Phoenix Ascendant - eARC

by Ryk E. Spoor

  Almost at the same time Tobimar realized where they were, a door across from them flew open and the other Justiciars—Bolthawk, Skyharrier, and Silver Eagle half-dragging a screaming Aran Condor sprinted into view, with the Watchland stumbling along behind, pushed by a pale Mist Owl.

  “Oh, Balance, we’ve been herded,” Bolthawk cursed.

  “Precisely, Justiciars,” Voorith said, in a voice like howling winds and swarming death. “I am nothing if not…reliable. I made a pact, and I will ensure that none of you interrupt our host.”

  On cue, the entire complex shuddered, and Tobimar thought he heard a high, chiming sound over that, the sound of the Spiritsmith’s art clashing with crystal claws.

  “Quick, back inside!” Silver Eagle said. “We need to…”

  He trailed off. Tobimar, who’d had the same thought, saw why: in an instant, the stone of the complex had simply…erased the doors. Nothing but solid, featureless stone surrounded them.

  They were trapped in a courtyard no more than fifty yards across.

  “To the sky!” Skyharrier shouted. His armored wings whipped out, and the other Justiciars nodded.

  But only Skyharrier rose into the air. The others leapt…and fell back to the ground. Even the Valkyrnen Justiciar seemed to rise slowly, with effort, not with the smooth speed that Tobimar had seen from Kyri.

  Oh, no.

  “Did you think that your patron would continue to support you with power when you had betrayed him?” Voorith laughed, a hideous sound like a hundred dry sticks scraping on stone. Then the demon gestured.

  Skyharrier’s wings beat desperately, but the black swarm was faster to climb, rose above him—and came down. Tobimar turned his head away.

  “That…was the second time…I left my father behind.” Aran was turning towards Voorith, and his face was dark with rage. “He was dying again, and you made me leave him!”

  “No, don’t—”

  To Tobimar’s astonishment, Aran actually reached Voorith before the Mazolishta reacted; perhaps it simply didn’t expect anyone to do anything that stupid. Aran’s fists slammed heavily into the demon’s leg at the knee—and though his false-Justiciar power was gone, still he was wearing the Raiment of Condor, and the gauntlets on his hands had been forged by the Spiritsmith.

  Voorith gave a steel-ripping shriek of pain; his taloned arm lashed down, caught up Aran Shrikeson, and hurled him away with such force he flew over the wall, to crash into another part of the complex with an impact audible in the courtyard.

  The others, Tobimar with them, began their own charge. He’s hurt, we’ll never get a better chance.

  But even as they started forward, Voorith’s leg straightened, and the praying-mantis head with wide-flung mandibles turned towards them, fanged mouth sneering behind the carapace. “You have no advantage, little creatures.”

  Tobimar felt himself grabbed, held. The grasses had darkened, lengthened, and were twining around his legs. Nearby, a bush uprooted itself, rose higher, and began to shift from a harmless leafy shape to something of thorns and rough, wirelike stems. Farther away, he could see the trees themselves starting to twist and move.

  Poplock gave a terrified squeak as he realized that Tobimar couldn’t move, and he didn’t dare jump down. Vaguely, Tobimar could hear his friend muttering a rare heartfelt prayer.

  “I am Mazolishta, mortals. I am more than demon. I am a god, one of the five, Voorith, Yergoth, Windego, Zaoshiss, Uluroa.” It picked up Silver Eagle despite all the man’s desperate struggles, like a man grasping an insect, and then tossed him aside. The black swarm dove and caught the false Justiciar, and Tobimar was glad the swarm was so thick he could not see what happened. The swarm had dropped Skyharrier, and when the Raiment of Skyharrier hit the ground it came apart, filled with nothing but bloody bones, the skull fixed in a scream.

  “I am the Bender of Nature, the Shaper of Life. There is no escape from me on any living world.”

  Bolthawk’s face was blotchy with white and red, horror and fury and shock warring for control, while Mist Owl’s Artan visage was possessed of the unnatural calm of a man at the moment of his execution. The Watchland was slashing desperately at the vegetation around him, but it was a losing battle. Tobimar had managed to hack himself free for a moment, but that was but a short reprieve.

  I have to find a way out soon, or we’re all dead.

  “Throw me away,” Poplock said hopelessly. “He’s after me first. Maybe…”

  “I will not do that. He’ll kill us all anyway.” He remembered staring at a Dragon the size of a mountain. Though almost infinitely smaller, Voorith radiated power, power perhaps as great as that of Sanamaveridion.

  But he’s a demon.

  Suddenly he remembered the demons he and Xavier had met, and other conversations across the months.

  Maybe…

  He reached down within himself, even as the monstrous gaze was turned upon him. I had not drawn upon nearly all of my power before. Maybe…

  Glittering deep within him he could see with his heart and mind a blue-white star. Ignoring the Demon’s deliberate, lethal strides, he reached out, in, down…

  Starfire of silver and sapphires exploded around him, turning the warped grasses and approaching corrupted plants to ash. Raising his head, Tobimar extended his swords and then brought them up, parallel across his chest in the same pose that he and Xavier had been taught.

  And Voorith halted in his tracks.

  “Come then, Demon,” Tobimar said, and lifted his gaze to the faceted orbs that now held a trace of doubt. “But know that I am Tobimar Silverun, Seventh of Seven. I have faced an Elderwyrm and I still live. I have fought a Demonlord before, and emerged the victor. I am the Heir of the Lords of the Sky, wielder of the Light of Terian. And,” he lifted the swords a hair, “I have been trained in the ways of Tor by Konstantin Khoros.”

  Voorith took an involuntary step back.

  Tobimar instantly lashed out with both swords, mind and spirit focused to perfect and implacable intensity.

  A shockwave, a symmetric double-crescent, of raging blue-white fire streaked outward from the twin blades. Voorith’s black swarm of demonic insects was instantly before its master, but the power of Terian incinerated them almost without notice.

  Voorith threw up its arms with a demonic invocation and ebony fire enveloped the Mazolishta a split-second before a blaze of azure-argent light momentarily erased the world with a shockwave that knocked Tobimar flat and blew down two of the three walls surrounding the courtyard. Poplock was thrown from his shoulder, tumbling away end over end.

  Tobimar forced himself to his feet; he saw the Watchland and Bolthawk doing the same from within the wreckage of part of the complex. They’re tough, those two, and Mist Owl seems to have simply evaded the shockwave. But he kept most of his attention focused on the cloud of smoke and dust. Did it work? Or did it fail?

  The obscuring veil was suddenly blown away by a shrieking wind, and Tobimar felt his spine turning to ice more cold than the peaks of the Khalals.

  Voorith emerged from the smoke and ash. The Mazolishta was far from unscathed; one clawed arm was gone to the shoulder, and the other was scored deeply with black burns, and the smooth stride had become a dragging limp; more, the wounds did not seem to be healing swiftly.

  But the eyes burned with a yellow-green flame. “Oh, mortal spawn of the Light, you have achieved your aim; now, surely, I shall slay you before that accursed Toad, and he shall witness every moment of your pain!”

  Chapter 39

  Virigar. The King of Wolves.

  Disbelief warred with absolute terror within Kyri. Only her training, her bone-deep experience of battle, kept her circling, cautious yet watching for an opening. Godsbane, the Soul-Eater. The monster before her had those names and a dozen more, all names of shuddering legend.

  She drove the fear back with sheer will. I have to control the battle now, or he will end me. The only thing protecting me right now is the silver in my
armor and weapon, what little there is, and the fact that for some reason he’s still not really trying.

  “Why the elaborate ruse?” she asked. He likes to talk. Maybe if I can keep him talking I’ll find out something I can use. “Playing at being Viedraverion, manipulating the King of All Hells, setting country against country…all while you claim your real goal was here? What possible point was there to killing the Sauran King, or arranging an attack on Skysand? You’ve no real interest in politics; you and your people are hunters and killers, not conquerors.”

  Lightning-fast claws struck; she parried them with desperate speed and Lythos’ training, and even together they were barely enough. But her opponent was grinning, a wall of sparkling death that spoke. “I suspect you guess some of it; but I am afraid you have made something of an error in your evaluation.

  “It is true,” he said, and once more there was an exchange of claw and blade that sheared off a part of the Phoenix’s Raiment as though it were pasteboard, “that my people are, in essence, lone hunters, generally uninterested in the motions of the prey beyond that needed for safety. But that, you see, is because I want them to be that way. The more of them that develop a taste for rulership, the more start to wonder if perhaps they might be better suited for ruling our people. This causes me inconvenience, so I…discourage it.” The shining, cold crystal smile left her no doubt as to how he discouraged such behavior. “But I have many interests beyond the hunt.

  “In particular, I have an interest in destruction. I enjoy it—done artistically, done well. Assisting Kerlamion in bringing such destruction, such coordinated destruction upon the world? Now, that was most worthwhile effort.”

  It’s a game to him. The wiping out of the Artan was just another amusing move. What a complete monster. She used that fury, the outrage against the injustice of this thing’s very existence, to push herself into concentrating solely on Virigar. She saw an opening, feinted and then dove and swung, nearly chopping one of the huge legs, but Virigar leapt swiftly over the stroke, and the diamond-bladed kick nearly carved her in half. Balance, he’s fast. And my strikes…he’s already healed all the damage he’s taken from everything. I need to hit him harder, with something that has more silver…and I don’t have anything.

  “But you aren’t terribly interested in the generalities of destruction. You want to know why my main plan seems so convoluted. But really, it isn’t, if you follow it back far enough.” He was now suddenly back to being a copy of Jeridan Velion, evading her blows with unsettling ease. Is he really that much better than I am? “Still, why should I tell you at all?”

  Kyri stopped trying to strike; she might be able to speed up again, but she needed to figure out how to really hurt her adversary, here in the middle of…

  In the middle…They were in the middle. The center of the complex.

  If I can somehow manage this…Myrionar, guide me!

  The important thing was to keep Virigar amused, talking, angry only when she needed him angry. “Yes, that is the question. Why should you? Why are you even wasting the time talking to me?”

  The so-human smile widened a bit.

  “Poplock said you’ve planned everything. But I can’t believe that. You can’t possibly have known every single thing we would do. I don’t believe you could have predicted that Poplock would show up to meet Tobimar, and both of them would come to rescue me just in time.” She ducked under a clawed attack from a suddenly monstrous arm, risked slamming into the otherwise-human form with her lowered shoulder; the impact actually sent Virigar tumbling away for a moment, but she didn’t quite dare follow up with a charge; she’d seen how fast the monster was, and she had a larger plan. “You couldn’t have known that we would defeat Sanamaveridion, let alone how. There are so many ways your plan could have failed.”

  She continued to circle, but out of the corner of her eye she was marking locations, places where the flow of battle would have to take her and her opponent if she was going to have even the smallest chance of victory, and once more focused on Lythos’ teachings: Speed of East, Guidance of Spring, Light of South, Circle of Summer, Wisdom of West, Flow of Fall, Hardness of North, Cleansing of Winter. “I don’t think you have a perfect oracle,” she went on, feeling herself trembling on the edge of the Ninth Wind, and knowing that to think about that would lose her that chance. “So there have to be things you don’t know…or things you’re improvising.”

  The false Watchland laughed approvingly as he rose to his feet. “An interesting gambit to open, Phoenix. It is possible, of course, you are underestimating me; after all, while I am not generally accounted a god, when one has killed and consumed the essence of enough gods, one does gain some advantage from it. And I do, as it happens, possess an oracle which is, indeed, perfect…although quite perilous for me to consult with any frequency.”

  She gave a sudden, full-power lunge, directly for Virigar’s chest, but that incredible speed took him just out of harm’s way, causing her to smash into and partly through the wall. Only an instinctive reverse-roll kept her from losing her head, as diamond blades slashed the air and then finished the job she’d started, tearing a huge hole in the wall.

  Virigar continued as though there had been no interruption at all. “But you are correct…and so is Poplock. I planned much of the entire sequence of events, but I did so with many, many contingencies, as I am sure Tashriel must have told you, and often the precise details did not matter at all. I didn’t need, for example, you—Kyri Victoria Vantage—to become the Phoenix; I needed someone to be chosen as the final Justiciar by Myrionar, to have the god commit fully and finally to one representative. In point of fact, I didn’t know that the Phoenix was you until I examined the aftermath of Thornfalcon’s defeat. I had other candidates higher on my list, but once I realized who you were, well, I knew you were a perfect choice.”

  This time Virigar leapt at her, transforming instantaneously into the hulking, clawed monster that was his true form. She instantly called on her power for speed, and more speed, and it was just barely enough, as the King of Wolves bit, slashed, stomped, sometimes nicking her armor, often ripping great holes in floor or walls, but always, always coming within hairsbreadths of death.

  But he’s just physically attacking. He could try that distance-draining thing again at any time. Why doesn’t he? I’m stalling for time, yes, but is he? Is my plan…part of his plan?

  How many layers do I have to think on?

  “But you did systematically destroy the faith of Myrionar. Why not stamp it out entirely?”

  “Ahhh, why indeed? Instead, I was pleased to see you performing miracles in a manner that created new temples. Why is that, Phoenix? What am I accomplishing? Come, come, don’t make me tell you, why don’t you tell me?”

  The last sentence ended with the false Watchland grasping and hurling a gigantic piece of rubble at her; she cut at it with both strength and Phoenix-power, shattering the missile and a twenty-foot length of the far wall. “I’m finding it a bit difficult to think while you try to kill me.”

  “Just another challenge.” He smiled at her, a sunny, cheerful smile that seemed utterly without malice, and she shuddered. If I ever lost sight of him, how would I ever be able to know if I was facing Jeridan Velion…or Virigar?

  As his next strike jabbed at her, she took a terrible risk, caught the outstretched arm, amplifying strength and speed, and then threw Virigar into and through the nearby wall. Building’s really taking a beating…

  But he wants me to solve the riddle. If I keep thinking about it, he’ll keep staying not-quite-serious about this fight. That’s about my only chance. “All right, I accept the challenge.”

  He bowed. “Then say on, Phoenix.”

  Vaguely from outside she heard a tremendous explosion, and the floor shook. Please let that be Tobimar attacking, not Voorith. She drove that worry from her head too. “All right. What have you accomplished? That’s got to be the clue. You wiped out all of the other temples. Until I went t
o Kaizatenzei, as far as I know Arbiter Kelsley’s temple was the only temple of Myrionar left in the world. Now there’s at least two others, one in Jenten’s Mill and one in Valatar.” During this speech they had traded some blows, but it was clearly just for formality; neither came close to injuring the other.

  “I will confirm that you were correct in your surmise that there was indeed no other temple of Myrionar left in the world until your journey to Kaizatenzei.”

  She leveled a blow at Virigar that he once again ducked easily, but though the sword carved through stone again, she wasn’t disappointed. It was all a matter of keeping up appearances. “It can’t just be for Myrionar’s power as such, because most gods—including Myrionar—gain more power from more worshippers, more temples, more significance…” She trailed off with a sudden chill of understanding.

  Her arm blocked the lightning-fast stroke with nothing at all to spare; as it was, the Raiment on her arm was torn to pieces and she found herself sliding painfully across the floor, face scraped by dust and fallen stone from above. Somehow she was on her feet, Flamewing pointed at Virigar, halting his follow-up charge.

  But the monster was still smiling. “And? You seem to have had a thought, Phoenix.”

  “Worship,” she said, and felt the blood draining from her face. “You’ve…your plan, my course across the world…the way I confronted the Watchland and revealed the False Saints…the temples in Kaizatenzei…”

  “Ahhh, perhaps you do begin to understand!”

  She remembered that moment of rebirth. “Even Arbiter Kelsley isn’t thinking of the Balanced Sword now when he prays. They’re all thinking about me. And that means that if I die, with Myrionar focused entirely on me…”

  “…there is truly no way for Myrionar to be reborn. Ahh, excellent reasoning, Phoenix Kyri,” Virigar said, changing once more into the massive black-brown nightmare shape, facing her casually from the center of the room. “That is, after all, one of the problems of facing a god; unless the god be incarnate on this world, they have…an anchor, even if they throw all that they are into the assault, a connection to the realm of the divine which can be rebuilt if their worshippers remain true.” He chuckled. “But if the worshippers are focused overly much on the vessel and not its contents, then that belief…dissipates, and the god is well and truly lost.”