by Dy Loveday
The demon beside Molokh leaned forward, his skeletal arms striking the table with a sharp sound. “Patience, Lord. You said yourself this is a neutral gateway. No blood may be spilled on sanctified territory. Remember the goal.”
Molokh pulled away and gestured to the darkness, his eyes a cold blue. “Erohw lives. None of you touch what is mine. Go. All of you. Take our newest addition with you. Play nicely—we may still need him.”
Trent stiffened behind her.
“Let him stay.” The words spilled out of Maya’s mouth.
Molokh crushed her hand in a viselike grip and pain radiated in a roar of fire up her arm. For a moment, Maya thought he’d broken it, and sickness lodged in her throat again. The world revolved slowly and she took a deep breath to stop herself from sliding into unconsciousness.
“This is all incredibly…” She swept her hand around the room. “Peculiar. He reminds me of home. It helps … my sanity.” Her voice was a low murmur in her constricted throat.
Molokh’s eyes were fixed on her face.
“Don’t take everything away. I won’t fight you.” Her voice rose in volume and she met his piercing gaze, shivering and trying not to retch.
“Very well, Pidray, you may keep him. As a gesture of goodwill.”
Chairs scraped back on the stone and she looked up.
“Enjoy yourself, Lord.” His lieutenants dissipated in clouds of black smoke.
“Pidray. Such a pleasure to have you back.”
Back? How many times had they done this? She met his eyes. Finally looked into her father’s gaze even though she wanted to hide. His eyes were a bluish-green, like paraffin before it bursts into flames. How she imagined Earth’s sky might have been once upon a time, before she was born.
Molokh regarded her.
The shadows crept closer; she could hear their faint whispers. The smell of patchouli grew stronger. “I never killed those children, did I?” The words tumbled out of her mouth.
He laughed and patted her hand. “As you wish, love. The future is what counts. I have several for you to choose from. Succeed and you can have any reality you wish.” He released her hand and clicked his fingers. An oblong wooden box appeared, hovering between them. He opened it and a bright white light beamed out, hitting his face and showing the bones beneath.
“Eodolon.” He made a grand gesture. “I’ll grant you any version of reality. A successful artist living back on Earth, adored by many. Or partner to that warrior in Balkaith, living in a castle. Your friend Jane returned to you. Or another dream. Wish fulfillment is my gift. There is more than one world to choose from. First you must open a portal and allow me entry to Balkaith. You have the skill. Give me physical presence in the realm.”
“Why not use the journal?” But she already knew the answer.
Molokh smiled and gripped her hand tight. His fist twisted into claws and the nails speared through her skin. “You create in your own image. The journal’s set for the apes. The magi and warlocks share genomes with them. But those of us of a different nature … well…” He shrugged.
“So the Khereb were once magi?” Her jaw ached it was clenched so tight. The pain in her hand redoubled.
He raised a brow at her refusal to cry out and dug deeper. “They carry the signature of their original form.”
“What if I can’t help you?” The words wanted to stick in her throat, but she forced them out, ground them out between her gritted teeth. His nails hit bone and she shuddered as slippery blood leaked onto the glass table. The light caught on the edges of Molokh’s hard cheekbones, throwing his face into skull-like relief.
The shadows crept across the table, touched her fingertips. The wraiths prickled on her arms, patted her skin with the slimy wetness of drenched leaves.
He seemed to be getting bored by her questions, his gaze sliding off her face into the distance, a strange look of discontent on his face. “Once before you failed and I interred you alive in a coffin. I’m sure you’ve learned something this time around.” He jerked his head around so fast she jumped. “Of course, there are your friends to consider.” He looked at the table and Jane appeared, floating above the glass-like surface.
Maya kept her back straight but a whooshing breath tore between her lips. “Let her go.” She grasped the satchel in her other hand, the only item of substance in this whole crazy existence. Something unraveled, waking inside, and she felt the stretch of her consciousness, like a rubber band pulled too thin. Her mind wandered helplessly away, danced out of reach.
“Create the portal. Or you’ll end up in a most distasteful version of reality, right here with me as my lover.” His claws retreated and he waved his hand. A large, silver-framed mirror appeared, the glass blue-green. In it were hundreds of reflections of Molokh and herself, a kaleidoscope of yellow and blue eyes.
“The warlocks will never get rid of the Khereb. Open a new portal and I’ll let your warrior live.”
She was freezing inside and out, goose bumps covering her skin. Something moved under the glassy surface near her hand. A pencil rose to the surface and bumped against her fingers with a liquid rush of sound. And she was back in the factory, right at the beginning, forced to draw for someone she despised. What choice did she have? She had nothing to bargain with; he was far stronger than her. She fumbled on her lap and found the shard of glass from the factory in her bag, clenching it so tight she felt the cold burn on her palm.
Her other hand grasped the pencil. She lay the tip against the glass, sketched a quick picture of her father standing on the ramparts above a promontory fort.
A thick silence filled the room as they watched the lead bleed into the mirror.
She heard her father sigh. He reached forward and pushed his hand through the surface of the glass. The portal expanded and a silver-gray aperture ripped open. He raised his fist and brought it down on the castle. The fort collapsed and huge blocks of stone tumbled into the ocean. In the surging backwash, tiny faces appeared.
Patchouli drenched her senses. The pencil dropped from her fingers.
The past superimposed over the present, embracing the future.
Favorite children dressed in white—stone bull’s cupped hands—one horn points to the sky one to earth—patchouli oil and white musk wiped across tiny brows—O Glory Be Thine Lord Molokh give us rain—infant lowered into metal hands—help me children whimper—smell of burning flesh—bull roars and parents scream—Never forget I’ll never forget I’ll never forget do not let me forget lest I forget Spirit of Remembrance find me Each Life neverforgetneverforgetyouneverforgetwhatIdid.
Her bracelet tinkled and she realized what she should have known all along. The djinni wasn’t an evil spirit haunting her. It was her. She’d split her identity because she couldn’t live with herself. She’d cursed herself so she’d never forget what she’d done.
Her body faded. She felt her cells dividing, splitting in two with the accelerated beat of two hearts. When she reappeared her double stood behind Molokh. In that moment she realized her whole life she’d been trying to control something wild.
She’d asked Resh for trust when she didn’t trust herself. Magic required balance, giving and taking. Victim-self, perpetrator-self, none clearly defined, both failing to balance the other. The djinni nodded and smiled. It all made an awful kind of sense. Molokh needed souls for power and she’d traded those children’s lives for safety back in Canaan. Now she needed to give something back. Resh’s necklace bumped on her chest, right next to her grandmother’s pentagram.
We are one, Molokh had told her.
She breathed in, held it and exhaled, focusing on the djinni, who was now bathed in amber light. Air filled her lungs; patchouli, ozone, and yes, sulfur. Light and dark. She concentrated on the scents, forcing them apart, felt the energy building, winding inside, heat trickling through her veins. The kila pulled from her waist and flew to the djinni. The world slowed and the seconds dragged. Her djinni-self swung back her arm and stabbed Molokh’s back. Molokh roar
ed. He rose to his feet and swiveled, the motion pulling his arm free of the portal.
At the same time Maya saw them in the mirror, little children, and she knew what to do. The glass tossed reflections across the room, burned with a white glow. Thousands of images of herself and Molokh. She squeezed the shard of glass, felt it bite through skin as she drove it through the mirror with every bit of strength she had. She twisted the shard, using her blood against him.
His first image had left spectral stains on the factory mirror. Now she returned it in full force, stabbing him with his own over nurtured self-belief. It tasted bitter, knowing that she might not survive this.
The mirror cracked.
“I surrender,” she screamed. “No matter the punishment, I’ll not do it again.”
The mirror shattered into thousands of pieces. The shock wave caught Maya and tossed her across the floor. She slid twenty feet or more on her back. When she stopped, close to the plateau edge, tiny motes of light surrounded her. A chill wind slapped her in the face, whipping her hair back. Pain flashed through her spine as she rocked to her knees and started rapidly crawling toward the table, but it lifted and thumped down, exploding with a huge whacking sound. She shielded her head with her arms as the world turned into splinters of glass. In the middle of the room, and where the table had once stood, a flash of lightning hit the ground with a harsh sizzle. Jane screeched, her body lifting and spinning in the whirlwind and Maya slid back several feet on her stomach.
Several chairs rose along with the satchel, now several feet away. Jane gave a high-pitched call as she tumbled in rapid revolutions. Maya didn’t have time to get to her feet because her heart stuttered.
Molokh was standing before the blood-soaked body of the djinni, holding a glistening red internal organ. The djinni fell to the floor, her eyes wide open. The black pillars elongated and bent, arching above the vortex with a concussive boom. Jane disappeared into darkness and Maya felt her ankles caught in a hold. She kicked free and twisted, seeing Trent behind her. Bolts of lightning struck the floor, sizzling with white-blue fire and she ducked and rolled, coming to her feet in one movement.
Fear filled Molokh’s eyes and he lifted a bloody hand above his head in protection. The heart pumped in his grip, blood flowing down his muscled arm. In the cacophony of sound the joined pillars separated into one figure.
The Guardian, Besmelo.
He reached out and yanked Molokh by the throat into the light. The demon thrashed and squirmed.
“Pidray released the trapped souls and your powers decline,” Besmelo bellowed. “Spilling blood on the Pillars is forbidden. Judgment is passed. Another five thousand years behind Mithra.”
Besmelo lifted his hand and the plateau turned to ice.
The stone floor bent and warped, cracks appearing like a mosaic pattern of frozen particles beneath her feet.
Using the adrenaline pumping through her veins, Maya twisted to face Trent. She grabbed the journal and he came to life, grasped her wrist. But as soon as she touched the parchment, she felt herself fold like newspaper, twist and shudder as she fell backward, flailing and screaming because it hurt so bad.
When she landed she thought she’d gone blind. It was pitch-black, but the moon glinted off something green below. She knelt like a supplicant on the aerie where she’d been taken, panting and covered in perspiration and glass, her journal gripped tight in her white hand.
“My name is Maya.” She patted her sweat-slicked body down, checked to see if she’d returned with everything intact. Her chest was tight and she rolled a shoulder to ease the pain. Damn. No way would she hyperventilate or have a heart attack. In. Out. In. Out. She’d done it. Stabbed her father with his own image, made him vulnerable to his own portal. Her knees were suspiciously weak, the effects of adrenaline wearing off.
“Back to Mithra, asshole.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Perhaps the children would find solace now they’d been released. It didn’t take back what she’d done, wasn’t even close to making reparation, but still, there was a glimmer of something inside she might have called pride.
There was a hint of ozone in the air and her lids flew open. Her hand was a sickening mess of meat at her side; hurt so bad she couldn’t feel her fingers. The air in front of her split apart with a hiss to form a darker black shadow. She backed away as a rock flew out of the tunnel and thudded to her feet. The portal closed with a snap. The Soulbearer lay like a blow on the ground.
Relief was a hot burn behind her eyeballs.
As a message from Besmelo it was a good one, conjure the Circle of Eight, then return for judgment. She laughed, but there was an edge of hysteria to it. She’d done it. Released all those souls she’d trapped centuries ago, diminishing Molokh’s powers enough for Besmelo to drag the demon back to Mithra. Her throat ached with suppressed emotion. Because after everything, she still hadn’t saved Jane.
Chapter 20
Circles and Roundabouts
The moon was a massive orb in the sky, the air moist and redolent with marsh gas, when the portal door flung open, startling Maya.
A white-haired woman stepped out, a familiar mage on her heels.
Magister Oxyhiayal. Maya felt the blood drain out of her face. She backed away into the mouth of the cave.
“You should have bargained with me back on Earth,” Oxyhiayal said in his low rasp. His full black lips twisted. “We might have stopped this.”
“You wouldn’t have helped her, and you know it.” The old woman stepped closer. Her face was curiously free of lines, but her eyes gave her age away.
“Who are you?” Maya said.
“Indira, Priestess of Tau, of the Sect of Aeaea, lands of Tau.” Her voice was steel and ice, commanding.
Maya felt the familiar shiver in her back, as if she was going to disappear, but this time she resisted the inward pull. Now that she knew how to transform, she wouldn’t show her hand unless she had to. She nodded in acknowledgment.
“Where’s Resh?”
“Healing,” the priestess said, walking toward her.
“What do we have here?” Oxyhiayal picked up the Soulbearer still rocking in the middle of the plateau. It now flickered with green and red lights and buzzed slightly. Maya reached out, but he tossed the crystal to Indira, who threw it high as if it burned her hand. The stone hovered in midair, a foot from Indira’s face, and whirled.
“The Soulbearer carries a life within.” She stared at the glowing crystal. “Something from the Abyss, Pidray?”
Maya identified a white face and black hair inside the quartz, and knew it carried Jane. She stepped forward and plucked the Soulbearer from midair. She fumbled with the warm crystal and placed it carefully inside her backpack, along with the journal.
“Perhaps,” she said with a casual tone. “Are you the head of the coven?”
Indira frowned. “Don’t question witches so bluntly, Pidray,” she warned. “We’d rather you come to your own conclusions. It’s a rare treat to have one such as you visit, even if we might have chosen a better time.” She nodded at a mass of low prickly bush near the ocean, several miles in the distance. “Plenty to be observed back there.” Then: “We invite you to participate in the rites of Sauin. Tonight is your rising.”
“I see,” said Maya, and she did understand. The witch was acknowledging who and what she was.
There was a faint rumble of thunder and a red mushroom exploded to the south. The wind carried the smell of smoke and death. “Balkaith has fallen,” Indira said.
A high-pitched screech echoed across the valley, and like a huge roiling cloud, a wave of black moved across the sky.
“But Molokh is behind Mithra,” Maya said, feeling cold inside.
Thousands of Khereb crossed the sun, a smothering darkness that swept toward Tau.
“They’ll carry his charge to the end. Death spreads. For three nights you have been missing. The tide of war turned against the races of the Empire. Fields of corpses lie across th
e countryside between Nephthys and Balkaith. The enemy is at the gates of Nephthys. Khereb are the last words of despair and loss while you are our hope,” the priestess said.
“Once they’re finished here, they’ll come to Earth.” Oxyhiayal gripped her elbow and nodded to the portal. “Shall we?”
* * * *
The portal opened in a large clearing surrounded by trees. Moist air drifted through the forest along with the screech of some animal.
“I saw what you could do in the mirror,” Oxyhiayal said. “Who would have thought you’d reincarnate in my generation.” He scanned Maya’s body, his kohl-rimmed eyes hooded and dark. “Our Houses are at war and I hope you’ll return to Earth once we’ve finished this. The warlocks will never accept a child of Molokh.”
In the midst of silence, Maya touched the satchel dangling at her hip.
“Tau doesn’t blindly follow Tribune sanctions or their conventions,” Indira said. “We have our own laws and welcome any daughter of power. The blame for this resides solely on magi and warlock stupidity. Old resentments helped Molokh enter the realms.”
“Earth…” Maya’s hand slid down to touch the kila that had followed her back from the Abyss.
“Is divided. Some are with Molokh; others revolt against their House.” Oxyhiayal made an openhanded gesture.
“And what’s in it for you, Magister?”
He laughed, but it held no humor. “Anu must not win. What would Earth be like under Molokh’s governance?”
She had nothing to say to that. After all, the magi had ruined Earth for less.
* * * *
“You sent Molokh back to Mithra?” Resh sounded incredulous. The sky was still black outside, the room lit with candles that softened the harsh lines on his face. He wore a low-slung pair of leather trousers and nothing else. The scratches on his chest were healing rapidly. Even now, they were thick red lines of scar tissue instead of the open wounds she’d first seen when coming through the door.
Her face stiffened in resentment. “With Besmelo’s help. Did you think I’d leave the Empire here to rot?”