“You’re watching the young man behind me, named Duncan, and you’re wondering how I knew about him being...your words here...kind to you.”
Catelyn gasped, her jaw falling open in shock.
The Emperor opened his eyes with a smug smile on his face, as the Imperial soldiers nearest to the group began to whisper among themselves, clearly astonished by the Emperor’s apparent clairvoyance. Silena was struggling to get up, and missed what had happened, and when Catelyn looked to Ortis, she saw a look of fear on his face that made her quail.
Catelyn could think of nothing more to say and so she breathlessly whispered, “How?”
The Emperor simply held out the sickle.
“This is part of it,” he explained. “Whoever created these artifacts made them as part of a set. There are other artifacts that yet lay undiscovered, and these two I only barely understand. But I have been studying them nonstop since the sickle was delivered unto me, and what I do know is that they resonate together. There’s some sort of shared connection between them, but there is also a connection between these, and those like you and I,” and he moved his free hand over his chest, showing his scars.
“I first noticed the effect with, of all things, a song. A song which haunted me for days off and on, and which apparently only I could hear. I thought perhaps I was descending into madness, but in fact I finally learned that it was you. I heard you humming while you were examining the figures on the handle. While you were working at that, I was hearing you, through the connection between your artifact and mine.”
Catelyn felt her world shattering. Had Uriel been witness to everything she had done since acquiring the artifact? He seemed to guess her line of reasoning, for he answered.
“No, before I laid my hands on this amazing piece, all I had were snippets of thoughts, the humming being the strongest. But then, when I finally grasped this item in my hand, it began to speak to me, and I could sense your world as you did. It seems the sickle has bonded to you somehow.”
Catelyn fell deeper into despair, to think that this monster was somehow inside her head, had somehow become a voyeur into her life.
“But it was incomplete. I was amazed by how much the bloodfire had changed you, had altered your perceptions, but I was surprised that it had also harmed you, and taken your eyesight. The scarring is a normal side effect, but my father’s physician, the one who applied my own doses of bloodfire as a child, had assured me that it was used in ancient times to heal, not hurt. I gave you another dose from his own supply, and waited.”
Catelyn understood now. He had hoped to restore her eyesight, not as a gift to her, but as a way to spy on her movements and watch her life play out through the connection that they seemed to share. All because she had touched the artifact. And then she realized that they must have been allowed to escape, as it wouldn’t have made a difference with the Emperor being able to watch her every move. He could use her anytime he wished.
I wish I had never heard of that damn artifact, she thought bitterly.
But it didn’t matter now. Everything was over.
Ortis coughed and she looked up at him, everything appearing clouded through the tears in her eyes. He was still holding his arms out, the muscles in his arms straining with effort, and Catelyn wondered what he was doing. He looked down at his hands, and she looked too, but she couldn’t understand. Then, Ortis closed his eyes.
Catelyn finally understood his meaning, and closed her eyes and reached out with her bubble. She blocked out everything else and tightened her bubble to the small area around Ortis and his bound hands. She could hear his heart thumping strong in his chest, and she could tell he was moderating his breath, keeping himself from being completely calm. He was primed for movement; for combat. But why?
She turned her senses to focus on his manacled wrists and she could hear the subtlest squealing as Ortis pulled the chains tight with most of his strength. She could make out a slight amplitude change on the chain where it connected to the iron strapped around Ortis’ left wrist and her pulse quickened. A weak point! That was what Ortis was trying to communicate to her.
She opened her eyes and let her bubble drop completely.
Before her, she saw the Emperor come out of the bubble as well. He had been watching, but would he be able to interpret what he had sensed through her? He shivered, and sighed.
“Oh, that was exquisite!” he exclaimed. “It truly is a gift you have.”
The Emperor took a few breaths to compose himself, and Catelyn watched him closely, looking for signs that the connection he had would be enough to clue him in to what she had seen. But she hoped that his reaction meant that he was still learning how to cope with all of the extra sensory information he was receiving through her senses, aided by the sickle. It had taken her sojourns to learn to read the signs and interpret her heightened senses, and he had only been exposed to them for spans, at most.
“Now, I believe we’ve answered all of your questions, and it is now for you time to choose.”
Catelyn felt herself launch into a panic.
“I still have one question! You said that the last two would count as one!”
“And so I did. But then you asked a third question. You asked ‘How’?”
Catelyn’s heart squeezed so tightly in her chest that she thought it would explode. Uriel was right. She had asked that, and now it was going to cost her everything. She had run out of time. She frantically tried to think of something, some solution to the dilemma she was in.
She imagined the manacles around Ortis’ wrist snapping, and she wished him to use his talents for killing to save them all. But how could that happen? He had been trying to tell her, with his eyes, about the weak spot in his bindings.
And then she remembered the draw bridge. The fraying rope. She ran her hand over her waistband, and felt the small bladed lockpick still snugly secured there. It was a foolish hope, but she clung to it with the fervor of a woman drowning, and clinging to the rocky shoals, even as they sliced her open and flayed the skin from her body. She turned to the Emperor.
“I beg you, Your Eminence. One last question. Not for you. For him.”
And she nodded her head towards Ortis.
The Emperor looked at her with his dark, malevolent eyes, a bemused expression on his face. He pursed his lips, considering for a moment, before responding.
“You push farther than anyone I have ever known. You are insolent, as men once were in the Before. I have no patience for insolence.”
Catelyn thrust out with everything she had, trying to will him to consider her plea. She watched his eyes, as they bored into her. Finally, he seemed to reach a decision.
“I...admit to being curious. Very well. Ask the traitor what you will.”
Catelyn took two steps towards Ortis, putting her within an arm’s length of Silena and the two girls. She folded her arms across her body, trying to look defiant, and slipped a finger under her waistband until she felt the cool metal under her fingertips. If this first part of her plan was going to work, she would need to rely on her skill alone, not her bubble, to prevent the Emperor from knowing what it was that she had intended.
“Ortis, you asked me to kill you personally, and you promised that I could ask you why before the end. It appears that I will not be unable to fulfill that promise to you, but I would still like to know. Why did it have to be me?”
Ortis’ expression did not change, and he did not lessen the tension in his arms. But he looked directly, unashamedly into her eyes, and he answered her.
“It needed to be you, because no other could kill me and call it justice. Of every man, woman or child in the Seat, only one other that I have met has ever so moved me to want to change who I was. There was one, but she died many sojourns ago. You remind me much of her, and for my innumerable crimes, your hand should have been the one to end me in the way that this city deserves. Now, do what you must.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Catelyn saw the Emperor s
eething with every word, but he remained silent glaring at the two of them, and Catelyn knew that she would never get another opportunity.
She reached deep down inside herself, deeper than she ever had before and pulled open her bubble to encompass everything she could see, everything she could hear, and taste and touch. She flooded herself until she reached her breaking point, and then she pushed further, and shifted her bubble the way she had done on the drawbridge.
The world around her exploded in sound, shape and color. She saw the very currents of the air as it moved past her, she smelled the anxious sweat of every man in the courtyard, she tasted the sea air hundreds of paces to the south, carried on a passing breeze, she felt the whisper cracks of earth and the smallest grains of sand under her feet, and she heard the squeaking of the metal straps like thunder in her ears as Ortis pulled tightly on the manacles at his wrists.
Time itself seemed to creep by as her perception of its passing became more refined, and she could see the panicked gaze of the Emperor as the sensory overload slammed into him as well. He was unprepared for the sensations, and he brought his hands to his head, appearing to move in slow motion.
Catelyn moved in two ways. First, she withdrew the metal lockpick from her waistband and flung it with as much accuracy as she could manage, towards the taut iron chains around Ortis’ wrist, and second, she dove toward Silena and the girls, reaching out to grab all three of them. Her own sense of the world was over the limit of what she could maintain, and as she felt Silena’s hand in hers, she let her bubble collapse and the world resumed its normal rhythm.
Chaos ensued.
She slammed to the ground with Silena, covering the older woman and the two girls as best she could, and she heard the snapping metal of Ortis’ restraints and swords being drawn. The nearest Imperial soldiers rushed toward Ortis, but with his hands now free, they stood no chance. He had been keeping himself in a state of readiness for this moment, and with his wrist restraints now gone, he was like a storm let loose on the world. He moved aside like a whirlwind and in three breaths, four of the nearest Imperial soldiers crashed to the courtyard stones, dead.
Catelyn looked up at the situation unfolding around her. Imperial soldiers were closing in all around, and she could tell that she wouldn’t be able to reach any of the other captives in time. The Emperor was slumped on the ground, kneeling and holding his head with both hands. Blood streamed from his eyes, ears and mouth.
And then Ortis was there, standing over her, with one sword in each hand, looking like nothing less than a guardian of the Divines.
The next several whispers were little more than a blur. Imperial soldiers rushed in, and were cut down by Ortis. He moved with the grace and the speed of a natural born killer.
She had remembered reading about creatures that had once lived on Ereas, and one of them had always fascinated her. It had been called a shark, and the pictures that had been drawn of it were of a sleek body and a mouthful of razor sharp teeth, and it was reputed as a vicious and deadly predator. She didn’t know why, but that is exactly what she thought, seeing Ortis fight. He moved from one opponent to the next, slitting throats and stomachs open with efficiency and speed, until the area around them became splattered with crimson. She could taste the blood in the air, and it made her gag.
Ortis defended their entire group, while the Imperial soldiers tried everything they could to break through. It was futile. Ortis had been right...he had a gift of his own. A gift for death. Bodies fell, and men died. There seemed to be no end to it. At one point, Catelyn could do nothing but to bury her head and hold her hands over her ears, to block out the screaming and the pain.
This went on for some time, and Catelyn lost track of how long.
And then, quiet. Not complete quiet, as Catelyn could still hear the moaning of the dying, but she could hear that the battle itself was over, and she looked up and saw Ortis, standing over them like a blood soaked sentinel, swords extended and coated with gore. She brought her hand to her mouth.
Through the carnage, his clothing had been cut to ribbons, and she could see now the deep, rough scars covering every inch of his exposed flesh. Bloodfire.
Who did this to you? she wanted to know, though she could guess at the answer. Regardless, the words did not pass her lips.
Catelyn looked past Ortis, and saw the courtyard littered with bodies, as well as severed arms, legs and other body parts. She looked for the Emperor among the dead, but he was nowhere to be found.
“Uriel?” she asked him.
“Gone,” Ortis said weakly. That’s when she noticed the dozens of mortal wounds that Ortis himself had sustained. He was covered in blood, and much of it was his own. He looked unable to move more than a finger width, now that the combat had ended. Gifted though he was, even he had his limits, it seemed.
She stood and put her hand on his shoulder and he crumpled to the ground, shaking.
Catelyn turned him onto his back and she could see his flesh turning a pallid grey color, where it wasn’t covered with raw scars or splashed with crimson blood. He turned his eyes to her, and she could see the pleading in them. He reached into the tattered remains of his breast plate, pulled the folded paper flower from inside, and held it out to her weakly, his eyes pleading with her to take it. She did so, pulling it to her heart.
“Please. Do it,” was all he said.
Catelyn felt herself turn to jelly, and she crashed onto his chest, sobbing. She heard his breath rattling in his chest, and realized how much pain he must be in. Whatever he had done, he had paid for it a thousand times over. Catelyn felt a hand on her own shoulder, and she looked up. Silena was standing over her, and holding a slender dagger in her outstretched hand, handle out. Catelyn’s mouth curled in sadness, but she took the blade from Silena, and felt her mouth tremble and her eyes blinked away tears.
She looked into Ortis’ eyes, the eyes of a killer, the eyes of her savior. Her tears ran down her cheeks, she gave him one final look and said “Thank you.”
She slid the dagger into his chest, up under the breastbone and into his heart, and she watched his eyes fill with tears, and then the life fled from his body. In his last moments, he smiled up at her, and she collapsed in grief, hugging him to her as he left this world.
Silena pulled her away before she knew it.
“Catelyn, we have to go. Reinforcements will be here soon. Uriel will not take this defeat easily. We need to be gone. We can mourn the dead later.”
Something about Silena’s words registered with Catelyn and she looked around, and realized that Erich was lying a pace away, lifeless on the ground. Catelyn broke apart again, wailing at the loss, and Silena embraced her, making shushing sounds, while the two girls clutched onto her legs, loudly sobbing their own tears.
“Come now, come now,” Silena finally said. “We’re alive, and we need to honor what these men did for us by making sure that we stay that way.”
Catelyn didn’t want to do anything of the sort, but she knew that Silena was right about the Emperor, so she let Silena gather her up, and they all stood.
A familiar voice from one side of the blood-soaked plaza called out “The Seat will know of your bravery, my barefoot Catelyn. This is only the beginning.” She looked up to see Marko, his wide, white smile shining through the gloom, as he carried the young man Duncan over one shoulder. He waved, then exited the courtyard quickly through one of the raised portcullises by the entry.
Catelyn wanted to go after them, to ask about Duncan’s condition, to apologize to both of them for their captivity and torture, but they were gone within a flash. Silena tugged on Catelyn, and the four of them made their way over to the Grand Gate. She tucked the paper flower into the pouch of her waistband, and wiped the tears from her face.
As they approached the stone edifice, Catelyn finally realized what a daunting structure it was. A massive slab of stone paces high, braced with massive metal framing and shut tight with dozens of heavy iron clasps. Looking at
it, Catelyn had no idea how in Ereas they were going to get it open. Silena seemed to read her thoughts.
“It looks more impregnable than it is,” was all she said. Catelyn didn’t see how that was possible, but she trusted Silena. She had to, as she no longer trusted herself.
“Wait here a moment,” Silena said, and then she ducked into the small guard house next to the Gate’s structure.
She heard Silena moving something inside, and then she heard massive groaning coming from the inside of the Wall, and then the Grand Gate rumbled. It was so loud that it shook the ground under their feet, but as she watched in astonishment, the Grand Gate began to slide open, scraping dirt away from the ground as it was pulled forward as though by some vast invisible hand.
Silena popped her head out, and watched the Grand Gate pull inward, until it was wide enough for them to squeeze through, then she disappeared and Catelyn heard the mechanism inside being pulled again. The massive stone gate gave a great groan, and then slowly began to reverse its direction, closing up again.
Silena ran as fast as her legs would carry her out of the guardhouse and back to where Catelyn and the girls waited. She grabbed the girls by the hand and rushed on through to the gate, before it closed up again. She looked back towards Catelyn as she ran.
“You decide, Catelyn. Is your future life, or is it death?” And then she ran through the gate and out into the wider world.
Catelyn first looked back, towards the Seat and at the carnage of the courtyard all around her, at the dead body of Ortis, unceremoniously left in the dirt like a piece of trash, and then turned and looked forward. All she could see beyond the gate was the slowly lightening sky and some mountains on the horizon. And no walls as far as she could see. She took two steps at a walk before she felt the itch in her bare feet and then raced the rest of the distance towards the slowly closing gate, and finally she crossed the threshold and embraced the coming morning air. Despite the pain she felt at everything that she had just been through, she smiled as she passed outside of the Walls that had imprisoned her for her entire life, and rejoiced at the fact that she was taking her first steps toward a new life.
Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) Page 48