by Ari Marmell
More feathers rained from above and Seilloah landed clumsily on his shoulder. Half her body was bare of feathers, covered in weeping sores, and her beak was cracked down the center. "I'm sorry…," she told him in a broken whisper.
No… No, it can't end like this…
Khanda screamed, a high-pitched, inhuman thing.
Irrial lay on the floor before the demon, as near as her limping and crawling would allow. Talon stretched from her hand, a slender-bladed duelist's weapon, its very tip punching neatly into the muscle of Khanda's calf.
No serious wound, this. Even inflicted by the Kholben Shiar, for the demon it was but a momentary hurt.
But for that moment, Khanda was distracted. Khanda was vulnerable.
"Corvis…"
"Is there no other way?" He felt the words catch in his throat, even though he knew she was already dead.
"None." The crow looked at him, and he wished he could know if she was trying to smile. "Good-bye, my dearest friend."
"Good…" He choked, then, and there was no time to say more. The crow squawked once, trembled, and lay still.
Groaning with the effort, Corvis rose once more to his feet, turned his tear-streaked face toward his daughter's struggling form. "Mellorin…"
She knew his tone for what it was. "No! No, don't…"
"Tell your mother… Gods, you know her better than I do now. Figure out what she needs to hear, tell her I said it. I love you, Mellorin. Whether you believe it or not, I always have."
"Daddy, no!"
But Corvis was already running, the last of his strength pumping through his legs. He had to be there, had to reach him before it was too late.
Khanda had begun to catch his breath, was leaning down to clutch at the weapon in his leg. Irrial had scurried away, knowing full well she had no way to save herself if the demon turned on her. For a moment, as he crossed the cellar, Corvis thought it hadn't worked, wondered if Seilloah had held on all this time for nothing.
Wondered, and began to despair, until Khanda shuddered. His face went slack, and his entire body fell back against the nearest wall.
No, not his body. The body he'd created around himself, to wear in the mortal realm. A body over which he had full and absolute control.
A body that, inhabited by a demon, possessed no mortal soul. It hurt. Oh, Arhylla Earth-Mother, it hurt!
The ground beneath her was rough, abrasive against her feet. The scents of thick soil and rock dust and sweat in the air were acrid, scratching at her lungs with ragged claws, until she was certain she must choke on her own blood. Around her, every line, every corner, the edge of every brick, the contours of every stone, were razor-edged, slicing at her even from feet and yards away.
And those lines looked wrong. The illumination came, not from above, but from all around her. They burned, the people burned; men and women both, and she recognized none of them. She saw no faces, saw no features, for the light emanated from deep inside them, through bone and flesh and fabric and armor.
Every mortal soul, every soul, was a light-and that light was terrible. It pierced the eye, no matter how she turned away; cast shadows sharp enough to slit her own flesh; burned against and beneath her skin, inferno and infection intertwined as one, worse than hell's own fire.
A world, a whole world, of torment, distilled impossibly pure.
But not everywhere. Not quite.
Amid the awful glow were patches of comforting shade; open wounds in mortal flesh seeped blood and pain, and from those spots, the light grew dim. She heard hopeless cries, the song of sorrow and fear, and where despair shrouded any soul, the burning abated.
She laughed a cruel, exulting laugh, rejoicing as the agony of those nearby lessened her own, if only just. Laughed, and wept, for she understood that in a world of such perfect torment, the waning of her own pain was the only joy.
Pummeled by agony, weeping ever harder as she sought only to lash out, to inflict more pain to detract from her own, she doubled over, gazing down…
The body she wore was not bird, nor beast, nor her familiar feminine form garbed in earthen browns and forest greens, but clad all in black, a thing that was not human in human form.
And Seilloah remembered. Who she was, where she was, what she must do; she remembered.
She also understood now, just a little, what Khanda was. And she almost, almost pitied him.
Then Seilloah rose up, gathered her strength for the very last time, and reached out through the body she wore, wrestling it away from the demon it housed…
CORVIS CLOSED, AND FOR A SINGLE heartbeat, he saw Khanda's lips curve, not in his own smile, but in Seilloah's. He saw, and his heart exulted.
Khanda had no soul, perhaps, but his will was great. For only seconds, those few heartbeats before the demon understood what had happened and fought back, would the witch have control.
But those few seconds were enough for her to draw upon the demon's own power, to send it flowing through muscle and bone and organ. To reshape his body within, rather than without.
To make him well and truly and utterly mortal.
Corvis swept up Talon from where it lay at their feet. He smiled, too, meeting Seilloah's eyes behind Khanda's. And then, both hands clenched upon the brutal Kholben Shiar, he struck.
The axe punched through half the demon's rib cage with a shower of bone and blood, embedding itself deeply in the stone wall beyond. Khanda-and it was Khanda, again-stared at him, then down at his mangled body. He raised his head, he opened his lips…
SHE WELCOMED THE PAIN OF THE BLADE, the swift fading of the body she wore. It meant that she'd won, that the far greater torment in which she'd lived for so long would soon fade, that she had not suffered it in vain, that…
Her limbs shuddered around her; a wave of fire and rot washed over her thoughts, sweeping them away. In the dark of the cellar, or perhaps in her own mind, a pair of eyes gleamed open, staring at her through four separate pupils.
And just before the world faded away, she heard that terrible voice, one last time, in her own soul.
/Not alone!/
"NOT…" KHANDA COUGHED, wet blood spraying his enemy's face. "Not alone…"
Then he was gone, just another corpse to fall at the feet of Corvis Rebaine.
Corvis turned toward the others, a smile stretching across his face, and took a single step…
The sky screamed, the whistling of the final spell Khanda would ever cast. Corvis heard it coming, tried to dodge aside, but the last of his strength was gone. His entire left side was numb, the floor around his feet a slick pond of blood. He fell back, slumping to the floor against the wall, sinking down to Khanda's side. He reached, grasping at Talon, trying to pull himself up once more, and the Kholben Shiar shifted, grinding even farther into the battered and broken stone of the cellar.
A resounding crack echoed as the demon's magic slammed into the splintered ceiling above. Dust choked the air, perhaps an unnatural mist rising to hide the next world from mortal view. Corvis fell prone beneath the weight of the invisible force, felt the first of the stones falling on his shoulders like hail, heard the rumble of shifting masonry, and allowed himself to drift away
NOTHING MOVED but a final handful of rocks, clattering off the heap of stone that now filled a quarter of the cellar. They bounced with hollow clacks and clicks, finally tumbling across the floor and fetching up against the corners. The clouds of grit began, oh so gradually, to sift down from the air, the echoes of the ceiling's collapse to fade from aching ears.
Mellorin attempted to stand and found she could not for the weight atop her. Only then did she remember where she was. "I…" She swallowed, trying to clear the dust from her mouth, her throat. "I'm all right, Uncle Jassion."
She felt the suspicion, the tension in his tentative shifting, but he moved. She rose, knees wobbly, abandoning her blood-encrusted dagger on the floor. Her steps hesitant, she staggered toward the heap of broken stone that had buried one man she had thought she
'd loved, and another she'd thought she hated. She felt a dampness on her cheeks, but for the moment she wept no more. Her soul was distant, numb; she had no more tears to shed.
Without thought, she reached toward the stones, and blinked in dull confusion at the fingers that clamped around her wrist, halting her.
"Don't," Jassion told her. It took her a moment to recognize the foreign tone in his mangled voice as compassion. "We don't know how precarious that pile is. You could bring it down on you."
"I never… I never got to…"
"I know. I'm sorry, Mellorin." And damn if it didn't sound like he meant it, too.
She heard shuffling, watched from the corner of her eye as Irrial appeared beside her. Mellorin flinched as the older woman laid a hand upon her shoulder, but did not pull away.
"He loved you, Mellorin. Whatever else you hear about him-and there will be much you'll wish you hadn't-believe that he loved you."
"I think… I think I almost do."
With that she crossed back across the chamber, leaving the unsympathetic stone behind, crouching to retrieve the one piece of her father that remained. Again Sunder shifted in her hand, becoming the heavy dagger she already knew so well, already despised, already needed. She glanced about her, saw Jassion, Irrial, and Guildmistress Mavere all watching.
Still on her knees, she ran a finger across the tiny feathered body that lay nearby. It rocked beneath her touch, one wing falling open to reveal mottled patches of bare skin between clinging feathers.
"There's so much I don't understand, so many lies Kaleb-Khanda?-told me. You'll explain it to me?" It seemed directed to the room at large, rather than any one soul. "All of it?"
"We will," Jassion promised.
"Even the parts you don't think I want to hear," she insisted.
"Yes." Irrial, this time, her tone no less sincere.
"Thank you." Mellorin rained dust as she rose, but made no move to brush herself clean.
"For what it's worth," Mavere began, her voice weak from her injuries, "I'm sorry. If we'd known Khanda would try this, we'd never have called him." Her gaze flickered from one to the next, imploring. "But something had to be done, don't you see? For the good of Imphallion, we-"
She grunted once, less in pain than surprise, and slid, with a final rattling sigh, to the floor. Her expression blank, Mellorin shook the Guildmistress's blood from Sunder's edge.
Irrial grimaced, Jassion nodded. Neither spoke.
"We should go," the warlord's daughter told them.
Her uncle nodded again. "There's much to be done. We have to try to explain what's happened, and to mount a defense-a true defense-against Cephira."
Irrial quirked her lip. "That might've been easier if we had-"
"No." Jassion shook his head. "She'd never have admitted to any of it. It would've been our word against hers. As it is, we've precious little proof, but…" He shrugged.
"But we have to try." Irrial took one step, a second, and staggered. "I don't think I can ride. I certainly can't climb out of here. Go."
"My lady, we-"
"Take Mellorin back to Mecepheum. You can send someone back for me with a coach. And rope. Lots of rope."
The baron nodded reluctantly and began examining the broken ceiling overhead.
"Jassion? Send a squad of soldiers, too, would you? Just in case."
"Of course."
IT TOOK SOME DOING, especially since they refused to touch the stones that had become a makeshift cairn for Corvis and Khanda both, but eventually they stacked together sufficient rock and timber for Jassion to leap up and clasp the edge of the floor above. After a moment of scrabbling, while the others held their breath and prayed the stone would hold, he vanished over the rim. He reappeared a moment later, one arm reaching downward. It probably wasn't necessary-Mellorin could likely have made the jump herself-but he offered, and she accepted. A bit more scrabbling, Jassion called out once more to ensure Irrial would be all right for the duration, and then they were gone.
For several minutes the baroness waited, until all sounds had ceased above and she was certain the others were on their way. Then, leaning against the wall for support, she inched her way toward the unsteady heap of rock.
And again, for long minutes, made no move at all.
Who had he been, there, at the last? Who had slain Khanda, had risen in the face of a mortal wound and lashed out to save, if not the entire world, then his beloved daughter? Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East? Or Cerris of Rahariem, whom Irrial herself had once thought to love, and who-though that love was past-might have been a friend and companion worth having?
Irrial didn't know. But as sure as she was that nobody could have survived either that dreadful wound or the weight of the crushing stones-let alone both together-she knew that she must do all she could to be absolutely certain. No matter how futile the effort.
How many times, after all, had Corvis Rebaine already performed the impossible?
She could accomplish little enough by herself, perhaps, but at least she could make a start until the soldiers arrived to aid her. Grunting with exertion, the baroness of Rahariem leaned down and heaved aside the first of many stones.
Epilogue
MELLORIN STOOD CALF-DEEP in snow, one hand resting on Sunder's hilt, and struggled to peer through the whirling blizzard at the path before her.
She had indeed learned much about Corvis Rebaine, and as she'd been warned, there was much of it she wished she hadn't. Still she'd sought more-and more she had discovered. From Tyannon and Jassion, from Irrial and even from Davro; from scholars and sages, historians and even oracles. She devoured it all, until there was no more to be learned.
And she'd learned what she must do with that knowledge. She wondered if, in the many months that had come and gone, her mother had begun to forgive her-or if she ever would.
But it didn't matter. Mellorin knew her father, now. She knew why he'd left, and if she couldn't yet forgive him for that, she could at least understand. She knew what he'd hoped to accomplish and the world he'd hoped to build… And she knew where he'd gone wrong.
She had no children waiting for her. She could avoid his mistakes. She could do it right. But she, like her father before her, needed the power to make it work.
Her guide, scion of a local Terrirpa tribe, reemerged from the wall of snow and beckoned with a fur-clad hand. "We should hurry, good mistress, lest the blizzard grow any worse."
An absent nod was her only response as she gazed upward, as though through sheer force of will she could see into the uppermost reaches of Mount Molleya, or the hidden cave at their peak where her prize awaited, entombed within the ice.
I'll build the world you wanted for us, Father. I'll make you proud.
Plans for the future and memories of the past twining around each other behind her eyes, Mellorin waved her guide forward and began to climb.
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