by Wight, Will
The Eldest lifted his black hood to stare at Simon. Within, Simon saw only darkness.
“It seems that you are frustrated, son of Kalman,” the Eldest said, in his scratchy whisper.
“I'm sorry, Eldest,” Simon said, bowing a little. The Nye seemed to greet one another with bows, so Simon had started adopting the habit. “I didn't mean to disturb you. I've been working on this one room for so long, it's starting to grate on my nerves.”
Simon had stayed deep in debt to the Eldest practically since he first came to Valinhall, but the Nye had rarely mentioned it. Somehow, his silence made it worse. Whenever the Eldest decided to call in his marker, Simon wasn't sure he had the leverage to refuse.
The Eldest shook his hood from side to side. “There is no reason to let this room anger you. Many of the Dragon Army tried for months or years to pass the test of one specific room, only to never succeed. Not every reward is meant for every Traveler.”
Simon pictured himself in a few years, having rushed at this room hundreds of time and failed to catch Makko. He would go as crazy as Kai. “But I almost got her!”
The Eldest made a thoughtful sound that had a lot in common with the sound of a rasping saw. “In any case, perhaps it is time for you to attempt a different room. There is nothing that says you must try this one again and again.”
“I'm not sure where else to go,” Simon said. He had gone back over every room that he was allowed to enter, earning the powers of the forge, library, and armory, but this was the only new door he had seen.
“Wait,” he said, as a thought occurred to him. “Will you tell me where Kai is?”
Not bothering us, that's all I need to know, Caela sent, her voice whispering along their mental connection. These have been the most wonderful months I've ever had.
In the fight against the Valinhall Incarnation, Kai had suffered a wound from a Ragnarus blade. After that, he had retreated deep into the House, and Simon hadn't seen him since. Knowing Kai, he was probably lurking somewhere in one of the deeper rooms, and wouldn't emerge until he felt like it. Or until he missed the dolls.
It had been months, though, and Simon was actually starting to worry.
The Eldest stared at him for a long moment, the shadows beneath his hood writhing and shifting. “You would be wise to try the graveyard, son of Kalman.”
“Is Kai there? Can I open the door? Wait. We have a graveyard?”
The Eldest started to glide back toward the door, and it seemed that Simon had no choice but to follow him. He scooped up Azura—which felt unnaturally heavy when he wasn't full of Benson's steel—and followed the Nye out of the room, limping on his wounded leg.
“We have a graveyard,” the Eldest said at last, “because the Wanderer insisted upon it. It is not part of Nye traditions to honor the dead. This is the place where you may earn ghost armor, which will protect you from the powers of other Travelers.”
Phantom pain throbbed through Simon's right side, and he unconsciously rolled his shoulder. He had been badly burned by Endross lightning when he hunted down that Territory's Incarnation, and the pool had taken weeks to heal the wound. That had been one of the most painful injuries Simon could remember. And, living in Valinhall for as long as he had, he could remember a lot.
The Eldest placed one draping sleeve over the doorknob leading back into the rain garden. “As for whether Kai will be there...who knows? Even I could never predict Kai's actions.”
He twisted the knob and pushed the door open.
The rain garden was not on the other side.
Stormclouds rolled about twenty feet overhead, grumbling with surprisingly quiet thunder, and twisting with a thousand bolts of constant, bright green lightning. The room filled with a constant, flashing emerald light, though it remained surprisingly dim.
The whole room was about the same size around as Malachi's great hall in Bel Calem, and was supported around the outer perimeter by a series of stone columns and arches that looked like they had once belonged to an ancient coliseum. Ivy and cracks snaked up the columns, giving the impression of great age.
In the center of the room, within the circle of columns, lay a park's worth of dark soil and grass. The smell of grass and earth hung in the room, combined with something unpleasant and somewhat sweet that Simon couldn't quite place.
Headstones rose from the ground. They were mostly carved out of some gray stone, with names etched into them in a rough, blocky hand. Only eight headstones filled the ground for now, but there was room for dozens more.
Simon glanced behind him, into the shadowy column-filled forest of the Valinhall courtyard. “How did we get here? I came through the rain garden. This was never here before.”
“What a coincidence,” the Eldest rasped, his sleeves pressed together in front of him. He seemed very proud of himself.
A man stood with his back to Simon, facing the opposite side of the room. He wore a simple white shirt and gray pants that looked as though they had lived through a battle or two without being washed, stitched, or replace. He held a lightly curved silver sword, almost as long as Azura, in one hand, its point held carefully up so that it didn't drag in the grass. A line of gold ran up the center of the blade.
The man cocked his head of shaggy white hair to one side, like a curious bird.
Simon took a breath to call out to Kai, but Caela shushed him.
Wait! she called. There's someone else!
Another man dashed out from behind the stone columns, a gleaming Damascan infantry sword in each hand. He moved so fast that Simon couldn’t keep track of him, which could only mean he was holding the Nye essence. But it clearly wasn't Indirial; his skin was too pale, and there was no gold medallion around his neck. More importantly, Indirial would never allow his chains to cover so much of his body. This man's black chains marked not only his arms, but also his bare chest, his neck...even his bald head was capped in black chains.
Simon’s breath froze. It was impossible. He had only met one bald Valinhall Traveler with chains covering his whole body. Unless Denner had taken up a radical change in fashion, there was only one man this could possibly be.
And he was dead.
Simon himself had driven the sword through Valin’s heart.
CHAPTER FIVE:
DISTURBING EXPLANATIONS
Leah placed a recording crystal on the table in front of her. Not a camp table this time, but a real, solid piece of sturdy furniture. She sat in one of Overlord Malachi's offices in his home back in Bel Calem, a well-appointed room with bookshelves covering the walls. Most of them were philosophical studies on the nature of the Territories, but she spotted a few mythologies, a handful of plays, and even a popular historical romance. She sat in a plush, comfortable chair across the desk from the room's other occupant: Grandmaster Naraka.
On Leah's orders, the Grandmaster had enjoyed a bath, donned new robes in the burnt red of Naraka, and even found an unbroken pair of crimson spectacles. Now she sat opposite Leah, with manacles binding her forearms together. A trio of guards stood inside the doors, one Naraka and two Tartarus, in case Leah needed the backup.
The recording crystal glimmered in the sunlight streaming in from the west window. The device was from Lirial, a clear teardrop of stone that looked more like a diamond than a crystal formation.
“This will keep a visual record of everything that you say here today,” Leah said, keeping her voice brisk and businesslike. “Afterwards, I will review the record, and will decide how to act based on your information and whether or not I find it credible.”
The Grandmaster cackled. “Whatever makes you feel better, girl.” Her red spectacles blazed with reflected afternoon light.
Leah was in no mood to play games with a Grandmaster. Either this woman had useful information, or she was on her way to a noose. “Now. What is the current situation behind the walls of Enosh?”
“The walls, hm? When was the last time you had a look at the city's walls?”
Leah gav
e Naraka a precise smile. “I would prefer it if you told your story and left the questions to me.”
The older woman smiled and massaged the stump of her missing hand. The gesture looked awkward, with the manacles clanking and banging together, but Leah watched her hand motions closely. At the slightest hint that she was calling Naraka, Leah would summon crystal and bind the Grandmaster in her chair. Then the guards would go to work on her.
But Grandmaster Naraka simply kept talking. “If you'd kept an eye on those walls, as is your duty as a Lirial Traveler, you would notice a startling change. They're taller, for one thing.”
“Why have you been building up the walls, Grandmaster?” Leah asked.
Naraka made a 'tsk' sound. “You want me to tell this story, girl, then don't interrupt. They're five feet taller, and they're solid gold. You could probably see them gleaming all the way from that village, Myria. Gold's not a practical metal for building a wall, if you ask my opinion, but these walls seem solid enough. Maybe it only looks like gold.”
Leah let the woman ramble, digesting the information. The walls of Enosh had grown higher, and Naraka claimed the Grandmasters weren't responsible. That seemed reasonable; if the Grandmasters wanted to raise their city's walls, they would have had a team of Ornheim Travelers and golems add bricks on top. They wouldn't have torn the old walls down and built new ones out of gold.
“In the city itself, it's much worse,” Grandmaster Naraka went on, and for once she didn't sound smug. She sounded haunted instead, as though she was staring into a nightmarish memory. “The first thing the Elysian Incarnation did, when he took over the city, was publicly execute Grandmaster Helgard. The people cheered him for it. I suppose that's not much of a surprise. With all the spit and polish we gave that boy, the people would cheer him if he burned down their homes in front of them.”
They had finally come to the point that Leah most wanted to clarify, but she had to pretend to be casual. “Let's be clear, Grandmaster. When you talk about the Elysian Incarnation, you mean Alin, son of Torin?”
Grandmaster Naraka shot her a scornful look behind her gleaming red spectacles. “How many other Travelers of Elysia do you know, girl? Of course it's Alin.”
Leah nodded like she had cleared up a minor point of procedure, but inside her stomach churned. Alin was an Incarnation. Would she even recognize him? Some of the Incarnations she'd seen had seemed human enough, but others looked like the monsters they were. You would never be able to tell that they had once been men and women.
Even then, while she tried to imagine what the Incarnation of Elysia might look like, another part of her mind was hard at work. Alin was born as a Traveler of one of the most powerful Territories. If he had Incarnated, he must be all but unstoppable. How could she use that to her advantage? Could he, perhaps, be lured into getting rid of the other eight Incarnations?
Worse, she had known Alin. Was there anything left of the young man he’d been, or was he nothing more than a monster?
“He hunted through the city for the remaining Grandmasters,” Naraka went on. “He said we tricked him into releasing killer monsters on the world, and that we deserved to die for our crimes.”
“You did,” Leah said. “And you do.”
Grandmaster Naraka twisted her lips into a smirk. “How sad you must be, that the Incarnations are exacting just retribution upon your nation for your family's crimes. Nature will achieve balance once again, though the process might be painful. The longer the balance goes without redress, the greater the pain.”
Leah nodded as if that made sense. “I see. Then for what crimes is the Elysian Incarnation punishing you?”
The Grandmaster stretched the fingers on her left hand. It looked like a nervous gesture, and she wasn't meeting Leah's eyes anymore, but Leah still tapped gently into her Lirial Source. She didn't trust any enemy Naraka Traveler moving their hands for any reason.
“He hunted through the city for us,” Naraka said, ignoring Leah's question. “And in the meantime, he changed the city. His very presence there turned the walls to gold. It made the trees taller, healthier. It turned shops into towers and homes into palaces. The people loved him for it even more. Then he started changing the people…”
Grandmaster Naraka's voice trailed off, and she stared into space, seemingly lost in memory. “You should see it for yourself, girl. I wanted the Elysian Travelers in charge. They are the pinnacle of human virtue, unhindered by the petty greed and factionalism of other Territories. But the Elysian Incarnation...he is morality without sympathy or conscience, a king with no opponents and no self-restraint. You have to see it for yourself. I can't describe it.”
Leah agreed: she would have to see Alin’s effect on the city. She had already begun weaving a plan, but the Grandmaster didn't need to know that.
So she pushed the recording crystal across the desk, toward Grandmaster Naraka.
“Try,” she ordered.
***
Simon nearly choked, and his heart went from a casual rest to a full sprint. His steel was still empty, which meant that he was about to die, but he had some essence left. He heaved Nye essence into his lungs, drawing as deeply as he could on the wisps of cool power that remained, straining to hold Azura in front of him with one hand. With his other hand he felt around in the pocket of his cloak, trying to grab the mask before Valin noticed him, crossed the distance, and killed him.
One dark gray sleeve rested on Simon's arm. It used no force now, but Simon knew from personal experience that the Eldest was more than capable of stopping him physically when he had no steel to draw upon.
“You act when you should watch,” the Eldest whispered.
Acting on faith, Simon drove Azura into the soft earth at an angle, its mirror-bright steel reflecting the bright flashes of green overhead. Caela wasn't shouting a warning, and the Eldest didn't think he was any danger, so he supposed he could let his guard down a bit. Besides, he could hardly carry the sword without the steel. He was about to drop the thing in the dirt, which would have been more than a little embarrassing.
He did hold on to a wisp of Nye essence, and he kept his trembling fingers brushing the mask in his pocket. Just in case.
The gold-lined Dragon's Fang, Mithra, outmatched the other man's swords by three feet of reach, and Kai attacked in broad sweeps, drawing shimmering sheets of silver and gold in the air. Valin—if it was Valin; Simon still couldn't bring himself to believe it—ducked underneath the blade, almost impossibly limber. He drove the blade in his right hand up into Kai's stomach.
But it seemed that Kai had anticipated the move, dropping Mithra at the end of his slash and punching down with a dagger he had drawn from his waistband. At the same time, he twisted to his right, avoiding Valin's slash.
Mithra spun as it flew through the air, hurled away by Kai’s attack. It rang like a bell when it crashed into one of the columns, falling with a thud to the grassy earth.
Kai and Valin remained frozen. Simon's mentor was bleeding from a long slash down one side, where Valin had scraped him with the edge of his sword. Not that Valin had escaped unscathed: a sheet of blood ran down the side of his cheek, from the line that Kai had drawn across his cheekbone with his dagger.
Acid-green light flickered overhead.
Valin levered himself to his feet, and he gave Kai a grin that stood out from his chain-masked face. “Not bad, Kai. That's where we'll have to stop, unless you want a trip to the pool, but not bad at all. You're getting faster.” Casually, the Incarnation leaned the blades of both his swords back against his shoulders, which made Simon almost painfully uncomfortable. He would never have put a blade so close to his neck unless he meant to shave.
The Wanderer's eyes flicked to Simon, and his grin broadened. “Hey! We've got an audience today! Your name was Simon, right?”
I never thought I would see him again, Caela sent. She sounded awed. What has the Eldest done?
Simon remained silent. The last he had seen Valin, Simon had been
driving a blade into his heart.
He had never expected a reunion.
Valin's grin faded to an understanding smile. “Don't worry, I get it. I didn't think I would see myself back here either.” He looked around fondly, and Simon realized what was different about him: his eyes. They had been his most noticeable feature: all black around the edges, where the whites should be, and mirror-bright silver in his irises. Now, his eyes were a completely human shade of gray.
It was almost more alarming seeing him that way. What had happened?
Kai finally seemed to notice Simon. He, too, gave a soft smile. “Simon,” he said fondly. “Which of my little ones have you brought me today?”
Of course.
Wordlessly, Simon held out Caela, who stammered a protest before Kai scooped her up and began drawing a tiny brush through her curly blond hair.
“I killed you,” Simon said at last. “Didn't I?”
Valin chuckled, tapping the point of one of his short swords against his bare chest. “Seems like it.”
“Then what happened? Incarnations don't come back when they're killed. They leave the way free for someone else to Incarnate.” That was what Leah had told him, at any rate, and it certainly seemed true. But what if Valinhall was different?
The Wanderer pointed straight at the Eldest Nye with one of his swords. “Ask him.”
The Eldest bowed to Valin over his crossed arms. “It was a simple matter, though it took some time to ensure his…stability. As an Incarnation, he was still bound to Valinhall. I simply returned his body back here, and restored him to his proper place as a part of the natural order in this world. He is not what he was, merely an extension of the Territory.
Valin raised one leg, and it took Simon a second or two to see something around his bare ankle, beneath his tattered pants: a coil of smoke wrapped around his leg like a manacle on a prisoner.