Sword of the Gods

by Bruce R Cordell

  Through it, he saw Kalkan redefined as a series of bright nodes, each one blazing with power so strong Demascus almost had to look away. The point of light on the crown of his head, between his horns and twitching ears, was like a lotus flower of a thousand petals and plots folding open. The bluish pulse on his brow was like a third eye.

  A sphere of light blazed on Kalkan’s right hand, where the odd device was strapped. Its light outshone all the others. It was almost like an awareness in itself, or the channel for one that led away in a direction he had no name for. Could it be what allowed Kalkan to see the future? It would explain much.

  And other gleams shone too, across the silhouette of Kalkan’s body like stars. So strong. So bright.

  But even stars eventually go out.

  Demascus glided forward, one with the gloom of the mausoleum.

  Kalkan’s third eye, blazing through the filter of his shroud, blinked, and time snapped back to its normal flow. The rakshasa reared back and swept an oddly curved blade from the air itself, and parried Exorcessum even as it descended out of shadow.

  Demascus tried to salvage the motion of the deflected blow by cutting at his foe’s stomach. Kalkan twisted aside, and brought his own blade round in deadly response.

  Only the tatters of his fading temporal acceleration saved him from being disemboweled in turn.

  A flight of crossbow bolts screamed through the air at Kalkan, forcing the rakshasa to take a step back. One grazed the creature and drew blood. Not that Kalkan paid any mind.

  Then Riltana dropped out of the air behind Kalkan and shoved her short sword into the creature’s back. Or would have, if the rakshasa hadn’t suddenly become as shadowy as Demascus himself, and slipped to the side like a dark breeze.

  Burning dominions, Demascus thought, turning just in time to lift Exorcessum in defense. He only partially deflected Kalkan’s sword strike that would have otherwise split his head in two. As it was, the blow sent him spinning.

  His free hand snagged the Veil. He pulled it loose from where it wrapped his opposite arm, but his foot caught the lip of the pool and he toppled in. Damn it!

  The ice-cold water was only a foot deep, but he got a mouthful anyway. He convulsively coughed as he tried to surge back out of the water.

  Kalkan flung himself atop Demascus, mouth wide and hot with saliva and teeth. The creature landed on him, almost forcing his head underwater a second time. Demascus thrust his hand holding the Veil toward the beast, but Kalkan batted it aside and brought his mouth down to tear out Demascus’s throat.

  He released Exorcessum—it was too large a weapon to use in close quarters—and caught the rakshasa’s horns as Kalkan’s head descended. Lords of shadow, Kalkan was strong! Demascus was cognizant that he wouldn’t be able to hold the thing off for more than a couple heartbeats. He struggled, gasping, coughing, and choking as every breath he took sucked more water into his lungs.

  Kalkan whispered, his breath a slaughterhouse, “Do you remember killing the priest of Oghma? That death stains your soul, deva. The means do not justify the ends. And this time around, you’ve done nothing to absolve yourself of the crime, despite it being the very first vision you had upon waking to this new life.”

  Oh, lords of shadow, was that why the vision had been vouchsafed him? So he could seek forgiveness? If so, he’d done nothing … Because he hadn’t understood! Burning dominions, it wasn’t fair!

  “Which means,” continued Kalkan, “when I take your life this final time, you shall return as I, and remember all. Then—”

  Riltana’s steel-toed boot appeared out of nowhere and smashed like a forge hammer into Kalkan’s forehead.

  The rakshasa cried out and Demascus finally managed to thrust the creature away.

  Chant plunged in the water with them. He leaned over Kalkan and tried to haul the creature back.

  Demascus whipped a loop of the Veil around the rakshasa’s neck like a lasso. The fabric, as if waiting for just such a cue, animated. Its opposite end pulled from Demascus’s grip, then whipped around and around Kalkan’s neck.

  The rakshasa sprang out of the water, raking Demascus and Chant with the razor claws on its unshod feet in the process.

  Demascus sat up, still coughing so hard that his vision seemed scratched with ragged white streaks. His fingers were numb from the cold pool, but he felt around until he came up with Exorcessum.

  Light, he thought. The white runes on the sword blazed in answer, as glorious as sunrise.

  Kalkan writhed near the wall, scrabbling desperately to get his oddly jointed claws beneath the self-tightening coils of the Veil.

  Perfect! Demascus charged the rakshasa; but Riltana was faster.

  She spun out of the air like a whirlwind, slashing with her blade. She landed a few telling blows, painting lines of blood on Kalkan’s arms and chest.

  The rakshasa abandoned the noose tightening around his neck and grabbed the thief with swiftness far quicker than a cat’s. He hugged the windsoul, and she screamed, more in rage than fear. Then his mouth went wide and he took a savage bite out of the side of the woman’s neck.

  “No!” Demascus yelled. Riltana’s body jerked as if in seizure before going limp.

  Kalkan grinned, his mouth covered in gore. He let the woman’s body fall to the ground.

  Demascus hurled himself at the rakshasa.

  But Kalkan’s legs buckled before Demascus arrived. The fiend reflexively put one hand back to the Veil still wound around his neck, but it was far too late. The relic fabric had twisted itself so tightly around the creature’s neck that it was a wonder the head hadn’t popped off.

  Like the suicide warriors who screamed across the Elf-harrow, pledging their life’s end to the spirit tree Cuivanu, Kalkan had deliberately allowed the Veil to kill him in order to savage Riltana.

  But no, Demascus realized, there had been no sacrifice. Even as the light of life faded from the rakshasa’s eyes, he understood the all-important difference.

  No matter how many times Kalkan was killed, he would never, ever die.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  AIRSPUR

  THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  THANKS TO CHANT’S LAST VIAL OF LIQUID GRACE, THE TERRIBLE wound on Riltana’s neck closed over, and the unconscious windsoul breathed easier. Demascus closed his eyes in relief. She was out of the worst danger. If she’d died, no reparation would have been enough.

  The pawnbroker said, “She’ll require further tending or clerical magic.”

  Demascus rubbed Oghma’s charm between his thumb and forefinger. He mused, “My former self had dozens of these divine tokens, given for services rendered. I bet one of those would heal her to full health with a thought.”

  “But they’re in some kind of strongbox, along with the, what’d you call it, the Whorl of Ioun? Which has your …?”

  “Which contains the lion’s share of my memories I thought important enough to fix forever into it, yeah. Apparently, it’ll eventually appear out of nowhere, a gift from myself.” Although, based on what Oghma’s charm had revealed, he was surprised the skull-decorated coffer hadn’t already turned up.

  “When?”

  “It’s overdue,” he admitted.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what constitutes as overdue for a magically time-traveling strongbox,” said Chant.

  “Yeah. Me either.”

  Demascus looked at Kalkan’s mounded gray remains for the hundredth time. The rakshasa’s body had just sort of fallen in on itself, collapsing to ash in moments, as if the weight of a thousand years had descended on the body in one go. Except for the hood and the odd disk, which had disappeared in a brief blaze of blue light.

  He supposed that meant the hood and disk had been pulled to some hidden resting place akin to his own—

  Riltana gasped and opened her eyes. “The rakshasa!” she said, her voice thin.

  “Easy,” Chant said. “He’s dead. And you’re hurt, but you’ll be fine if you take it e
asy.”

  Riltana tried to say something else, but all that came out was a rasp. She raised a trembling gloved hand and managed to work her fingers in a weak approximation of a snap. A healing draft appeared in her palm.

  “You’ve been holding out on us!” said Chant, laughing.

  A fragile smile lifted Riltana’s mouth. Demascus popped the cork on Riltana’s vial, and she drank.

  Silvery vitality chased away her dull gray pallor, and she propped herself up. She was still weak, and a ragged, half-healed scar yet marred her throat, but Demascus judged the windsoul was definitely out of the woods. She really is tough as nails, he thought.

  “So, Demascus, was this shit all part of your last incarnation’s plan?” she asked. Her voice was stronger too.

  “Hardly,” he said. “The only reason Kalkan didn’t kill me is … because I had the help of you and Chant. And Oghma’s charm, with its snippet of memory to guide me. Sorry you were hurt. I—”

  She punched his shoulder, not hard. “Stop it. I knew the risks. And look, we’re alive, and the rakshasa is gone.”

  “What did the rakshasa mean,” said Chant suddenly. “When it said that you would return like it?”

  Demascus let his breath out. His mouth went dry, and his palms clammy. He debated whether he should claim ignorance. But he spoke his shame, “To accomplish my last contract, I had to convince a sect of Oghmanyte betrayers I was one of them. I had to do that so convincingly that they’d take me into their confidences without question. I …” He shook his head. “I may have exceeded the limits of my code.”

  “Which means what, exactly?” pressed Chant.

  “If I cannot find absolution for what I did, there’s a chance my next incarnation will wake in flesh as twisted as Kalkan’s,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact.

  Riltana put a hand to her mouth and her eyes narrowed.

  “But Kalkan’s a liar, a fiend, and every word it spoke was probably a deception,” Chant replied. “Right?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “But nothing,” Chant said, and clapped him on the back. “We’ve just met, but I feel like I’ve got your measure. Yes, I was rattled when I realized you drew a portion of your strength from shadow. Yet you obviously draw the balance from light—I saw the radiance blaze from your sword. I don’t know about devas or fallen angels, but I sincerely doubt your soul is in danger of tipping over into unredeemable evil.”

  Riltana gave a hopeful nod of encouragement.

  “What if I’ve made many such choices over my career as an executioner for the gods? Maybe I’ve always walked the edge.” For instance, something about that woman who had appeared when he claimed Exorcessum …

  “Leech-piss,” said the thief. “You sure know how to push the river, don’t you?”

  “I …” He laughed. “I guess I do.”

  They met the queen again a day later. Rather than assembling in her bower, they joined Arathane and her forces beneath the ruined Motherhouse. The queen was personally overseeing a sweep of the surviving substructure, commanding a sortie of elite peacemakers and Firestorm Cabal regulars that were free of contamination by Murmur’s abortive cult.

  The day before, they’d sent a courier to the queen describing what they’d found beneath the Motherhouse. Of how they’d rooted out the cult of the Elder Elemental Eye, and destroyed the oddly manipulative nightmare demon that had used Leheren’s body as a host. They’d included in the report their inference that most Cabal members brought into the cult were tricked, and thus were hopefully not irredeemably compromised.

  Demascus gawked at the queen when he saw her standing at the edge of the droning pit.

  The gown of their first meeting was gone. Today Arathane wore sturdy leather armor scuffed and scarred from past action. Only the fragile silver circlet flashing at her brow bespoke her queenly station. A cloak flared on her back, half-alive with defensive enchantments, and a crystalline spear nestled in the crook of her arm with easy familiarity. You only carry a spear like that, thought Demascus, if you know how to use it.

  Here we go again, he thought, mooning over a queen.

  He told himself the woman was a monarch, untouchable in her role as leader of her people, and probably trothed to marry some foreign king or prince. But that didn’t lessen his reaction to her. He imagined that his original angelic self, that being lost behind so many reincarnations that the personality was long gone, would find Arathane equally divine.

  She was directing one of the peacemakers as they came into the subterranean chamber. Arathane continue speaking, even as she became aware of their presence. She raised an amiable eyebrow at his single-minded regard, and he managed a friendly smile in return despite how his heart was suddenly punching his ribs.

  When the queen finished explaining to the peacemaker that he was to make one last sweep of all cells in the complex, she turned to them and smiled.

  “Thank you for joining me here,” said Queen Arathane. “It’s easiest for me to deal with this situation personally rather than let it become a project for the Four Stewards. Especially since I know I can count on your expertise to help me. I owe you all a great debt for putting down this threat to my rule, and the safety of everyone in Airspur.”

  Chant bowed, as did Riltana and Carmenere to different degrees. Demascus cleared his throat and said, “We’re happy to help you however we can, Your Majesty.”

  Then, so quickly he must have imagined it, Arathane winked at him. It took several heartbeats for him to focus after that as he tried to sort out whether he’d really seen it.

  The queen went on, “As soon as we finish here, I plan to set aside an endowment to rebuild the Motherhouse. I’ve already sent rumors circulating that the Firestorm Cabal came under attack by an enemy of Akanûl, and that only the sacrifice of those who wear the red prevented a far greater evil from visiting the genasi of Airspur.”

  “Which, from a certain point of view, is true enough,” Chant said.

  Arathane gave the slightest of nods, and said, “To rule, a queen must be adept at seeing many points of view at the same time. And the Cabal, despite its shortcomings, is a weapon in my arsenal I’d rather not lose. The borders remain uncertain, sightings of Xxiphu over the Sea of Fallen Stars have increased markedly, and news out of Tymanther and Chessenta seems especially troublesome. But I won’t burden you with those details, at least not today.”

  Chant said, “But such details sound fascinating, Your Majesty.”

  “I’m sure. In any event, for today at least, the citizens of Airspur are safe from this particular threat. I think a reward of some sort is in order. And who knows—perhaps Akanûl, and I, will need your services again.”

  “All you need do is ask,” Demascus said. His mouth seemed to have a life of its own, but he didn’t much care to stop it.

  “Well, then—my first question: how shall we deal with these insects?” She used the spear tip to gesture into the pit. “My peacemakers tell me it’s some kind of swarm entity.”

  “They’re right,” said Riltana. “The nightmare demon said the bugs in the pit were its ‘sibling’ and called it Scour. That leech-son fed people to …” She shivered and closed her eyes a moment, then continued, “It thought it could wake Scour up, whatever that means. Nothing good I’m sure.”

  Carmenere put a hand on Riltana’s shoulder.

  “So, an extermination, before it comes to its senses?” said the queen.

  Demascus nodded. “We should have dealt with this earlier. We’re probably lucky it hasn’t already gained consciousness.” He didn’t volunteer the reason they’d left the bugs to fester was because they’d had to chase down Kalkan.

  Riltana said, “Hey! I know where to find a few casks of lamp oil. Through there. We could burn the bugs out.” She pointed to the arrow slits where the cultists had monitored the chamber.

  In short order, they produced ten kegs of lamp oil from the guardroom. Arathane pitched in, as if rolling casks filled with sloshing flamma
ble liquid was common fare for a queen.

  Everyone took a place around the pit: Demascus, Chant, Carmenere, Riltana, and Arathane, as well some Cabal regulars and peacemakers the queen selected. Everyone also prepared a smoldering torch, dripping with fresh tar.

  “On my mark!” said Arathane. Then, “Mark!”

  Ten casks smashed down into the pit, sending the insects into a frenzy of perturbed buzzing.

  When the torches followed, a whoomp of fire and black smoke punched out of the cavity, forcing everyone back several feet from the heat and throat-scratching, acrid odor.

  After that, it was just a matter of letting it burn.

  Demascus stared into the pit as if the curling flames were from an oracle’s brazier. Black smoke from smoldering carapaces billowed up from the cavity. The smoke would have filled the chamber if a couple windsoul peacemakers hadn’t applied their heritage to direct it out of the chamber in a braided column of black.

  A handful of gray moths escaped the pit before the inferno took hold, though not before being singed. They flopped around on the cavern floor, vainly struggling to take wing.

  He briefly considered stomping on the survivors, but it seemed obvious the winged insects were doing the bug-equivalent of gasping their last. Scour was dying. Just as the insects in the pit had eaten so many innocents, now the fire was eating it.

  Scour almost ate me, he thought. Or … had Kalkan planned for me to get free of Murmur and the pit all along, as part of his crazy scheme? And who in the name of all the lords of shadow did Kalkan answer to? Why did Kalkan want him to embrace his dark side, and become a rakshasa? What evils did his complete memory contain that—

  Demascus lifted his jaw. No. He was done with wondering. He’d allowed himself to fall into Kalkan’s power, and he’d learned much from that lesson. He was forewarned about the threat, and he didn’t have to be a victim anymore. He wouldn’t allow it again.

  I almost died, he thought. Worse, so did people I’ve come to think of as friends. He glanced at the faces of his companions, and the queen’s too, lit by dancing orange flames.