But mixed in with the joy was more than just simple human pleasure. The Harshini were here and they willingly lent their essence to the emotions R'shiel and Shananara were distilling. Passion, pleasure and a hint of the wonder R'shiel had experienced in Sanctuary with Brak were added to the potent blend. The feel of it was enough to make R'shiel's spine tingle, and she had to concentrate hard to avoid losing herself in the sheer ecstasy of it.
R'shiel had no concept of time, no idea if it was fully dawn yet, or if a whole day had passed. She opened her eyes, seeing nothing but the crystal that loomed in front of her, and placed her hands on the Seeing Stone.
Taking a deep breath, R'shiel hurled everything she had gathered at the Stone, not attempting subtlety or finesse. She had only her strength to rely on, and the knowledge that every Seeing Stone would respond to her sending. Every Seeing Stone and every part of one. Every staff that contained chips of the broken Stone absorbed the elixir of joy that she threw at it greedily. Every drop of pleasure that she could wring from the Citadel she hurled at them, then sent her mind out to follow.
She had unleashed chaos.
The Seeing Stone in Greenharbour pulsated with light, and she caught a glimpse of Kalan, standing before the Stone, her face alight with rapture as she tried to fathom its unaccountable behaviour. With a blurring, gut-wrenching twist, R'shiel found herself looking down over another Stone in a dank cave, surrounded by tonsured priests, who wailed with despair as the pleasure emanating from the Stone began to draw them from their god. In the back of her mind she felt the Stone in Sanctuary, hidden far out of time, trying to answer the call. She gathered her thoughts that were rapidly being torn apart by the maelstrom and threw her mind northward towards Karien.
She reached for any part of any Seeing Stone that she could touch, and the chips of crystal responded immediately. She saw a large temple with a ceiling covered in mother-of-pearl tiles, a priest in glorious robes gripping his staff with wide, terrified eyes as his congregation fell under the spell she was weaving. Another place, another temple. Another terrified priest. Another congregation caught in the thrall. An orgy of rapturous pleasure. Everywhere she cast her mind the response was the same. Her own savage joy suddenly swelled the link and she turned from the Stone.
It didn't matter now. The damage was done. The power flowed through the Seeing Stone like a dam that had broken under the weight of too much rain. All the pleasure, all the joy, all the sin denied to his believers hit the Overlord's people like a wave of bliss that made them forget everything for a brief moment in time... including their god.
She felt a surge of power from the Citadel as it reached out to embrace her, to bolster her resistance - and not a moment too soon. She had barely taken her hand from the Stone when Xaphista appeared, striding through the other gods, his eyes burning with anger.
“Stop this abomination!”
Although she well knew the seductive touch of his spirit, R'shiel had never seen Xaphista in material form. She found the sight a little disappointing. He chose to appear as an old man, with long white hair that flowed around his broad shoulders, although the physique he affected belonged to a much younger man. His dark cassock rippled in the breeze of his passing and in his hand he carried a staff that almost brushed the ceiling, topped by a small sun that radiated beams of blinding light through the Temple.
“How dare you! These are my people!”
The ground trembled with his wrath.
“I'm just reminding them of what you've made them forget!”
Xaphista's answer was to hurl a blast of rage at her that almost knocked her off her feet. But the Citadel surged to meet it, adding his implacable will to her own, so it merely buffeted her like a sudden gust of magical wind.
The Primal Gods did nothing. There was nothing they could do but grant her open access to their power. Xaphista was stronger than them combined. That was the danger of him. It was the reason they created the demon child, and the reason they could do little but rail helplessly against him. Individually, they did not have the strength to fight him, and their own, inviolable laws did not permit them to kill him. The demon child was their only hope.
“You defy me at your peril, demon child!”
“You threaten me at yours!”
And then, like a tap suddenly turned off, she felt Shananara let go of her power. R'shiel felt it go, and staggered under the weight of Xaphista's wrath, but the Harshini Queen could not hold her power against the might of the God's anger. But as the torrent through the Seeing Stone dwindled to nothing, Xaphista let out a cry of unimaginable pain. Although she wasn't certain, R'shiel guessed that across the length and breadth of Karien, the thrall was slowly being shaken by his followers. In the aftermath of R'shiel's storm of pleasure and joy, one overriding, overwhelming feeling now consumed the hearts of his believers.
Doubt.
“It's over, Xaphista. The Kariens have begun to doubt you. How long will they belong to you once Kalianah or Zegarnald walk among your followers? They are yours no longer!”
“You will never be strong enough to defeat me, demon child.”
“I'm not trying to defeat you, Xaphista. I just want your people to doubt you.”
The Overlord looked down on her with blazing eyes. “You cannot take my people from me!”
“You think not? You've spent centuries convincing them the others gods don't exist. Every time a Karien turns round now, there will be a Primal God waiting for them. I'll flood the world with miracles. I will have Jondalup turn every human who games into a winner. I will have Dacendaran turn every person into a thief. Cheltaran will heal every wound, every sick child, every dying old woman. I'll make the Primal Gods answer every single prayer your people utter. You'll be so deep in divine intervention that there won't be a Karien left who can deny the presence of the Primal Gods within a month.”
“Such recklessness would destroy the natural balance of the universe.”
“I don't care.”
She truly didn't, and Xaphista knew she wasn't lying. R'shiel had not been raised among the Harshini. Despite everything they had tried to teach her at Sanctuary, despite everything Brak had explained to her since, she still did not quite understand the place the gods held in the scheme of things. It was her ignorance that lent her threat its power. No full-blooded Harshini could have contemplated such a course of action. R'shiel did not appreciate the consequences of her behaviour. She was a child who had accidentally stumbled over a weapon of mass destruction and wanted to use it to get her own way, totally oblivious to the fact that it would destroy her along with her foes.
The Overlord glared at the other gods, who had remained silent for the entire exchange.
“You cannot hide behind this child. Each one of you will fade into nothing as I grow in strength.”
“You cannot destroy us, Xaphista,” Zegarnald boomed, unable to contain his anger. “Look at you! Already the doubt begins to take its toll.”
Zegarnald was right. In the short time Xaphista had been in the Hall, he had visibly diminished. R'shiel was not sure how long she had before his priests restored order. Not sure how long the doubt and uncertainty of his believers would last, or how long the pleasure she had swamped them with would distract them from their god.
“We will have an accounting for this, demon child.” The statement was as close to an admission of defeat as Xaphista was likely to get. He was not conceding victory and he wasn't going to quit without a fight. He turned on the God of War savagely, even as he dwindled a little more. “I have no need to destroy you, Zegarnald. When the whole world lies prostrate at my feet there will be no wars and you will be obsolete... Each of you represents a vice that my believers eschew. You, Kalianah, and you, Dacendaran - when every human believes it is a sin to love or steal, there will be no need for you, no need for any of you... Enjoy your dying moments, Primal Gods. Before long you will be nothing more than sad, forgotten legends.”
Xaphista's defiant words were at odds
with his stature. He was no taller than Brak now, and he no longer had the power to assume the form he chose. A demon stood before them, larger than normal, but still raging defiantly. It was not a smooth transition. He surged up in size every now and then as pockets of his followers denied what they had seen and felt, but he was dwindling fast. But how much longer did they have before doubt gave way to habit? Before wonder gave way to fear? Before his people shrugged off what they felt, or worse, attributed it to the Overlord and their belief in him came surging back, like the backdraft after a savage explosion?
Not long, R'shiel knew. Not very long at all.
“Go!” she cried to the Primal Gods. “Go out among his people! Now! While you have the chance!”
Most of the gods vanished abruptly and R'shiel became aware of the noise. A wailing arose that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. She discovered she was rigid with tension. The Citadel and the plain surrounding it were filled with incredulous, panicked shouting.
She turned to Xaphista, looking down at him as he shrank back to a demon no larger than Dranymire.
And then she felt it.
On the very edge of her awareness.
The backlash.
“Brak!” There was more than a little panic in her voice as she cried out to him. She did not have the skill, or even the energy, to do what was needed now. Brak did, however. The crude iron cage built by the Defenders flew through the air, guided by Brak's mind, rather than his hands. He could no more touch it than R'shiel could. It landed with a clatter over the cringing demon that had once been a god - and would be a god again, as soon as the racing wave of belief hit them. Xaphista howled his outrage and then his pain as he snatched at the bars of the cage. The three staff heads welded to the bars absorbed his power as easily as they had tortured the little demon caught by his priests when R'shiel had tried to fool the Quorum into believing that a demon meld was really the First Sister.
And then it hit her.
R'shiel fell hard, only vaguely aware of Brak calling out to her, only dimly seeing Shananara as she collapsed beside her. Xaphista leapt at the bars of his cage, but the force of the backlash hit her and she plunged into unconsciousness before she could discover if her trap was sufficient to contain him.
CHAPTER 60
When R'shiel finally awoke, it was to find Death standing over her.
The Hall was quiet; even the gods were gone. Daylight, splintered by the stained glass windows, striped the floor in coloured light. Her head was pounding, her body wrung out and weak. R'shiel felt like she had been hit by a falling building.
“Am I going to die now?”
Death looked down at her and shook his head. He was once again in the form of a Harshini, the same benign form he had assumed to escort Korandellan into the Underworld.
With a start, R'shiel realised what that meant and pushed herself up painfully. Brak lay not far from her, his skin pallid. He wasn't breathing. She scrambled on her hands and knees to his side and shook him, but he showed no sign of life.
“You've taken him already!” she accused, tears spilling down her face.
“It was the backlash, demon child. It affected all the Harshini.”
She glanced over at Shananara, who also lay unconscious on the floor of the Hall. “Are the other Harshini dead?”
“No. The Citadel will not permit a Harshini to die within his walls. They were protected. The Harshini outside the Citadel would have been too far out of range to suffer more than the edges of it.”
“What about the humans?”
“The backlash would not have affected them. Not physically. Only a half-breed would be in danger.”
“Then I killed Brak,” she said dully. Her emotions were numb from exhaustion.
“Brak offered his life in exchange for yours some time ago, demon child. He did not die unwillingly.”
She stared down at Brak, unwilling, even now, to accept it. He did not deserve to die for her. “Have you come to take him?”
“That was my intention, demon child. But you sent his soul on its way without the body.”
“But you can take his body now, can't you?”
Death stared at her but did not answer. R'shiel was suddenly frightened that the answer would be one she didn't want to hear. She leaned forward and gently placed a kiss on Brak's rapidly cooling forehead, then climbed slowly to her feet and staggered past Death, falling on her knees near the cage that held Xaphista.
The trap had held. Xaphista cowered in the centre of the cage, trying to stay clear of the magically charged bars. He was whimpering. The magic of the staff heads had shielded him from the blast but his own magic had prevented him from drawing strength from the backlash when he needed it most. She had been afraid the trap would not hold. But the power that had washed over the cage was unfocused. There was no Seeing Stone to direct it, no determined will behind it. Xaphista the God was vanquished. All that remained in his place was Xaphista the demon. And he was a small and rather pathetic looking demon at that.
“I have come for this one too,” Death told her, gliding to her side. “He will cause less trouble in my keeping.”
“Just his soul,” R'shiel said, glancing up at Death. “Not the body. I don't want you getting bored one day and deciding to send him back.”
“You presume much, demon child.”
She glanced around the Hall at Brak's body and Shananara's prone form, then looked back at Death. “I've earnt it, don't you think?”
“Perhaps.”
“And you have to take Brak's body. All of him.”
“His soul has already fled, demon child.”
“You're Death. You can reunite them.”
“To what purpose?”
“Because the gods owe me that much.”
“Was there anything else?” Had she not been so exhausted, she might have detected a slight note of impatience in his tone.
“Is there any way I can get Brak back?”
“I am Death, demon child. I do not run an inn. Lives do not come and go as they please through my realm.”
Significantly, Death hadn't said no. R'shiel climbed to her feet and faced him, willing for the moment to let the matter drop. “Then can I ask you a question before you go?”
“You may.”
“How many hells are there?”
If he was surprised by her question, he gave no outward sign. “As many as there are creatures to imagine them, demon child. I do not create them. Each soul creates its own hell. Whether they suffer the afterlife or enjoy it is entirely up to them.”
“So if I want someone to suffer, how do I make sure?”
“Evil is its own reward, demon child.”
She nodded, thinking she understood what he meant. Death turned away from her and looked at Xaphista. The demon trembled under his scrutiny and then suddenly slumped against the bars. The withered grey body no longer cared about the shielded cage. Its soul was gone. Death turned then and opened his arms. R'shiel watched silently as Brak's lifeless body floated across the Hall until it was resting in Death's embrace.
Then, without another word, Death vanished, leaving R'shiel standing alone in the cavernous, empty Hall. She heard Shananara stirring and went to help the Harshini Queen, wrapped in a cocoon of numbness and grief that kept the pain at bay.
* * *
They stumbled out into bright sunlight. The Citadel was in chaos. The streets were crowded, and the sounds of shouted orders overlaid the general panic. They stood at the top of the steps, looking down over the confusion. R'shiel had her arm around Shananara, but she wasn't really certain who was holding up whom.
“You certainly know how to create a riot, cousin,” Shananara said with a wan smile.
She helped Shananara down the steps and they pushed their way against the panicked crowd towards the dormitories. R'shiel had to push them flat against the walls on several occasions as troops of mounted Defenders galloped by. The last troop to pass them stopped as their officer called
a sudden halt. He flew from his saddle and ran to them. It was Tarja.
“What happened?” he demanded as R'shiel collapsed against him.
“Xaphista is dead,” she told him weakly.
Tarja looked at her in concern then waved his men forward. A lieutenant jumped down from his mount and caught Shananara before she fell.
“Get her back to the dormitories,” Tarja ordered the man holding the Queen. “Get her own people to help her. And take an escort.”
The young officer saluted with his free hand and scooped up the Harshini Queen into his arms. He lifted Shananara up into his saddle, swung up behind her, and then, waving a few of the troopers forward, pushed his way through the throng and headed back towards the dormitories. Once Shanan was safely out of harm's way, R'shiel sagged with relief. Now she only had herself to worry about.
“Can you stand?” Tarja asked.
“I think so.”
“Where's Brak?”
“He's dead.”
“I'm sorry.” Tarja sounded like he meant it, but R'shiel knew he would not grieve his death for long. Not like she would. “Let's get you out of here.”
“Is everyone all right?”
He glanced over his shoulder for a moment at the chaos in the streets and smiled. “You mean this?”
She nodded.
“Oh, yes, everyone is fine, as far as we can tell. Just after dawn there was some sort of... well, I don't know what it was, but it knocked most of the Harshini unconscious and everybody else just seemed to go berserk for a while. We're getting it under control, but it's taking time, and now the Kariens are attacking.”
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