When the Heavens Fall

by Marc Turner

  Wincing, Luker forced himself to his feet. Wouldn’t want the bastard thinking I’m kneeling on his account.

  The Lord of the Dead turned his head from side to side, taking in the dome.

  Then his gaze settled on the Book.

  Luker scowled.

  Oh no you don’t.

  * * *

  Even after the tiktar had stopped fighting back it was some time before Parolla broke off her attack. The elderling had shrunken to a single flickering flame, tugged this way and that by the wind. Parolla gathered it in her hand. The fire licked at her skin, but she felt no pain. Had this creature really threatened her? It seemed difficult to believe, a lifetime ago. It would be so simple for her to close her fingers and snuff out the flame forever.

  She cast the tiktar to the storm.

  Looking round, Parolla saw the hilltop had been devastated by her sorcery. Nothing remained standing for a hundred paces on every side. Blackened tree stumps protruded from the ground, none of them more than an armspan tall, while beyond, scores of Vamilians stood statue-still in the rain. Parolla sensed the threads holding the undead were still in place, but the flow of energy along them had ceased. That could mean only one thing: the hand controlling the Vamilians was gone. She frowned. Mayot fallen? The death stroke should have been mine!

  She took a shuddering breath and attempted to let go of her anger, found she could not.

  Wiping rain from her eyes, she scanned the undead. They stood in ranks three deep, their gazes staring through her. Those with shattered limbs had stopped trying to rise and now lay unmoving in the mud and standing water. Parolla was not deceived by their sudden lifelessness, though. They were still a threat to her, for doubtless a new hand would take up the Book and assume Mayot’s place as puppet master. She should strike now while the undead were defenseless. The darkness flooding her veins demanded release.

  Parolla dug her nails once more into her palms, shivering at the pain it brought. Looking down, she saw the blood flowing to her wrists was black.

  She could sense the rent within the dome now. So this was it. The way was finally open to her—a gateway to Shroud’s realm. The years of searching were over. How had the path been opened? Mayot, perhaps? Had he spent his life in its creation? Parolla shook her head. It mattered not. The Book would soon be hers, and with it the power to bring about her vengeance.

  But there was something else, she realized. A new presence was entering the dome through the rent. Parolla’s heartbeat quickened as she felt the stranger’s power bloom outward—a power that surpassed even her own.

  Then her lips curled in a smile.

  Better and better.

  There was no longer any need for her to run. Her strength was such that she could now ride the strands of death-magic in body as well as in spirit. Gathering her power around her, she closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER 23

  EBON’S FIRST thought was that he must have died and passed through Shroud’s Gate, for when the blackness finally cleared from his vision he found himself staring not at Mayot Mencada but at a dread apparition wreathed in shadow. Galea had fled from his mind at its approach, leaving Ebon in no doubt as to the newcomer’s identity.

  Shroud.

  Through his struggles to stave off unconsciousness he had sensed nothing of Mayot’s fate, nor of the creation of the rent. He recalled the scarred stranger saying he had an idea. Had he summoned Shroud to this place? Was he one of the god’s disciples that he could call on the Lord of the Dead? Or had Shroud intervened of his own accord to crush the pretender to his throne?

  The floor round Ebon was blanketed with frost that was beginning to melt in the rain. The Book of Lost Souls lay on the steps to his right, no more than a dozen paces away. Was this victory, then? It did not feel so to Ebon. True, the undead now lacked a master. The attack on Majack—if his city still held—would have halted, but those of his people who had already fallen would remain enslaved by the threads of death-magic. And if a new hand were to take up the Book …

  To his left, the scarred stranger rose to his feet. Vale stood a few paces away, dozens of Vamilian bodies piled round him. The Endorian’s shoulders were slumped, and his left arm hung limp. In his right hand he clutched a sword dripping blood to the ground. Blood. Ebon drew a breath.

  The undead did not bleed.

  Consel Garat Hallon lay unconscious or dead beneath a Vamilian spearman. The only surviving Sartorian soldier, a woman, was kneeling beside him, her right ear pressed to his chest, listening for a pulse. Evidently the consel was alive, because the soldier tore a sleeve from her shirt and started fashioning a sling. The only other survivor, the veteran who Ebon assumed was a friend of the scarred stranger, was sheathing his sword and tucking his longknife into his belt. When his gaze met Ebon’s his expression was appraising, but doubtless the king’s own look was no more welcoming. Moments before, the powers assembled here had been allies in their struggle against Mayot, but what were they now with the old man gone? Ebon glanced at the Book of Lost Souls. If the only way to stop someone taking Mayot’s place was to claim the Book himself, would he do so?

  Still kneeling, he shifted his gaze back to Shroud. The room spun suddenly. He threw out a hand to steady himself, and sparks flickered as his fingers touched the frosty ground. Galea’s sorcery still raged through his blood. His arms and legs were numb, and he staggered as he pushed himself upright. He could not feel the floor beneath his feet, nor the stubble on his chin as he passed a hand across it. Was this how it felt to be one of the undead? Trapped in a prison of senseless flesh?

  There was a pause. Who would break the silence? Who would make the opening move?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out. The black tendrils twisting round Shroud started to snake their way across the dais toward the Book.

  Then they shrank back.

  Ebon sensed a new presence at his side, and he looked right to see a woman standing there. It took him a heartbeat to recognize the necromancer from the hill. Something about Parolla had changed. Her midnight eyes burned, and her blood-streaked features were darkened by a shadow that had nothing to do with the gloom within the dome. Her gaze was fixed on Shroud.

  There was no sign of Mottle.

  When Parolla spoke, Ebon assumed he must have misheard.

  For what she said to Shroud was, “Hello, Father.”

  * * *

  Parolla watched Shroud retreat a half pace toward the wall of darkness. The shadows about him were too deep for her to make out his face. Shades of black hinted at features, but his expression was shielded from her. He hides from me now as he always has. She risked a look round the dome. There was no sign of Mayot Mencada, but the blood dripping from Shroud’s fingers told her all she needed to know of the old man’s fate. The Book lay a score of paces away on the stairs. All she had to do was take a few steps and reach out her hand …

  No.

  First she wanted answers.

  She looked back at Shroud. The weight of his gaze was crushing, but Parolla forced herself to meet it. “What, nothing to say to me?” she said. “Is the emotion of the moment too much for you?”

  When the god spoke his words made the air tremble. “Why are you here?”

  She nodded at the Book. “Perhaps for the same reason you are.” Her lips quirked. “Or should that be for the same reason Mayot Mencada was?”

  The tendrils of darkness round Shroud reared and darted forward.

  “I spoke to the magus several days ago,” Parolla went on. “He believed the Book would give him the power to defeat you.”

  “He was wrong. And for his impertinence he now faces an eternity of suffering. As will all those who stand in my way.” Shroud had raised his voice to speak these last words, no doubt intending them as a threat to the others assembled in the dome.

  Parolla did not look round to see how his warning was greeted. Glancing again at the Book, she adopted a light tone. “Careless of you, Father, to let the Book fall into the hands
of another. But then it was never yours to begin with, was it? It belonged to your predecessor. You remember him, don’t you? The god you betrayed.”

  Shroud did not reply.

  “I have seen the place of lost souls,” she continued. “The world you destroyed in claiming your throne.”

  “Indeed. I trust you enjoyed your stay.”

  “Don’t play games with me! Or would you have me believe your power is any more permanent than that of the god you usurped? For all your arrogance, you are vulnerable.”

  Shroud’s laugh shook the dais. “Of course I am vulnerable! Every immortal is. There will always be those whose ambition drives them to challenge us. Like Mayot Mencada.” He paused. “And like you, my dear.”

  “You’re wrong. I don’t want to take your place.”

  “Then why are you here? Why have you embraced the dark?”

  Had she? No! The tiktar … I had no choice. Shroud was trying to confuse her, to distract her from the real reason she had come.

  “My Lord Shroud,” one of the men to her left began.

  The god’s raised hand commanded him to silence.

  “I searched for you,” Parolla said. “For a portal that would lead me to the underworld. I even tried to contact you—left messages with your disciples. You ignored me.”

  “Perhaps I had nothing to say to you.”

  “Or perhaps you didn’t have the stomach to hear what I would say to you.”

  “Oh?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Parolla said. Her mother’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. “You will pay, Father, for what you did to her. You … forced yourself on her.”

  The god was silent for a moment, his gaze steady on Parolla. She needed to see his face to know what he was thinking. His expression, though, remained veiled in shadow. “Aliana told you that?”

  “She didn’t have to! You took what you wanted, and you left her.” Left us.

  “You think I should have dropped in on the two of you from time to time? Perhaps let you ride on my shoulders?”

  “Your touch killed her!”

  “My touch? Aren’t you forgetting your own part in her death?”

  “A part I knew nothing about until it was too late. I didn’t have the power to heal the damage you caused. But you … You could have saved her.”

  “And if she did not want to be saved?”

  Parolla was stung silent for a heartbeat. “What do you mean?”

  A note of amusement entered Shroud’s voice. “If Aliana didn’t tell you, I don’t see why I—”

  “Lies! You pretend a higher motive where there was none.”

  “And you will hear only the truth as you would have it. Is that not so, my dear?”

  Parolla hesitated, then shook her head. Even after all Shroud had done she still wanted to believe him. The reality, though, was that he was trying to twist the truth to his own ends, to poison Parolla’s memories against her. “Aliana told me … At the end…” An image came to her then: sitting beside her mother’s bed in the inner sanctum of the Antlered God’s temple, holding Aliana’s left hand while trying not to notice the gangrenous stump where her right should have been. The skin of her mother’s balding scalp was crisscrossed with black veins, and the stench of rot hung in the air. Aliana’s voice had been no more than a whisper, but she’d said … She’d said …

  Shroud’s tone was mocking. “What? What did she say?”

  The memory, though, was fading. Aliana’s face, the white walls of the inner sanctum, the candles scented with malirange and dewflowers: all were dissolving into shadow. Parolla struggled to hold on to the scene, but the dark tide within her rose to engulf it. She rubbed a hand across her eyes. Had Shroud cast some enchantment to steal the memory from her? No, she would have sensed him drawing on his power. What’s happening to me?

  The god must have guessed her thoughts, for he said, “It is the blood, Parolla. My blood. You never learned to control its power, did you? No doubt you believed you could master the darkness, but instead it is claiming you. You should not have come.”

  A shadow fell across Parolla’s vision. “Perhaps not. But I am here nonetheless.”

  Shroud took a step forward, and Parolla tensed. If he made any move for the Book, she would be ready. Instead the god said, “You think you would fare any better than Mayot with the Book in your hands?”

  “You know I would.”

  “And if you fail? Are you prepared for the consequences?”

  The shadows behind him began to swirl. Shapes took form, pushing against the darkness as if it were a black curtain. A face appeared. A young man … someone Parolla knew. Yes, she recalled now—from the temple where she’d been raised. An acolyte—one of those she had killed while escaping from the Antlered God’s priests. Parolla hadn’t meant to harm him—the power had slipped her control. She felt a stab of guilt, but it was quickly swept away by her blood.

  The shadows rippled again. One after another, a host of faces appeared, all victims that Parolla had sent through Shroud’s Gate. She recognized one of the guardians of the Thousand Barrows who had died screaming when he tried to deny her access; a man from an inn in Calad whose hands had wandered presumptuously; the slave girl she had silenced in Xavel during her flight to the river.

  Had there really been so many?

  Could they all have been mistakes?

  And now, finally, the image of Aliana materialized. Parolla remembered the kind sad eyes, the gentle smile, the lines of pain that had been a feature of her mother’s final days. Aliana had tried to hide that pain from Parolla, but her face had betrayed her at the end, as had the force with which she had gripped Parolla’s hand. Parolla blinked back tears.

  Shroud’s cold voice cut through her thoughts. “All of these and more, their souls are now mine. Gifted to me by you, no less. If you challenge me and fail, they will share your torment. Is that what you want? Have they not suffered enough already?”

  At his words something shattered inside Parolla. The waves of darkness came surging up again, immersing her. Drawing her lips back in a snarl, she took a step toward the Book.

  Which suddenly rose into the air as if lifted by invisible hands.

  Pages flapping, it flew across the dome.

  * * *

  Luker rolled his shoulders. Touching though this family get-together was, it was time to start winding things up.

  Carried by his Will, the Book of Lost Souls settled into his hands, its cover slick with blood, its pages lying open. The paper was the color of bone and soft as cloth. Staring at the spidery script inside, he felt a disorientation as if he were falling into the Book. From the corner of his eye came a ripple of movement, and when he looked across he saw the heads of the undead turning toward him, their hollow gazes fixing on his.

  Luker slammed the cover shut.

  He could sense the threads of death-magic emanating from the Book, and for a moment he wondered whether it was possible to locate the strand that held Kanon. He shook his head. One among thousands? And even if he somehow found it, how was he supposed to sever it? Any attempt to use the Book, after all, would likely bring a swift response from the other players assembled here.

  So now what?

  Luker looked at Parolla. The woman had begun to gather her power, only to hesitate. If she attacked him she would leave herself open to a broadside from Shroud, and without the Book’s power to call on that was surely not a fight she could win. But the Lord of the Dead was vulnerable too, Luker reminded himself. For while the dome was now part of the underworld, it remained no less a part of the mortal realm. Meaning Daddy here is ripe for the picking. Would Shroud risk a move against Parolla before the fate of the Book was decided? Luker doubted it.

  Stalemate, then.

  A stalemate the Guardian could use to his advantage.

  “Well, well, Luker,” Shroud said. “Wisdom returns quickly, I see. After you turned down my offer of service—”

  “My answer sta
nds,” Luker cut in. “The Book must be destroyed.”

  From behind him Merin spoke in a low voice. “We can salvage this, Guardian. For the empire. There is still some benefit we—”

  “There is no ‘we.’”

  The tyrin raised his voice. “Lord Shroud, I speak for Emperor Avallon Delamar of Erin Elal. I trust there is some arrangement—”

  “Shut it!” Luker snapped. “The Book isn’t yours to bargain with!” To the god, he said, “You deal with me, Shroud.”

  The Lord of the Dead’s shadowy form swelled, and behind him the tendrils of darkness curled and hissed. “Was Mayot’s example lost on you? I do not bargain with mortals!”

  Luker hawked and spat. Were the histrionics supposed to impress him? “Then it’s time you started. You’re only here because I opened the way, remember?” He cast a meaningful glance at Parolla, then looked back at Shroud. “If you had the balls to step out of your box, you’d have done so by now. So we deal.”

  The god studied him. “Kanon’s soul will soon be mine, Guardian. As one day will yours.”

  Luker turned away. “Maybe your beloved daughter—”

  “Wait! The Book does not have to be destroyed for Kanon to go free.”

  The Guardian snorted.

  “You don’t trust me to make good on my word?”

  “The Book’s destruction serves your purpose as well as mine. What difference…”

  Luker broke off at a sound from behind—the scrape of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. He swung round, recalling as he did so that he had given the invested weapons to Merin and the Endorian. His own blades were still sheathed at his waist, but in the time it took him to draw them …

  A sword flashed toward him.

  Luker gathered his Will, knowing already that it was too late.

  * * *

  Ebon’s gaze lingered on Parolla. The woman looked … lost. Hurt shone from her eyes, and her voice was all rough edges. Ebon was not fooled by her talk of revenge. She had come here seeking, what? Understanding? Acceptance? But when she’d reached out to Shroud, he’d slapped her hand aside. The Lord of the Dead would come to regret trying to intimidate his daughter, Ebon suspected, for instead of being cowed she had made a move for the Book. If the scarred stranger—Luker—hadn’t snatched the thing away, all Nine Hells would have broken loose by now.