by Adams, P R
“If not every woman becomes a warrior, why couldn’t you study with your father? I mean, if you wanted to be an artist.”
“Dancing draws on the spirit.”
He rolled up the sleeve covering his right arm. Scars ran from wrist to elbow. “I ever tell you where I got these scars?”
“The right arm? The Battle of Shogot. You were eighteen.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the arm. “Still a kid. That was my first major battle, my first time in the Gryphon Brigade.”
A smile flitted across her lips. “Private Molliro.”
“That was me. Trained, but a raw recruit who nearly crapped himself the first time the troop carrier dropped onto the battlefield. My platoon had gotten separated, our pilot was wounded and smoke covered everything, so he set down.”
“On the flank of the Lento Kon Company.”
“The last people we wanted to see. They were fresh, fully reinforced, and probably the most dangerous unit working for the enemy.”
“Were. They never reformed after that.”
“We got lucky. Just like we didn’t see them, they didn’t see us. We had some grenade launchers, and we had a couple good snipers. And we just so happened to set down on a hilltop, right next to a sturdy stone building.”
“Yet they charged you anyway.”
“Came right at us. The only way to get to us was a narrow opening between boulders. Broken ground, poor visibility, having to charge uphill—it didn’t stop them. And we killed them all.”
“It was a good opportunity for a green recruit.”
“Ultimately. But because I was so inexperienced, I was expendable. So they put me on the wall surrounding the building. About three feet high. Not very good cover.”
“And you ran out of ammunition.”
He nodded. “Poor discipline. I panicked.”
“And you failed to hit a single target.” She chuckled. It was so pleasant to see her happy.
“But I did kill someone.”
Her brow wrinkled. “I thought you said that the lessons you learned from that battle—”
“Were the most important I ever learned, even though I missed all my targets. But the person I killed…” He tapped the hilt of his long knife.
“To kill with the blade is the most valuable lesson.”
“I’d killed before, but this was my first time killing for money. And I wasn’t ready for it. These people weren’t my enemies; they were mercenaries, just like me. They weren’t even my employer’s enemies.”
“They were your employer’s enemies’ mercenaries.”
“Right. Just more bodies thrown into the fray.”
She pulled her sword from the ground, then dipped the blade in the water and washed the metal with gentle strokes. “Thank you.”
“I don’t think you’re going to thank me.”
“And why is that? You have shared with me something new: You learned to kill during your first battle.”
“I did. But it’s who I killed that taught me a lesson.”
In the early darkness that was settling over their camp, it was hard to read her expression. She pulled a small towel from a pouch and dried the blade of her sword. “Who was it you killed?”
“One of your people. A Biwali warrior.”
She froze halfway into sheathing the weapon. “That is a remarkable accomplishment for an eighteen-year-old boy.”
“She was wounded. I think it was shrapnel. She really favored her left leg. There was a lot of blood. Even so, she came at me fast. And her sword… It was like a wall of metal. She knocked the assault weapon from my hands, cut right through my armor. I barely got my knife out before she went for my throat.”
“A fast kill. You were just a boy.”
“A boy with really good reflexes. I wouldn’t have stood a chance if she hadn’t been injured.”
“We all understand the risk when we enter battle.”
“I know. That was the lesson: Anyone who carries a weapon into battle is a combatant.”
“There is no room for hesitation or mercy in the face of an enemy.”
Riyun closed his eyes. “Why did you become a warrior, Javika?”
“Because my family’s honor demanded it.”
“There’s more honor in being a warrior than an artist?”
“There is honor in serving as a warrior once you have taken the path. To fail while on that path brings great shame. Only a child can undo the damage suffered by a parent.”
“Your mother?”
“Exzugi. She was a highly respected assassin. She trained me as a child, allowing me also to dance. But the dancing was merely a complement to the blade and the Way. For many years, she served only those who would pay rates that justified her travel from our home.”
“The Silvers.”
“Yes. And in her approaching middle age, she took a job that would pay enough for her to finally retire. A job from one Silver seeking the assassination of another. It was very complicated. My father told me that the odds of success were not favorable. But the money was too great to turn away.”
“She wanted to be there to raise you?”
“To be with my father. I was a…disappointment.”
“Because you chose to be an artist.”
“Instead of following in her footsteps. As if there were any chance of someone following in her footsteps. She had her own artistry, a deadly, beautiful way with the sword. It was a graceful and frightening thing to see her practice. I could never match her.”
“She would be proud of you if she saw you today.”
Javika shook her head. “I never wanted to be a killer. I will never have the skill she had.”
“There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to kill. I think that at some level she must have had pride in you, artist or warrior.”
“She would…” Javika’s voice cracked. She stood. “It is time we spar.”
“We’ve been pushing pretty hard these last couple days.”
“Without practice, our skills diminish. There is so much you can teach me yet about your uncle and his fighting. And there is so much I can teach you about struggling without blades.”
He crossed back to the point where he leapt over the brook and jumped. “One day, I’d rather we each learn about the arts we had to abandon.”
Once again, she smiled—small and fleeting in the near dark. “You wish to find your spirit.”
“I’m not sure I have one. Unless you think there’s one for the warrior?”
As they headed back to where their backpacks leaned against each other, she frowned. “The warrior path is not as infallible as legend would have it. Any warrior’s path.”
They set their weapons and armor down, and Riyun searched for a flat area where they could practice for a while. The best option seemed to be close to the pool they had just left.
He nodded toward it. “Looks like we could just stay down there.”
She shoved him playfully. “It is not such a far walk, or are you an old man now?”
“I—”
She grabbed him by the shirt front and twisted him as she went to the ground, planting a foot in his chest and kicking when he was directly over her. Before he knew it, he was airborne and flailing. He twisted and relaxed just before impact, but the wind was still knocked out of him.
He hadn’t quite figured out what happened before she was on him. Panic nearly froze his limbs, but his discipline won out. She tried a few strikes from her own training that he was able to block.
Then he landed a shot to her solar plexus.
Air burst from her throat, and she fell off of him.
Unable to even groan yet, he lunged for her. She caught his hands with hers, and they tumbled toward the water, gasping.
Had she planned the attack all along? Was this just sparring, or was this in reaction to his revelation about killing one of her people? She had to know that he respected her. That’s why he had taken so long to admit to killing one of her fellow warriors.<
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His strength allowed him to pin her arms over her head an instant before his breath came back. “Javika! Stop!”
She struggled against him, then gasped as her breathing returned to normal.
But she didn’t stop struggling against him. Instead, the silence was filled with growls and grunts.
What had gotten into her? “I’m sorry. Whatever I said—”
“Hey!” Lonar’s voice boomed, then his heavy stride grew loud. “You two okay?”
Javika stopped struggling abruptly and rolled free when Riyun released her. “We are sparring.”
The big man skidded to a stop. “Oh! Quil thought maybe you two were having a fight. Hirvok said there might be a lovers’ quarrel.”
Hirvok and his strange comments… Riyun was going to have to talk to the sergeant at some point. “Like she said, we were just sparring.”
“Whoa! I understand, Lieutenant. You don’t have to get defensive.” Lonar chuckled.
Riyun rubbed his wrist, which had twisted awkwardly during the tumble. “Everyone settling in?”
“It’s great. Best campsite we’ve had. Everyone’s happy.”
“You picking up some of Hirvok’s sarcasm?”
“Oh, no! Serious. We’ve got the prophet guiding us. This Meriscoya is already dead, he just doesn’t know it.”
Although the big man laughed, he clearly believed what he was saying. Did the others feel the same way? Was it as simple as finding something that couldn’t be explained and having that lead them? It sounded like the faith that Javika had spoken about.
As much as Riyun valued the idea of his people feeling confident, he didn’t want them to arrive at that through faith. But challenging beliefs was a problematic idea.
He brushed ash from his clothes. “I prefer not to count a kill until the target quits breathing.”
The heavy weapons expert smirked. “I figure that won’t be long.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Riyun dipped his hands in the pool again to clean the remaining soot away. Something about the water seemed…off. It hit him just as the water started to heat: the smell. The sulfur smell from the tunnels below the temple ruins.
He pulled his hands out. “Tarlayn?”
Bubbles broke the surface, releasing hissing steam. Streamers of water splashed against the dirt at his feet.
He backpedaled. “What’s happening?”
Lonar gasped. “How in the—?”
A shape—human, dressed in the loose shirt and pants of the people of this world and holding a staff much like Tarlayn’s—formed in the center of the pool, where the bubbles frothed to waist height. In the dark, the shape seemed solid rather than crafted from water and steam. A big, hooked nose stood out from a narrow face crowned by dark, receding hair. When Tarlayn rushed over, the water shape turned toward her, squinting.
She drew up beside Riyun, breathless. “Meriscoya!”
The water-man’s face twisted in a snarl. “You have evaded me so far, Master Tarlayn. But no more.”
Riyun edged away. If this was just water, there wouldn’t be any value in shooting it. Would there? “Is that him? Is it real?” It couldn’t be, but…
Tarlayn shook her head. “It is nothing more than magic that he works through the water.”
“But he knows we’re here, right?”
“He has found us.”
What did that mean in the context of the game or the legends or whatever? Were they now at the stage where they would have to face the dragons again? Was their—what had Naru called it? A side-quest? Was it done? Everyone had been hoping for a good night of rest, but that didn’t seem like it was going to happen.
Meriscoya chortled. “And these are your Outworlder heroes? The ones who will bring me down?”
Tarlayn squared her shoulders. “That is the prophecy, whether you believe it or not.”
“Prophecies speak of doom for fools. Am I a fool?”
“No, Meriscoya. Prophecies speak of people destroying themselves through hubris.”
Steam cloaked the scowling watery figure. “Look at what I have done, old woman, and ask yourself if this is the work of hubris or the hand of the inevitable?”
“You’ve done nothing but destroy. Is that who you are now?”
“Not destroyed but reshaped. Everything to this point has been a lie, Tarlayn. Our creation has not been through the handiwork of gods but the designs of another mortal, one lesser than us. I’ve had enough of lies. If we are nothing but mortal creations, then I will reshape us in a form of our own design.”
Whirring brought Riyun around.
The drone approached, wrapped in a sapphire glow. That glow reflected from the water. A hum—robotic and deep—slipped from the machine. “You speak of fate but wish to escape it.”
Water–Meriscoya sneered. “The great prophet Alush. A puppet. Even you can’t see that you are nothing more than software designed by an Outworlder.”
Riyun swallowed. He had seen the way Tarlayn had been affected by talk of being part of a game story, but he had never thought of the possibility such knowledge could be behind Meriscoya’s actions. Had he gone mad after discovering he was nothing more than a plot line, an element meant for entertainment? He didn’t seem mad. He seemed more pissed off than anything else.
“I am Alush.” The drone’s sapphire glow intensified. “This moment was seen millennia ago, before your birth.”
The water shape seemed to lose some of its coherence. “You saw nothing. The future is not set. Not anymore. I have changed the course of destiny. I have freed us of the chains of our designers. And I will free myself from the confines of this world and spread my influence until there is no reality, no fate, no destiny for anyone.”
Alush’s glow flickered. “Success will evade you. The course you take leads only to destruction.”
“If destruction is the only path to freedom, then I choose that. Do you understand, prophet?”
After a moment, the drone’s glow winked out. “I…understand.”
Details faded from the watery shape, and it began to sink back into the pool. “Then you know I can’t be stopped.”
And with those last words, the shape collapsed fully and the boiling ceased.
The drone slowly drifted back to the spot where it had been hovering and went silent.
Lonar’s brow knotted. “Hey…” He trudged after the drone. “Alush?”
Riyun was sure something had just happened but had no idea what. Had anyone seen what he’d seen? “Tarlayn?”
The old woman slumped against her staff, apparently oblivious to his call.
“Tarlayn? What just happened? Why is Alush acting like that?”
“Because—” Tarlayn sighed deeply. “—the future is no longer certain.”
Riyun caught the confused look on Naru and Quil’s faces. They were as surprised as everyone else. This wasn’t part of the script, not as they expected it.
“What…?” Riyun cleared his throat. “No longer certain—what does that mean? How?”
The emerald stone in the old woman’s staff sparked to life for a moment, then sputtered out like a weak flame snuffed by the wind. “When we were in the abyss, and I tried to use my magic and couldn’t…”
“I remember.”
“Something had changed down there. The tenor and tone of the power we all share…”
“Yes? What about it?”
“Meriscoya has made that power his own. He has touched worlds through the abyss.”
“What does that mean? How does that change things?”
“It means the prophecy is a lie. It means we know nothing.” She pointed the staff to the blackened sky. “It means that we have no hope.”
33
Just as Tarlayn had promised, the brook turned into a stream that joined another and headed toward the river that would lead them to Garelan. The farther they traveled, the greater the ash and more complete the desolation. This worried Riyun, who couldn’t help wo
ndering if the dragons had given the place special attention. Twice, he had to lead the team around broad circles of black glass.
The charred earth popped beneath his step, releasing bitter fumes that reminded him of the water manifestation Meriscoya had used when they had tried to camp at the peaceful pool. The wizard’s presence dogged them now—a whisper when the wind blew, a shadow when there was no tree and the sun hadn’t yet set, an icy bite that passed like a wintry breath.
Even the mundane seemed to be their enemy’s work. Dark clouds and thick fog were just like the chafing of their armor—the work of the foul wizard.
But the wizard wasn’t there, and the dragons weren’t harassing them.
They still had time, but Riyun needed them to remember that.
Except he wasn’t so sure it was true. He wasn’t sure of anything, not after what he’d seen.
The wizard rising from the water, the look in his eyes…
Was he the only one who saw who that had been?
At the top of the hillock not too far away, Javika waved Riyun forward. She had found something. He turned to the others and raised a hand. “Spread out and find cover.”
They dispersed, most going flat against the ground wherever it presented even the slightest depression or rise to shield them. Ash darkened their armor now, and only the most advanced optics would have a chance picking them out from the blackened surroundings. He waited until Tarlayn and the drone had at least made some effort to hide, then jogged to Javika’s position.
Rather than explain why she had waved him forward, she nodded toward the modest valley beyond the hillock. The dying sun reflected off more patches of glass, growing more frequent closer to what looked like a crater several hundred yards away in the valley center.
Riyun puffed out his cheeks. “Ulonz?”
The Biwali warrior nodded slowly. “There are no other signs of civilization nearby.”
“The stream…” It took a moment scanning the horizon to find where the waterway snaked around the hillock and headed into the valley. “The dragons did something to the bed of that stream.”