by C. A. Bryers
Rainne was on the floor beside the broken old desk. It was on its side now, with everything that had been stacked atop it scattered across the floor.
She waved him off with a shake of her head. “Do not stop searching. I tried to stand using the desk, but the books holding one of the legs up slid out from underneath.”
Salla dashed over to help her to her feet regardless.
“I am fine, Salla. Please, there is not much time.” She paused then, staring down at the mess on the floor. “What is that?”
The rug that had been underneath the desk lay partially flipped back upon itself, revealing something underneath. There was what appeared to be the corner of something flat and wooden set into the stone flooring. In an adrenaline-fueled rush, Salla cleared everything away and wrenched open the old wooden hatch. Inside, a small, dusty control panel lay exposed. A distinct handprint shone amid the dust on one of the inset black levers.
“Iriscent! I think I’ve got it!” Grasping the lever, he tried to give it a twist. It didn’t budge.
The sounds of pulses of tephic rushing through the air brought his attention back to the corridor for a moment, but Salla reminded himself of Joht’s instruction. They had to disengage the House of Falling Rain’s lockdown mechanism and fast, or Joht’s efforts out there against Lochmore would amount to nothing.
A second later, Iriscent was there, dropping to her knees. “There’s a keyhole right there.” A flurry of panic-riddled curse words followed. “We can’t move those levers without the key, and the key is probably somewhere on that thing out there.”
Salla glanced out into the hallway again. “Then the key isn’t an option. We need to find something to break the lock.” His nerves fluttered as he tried to think. “Wait. What about tephic. Will that work?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” She flicked her hands in an effort to purge the fear so obviously coursing through every inch of her body. Finding some measure of calm, however, Iriscent laid one hand down upon the control panel, closing her eyes. “Okay, there was a tephic ward on it. I can feel…yes. Lochmore put it there. Santerre…Santerre removed it when she locked the House down. Lochmore didn’t put it back. Give me one second.”
A crunch sounded from beneath her hand. When she withdrew it, the keyhole and the metal plate surrounding it lay punched inward as if struck once by a powerful fist. A thin wisp of smoke issued from the hole.
“Try it again,” she instructed, her head on an almost constant swivel as she looked from the control panel to the fearsome battle taking place in Adjutu’s Path.
Salla twisted the lever once more. It turned a few degrees, but stubbornly came to a hard stop before completing its rotation.
Iriscent swatted his hand out of the way. “He must’ve put a second ward on to hold the handle in place…yep, there it is. And this one’s intact.” She leaned back to look out into the corridor again, eyes bulging and lips pulling back from her teeth. “I’ll figure this out. Go help Joht. That thing is getting too close.”
By the time he was on his feet, Salla’s fingers and palm were already sweating around the crossbar of the tephic bracer on his wrist. From the sound of it, Joht was still in the fight, tephic pulses humming through the air, chunks of the stone walls flying apart and Lochmore’s bestial roar resounding from the hallway without.
He felt naked, like he was going out to face that monstrosity unarmed, and realized that was exactly what he was doing. The training device about his wrist was no match for what Lochmore had become. All he could hope was that Joht’s untethered bracer was having an effect.
Peering out into Adjutu’s Path, Salla watched as Joht darted about the corridor, leaping and spinning as if the gaping wound to his chest was but a scrape. Lochmore was on the defensive, it seemed, its tentacled body contorting and reconfiguring the bulk of its mass to avoid the blasts Joht hurled at it. It lashed out with an appendage at every opportunity, but the gravely wounded man was too nimble on his feet, despite his size and injuries.
How is he doing that? But as soon as he thought the question, the answer materialized. The bracer. Through it, Joht was finding a vast inner reservoir of strength and dexterity. His body careened through the hall, pushing Lochmore back time and again.
One of the tentacles swung for his head but Joht snatched it out of the air, wrapped it underneath his arm, and blasted it clean off. It was then that Salla saw the floor of Adjutu’s Path. Writhing, dismembered limbs lay scattered everywhere, mouths opening and closing in blind, relentless hunger.
Salla realized what he had to do. Defenseless or not, he needed to get out there and provide Joht with a distraction, something that would open a window of opportunity for the Majdi to land the killing blow. Though it felt as if his nerves were quivering at the prospect, he launched himself from the doorway, heart pounding as he charged toward the grotesque beast throwing itself left and right to evade the Majdi’s attacks. But when Salla was just out of reach of those deadly appendages, something happened.
Perhaps Joht’s newfound strength was depleting, or Lochmore had simply gotten lucky. A tentacle slipped with lightning quickness about one of Joht’s arms, almost fully covering it as it looped again and again up the extended limb to his shoulder. Before the Majdi could bring his bracer to bear, he screamed in agony as the end of the tentacle fastened to his shoulder, razor-sharp teeth tearing through flesh like a knife through paper. His other arm was gathered up a moment later, and Joht Tavross was hoisted with terrible slowness into the air.
Salla called forth burst after burst of tephic energy. To his surprise, the bracer responded to his command and pulses of energy smashed into Lochmore. The writhing mass, however, shrugged off the blows as if he’d thrown pebbles. It kept its attention fixated upon Joht, a strange groan of delicious satisfaction issuing from somewhere within the tangle of appendages.
With measured slowness, clearly savoring the moment, the inhuman monstrosity lifted several tentacles into the space between creature and man. Each mouth snapped voraciously in anticipation, but could be denied their feast no longer. Joht’s entire body shuddered again and again as the mouths lashed out, darting forward and back, tearing great red clots out with each snakelike strike.
Joht’s head had slumped forward long before they were done with him. With its attacker at last dealt with, Lochmore let the body slip from its grasp to crumple upon the floor.
Salla took a step back and then another, his mind drawing an absolute blank as to what to do. But just as it had done in the cell level below when Santerre had him cornered, Lochmore did not sweep forward in one final killing rush. The creature slowly advanced, the hundreds of mouths becoming a choir that seemed to hiss in unison. Suddenly, a vast darkness opened as tentacles spread apart in the center of its mass. Salla’s only instinct was to retreat.
But he did not turn and run. He continued his measured withdrawal, eyes narrowed and staring as if mesmerized at the transformation taking place.
He saw it in a fleeting glimpse, but a glimpse nevertheless. It was just he’d seen it in his cell, and as he’d seen it when it had taken hold of Ota. The air warped the environment about it, a shimmer that was there one moment and gone the next. He could almost feel it reach out, eager to steal inside of him and rob him of his free will, to steal his consciousness. Salla shut his mind to the dreadful, limitless possibilities of what Lochmore would force him to do.
“Salla!”
He did not have to turn to know it was Rainne who called his name. The next moment, he felt the House of Falling Rain tremble about him, just as it had done shortly after Ciracelle had been discovered. A great thump boomed down Adjutu’s Path, originating from somewhere in the direction of the foyer, sweeping past the suddenly shrieking form of Lochmore. But when the building had fallen back into silence, a low, guttural chuckle emanated from the creature stalking him.
“You think to flee? There is no escape for you.” The writhing mass of limbs resumed its advance. “No escape
for anyone. I will watch you take her life with your own hands, Salla Saar.”
Salla continued backing away, his eyes never leaving the wispy, insubstantial thing that had slipped forth from somewhere within Lochmore. No longer satisfied to simply float like a leaf in the breeze, it suddenly streaked toward him with frightening purpose. Salla stumbled backward and fell, eyes closing tight in hopes that through strength of his will alone he would be able to keep the apparition from entering.
But there in the darkness of his closed eyelids, Salla heard a shrill screech tear from the beast like a great flock of birds being torn to pieces. When his eyes opened again, they were confronted with a blinding light and waves of searing heat. Lochmore was aflame, its hundreds of limbs whipping and flailing in agony as the creature careened to the left and staggered backward. The fire spewed from the midst of its mass, roaring upward and rolling across the wooden ceiling overhead.
One after another, the scorched, blackened limbs started falling impotently all about Lochmore, and even the clustered masses that carried its bulk about seemed unable to bear the burden any longer. It landed in a heap, still shrieking in agony and rage as the flames slowly but surely reduced it to ash.
Stunned and confused, Salla almost didn’t notice Rainne’s arms slip about him, holding him tightly as he stared into the burning remains.
“What happened? What did I do?”
He felt her shake her head against his own. “It does not matter. Lochmore is gone.”
“Mother’s bones, Salla. How’d you do that?” It was Iriscent this time, tentatively walking into Adjutu’s Path. She giggled as the light of the flames shimmered across her face. “Anybody want seared eel for dinner? We have plenty to go around.”
Iriscent’s black humor sailed past Salla almost unnoticed. He couldn’t laugh, he couldn’t do anything but stare until the answer somehow revealed itself there in the smoldering ruins of the abomination that had killed almost everyone within the walls of the House of Falling Rain.
“Oh well. I’ll head outside and get some help now that lockdown’s officially over—and you’re welcome, I might add. The ward he put on that lever was a brain twister and a half. Look,” she said, holding up a blackened palm. Then, her eyes gravitated upward. “Speaking of burned things, that fire on the ceiling is kind of spreading, so I wouldn’t waste too much time snuggling or whatever it is you’re doing if I were you.”
Salla at last tore his eyes from Lochmore’s remains, setting the mystery aside for the moment to glance up at the ceiling. Flames crept along the length of Adjutu’s Path, consuming more and more of the old wooden planks and beams overhead as the seconds passed by. Then, he felt a brief peck of lips against his cheek.
Iriscent was already skipping away from the kiss, giving the monstrous, burning corpse a wide berth.
A dumbfounded smile crept onto his lips. “What was that for, Iriscent?”
“Call me Iris,” she chirped in return.
“All of this, huh?” He gave a weak laugh. “That’s all it took?”
Iriscent bounded away, the image of her figure shimmering through the veil of heat still swelling from Lochmore.
“Come on, Salla. Let’s go.” Rainne pulled him to his feet, her eyes cast warily up at the ceiling.
When they had taken two steps toward the exit, the blackened mound before them shifted, the husk breaking apart as something within began to stir, and then to rise. What arose from the charred remnants bore the shape of a man, but a man vaguely distorted. Tentacles squirmed from its burned chest and limbs, small and almost useless-looking when compared to those that had writhed and lashed from the gargantuan form Lochmore had previously possessed. His face was back as it had been, though covered in soot and patches of charred flesh. But from that once-handsome visage, red, seething eyes glowered at Salla and Rainne.
Lochmore twisted his neck as if in mere discomfort. “Funny. That actually hurt.”
Salla didn’t know what to think, or what to do. He had thought this man—or whatever he was—to be finished. But that was not so. Lochmore was alive, stepping from the mound of smoking debris. The heap of scorched tentacles began to break down, collapsing into itself until there was nothing more than ash.
“I knew there was something about you,” he said, wagging a finger like a schoolteacher giving a mild reprimand. “I saw it through your little friends, even felt something of it when they first snuck you downstairs. And I’ll tell you one thing. I am not leaving without drinking up every last bit of it. After all, look at all this I’m giving up.” With his blackened arms parted, Lochmore swung those burning eyes from left to right. “They served me different delectable morsels every few weeks. I got to pick the sweetest samples on offer, and those fools out there were blind to it all.”
Both Salla and Rainne were in a slow, speechless retreat, backing toward the doorway of the Adjutu’s quarters.
Lochmore grinned. “That’s right, try and get away. I would if I were you. You made a mistake when you killed Santerre.” One of the flaming beams overhead tumbled to the floor behind him. “She was special. She was just like the others until she discovered the truth about me. And you know what? The truth didn’t matter to her. It didn’t shake her faith in me one insignificant bit.”
“The Majdi are on their way,” Rainne said as their backs hit the wall. “Iriscent got out.”
The Adjutu shrugged as more of the grotesque appendages began bubbling from his skin. “Doesn’t matter to me. What matters right now is you.”
Salla went cold when Lochmore fixed his burning stare upon him. “I wouldn’t come any closer. You saw what happened last time.”
“And you don’t even know why it happened. Salla, have you learned nothing here in my House?”
He stared, uncertain as to what the Adjutu meant.
“I may have been overeager, and it cost me. So what? Those powers you’ve tamped down inside with the feeble amount of tephic knowledge you’ve gained, they’re still volatile. Protective. Your fear keeps me away, but you will temper your fear and open yourself to me. Allow me in.” He flashed a wicked smile, his teeth a shining white against the charred black of his skin. “Just think back to the way Ciracelle got inside your head. You’ll do that for me without all that hard work she put in.”
Salla shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I do. See, all I have to do is get inside her.” His scorched grin shifted toward Rainne. “So what do you say we try this again? Temper your fear. Open yourself and let me feast on the treasures you hold inside. You don’t want them anyway, do you? I’ll even forgive what you did to Santerre, and make your death painless. Do it, or I’ll make you watch as this woman who cares so much for you takes her own life in the most imaginative and unspeakable method I can dream up.”
Salla felt Rainne tighten against him. “No. I won’t let you get to her. Even if you could, she’s strong enough to force you out.”
“You’d better be sure about that. All it took was one touch from me, right where the two of you are standing. This girl offered no resistance when I sent her down to tear open Ciracelle Belfair and leave her dying on the floor.”
He shook his head. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” The red, smoldering eyes narrowed as the Adjutu sneered. He folded his charred arms, halting his advance. “Go on. Ask her.”
Salla looked into her eyes. What he saw in her fragile expression was an ocean of doubt and fear.
“I do not know. I do not know, Salla. I—I think I may…” She pinched her eyes shut as if to chase away the abhorrent possibility. She gasped, eyes suddenly spilling over with tears. “I cannot say it.”
“There. Satisfied?” His grin fell away and he strode closer once more. “Now, do as I say or watch her die.” Lochmore’s mouth opened then, his body convulsing as that same ethereal form that had tried to enter Salla slipped free, drifting into the air.
Standing before her
to act as a shield in hopes the apparition might react as it had only minutes ago, Salla tried to track it as it glided higher and closer. But the flames eating away at the corridor’s ceiling made everything shimmer and warp. Within seconds, he had lost sight of it. On the verge of panic now, Salla did the only thing he could think to do. He wrapped himself about Rainne, bringing both of them to their knees.
Somewhere behind, Lochmore was laughing.
“No, no…” he heard Rainne whisper, followed by a sudden intake of breath.
Her hands balled into fists with his shirt caught in their grasp, and he could feel her entire body go stiff in his arms. Spasms wracked her delicate form just as she would were she drowning.
Lochmore has her.
Biting down the anger, Salla released her, leaving her behind. He bolted toward the scorched man, but Lochmore sidestepped the attack, throwing him further down Adjutu’s Path. He landed on one of the flaming beams that had dropped from the ceiling, rolling away as soon as he’d come into contact. Once he was sure his House uniform hadn’t caught fire, his eyes fastened to something lying only half a dozen feet away.
“You aren’t leaving this woman to make a mess of herself all by her lonesome, are you?” Lochmore chuckled. “I hadn’t taken you for such a cold man, Salla Saar.”
Salla ignored the taunt, staring at Joht’s still form. His body lay sprawled across the floor, and Salla’s eyes gravitated to the silver device still attached to his wrist. It was the tephic bracer Ciracelle had stealthily used on him—the prototype unhindered by the restrictions that limited the power of the House’s training bracers.
“Very well. She dies. How should I have her do it? Should it—”
Leaping forward, Salla threw himself at Joht Tavross. He had the bracer off in seconds, sweating hands fumbling to slip the device onto his own wrist. Salla rolled away from the fallen Majdi, forging his concentration in iron as he trained the fist bearing the bracer upon the Adjutu’s head.