by C. A. Bryers
“Wh—what are you?” he gasped, spitting out a fresh mouthful of crimson across the floor.
“I am the end for you. A drinker of souls, a devourer of your cold remains. I dine one taste at a time, but now it seems the moment to harvest my entire crop has come.”
Joht coughed, eyes wet with tears. “You did it. You tried to kill Ciracelle.”
A dark, eerie chuckle rose from the writhing nest of feelers squirming and slithering all over Lochmore. “You are not alone in possessing a brood of faithfuls. But your little flock is thinning fast, Joht Tavross. Before this night’s end, they will be thinned to nothing.”
He looked at Trigg’s body, realization dawning that he had been a servant of Lochmore’s. But the vacant look in his face, the deadness in his eyes when he had killed Ystolt and tried to kill him as well convinced Joht that he did not do so of his own choosing. He had been controlled, a puppet on strings sent into action the moment Lochmore’s secret had been discovered.
“It is time to end this, Joht. The culling must begin before attention draws to this place,” Lochmore growled, closing the distance between them in seconds. He hefted him up by the arms, lifting him as if he had the weight of a child. “I never did like you.”
Joht howled in pain as several tentacles reached like blood-starved leeches for the gaping wound in his chest, slithering their way inside. He snatched them with a single hand and wrenched them out, watching the ends of each tentacle open and close their circular, razor-toothed mouths, slavering for more. Wrestling free of Lochmore’s grasp, Joht threw a fist into the tangle of appendages that was all that remained of the Adjutu’s once-handsome face. Whether it had any effect, he did not remain close enough to find out. Joht scrambled away as fast as he hit the ground, his failing strength leaving him sprinting one moment, and falling and climbing back to his feet the next.
He was losing so much blood, he had to do something. As he was a Majdi of the field and a future contender for the archsentinelship, his body had been tempered by tephic to withstand more damage, to survive even injuries such as the gash in his chest that would have killed a lesser man. But it would only get him so far, let him last only so long. Sooner or later, the Great Darkness would be upon him despite the tephic infused to keep it at bay.
Think, think, he urged. The answer bubbled up through the pain and fog clouding his mind in the image of Ciracelle’s face.
Her cocoon. He had to get to her cocoon. Maybe even just a little time spent in it could close the wound, to keep him from getting one drop after another closer to death. Loping out into the foyer, Joht spotted Kanoh and Ota, along with a handful of other students. As soon as they saw his condition, expressions of alarm and disbelief flashed on their faces.
“Kala-me’a, Joht. What happened to you?” Kanoh asked, rushing forward to help.
Joht flung the man away. “Get off of me. This is—this is nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing, Tav,” Ota said, staring down at Joht’s bloodstained hand covering the wound.
“You want to help? Lochmore’s coming. Trigg and Ystolt are dead and—”
“What?” Kanoh shouted, frozen suddenly in place as if encased in ice. “And you’re saying Lochmore did it?”
“He’s not Lochmore. He’s something else.” Joht was wheezing now, the foyer pulsing between light and darkness all about him.
“All right, big brother. We’ve got it handled.” Kanoh turned his gaze to the mouth of Adjutu’s Path. “Everybody listen up! Something’s coming this way, and it’s not getting any further. Understand?”
The men and women who had been hanging warily back now closed in about Kanoh and Joht. Each nodded their firm assertions, uniting in the moment of need.
Kanoh jabbed a finger toward the thin, wiry Shozoan. “Scout ahead, Ota. See what we’re up against and how much time we have. Gavon, get into Cereporis Hall and grab all the bracers you can carry. They may have limited capabilities, but at least it’s better than just our bare hands and my choice native curses.”
Ota darted ahead, slowing as he breached the threshold of Adjutu’s Path. Moving cautiously and silently along the wall, he slid out of sight.
Kanoh turned back to Joht. “Whatever’s going on, you’re out of the fight. You got that?”
Joht didn’t bother arguing. It wasn’t worth expending what little energy he had left, since Kanoh would be dead soon. They all would. Whatever the thing was that Lochmore had become, none of them had faced anything like it.
Loping to the stairwell leading downstairs, Joht chuckled in his delirium as he struggled to remain upright. Maybe they would stay alive just long enough to hinder Lochmore, to give him a little bit of time in the cocoon. He clung to the railing as he descended, legs going weak underneath him. Each step downward threatened to send him tumbling down the stairs, but Joht was not ready to die just yet. Lochmore would pay. He would tear off all of those tentacles and make him choke on every last one. He just needed time.
With the bottom of the stairs in sight, another surge of adrenaline pushed him onward. He was almost there. He would not die, not like this. He—
A few steps away, Joht stared at the opening of the cell that housed the portable cocoon and Ciracelle within it. There was no glow, not even a trace of it gleaming from within like a beacon of salvation. He shuffled anxiously closer, grasping one of the rusted bars alongside the opening for support. His heart seemed to be trembling in his chest as he stared into the cell, bloodied lips parting in disbelief, followed by panic.
“No. No, no, no, no!” he screamed, stumbling inside.
The room was dark, save for the pale white glow emanating from one of Iriscent’s status monitors. There was no illumination from the tephic waters because there were no waters left. The pool had been drained, and in the middle of it, Ciracelle’s gouged and slashed body lay at the bottom. Joht fell forward, hands pawing the basin for even a trace of the tephically enhanced healing liquid. There was nothing there but a brittle film that flaked apart at his touch like dead leaves. Joht’s eyes went damp anew, noticing then a thin stream of crimson draining down into the pool.
More blood, he thought. I am going to bleed to death.
With his only lifeline severed by sabotage, Joht pulled off his shirt, tore it into strips and fashioned a makeshift bandage. Once it was applied, he knew it would only slow the process. He needed to get out of here, to someone who could mend him by either stitching him shut or by means of tephic. Names and faces flashed through his mind, fellow students who could do something, anything to help him. Iriscent, perhaps, but who was there left to trust? Though he had treated him shabbily at times, Trigg had still been a friend, and he’d seen just how easily Lochmore had turned him into a killer.
His thoughts slipped into darkness. Shivers wracked his body, a cold so pervasive that its meaning was unmistakable. He was dying, and if he did not get out soon, that would be the end—the end of all his hard work, the end of his dreams of bearing the prestige of the archsentinelship, the end of his life.
Archsentinel. Even the word rolling through his thoughts had become sluggish. An archsentinel is not higher than the office he serves because a servant he is, the ultimate protector to the Gran Senji of the Order. So he is, so must he always be until the end.
Orrock had said that lesson was important. Joht had disagreed and shelved it at the back of his mind. But here and now, perhaps because mortality was stealing its way ever closer, those words hidden away were rising to the forefront of his thoughts. It made so much sense, but the drive, the ego required to transform himself into that ultimate protector had overshadowed the stark truth behind the purpose of the title of archsentinel. The strength, the perseverance, the unrivaled skill it took to become archsentinel—it was all to keep safe the Gran Senji. It was not a badge of honor as he had thought, but a burden of responsibility.
How did I have it so wrong?
His eyes lifted a few degrees, falling upon the broken body of Cir
acelle Belfair. Her flat, vacant stare was transfixed upon the ceiling, and she lay so utterly still it was as if she was somehow not real anymore. She was dead, and he was to blame. She had come to him for help in hopes he might listen, and he had selfishly ignored those pleas. Now, here she lay. Who had attacked her did not matter anymore, nor did whoever had drained this pool and left her to die. It could have been Trigg. It could have been anybody.
At that moment, Joht Tavross knew what he must do. Picking himself up, he left the cell and returned to the stairs. But instead of heading back up to join the battle, he staggered downward. The short trek passed by in a blurry haze interrupted by moments shrouded in blackness. When the fog cleared, he was staring into the cell of Salla Saar.
Salla sat abruptly upright, alarm flashing in his eyes when he saw the mass of blood-soaked bandages covering Joht’s upper chest.
Joht steadied himself with a hand on one of the bars, sweating profusely now, mouth hanging slackly open. “Don’t talk. I want to know one thing. Are you an honorable man?”
Salla simply stared, perhaps trying to understand his meaning.
“I have not been an honorable man. I see that now. But it’s time to change that.” His eyes felt heavy, his arms limp and lifeless. “Do you understand?”
The prisoner nodded. “I haven’t always been honorable. I’ve done bad things, and I’ve tried to set them right. Some I have, and some I’ll never be able to. I think that’s the most anyone can say.”
Joht gulped down the metallic taste of his blood. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, and I’m sorry it comes too late. Too late for Ciracelle, too late for all of us.”
With that, he grasped the lock on Salla’s cell door. There was a popping sound, and a second later, the old metal door groaned open.
“What’s happened?” asked Salla, stepping out into the hall.
“It’s Lochmore. I don’t think he attacked Ciracelle, but he’s the one responsible. He’s not…he’s not even human. I don’t know what he is. But we need to unlock this facility and get everyone who’s still alive out, or we’re all going to die in here.”
30
“You gonna make it?” asked Salla from the top of the stairs.
Joht was halfway down the staircase, his hand pressing hard against the crimson bandage on his chest to keep it in place. “Just keep moving. Don’t worry about me.”
Salla moved with cautious steps into the corridor, making his way steadily closer to the foyer. Behind him, Joht was not so quiet. His feet pounded hard against the metal stairs, then scuffed against the accumulated grit and debris in the hallway. Once caught up to Salla, he was practically gasping for breath at his side.
“It’s…it’s quiet out there.”
“Won’t be for long after you get in there,” Salla said, his lips taut.
“Let me poke a hole in you and see how well you get around.” His head dipped, teeth gritted. “What I meant was there were people up ahead. Kanoh was organizing them to fight Lochmore.” He glared at Salla and coughed until he was wheezing. “Should’ve just left you in that cage.”
“Wait.” Salla put a hand on Joht’s shoulder, stopping him. “Rainne. Where is she?”
The big man looked at him in confusion. “Who?” A second later, however, his shoulders slumped. “Oh. Your rho, I suppose.”
He nodded hurriedly. “That’s right. Where is she?”
“Keep your mind on what’s out there. Forget the girl. It’s too late.”
The words hit Salla like a hammer. He tried to speak, to prod the answer out of the dying Majdi at his side, but only silence emerged.
“I saw her. Lochmore had her when I broke into his quarters, after he’d turned into that…whatever it was. I don’t know what he was doing to her. He had these…these appendages all over her, like he was feeding off of her.” He shook his head, looking like he was going to be sick. “When he came after me, she just dropped like a rock. Dead, had to be. Now you know. Get your mind straight, and do it fast.”
Stunned, Joht’s answer brought Salla’s thoughts grinding to an abrupt halt in disbelief. No, he thought at last, this…this is because of me. She’s here because of me.
He felt Joht shake him with one damp hand, but Salla could not find the way out of his mental paralysis. Despite what he’d thought of her, the woman who had so calculatingly stole her way into his mind, he had been wrong. So very, very wrong. Rainne was a woman who had spent her life caring for another, and when he had walked into that life, this hurt and lonely woman had made a mistake in hopes of feeling close to another. In hindsight, his tidal wave of anger and scorn outweighed her error. And now she was gone. It was too late to make amends.
“…of it. I said snap out of it!”
Salla’s eyes jolted to meet Joht’s pained, intense stare.
With a slow, distant nod, Salla started moving again, watching the foyer slide into view. Bit by bit, his feelings of regret went numb, and an awareness of the situation brought him to the here and now, to survival. Joht had been right. It was quiet. An utter, all-encompassing stillness resonated from the vast room ahead in unsettling waves. Standing at the threshold of the foyer, Salla could do nothing but sweep his eyes across the room in horror.
“What happened in here?”
“What I told you was going to happen. Lochmore…Lochmore is going to kill everyone in this place. He’s already off to a good start, by the looks of it.”
The foyer was a sprawling battlefield of devastation. Bodies lay everywhere, probably eleven by his count. But as he walked among the dead, only half of that number lay clad in the gray uniforms of House students. The rest wore street clothes, all of whom he recognized and saw on an almost daily basis, every one of them female.
“His assistants,” Salla whispered. “Why would he kill his assistants?”
Joht staggered to his side. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. He got in Trigg’s head, forced him to kill Ystolt and me, almost. These girls…he…he must have sent them to kill everyone in here.”
Reciting the names of each assistant in his mind as he made a circuit through the foyer, Salla stopped in the middle of the room. “Santerre’s not here.”
“Then she’s out there somewhere. She has to be one of his.”
Salla nodded his agreement but wondered all the same just how Lochmore had established his foothold of control over these people. Was it simple physical contact? Pure tephic manipulation, or was it something else, something darker? There was no way to tell, not without knowing what Lochmore truly was. Was he human, using some kind of heightened, perhaps forbidden form of tephic to transform himself into the horrible thing Joht had described? If not, then what was he?
A noise from behind brought him about with a start. In the silence of the room, it took only a second to locate the source. A body had moved, and Joht was already shuffling hastily toward it.
“Ota,” he said, dropping to a knee beside the fallen man. “Come on, man, what happened here?”
With Ota lying on the floor, the overhead lights made the wet smear of blood on his temple gleam. Struggling to sit upright, Ota cupped his hand over what appeared to be a deep wound in his side. “His assistants…they came first. I was scouting the path, and they came out of their office, led me back here, and told us all to remain calm. But as soon as they were in the middle of the group…they had knives, Joht. All of them. Before anybody knew what was happening, they started cutting through us.” He paused to take a few breaths, to gather his strength. “They got Gavon and Topa in the first few seconds. That’s as long as it took for us to regroup and start taking them down. But as soon as that was over, that…that thing came out of Adjutu’s Path. There was nothing we could do.”
“We can’t get out of here until we get this place unlocked. Can you stand?” asked Joht.
With a wince and a grunt, Ota tried to move. “I…think so.” Once on his feet, he checked the gash in his side. “Not as bad as I thought. Felt like that Lopa
na girl…like she ran it in one side and out the other.”
Joht took a look, scoffing. “Are you serious?”
“Can it, Tav. Now isn’t the time for your ‘better than everyone’ routine.” Ota turned his attention to Salla. “What do we do? Where do we go?”
Salla was already retrieving a tephic bracer from Gavon, who lay sprawled before him with several puncture wounds to the chest. Though he had never spoken to the man in his time here, he nonetheless felt the pang of his death strike home. A few feet away, Joht was arming himself as well.
Ota looked down at his bracer. “These had no effect on that thing, though. I can throw someone pretty well even with the restrictions, but when I tried it on that thing…we might as well have been blowing a light breeze at him.”
“Still better than nothing.” The words provided little reassurance, despite the fact Salla himself had been the one to speak them. “To answer your question, I think we need more numbers. Gather everyone who is left, unlock the facility, and get out. So how do we do that?”
“I don’t—”
A thunderous crash boomed from down the corridor. Spinning about, Salla heard it echoing down the passage from which they had just come.
Joht stared in the same direction. “The commissary. Must’ve gone right past us when we were coming upstairs.”
Salla and Ota darted down the hall leading to the source of the noise, while Joht trailed behind. Cries of alarm and wails of anguish should have acted as a warning, but Salla did not slow, throwing himself toward the violent cacophony.
What he would do once they broke through the doors of the mess hall to confront Lochmore and try to save what remained of the House students, he did not know. But this would not be the first time he had plunged into the fray without a plan, or even the confidence to believe that he stood a chance. His father had told him Saars did have luck, but just how much could he rely on it before that luck ran out?