by Tammy Salyer
The Flesh Caster reached out once more to take the satchel, and Ulfric angled it aside to refuse her. “Take us to Balavad, usurper that he is, and I will give him his artifacts myself. Or kill me. Because you will have to if you wish to have these.”
The enemy priest’s lips parted in a smirk around her pointed grayish teeth. “Do you think you can deny me, against this?” She swept her hands out on both sides, gesturing to the hundred or more Raveners spread throughout the hangar. “My master told me you were clever, but it seems he may have been mistaken.”
“Was he?” Ulfric taunted.
Without responding, the Flesh Caster grew rigid suddenly, her eyes losing focus. After a moment, her slack expression went tight and she said, “His Holiness has agreed.” Turning to the horde, she emitted what appeared to be instructions in that same sibilant language, and the assembly quickly drew a tight circle around Ulfric, Mylla, and Bardgrim.
“Wait,” Bardgrim pressed. “I’m just a Glint Engineer from Himmingaze, not a Knight. I’m sure I would be much less of a bother if you just . . . uh, tossed me in a cell with the others over there.” He tilted his head toward the Skate’s crew, every one of them looking shocked, horrified, and totally outside their element.
The Flesh Caster hissed again and spun around to look at him.
“Leave this one, slave,” Ulfric demanded of her. “He’s not part of this.”
Bardgrim shot him a grateful look but flinched when the Flesh Caster took a stride toward him. She reached out and grabbed both of his cheeks suddenly, yanking his head toward hers. Her height allowed her to look directly into his eyes, which widened anxiously as she peered into them. Again, her body stiffened, but this time when she spoke her voice thickened and deepened, becoming another’s. The voice of Balavad.
“A Himmingazian, creature of Lífs.” She drew his face closer.
Mylla’s hand went to the hilt of her sword, but Ulfric stopped her with a quick shake of his head. She couldn’t protect Bardgrim. Neither could he.
The Flesh Caster continued, “My quin’s realm is filled with fascinating creatures, much like my own. I will be back for your kind soon. But not now.” The priest licked her dry lips with a pale forked tongue, keeping her grip on Bardgrim’s face as she gazed at him with her dull eyes. “You . . . there is something about you. You’ll come to the consecration chamber, too.”
So the enemy can see through his subjects’ eyes and speak through their flesh, Ulfric realized. The same way Vaka Aster can through me. It seemed there was no end to the violations their makers would subject them to.
The Flesh Caster jerked slightly, then dropped her hands. “Don’t struggle, creature of Lífs,” she warned in her own voice. “Or any of you.” Following another hiss, the horde pointed their weapons on the trio and began forcing them toward the far end of the hangar.
As they walked, Captain Illago’s frightened cry echoed behind them. “Jaemus. Jaemus, whatever they do, resist them!”
Chapter 48
The way to the usurper’s consecration chamber unrolled beneath legs that felt like wet cloth to Ulfric. Mylla’s sword had been stripped from her, without bloodshed by some miracle, and she plodded next to his right shoulder with a stiff, heavy gait that screamed defiance and rage. The Raveners hadn’t even bound their hands, unconcerned the three of them could mount any meaningful resistance. And without access to their klinkí stones or the power to draw upon Vaka Aster’s spark, which seemed to be blocked inside this Balavad’s domain, they couldn’t.
Behind them, Bardgrim muttered, “I’m beginning to think this Verity business is bad for everyone, Himmingaze and your own home. Scratch that, I’m well beyond beginning and right in the middle of being certain of it.”
Ulfric couldn’t miss the heartsickness underlying his voice. “I can offer no consolation, other than that it will end soon.”
As they walked, his thoughts turned to the artifacts in his satchel. He quelled a desire to look into the Battgjald Scrylle again and ensure he knew every syllable of the incantation to create the Verity cage and force one into it. If he did not speak it precisely, all of this would be meaningless. But the danger would be a thousand times worse if he looked into the celestial tome, enabling Balavad to see his thoughts. He’d seen the usurper’s ability to occupy and control his own minions’ minds, but he’d not been able to breach Ulfric’s—except when he’d opened it to the Scrylle. Some vital link Balavad had with his realm’s people seemed to be missing between him and Ulfric, perhaps all Vinnrics. Perhaps that was achieved through this “consecration” ritual, whatever that was. Ulfric was counting on that barrier to keep his plan secret.
Stallari, Vaka Aster whispered, you need my aid. Release your mind to me. Remove the shields that cover your eyes and let me see.
His skin grew hot, tingling. For the first time, he chose to respond. You betrayed me once. I am not fool enough to let you do it again, Vaka Aster.
A Verity cannot betray its creations. You are because we are. Her tone, so fluid and sincere, did not sound menacing to him, nor did it sound compassionate. It sounded nothing but alien. She went on: Vinnr now depends on—
Enough! Like a fist, he clenched his mind against her invasion as tightly as he’d ever clenched a sword in battle. The pang he’d felt earlier, like an icicle being driven into his forehead, struck again. Deeper this time, and harder. A spike rather than a nail. He dropped his head and pressed a palm against it.
“Are you okay, Ulfric?” Mylla said.
He said nothing, focusing on the pain, willing it to dissipate. The Verity would never rule his mind. Never.
They passed into a new section of the ship and the walls opened up into a taller, wider tunnel, large enough for an army to walk through, ten abreast. He raised his head again and saw dark metal rising in giant plates on each side, with rivets holding the structure together that were as wide and thick as a person’s thighs. They passed several entryways yawning with blackness, but Ulfric didn’t glance down any of them. His focus was born not from courage but from wrath. Today, he would either win or die.
When they reached a set of imposing iron doors at the end of the corridor, the mass of Raveners pressed them through. A sickly yellow light coming from within pulsed strongly, and Ulfric’s eyesight dimmed as he struggled inwardly against the urge to remove the eye shields and give Vaka Aster what she wanted.
The troop halted as one, sending the three of them stumbling into the backs of the nearest Raveners, but they were paid no heed. The horde broke apart slowly, like oil over a mirror’s surface, and slunk toward the edges of the vast hall they had entered.
Ulfric took in everything around them. The chamber was as massive as the courtyard outside of Aster Keep, and the yellow glow came from lights set into recesses in the walls. Shadows swallowed the spaces between the lights, yet he could still see figures keeping a vigil within them. These were different than the Ravener horde. Though they had the same pale, lifeless countenance, their eyes were more alert, more sentient. Somehow, more terrible. They wore crimson ceremonial robes, and on the forehead of each was the chevron pattern of Balavad’s Flesh Caster Order.
The thought of their corruption disturbed Ulfric deeply. But the sight of his fellow Knights, Stave, Mallich, and Safran, was much, much worse.
The three were bent to their knees side by side before white stone pillars, just three of many pillars lined up through the chamber’s center, their hands bound behind them. Mallich’s head was raised, and Ulfric saw his eyes widen at the sight of him and Mylla. Safran slumped against Stave, clearly in great pain. All bore wounds and gashes innumerable, their faces and clothing bloody and torn. They were not healing as normal, another indication that their gifts from Vaka Aster waned here. Upon catching sight of Ulfric, the expression on Mallich’s drawn face flattened, becoming unreadable and inscrutable. Stave, ever unwilling to concede defeat, used the hand not clutching Safran to give him the Knights’ salute.
Like a voic
e in a nightmare, Balavad seethed from the far end of the chamber. “Stallari Aldinhuus, again you are subject to me. Your craftiness has only prolonged Vinnr’s foreordination, not thwarted it. You will not deceive me again.”
The Verity glided forward. His black robes scraped the floor behind him, the rasp of the ragged hem along metal making Ulfric’s teeth ache. Balavad observed him closely as he approached, and Ulfric saw the malignant intelligence behind his black eyes, taking him in, considering him, planning his doom. He had never felt so exposed.
Be strong, Ulfric, he told himself. For the memory of your family. For Symvalline and Isemay.
The Verity flicked a wrist toward Mylla and Bardgrim, and Raveners pushed them aside toward the other Knights, then made them kneel as well. Ulfric noted relief in their eyes at the reunion. They were together again, friends still bonded. He had been with them all for so many turns, grown to love them with a fierceness only time and bonds of fellowship can nurture. What he was about to do might seem to them an abomination, or worse, an abandonment. Their Stallari, turning his back on duty and caging the Verities, both the usurper and Vaka Aster, for he had no intention of releasing her. Ever.
So be it. He would learn to endure his fellows’ judgment while he also learned to endure the loss of his family. If he could not save Symvalline and Isemay, at least he might save his companions.
“Your trinkets,” he growled. And without ceremony, he pulled the satchel over his head and dumped the artifacts before him. Around him, Raveners hissed menacingly at the sacrilege. He didn’t care.
Then he realized his folly. He had intended to call up the Verity cage through his Mentalios, using the wystic lens link to hide his words so Balavad wouldn’t be able to hear or stop him. But the Mentalios link was broken in this place. He could not silently channel the words to cage the Verity without it.
Aloud it would be. Feigning concession to his certain fate, he too knelt and bowed his head—letting the Verity think he had at last accepted defeat, but really to hide his lips—and began whispering the words to imprison Balavad within the net of Fenestrii.
Chapter 49
“Now you kneel, Stallari,” Balavad taunted. “You should have been doing so all along.”
Ignoring him, Ulfric continued speaking, the words rolling from his tongue as fast as he could utter them. As before, the energy poured from him, pulled unrelentingly into the stones that lay before him.
“What are you—” Balavad paused. For a moment, he seemed to freeze in place, silent and senseless.
Ulfric dared to hope.
It was a mistake.
Still staring intently at the artifacts as the incantation tumbled from him, he heard seething laughter, then Balavad spoke.
“Creature of Vaka Aster, you disappoint me. You cannot cage me. Not with another Verity’s Fenestrii. So many eons of wisdom in you, yet you are still so foolish.” His voice darkened. “I warned you.”
He didn’t look up, wasn’t willing yet to concede to this final defeat, and kept whispering the cage incantation. From beside him, Ulfric hear Mallich yelling, “By the doom of Verities—Ulfric!”
At the alarm in his voice, Ulfric looked up in time to see a wall of fumes rumbling toward him. He grimaced, then screamed as it enveloped him, or more accurately suffused him, the experience like a sponge absorbing pure agony. Every muscle, every shred of skin, even his hair filled with pain, pushed to a point of bursting as he absorbed more and more of the poisonous miasma. Rigid with pain, he could neither writhe nor speak. All he could do was scream.
Balavad’s voice overrode the cacophony, speaking directly in his ear. “If you want this suffering to end, there is only one task left before you: tell me where my quin’s vessel is. Tell me, and I will grant the rest of your Knights peace. Life among my Flesh Casters rather than the death, slow though it might be, that your refusal to tell me will bring them.”
For a moment, the miasma lessened, giving Ulfric a moment of sweet relief that was so tempting a respite that he almost considered Balavad’s proposal. Shame nearly drowned him, then more screams filled his hearing, not his own this time, but Mallich’s, Stave’s, Mylla’s, Safran’s, and even the Himmingazian’s. Forcing his eyes open, he saw them swallowed by the malignant vapor. Suffering. Dying.
“They won’t last as long as you might, but their suffering will still feel an eternity to them. It will break their minds and their bodies before I release them,” Balavad promised.
Through a throat that felt lined with broken glass, Ulfric cried, “You wish to know where the vessel is? It’s me! I am the vessel!” He ripped his lenses from his head, revealing the cerulean swirl of Vaka Aster’s light in his eyes.
Balavad’s arms lifted and crossed in front of his chest, and his grim vapor left its victims and surrounded him instantly, thickening to pitch-black like a shield. Ulfric felt skeins of it ripped from his body, like fingernails, leaving behind a merciful emptiness. He slumped forward with a grunt, but his relief was momentary as he realized what he’d done. Vaka Aster now gazed out through his eyes, as Balavad did those of his slaves, her own will widening the cracks in Ulfric’s, which weakened more every time he removed the eye shields.
Release me, Ulfric.
Never.
Release me or all is lost.
“No!” he raged, and with unknown reserves of strength, he stood and faced Balavad. “I am the vessel, usurper. I am that which you seek. Destroy me, and you will destroy Vinnr. You will lose your own game. There will be no victory, you pathetic sack of swill.”
The hall had fallen silent, Raveners, Knights, and Bardgrim all staring at Ulfric, struck dumb by his brazenness.
Balavad could barely be seen inside the roiling miasma encircling him. In the stillness, the sounds of hundreds of minute wisps of wind rose, the noise coming from above. One by one, all heads but Balavad’s and Ulfric’s tilted to locate the source of the noise, a collective sense of either wonder or foreboding sweeping through Raveners and Knights alike.
From within the inky morass, Balavad’s eyes glittered, his focus on Ulfric. Slowly, like melting candle wax, the Verity’s expression shifted from alarm to dark and sinister amusement.
“You are Vaka Aster’s new form, yes. But you are more than that, aren’t you?” The pale lines of his lips split over his teeth like a slug squashed by a sudden weight. “Oh so clever. So clever! You have indeed caged my quin as I required. The only way she can free herself is to break you. My quin, my transcendent quin. You have given your realm to me yourself. If Vinnr is destroyed, it is you who will destroy it.”
The cloud began sliding across the floor with Balavad at its center, his flaming red mane the color of congealing blood within the vapor. His feet no longer touched the ground, and when he reached Ulfric he loomed over the Knight like a malevolent specter of fate. Again, his expression shifted, becoming a mockery of compassion, and he said peaceably, “You are the savior of your world after all, Stallari. A true hero, dutiful, and wise. You have served me better than any creation in all my endless existence. I make this offer one last time. You will be rewarded, if you accept. I can give you anything. I can remove your pain, I can create a new family for you, I can even make you believe they have been your family all along. You will have back everything you think you lost—for loss is temporary. I can make you whole again. I can do this, because I am the Verity who only creates, not destroys.”
The Verity raised his hands and held them apart. The space between sucked a vortex of the dark vapor into a swirling, hypnotic mass, and then it cleared completely. An image formed in the middle, and Ulfric’s torment gave way to recognition. This was a memory, his memory, and one from not long past, perhaps plucked from his mind when he’d opened it to Balavad through the Scrylle. Isemay stood before him, staring into the memory keeper he’d given her just days ago, though it felt like lifetimes. He stood beside her, gazing at her face adoringly, a smile on his lips. That had been the last time he’d felt joy. In its
place, all he had now was longing, emptiness, an endless life of sickness of heart and spirit.
“You can have this again,” Balavad promised. “Any version of it you wish. We can decide on another vessel to hold my quin so that you may join my ranks. And then, I can clear your mind and memory of all pain and suffering and spin you new thoughts, any you wish, if you choose it. But if you do not, you will be caged like my quin, forever enslaved with nothing but memories of the dead for comfort or company. The choice is yours.”
It would seem a simple choice. No more suffering, all he had to do was ask. All he had to do . . .
Abruptly, the ceiling lit up in a storm of blue-green radiance, revealing a myriad host of dragørflies, glittering in a hovering mass over the entire chamber. Balavad looked up, and the vision between his hands disappeared.
At some silent command, the mass dived as one into the inky darkness surrounding the Verity. Wrath drove them, an intention to attack, to burn, to destroy. They struck the black vapor, penetrating it, and a storm of light and dark commenced within.
I cannot distract my quin forever. RELEASE ME, Stallari.
The vice suddenly squeezing his mind made him cry out, the potency of Vaka Aster’s command stronger than ever. He wrapped his hands around his head, trying to block what he could not—because she was inside, there was no more barring her if she didn’t want to be barred. Once more, he fell to his knees, the pain driving him down like an anvil. He wanted to abdicate, to do as she asked and let go of the chains he used to grip his own thoughts. But he would never do it.