened, they’d made it.

  “Don’t get sentimental on me now,” Etienne growled, loosening his grip on Tamerlan. “Just spit some of that blood running down your chin on that door and open it up!”

  Tamerlan blinked at his words. Oh yes, it needed his dragonblooded blood to open it.

  He spat hard at the clock as they reached the door, his blood spattering across it in a grisly rainbow as Etienne reached for the latch and pulled the door open.

  “Let me go now, Etienne,” he asked calmly. “This is what I came here for.”

  Liandari and Anglarok grunted as they stood the Grandfather up waiting to put him into the clock.

  “I smell – magic. Powerful magic and terrible things,” Anglarok said in a pained voice.

  But Tamerlan wasn’t looking at that. He had eyes for only one. There she was.

  Marielle.

  She was perfect.

  Absolutely perfect.

  Tamerlan stepped forward, pulling free of Etienne at the sight of Marielle’s delicate figure winking in and out of life. His eyes locked onto her, frozen in place – her lips slightly parted in surprise and one hand partially raised – inside the infinite time of timelessness. He’d drawn her face a thousand times. But he’d forgotten the exact turn of the corner of her mouth. He’d forgotten the dent in her chin that made his chest ache.

  She was so beautiful – beautiful as the thousand upon a thousand sunrises seen by time, beautiful as an age of growing things, of calves birthed on mountains, of fish blooming in the wide sea. Her eyes held the sparkle of the ages, the light of life. She was hope. She was what he’d fought for, lost his mind for, given his soul for. She was everything.

  Her beauty didn’t lay in her tangled hair or tattered clothing – still streaked with mud and weeds from when the Grandfather kidnapped her. It didn’t lay in her strong features or slightly crooked nose. It lay in her being Marielle – the one person who always saw true, who would do what was right no matter what it cost her, who would fight to the end for justice. It was a matchless beauty – unrivaled. Perfect.

  He slipped past the Grandfather and the whispering Harbingers, and he stepped into the clock with her. It felt almost too personal – as if he’d stepped into her chambers when she was unaware – and he bit his lip apprehensively, careful with each movement.

  He leaned in close, awed by her and careful, so careful. She’d been in here for so long. What toll would that take on a body?

  Her lips were inches away as the ghostly pendulum swung through them both and he wanted so badly to meet them with his kiss. He ached so much to touch her that his skin tingled with wanting. His lips felt dry with needing to touch hers.

  But that wouldn’t be right. Not now. Not like this. Not without her permission.

  Instead, he leaned in close, breathing in her breath. It was a caress of its own. A kiss without kissing. As if he could draw her in and keep her as close as he could keep her breath. He closed his eyes and let it fill him, savoring the moment.

  Etienne grunted beside him, shattering the perfect shard of time.

  “You can have special moments later. We have work to do now,” he said roughly.

  Tamerlan wrapped his arms gently around Marielle and delicately as a mother lifting a newborn, he lifted her up, drawing her from the clock as he stepped backward.

  In his mind, chaos bloomed as the Legends fought and gnashed against his determination to hold them back, but in his heart were order and peace as he took her from the clock, stepping out onto the street. Her eyes were closed and a white wisp – like a spiderweb but wide as a ribbon – stretched between her and the pendulum.

  The Harbingers shoved the Grandfather roughly into the clock the moment he left it and leapt backward as Etienne sliced the cord of spiderweb with his belt knife.

  But they didn’t close the door of the clock.

  And as Marielle’s eyes flickered open and the color returned to her cheeks, a roar filled the air.

  37: Close the Clock

  Marielle

  SHE WOKE IN HIS ARMS and the smell of him filled her up like a festival meal. Honey and cinnamon and the scent of tarragon swirled through the air in clouds of gold, almost overwhelming the scent of all the magic that was already making her head spin with its lilac scent and turquoise colors mixed with gold sparks. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw him there, like a tortured saint, like a dying man clinging to a last scrap of wood.

  There was no Legend controlling him. He was just himself – beautiful, guilt-ridden, desperate, and sensitive. His eye was dark and haunted again. Ever since she’d met him, his eyes had only grown darker with the burdens he carried. She wanted to tell him it would be better. She wanted to soothe away his pain and rub the wrinkles out of his forehead.

  Something roared behind him like a powerful wind. He straightened and she gasped.

  Behind him, through the door of the clock – white wisps clawed out like the reaching arms of tentacles. One snatched up Liandari, whipping her into the air.

  Marielle leapt from Tamerlan’s arms.

  “The clock!” she called over the wind. “Close the door! You have to close it!”

  She rushed toward the clock, but she could already scent the magic pouring out of it in all its lilac and turquoise intensity. Tamerlan rushed in beside her, shoving the door as hard as he could. She felt Etienne before she saw him – smelled his dark intensity – orange with the overwhelming scent of cloves – as strongly as if he was spewing magic out, too. Together, they pushed at the door of the clock.

  It closed an inch. Another inch. But something was holding it.

  She turned her head. Anglarok was gripping Liandari with both fists, screaming as the tentacle of white magic throttled her. It was that tentacle that was holding the door – and it was those tentacles that they had to stop.

  If this really was a trap – a trap for Legends, then they needed to get it shut before it could trap Liandari, too. If only she could remember what she’d heard Ram saying before she’d left the clock. Somet
hing about traps.

  She let go of the door and leaned across Tamerlan to draw his sword from his scabbard. Maybe if she cut it the way Etienne had cut the cord that held her. She raised the sword and hacked at the white band of spirit as hard as she could. If it made a difference, she didn’t see it.

  “Close it with blood,” Etienne gasped. “Put your leg against it, Tamerlan.”

  Sweat ran down his face. All his might was being thrown into the door. So was Tamerlan’s. He grunted, but when he shifted his stance, the door slipped back a span.

  “Let me,” Marielle said, sliding her hand down his leg to bloody her palm on his wound. He shuddered at her touch. That wound would need tending. It pained her to take from him again. She was always taking – his body, his blade, and now his blood. She shook her head as she wiped her hand on the door. She owed him better than always taking.

  The door of the clock slammed shut with the boom of a sepulcher.

  “Liandari! Lieutenant!” Anglarok’s voice sounded panicked.

  She spun to see him frozen with his leader in his arms. She lay limp in his grasp, but the tentacle was gone. Her face was white as snow, but her eyes flickered open.

  He should have smelled it first. Maybe he was too concerned for her. Maybe it was hope that blinded him.

  “Watch out!” Marielle cried as the scent whipsawed through her nose.

  Legend! The smell of magic mixed with insanity was clear as a bell being struck. She’d smelled this before. She smelled it every time Tamerlan was possessed. She smelled it every time that she’d fought the Legends for him.

  She held out Tamerlan’s blade but the world beneath them rocked wildly, shaking them so that they stumbled and had to focus on their footing. And then a shadow blocked the sun and as she looked up, her belly seemed to drop within her as a massive head – a dragon head – curled up and over the city.

  It looked down at the clock positioned between its wings like a man might look at a dagger in his back. The blackened ruins of the city opened up, houses and roads falling from them like scales from a dead fish, and a red eye glared at Marielle at the same moment that Liandari leapt to her feet and out of Anglarok’s grasp.