She tapped out the pattern on the door, and Sukylar opened it almost instantly.
“Well that was rather quick,” he said, when they were safely through and the door was locked and sealed behind them. “Did you get the information you wanted?”
“Not exactly,” Ky’ara said, “I intended to ask him about magic, but I think I may have stumbled onto something better.”
Joran jumped up from where he’d been waiting, trying to keep his excitement under wraps. “Something that might help us defeat the Destroyer?”
“I’m not sure. But it’s a start anyways.” She told them what she’d gleaned from the conversation, and what she thought it might mean.
“If Ekzhad was resurrected more recently, it would explain a lot…” Sukylar mused, “The purpose of killing off the council, for starters. We always assumed it was because the Destroyer had discovered A’kiina’s loyalties, or perhaps your Uncle’s scheming for the throne had gone too far...and maybe that was still a part of it. But they could’ve been taken care of in a convenient ‘accident’ at any time.”
“I’m not sure I quite follow…” Ky’ara said, trying to determine what he was getting at.
“Public, messy, fear-filled deaths are exactly the kind of thing that fuels necromantic magic. If the Destroyer decided to resurrect a necromancer from long ago, she would need to use the deaths of a great many people at once...the more gruesome and painful those deaths the more power she would get from it. Which is probably why she used Elrackon instead of just a spell or poison." Sukylar explained.
"But why the council?" Ky'ara asked, "Why not burn down a tenement building or have the Elrackon rampage through the marketplace? She could have killed a lot more people that way without all the trouble with secrecy and sneaking into a secure building."
"Because the fear and chaos generated by destroying part of the government would've created a lot of residual power without also stirring up unrest in the general population." Calistra said from the doorway.
Ky'ara looked over with surprise. "How long have you been there?"
"Just enough to wish I'd been here longer," Calistra replied, coming in and closing the tent flap behind her. Instantly the air grew heavy and stifling. "Sorry," she said wryly when she saw Nori wrinkle her nose in annoyance. "I know it's hot without a breeze...but I don't want to risk what we say drifting outside and the tent material is already spelled to keep sound in."
Ky'ara swiftly recounted the gist of her conversation with Iregh. Calistra had caught most of their discussion afterwards, so she didn't have to say much about that. "It's interesting, that's for sure...but how does it actually help us?" the rebel leader asked when Ky'ara had finished.
"I don't know...but it feels important...maybe that's just because it finally explains the event that threw me into this mess in the first place, but I think it's more."
"I do as well." Calistra said briskly, "And I don't think we've fully explored the other ramifications of this discovery...Ekzhad may be dead now, but if he wanted the crystal for himself, he clearly had some use for it...which means he knew how to access its power...or at least he thought he did. That's more concrete than any other lead we've had."
"If he thought he could use the crystal, he had to have a plan for getting rid of the Destroyer," Joran said, "or at least subduing her...I can't imagine she'd let him just take all that power for himself. He must've known that."
"I'm starting to wish you hadn't killed him so thoroughly, Ky'ara," Calistra said, "It would certainly be nice to ask him these things."
Ky'ara snorted. "If I hadn't, I wouldn’t have been alive to find this out, and it probably would've been him and an army of the dead that attacked you, rather than Iregh and his berserkers."
"That's probably true," Calistra said begrudgingly.
"Are you alright?" Sukylar said suddenly, looking at Nori. She had stayed uncharacteristically quiet during the entire conversation, looking by turns puzzled and thoughtful. At the mention of an "army of the dead" she had given Ky'ara a distinctly startled look.
"I'm fine," she said, shaking herself and looking at Sukylar.
"But...?" He prompted.
"But I can't help thinking...you keep talking about Ekzhad and necromancy and all I can think of is the Elysian legends my mother used to tell me at bedtime. Ekzhad the Destroyer, who led an army of dead against the city of Luo Denzti and drove my people from their homes and into the mountains until he was defeated by the Seven Shining Masters and sentenced to spend eternity and a day imprisoned in the river of Death."
Ky'ara and Calistra exchanged a look.
"Is it possible he was the same...?" Ky'ara asked.
"It's just a legend." Nori shrugged.
"Which you happened to be here to tell us about," Joran added dryly.
"When you say 'Ekzhad the Destroyer' do you mean he was the Destroyer or just as a title to say he was destructive?" Ky'ara asked, looking at Nori intently.
"I'm not sure..." she furrowed her brow, "In some stories he is also called Kabor Ishyn...roughly translated that's vessel of darkness...seems reasonable to assume “Destroyer” is more than just a descriptor?"
"So...let’s say Ekzhad was the Destroyer nine hundred years ago, give or take a few centuries," Sukylar surmised, "He was defeated and killed...then somehow managed to get brought back by the current Destroyer. I bet he didn't care much for playing second fiddle...do you think he wanted the Darkness back?"
"I think you've hit on exactly what he wanted the crystal for…” Calistra said, “It would be useless as a source of power for him, but as a way of luring the Darkness back into himself...I can't say for certain it could be done, but I do know that Darkness is always drawn to the Light. If he knew that, he may well have thought to use the crystal as bait somehow..." she trailed off, deep in thought.
"We're basing a lot just on a few little comments, don't you think?" Joran said, reining them all in a bit.
"We are," Ky'ara agreed, "But it feels right...I think it’s what happened, or at least very near what happened. I just wish we had some way of finding out how he planned to use the crystal that way. Then we could, I don't know, maybe use it to lure the Darkness out of Il’esandra and trap it in something else."
"Would that keep it from growing though? Wouldn’t it be just the same as if it transitions?" Joran asked skeptically.
"I don't know...but it's more of a plan than we've had up until now," Ky'ara said, "At the very least it's a starting point."
"I'll see what else we can get out of Iregh," Calistra promised, "It may not do any good, but maybe if we somehow present him with a hypothetical situation that requires magic to be contained...or ask about the interaction between Dark magic and Light magic...I don't know. Sometimes he's willing to discuss magic, sometimes he just throws insults at his interrogators. I'll do what I can."
"Thank you," Ky'ara said. She turned to Nori, "And thank you too. Your input was probably the most valuable thing we found out today. If you can think of anything else in those stories that may be of use to us, please don't hesitate to let us know...At the very least, tell Sukylar. He'll know whether to pass it on or if it's something we’ve already considered."
Nori nodded, looking a little bemused. To her, it was all still a children's story. The oppressive government, ransacking trolls, secret manipulations of the King's sister—those made sense, they were real. Necromancers from legends coming back from the dead after almost a thousand years? That was a hard thing to wrap her head around.
Sukylar came up behind her and clapped his hand on her shoulder, startling her. “Don’t worry,” he said cheerfully, “You’ll get used to believing in things you thought didn’t exist...eventually.”
Chapter 13: Persevering
Jace stood with his hands locked professionally behind his back, trying not to let his nerves show. They'd made it into the city without much of a fuss, and made their way to the meeting place, which turned out to be the stable yard of the palac
e. None of the soldiers gave their cart more than a passing glance. Apparently transporting strange captives to the palace was not an oddity in their experience. Jace shivered slightly. He'd never much been one for trusting the government, but it was a little chilling to see the total lack of interest in the appearance of a captive who'd been beaten within an inch of his life. Finally, after they'd been waiting for an hour in the hot sun, a servant in a dark brown robe approached the captain.
"The master is ready for you. Please bring your delivery this way. The rest of you may report to the guardhouse here for reassignment."
The captain nodded, barking orders for two of his men to unload the prisoner and follow him. The rest he dismissed. Jace hesitated only the briefest moment before joining the captain in supervising the prisoner. As far as these men knew, he had been sent by the 'master,' but the servant would likely assume he was one of the soldiers. He was walking a dangerous line. Hopefully, no one would ask any awkward questions. If he could get through the next few hours without discovery, he could report to the guardhouse for reassignment with no one the wiser.
Thankfully, the captain seemed not to question his presence, and the servant led them all through a side door to a small meeting chamber. The servant had them deposit the prisoner in a chair and tie him securely, then he dismissed them, ignoring the captain's protests and merely telling him there was no one available to debrief him at this time. Jace took the short opportunity their argument provided to etch every detail of the room in his memory. There wasn't much, just a few dull paintings on the walls, some chairs, and a large rug in the center of the room with one corner flipped up. The prisoner would likely be moved, but at least he would have something to report if he could ever make contact with the rebels again. The papers the rebel leader had given him had contained the names of possible contacts within the city, in case he was not deployed outside its walls. He'd burned the names into his memory before burning the papers themselves to avoid letting them fall into enemy hands.
The servant shooed them out of the room, but Jace risked one last glance behind. The prisoner lifted his head just a fraction, making eye contact. Something in his gaze conveyed both desperation and a sort of hardened determination. This man was not going to give in easily. Jace turned away, feeling guilty. If only he could do more than leave this poor man to whatever fate was in store for him. The door closed, cutting them off. But Jace decided then and there to do whatever he could to help the rebellion put a stop to this sort of thing. For all he knew, his brother Luc had met a similar fate when he'd come to report what he'd seen before the council assassinations. Luc may have even been taken to the same room and maybe, just maybe, he was still alive.
A crazy idea started to germinate, and he bid the captain farewell, making as though to go the front of the building. He would wait for a few minutes and then report to the guardhouse. The Captain would think he'd reported his mission’s success and then been reassigned. The local sentries would assume he was with the other soldiers who had just reported for reassignment. Hopefully he'd be stationed nearby...he would watch and wait for his opportunity, and then he'd find a way to sneak down to the dungeons he was sure lay somewhere beneath the building. Then he would find the captive and his brother, and they'd make their way back out of the city the same way he'd just come in. It was risky, but what other choice did he have? If Luc was still alive, he had to find out.
* * * * *
Ky'ara sat in her little tent, ignoring the heat that pressed in around her, staring intently at the page in her hand. Her thoughts had been clicking ceaselessly ever since her conversation with Iregh. In the past few days they hadn't managed to get any more out of him, but something about the discovery that Ekzhad had been the Destroyer in days long past had sparked a chain reaction of discovery that had led her to a number of other possibilities to consider. Iregh had been sent, at least in part, to capture Taren. It couldn't have been just a convenient capture, otherwise why would he have impersonated Taren and sought her out afterwards? If he'd intended to kill her, he would have been better off attacking the instant he'd located her. Instead he'd lured her away, which meant he'd likely intended to capture her as well...why would the Destroyer want her alive?
Ekzhad had also had ample opportunity to kill her, but he'd always dragged it out...she wondered: were they afraid that if they killed her and the crystal passed to someone else that it would grow more powerful? She didn't think it would. From what she'd read, that was one of the main differences between the Darkness that inhabited the Destroyer and the power of the crystal itself: the Darkness grew each time it passed, while the crystal remained constant—thus the imbalance that threatened to destroy the universe if she failed.
Which left her to consider how much each Destroyer knew or remembered of what had happened to their predecessors. Did they gain memories every time the Darkness transitioned, or were they starting from scratch each time? She always assumed that since she was fighting an ancient evil, it would be wiser and more cunning than anyone could imagine...maybe that wasn't the case. Maybe she was just up against an arrogant aristocrat with unlimited magical and political power, but who knew just as little as she did about the origins and rules of this conflict. The possibility gave her a glimmer of hope. Her enemy might be just as lost as she was in all of this.
Of course, there was still the possibility that the Darkness completely controlled Il’esandra and that it somehow imbued her with all the knowledge it had gained from its past incarnations. That thought was a little more daunting but it also meant that it followed its own agenda, which would be to transition as soon as possible, without any thought for what that would do to its current host.
She shivered, despite the heat. Could it be that they'd intended to capture her for that purpose? If the Darkness was simply looking for a convenient host, she was fairly certain she satisfied most of the requirements. When Arys had laid out the qualities of each previous host, Ky’ara had felt distinctly uneasy with how well the druid was describing her. And if emotional turmoil was a requirement for the moment of transition, capturing Taren had certainly accomplished that. Ky’ara felt her insides grow colder. The Destroyer might not have to wait for the birth of the King’s baby...it might be planning to transition to her. She couldn’t let that happen...but would she have any choice?
She clutched the crystal instinctively and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself before Joran sensed something was amiss. If Calistra ever found out what she’d just discovered, there was no way the rebel leader would let her within a hundred miles of the Destroyer. Of course, with what she’d just discovered, didn’t she have a responsibility to stay away? The crystal blocks dark magic from infiltrating my thoughts. It would probably also protect me from the Darkness trying to transition.
The thought was somewhat comforting. And maybe that wasn't the Destroyer's plan anyways. Maybe she was just jumping to conclusions and she wasn't the right type of person for the Darkness to inhabit. In which case, she needed to figure out why else they would have taken Taren, because that might give her a clue as to where exactly they’d taken him, and how long she had before they decided he was useless and killed him.
* * * * *
Joran sat across from Calistra, feeling a little guilty. Ky’ara had spent the last few days thinking about what Iregh had said, and her emotional ups and downs had given him a glimpse into some of the conclusions she’d drawn. One moment in particular he’d sensed a deep, bone-chilling fear—not for Taren’s safety, but for her own—and when it became apparent she was in no danger, he’d started to wonder what would have made her so afraid. The conclusion he’d come to was not only frightening, it left him feeling even more helpless and hopeless than he already had in the face of all that had happened. He could have confronted Ky’ara with it, but he was afraid she would make him swear not to tell his sister. His first priority was to protect Ky’ara...and in this situation that meant making sure that she never went close enough to the
Destroyer to become the next one.
“You’re sure that’s actually possible?” Calistra asked, the disappointment in her voice telling him that she already believed him but didn’t want to.
“Why else would Iregh have tried to capture her instead of just killing her as soon as he saw her?” Joran said.
“I don’t know...but wouldn’t Arys have told Ky’ara that the Darkness might want to transition to her? Rather than telling her it was going to move to the King’s child when he’s born?”
Joran shrugged. “She didn’t say it in so many words, but the things she listed as essential characteristics and conditions for the change to take place did match Ky’ara...and I remember when Taren was first telling us about the Destroyer, he mentioned that it could switch more freely between members of the aristocracy, and Ky’ara asked him if that meant it might be able to do that with her...he said he didn’t know, but it sounded like he thought it was possible.”
“I should have sat that man down and interrogated him thoroughly the moment you all walked through my door,” Calistra muttered to herself, “What else did he know that somehow I was never told? For that matter, what else do you know that you haven’t told me?”
Joran flinched away from her accusing gaze. “I don’t know! I tell you everything I think might be important. That’s why I’m here now, isn’t it? If I told you every tiny tidbit of information I’ve ever come across, we’d be in here for months.”
Calistra sighed, rubbing a hand across her eyes. "I know. It's just frustrating to think of the things we might be missing, just because I failed to ask the right questions."
Joran laid a hand on her arm. "It's not all your responsibility, you know. We're all trying to figure this out, and if we miss something it's not your fault."
She nodded halfheartedly, clearly not convinced. "Whose fault it will be if we fail is unimportant. The real question we should be asking is what are we going to do about Ky'ara? If she has the potential to become the next Destroyer, we cannot let her anywhere near Il’esandra...but she's supposed to be our only hope of defeating her!"
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