by Matthew Ward
The light in the sphere pulsed again, but the leakage had taken its toll. The beam feeding the focusing window shrank in on itself, its energies bleeding away through the holes Edina had made.
Skyhaven shuddered. The floor tilted madly away. For that heart-stopping moment before the room righted itself, I feared the city was falling out of the sky. I looked down at Edina again, and realised it was time to leave. I staggered down the outer stairway. If I was lucky, I could get Arianwyn to the stepping gate before the serathiel sent more serathi.
I reached the floor of the chamber just as the door burst open to admit Azyra and four graces.
"Secure her!" Azyra gestured at the prone Arianwyn. "He is mine."
She strode past Edina's blackened remains without so much as a glance. Her eyes lingered on the bodies of the two charred graces before they settled coldly on me. "I should have killed you when I had the chance," she spat. "How am I paid for my generosity? Two more of my sisters dead, Skyhaven slighted and the Light of the Radiant beyond use."
I backed away, looking desperately for a way out. I'd once thought Azyra slender, almost frail. No more. Hers was the slenderness of a dagger, a viper, and she'd be the end of me if I let her. Quite possibly even if I did not. "You forgot Edina."
"I forget nothing. The drudge was not important."
"She was to me."
"And see how you repaid her. Which of us treated her worse, I wonder?" Azyra side-stepped around the column of light.
I moved away, keeping the amber light between us. "I didn't ask her to do this."
"It hardly matters. Now you die."
She darted around the column, sable wings outspread. Once again, I mirrored her movement. She was toying with me, confident I'd no help coming. She was right. Arianwyn was down. Short of a last minute intervention by Koschai or Adanika – neither of which seemed likely – I'd no help, and no hope.
Azyra feinted one way around the column, then threw herself in the opposite direction. I no chance to evade, so I lunged at her. She simply closed her hand around the blade and ripped the sword from my grasp. Her other hand locked around my throat and hoisted me high.
I tore at the serathi's hand with both of mine. The vice-like grip didn't weaken. My lungs throbbed as they struggled for air that wouldn't come. I kicked at her. She hoisted me higher, and my boots struck empty air.
Azyra laughed. "At last, Edric Saran, I can be rid of you. If only you had played your part like a good little pawn, you could have lived. As it is, you have given me the means to restore the Radiant, and I have no need to suffer your rebellions."
I stared down at my hands, locked around Azyra's, and saw the ring Arianwyn had given me. The ring that had once been her father's. All at once, so many things made sense. I'd been wrong. Sidara's magic had been the Radiant's – Sidara might even have been the Radiant – and it was that power the serathi had been seeking.
Adanika had followed it to find Koschai, but he'd been unsuitable, possibly for the simple enough reason that he wasn't a woman. Later, she'd followed a similar trail to Salkard and found me, but that hadn't been due to anything in my blood, but because I'd been wearing Koschai's ring – a ring whose metal still resonated with his soul and the magic tied to it. I'd been used – used to bring Arianwyn to the serathiel. Was this the blood on Adanika's hands?
I tried to speak, but Azyra tightened her grip once more, choking off my words. "Do not fear for her," she said calmly. "Part of her will live on, even after the Radiant has taken control. It is a sacrifice worth making. Alas, you will not live to see her glory."
The serathiel cocked her head, and stared past me to the column of light behind. A cruel smile flickered across her lips.
"Yes," she said almost to herself. "That would be fitting. Myrzanna died so I could keep you blind and deaf while I sought my mother's host. It is only proper that you perish as she did."
She thrust me into the column of light.
The pain began. Impossibly hot, it rippled through me, an agony unlike any I'd encountered. My clothes smouldered, then set alight, the fires searing flesh already burned by the amber light.
I twisted and writhed, but couldn't escape. The serathiel's hand was still at my throat. Her skin too was beginning to char. I heard screaming, a terrible agonised sound.
It took a moment for me to realise the voice was mine.
Azyra dropped me, and shook charred skin from her smouldering hand. "Farewell, Edric Saran."
Released at last, I fell heavily onto my hands and knees. I tried to crawl clear of the light. My limbs wouldn't respond. The pain defined me. I could no longer recall a time without it. Even the smallest action demanded an impossible effort.
I willed a hand forward, seeking purchase on the stone floor. My outstretched fingers burst into flames.
The pain was gone. I felt strangely numb. Though I hated myself for thinking it, I just wanted the end to come. The last thing I saw was Azyra staring down at me, that slim, self-satisfied smile on her face.
Everything went black.
*******
Greenish mist swirled before me. There was no pain, though the memory of it was still fresh. Had the whole thing been a terrible dream?
No; no it couldn't have been. It had been too vivid, too real – not like now, when everything was so indistinct. Before me sat a throne of some dark and morbid stone, carven in the shape of a vast raven, wings partially unfurled. A dark-haired man sat on the throne, a large black raven – a real one, this time – perched attentively on his shoulder. The man regarded me with a mixture of sadness and amusement, the raven with undisguised hatred.
As I took all this in, the man shifted on the throne, and ran a hand through his close-cropped beard.
"Oh dear, Edric," said Constans. "What have you done now?"
Part Three
Into Light
Seek vantage above the clamour, change the rules.
This is all that marks a Great Power from a mortal one;
this, and the willingness to sacrifice the pieces without whimper of conscience.
~ Eldor of Kyme ~
One
"I'm dead, then?" I asked.
Constans favoured me with a long, appraising stare. It was definitely him. No one else could have managed a facial expression so finely poised between innocence and mockery. As ever, to look upon Constans was to regard a young man possessed of obvious zest for existence, as well as the capacity to find endless amusement in those he met. I knew the smile wasn't always as genuine as he made out. The boundless charm concealed a soul burdened by ancient guilt.
"You are indeed, Edric," he said at last. "But you're remarkably well-centred for a ghost. Most don't realise they're no longer amongst the living. The fact you can see me at all is encouraging in and of itself."
"If this is Otherworld, where are the processions of the dead. The ghostly buildings and streets I remember from before?"
"They're not far away. You're in a quieter parish. I thought we should converse without distractions."
I tried to gauge my surroundings, but either the mists were too thick, or my eyes were not as keen as those I'd possessed whilst living. My limbs and torso were wispy and indistinct, lacking all colour and substance. I was as insubstantial as a dream. So too, I realised, were my feelings.
Constans's brow wrinkled. "Is something wrong?"
"I... I should be angry. Angry or scared, but I'm not."
"It's only natural. Only those emotions that defined you follow into the mists. You were never one for anger, or fear." He stood and walked towards me, the raven on his shoulder shifting to retain its position as he moved. "Curiosity, perhaps, and I think..."
"Arianwyn's in terrible danger," I interrupted, at last remembering what I'd learned from my final confrontation with Azyra.
"See?" Constans raised an eyebrow. "Not fear and anger at all. I know what happened to you, and to her. I've observed most of it, directly or otherwise."
"You have to
help her!" Even now, I argued rationally, intellectually. The desire to save Arianwyn burned within me still, but the passion I'd once have used to debate my cause was still absent. Lost, I supposed, with my life.
He raised a questioning finger. "Ah, but do I?"
"You spent your life protecting Arianwyn and her ancestors! You can't tell me you mean to stop now!"
"And what difference did it make?" he asked mildly. "Sooner or later, they all died. I did not. Eternal, to the last." He chuckled quietly. "Sidara would not approve, but my sister is hardly in a place to judge."
"You might be surprised," I replied. "The serathi are bringing the Radiant back from the dead. They'll use Arianwyn's link with Sidara to do it. Not that it'll matter to Arianwyn! She'll be gone!" I spoke quickly, almost tripping over my own words, trying to make him understand. "Oh, her body will be around – walking, talking and breathing – but it won't be her in it. If the Radiant and Sidara are the same person, then you'll have your reunion. All it'll cost Arianwyn is her life!"
Constans grimaced. "A Great Power cannot be killed Edric, they're not like you or I..."
"You're an eternal. You can't be killed either," I pointed out. "Assuming you are still eternal. You looked decidingly finite the last time I saw you."
"Like you, then," Constans corrected irritably. "That was a temporary situation, I'm sad to say. My soul is now back in Otherworld, where it belongs. If I ever return to the mortal realm, it will remain here. I'll once again be everything I was before, and very, very bored."
He fell silent. For a moment, I was reminded of how tired he'd become of life. But then the smile was back, the melancholy banished.
"The Great Powers are the underpinning of the whole world," he said. "You can no more destroy them than destroy existence itself. They are magic given form, and that magic lives on after the host's dissolution. Sidara was no more the Radiant than my severed tongue would be as charming as I who once gave it license to speak."
I narrowed my eyes. "How did you learn all of this?"
Constans propped himself back onto the throne, and swung a lazy leg over an armrest. "I'm living it. Much to the dismay of my little friend."
He petted the raven, which hopped to his other shoulder. Again, the bird shot me a look of pure evil, and I finally realised what Constans was talking about – or rather, who. "That's Malgyne?"
"Indeed. The God of the Dead, or what's left of him in this miserable place. His defeat took rather more out of him than he anticipated, and I had some help stealing his throne. He's much more manageable this way."
"Where's Jack?"
The last time I'd seen Constans, he and the Lord of Fellhallow had shared a single body, much in the same way the Radiant and Arianwyn seemed to now. The difference was, Constans had chosen that course. Arianwyn had not.
"Gone back to Fellhallow to recover," Constans replied. "He now cowers in his forest, waiting for spring when his power will wax anew. Otherworld is once more a realm of the dead alone."
"Except for you."
"Ah, but is an eternal a living man who cannot die, or a dead man who refuses to admit his fate?"
Either way, it didn't prevent Constans from being infuriating. I fixed him with a level stare. "Arianwyn still needs your help."
"And I've been trying to give it," Constans said. "I warned you."
The penny dropped. "The nightmares. That was you?"
"For all the good it did," he said with a note of frustration. "Let me guess, you took them as manifestations of guilt? That would be so very like you." He shook his head. "For goodness sake, Edric! One day, you'll have to learn that not everything in this world is your fault."
I stepped closer. "Is that what happened to you?" I demanded. "It must make it easier to let Arianwyn's fate unfold, if nothing else."
"You don't understand," Constans said. "It isn't that simple."
"Eternals always say such things when justifying their obsessions."
"I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm trying to explain."
"You're making a poor job of it."
Constans swung his leg off the armrest and leaned forward. "Listen. Just because I hold Death's power, doesn't mean it's mine in perpetuity. I can use it as freely within the bounds of Otherworld, but every time I influence the living world, some of it slips away." He pointed at the raven. "Look at him. When I first took over, he was the size of my fist. Now he's three or four times as large, just from me sending you those dreams. Can you imagine what would happen if I stepped into the mortal world and tried to help Arianwyn? We'd have a vengeful God of the Dead on this throne again within hours."
Suddenly a lot of things made sense. "That's why Malgyne used the fallen to invade, and tricked us into providing his entry to the living realm. He was worried someone else might steal his power."
"Precisely," said Constans. "In the end, he overreached. I can't afford to do the same."
"But why even stay?" I asked.
"Otherworld needs a custodian," he said. "You can't see it from your perspective, of course, but this realm is only ever a step from utter anarchy. Even now, I can only spare a fraction of my mind to this conversation. The strawjacks did a lot of damage to this place before Jerack recalled them, and it's fraying around the edges. I have to repair it, or at least direct the revenants to do so..."
"The revenants are good for more than dealing out death? I'd thought them merely foot soldiers."
Constans smiled grimly. "They are whatever the God of the Dead needs them to be. At the moment, I need them to undo the damage – those I have any control over, anyway. Otherworld is home to more than just the dead, Edric. It's a buffer between different realms, and there are things... outsiders who must constantly be kept in check."
"So I can't help Arianwyn, and you won't help her," I shook my head. Sorrow, it seemed, was something I could still feel in my new form, for however long it lasted. "There's no hope."
Constans leaned back on his throne, and gave a twisted grin. "There's always hope, Edric, depending on where you look for it. As it happens, I do have..."
A sonorous tolling sound swept through the mists – the chime of some mournful bell. With each note, the mists rippled, swirling into new and sinuous shapes. A deep, rhythmic rumble, like the echoing rattle of some metallic beast, came hard upon its heels.
Constans rose abruptly. "This will have to wait. I must go."
I glanced around, but saw nothing. "The outsiders?"
"I believe so. I'll return as quickly as I can. Do not drift too far. I've anchored you here, but you can still be swept into the crowds if you stray."
With that cautionary note, Constans strode quickly away, lost to the mists within a dozen paces.
*******
I stood alone for a time, though I didn't know how long. With only the shifting vapours for company, I found I'd nothing to mark the passing moments save for my own thoughts – and the mortal mind was an unreliable enough timepiece even when it was of flesh and blood.
I resolved not to wander off. Constans' warning had been sufficiently vague that I wasn't sure just how far I could travel before being lost to the ghostly tides I remembered. Besides, what purpose could there be for straying? I might encounter an old acquaintance, but the odds were stacked against it. No. Better to wait for Constans.
When Constans finally returned, he slumped wearily on the throne. "I'm sorry about that. There are many demands upon me, and I'm not adapting to Death's power quickly enough to meet them all."
I peered at his face, but saw no clue as to his deeper burdens. "How long has it been?"
"As the mortal world would have it, four days."
"Four days?" So much time lost. How many hours did Arianwyn have remaining? Come to that, how long before Magorian rekindled the war he so plainly sought? Perhaps he wouldn't need to. My sabotage of the Light of the Radiant, combined with the Emperor's crossing of the border, might have proved sufficient cause.
"Time flows strangely her
e," Constans pointed out. "Don't alarm yourself. I've seen nothing to suggest Arianwyn is in any more danger than she was when we last spoke."
"And what have you seen?"
He grinned "More than you might think."
He looked pointedly at the raven that was Malgyne. Suddenly I understood. The God of the Dead had used ravens to spy on the mortal world, and I supposed that Constans now did the same.
"Before you left, you told me not to lose hope."
"Indeed I did," he replied. "You were too hasty in your conclusions. I can't help her, but you can."
"How? What can I possibly do? I can't hold a sword in this state. I don't even know that anyone would hear me speak."
"And what if you weren't in that form?" Constans asked.
That threw me. A spark of hope glimmered in the shifting shadows of my soul. "You can restore me to life?"
He shook his head. "Sadly, no. Your body is ashes on the wind, Edric. Even were it not so, it is hardly within my gift to return you hale and whole to mortal world."
"Then what?"
Constans regarded me keenly. "I can send you back, but as a fallen."
"No!" Returned to the mortal world as an undead slave? The idea was abhorrent. The fallen were abhorrent.
"You're not being rational, Edric," Constans chastised. "This gives you the opportunity you want, the opportunity to save Arianwyn."
"But to return in such a dreadful form..."
"Edric, the fallen are not inherently corrupt, any more than the revenants are evil. Certainly, those you fought were less than charming – my dear adoptive father for one – but that was because Malgyne wanted precisely that manner of man and woman to serve him in the mortal realm. It won't change who you are, not if you don't want it to."
"And all I have to do is offer you my soul, is that it?"