The Destroyer Book 4

by Michael-Scott Earle

  This had been my final battle, and I had lost.

  It was time to surrender.

  “The Radicle,” Vernine said and I looked to where she pointed. The creek had turned into a wide river and a few hundred yards ahead the trail bent down to the shore of the roaring blue rapids. The green spiral column seemed to fight against the branches of the surrounding trees to push free of the shore of the river. Green leaves, ivy, and thick branches covered almost every part of its stone surface and I could easily understand how the temple remained undiscovered by Nia’s own people.

  At the entrance to the Radicle, the empress and Dissonti stood with a hundred more Elven warriors. They looked up and I made eye contact with Telaxthe. The expression on her face was exactly as I would have predicted. She must have determined that I knew her plan.

  “Welcome, Kaiyer.” She smiled when I stepped before her, but there was no glee in the expression.

  “I understand why you want to do this.” I took a deep breath and did my best to keep the panic from my voice. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind? I would agree with your earlier terms.”

  “There is no changing my mind, Destroyer.” She nodded, and the ranks of guards closed in on me.

  “Explain why the circumstances of my acceptance are so different now. I can still give you what you want.” One of the guards laid a hand on my back and the group began to move forward into the cool depths of the spiraling temple.

  “Before I could be certain of your sincerity. I believed that you would have played your role and not betrayed me. I was in the weaker position to negotiate with you and I was looking for you to cement our alliance. Now it is apparent you are accepting my offer only to save yourself, and I know you will seek ways to undermine me in the future.” She turned to face me while we walked. “I wish it were otherwise Kaiyer, but this is the best solution for my people.”

  “You beat me, Telaxthe,” I said with a sigh. “I admit defeat at your hands. You’ve conquered this world and I have nothing but the hope that you will treat the humans here differently than my Elven masters did.” Telaxthe raised an eyebrow at my words but didn’t say anything. “Can I not ask for mercy? I know what you intend for me and there is little I can do to stop you now. Send me to another world instead. Perhaps I can find my purpose somewhere else.”

  The bottom floor of the temple was devoid of the usual stone beds, but a shallow staircase on the far side of the giant room led into the depths of the earth. There were more Elven warriors on this level and they looked prepared to battle me.

  “No. You are too dangerous. You don’t even know your own power. You almost destroyed my people and then did the same to your own when they tried to execute you for your crimes.” She shook her head and the group descended the stairs.

  “Destroyed my own people?” She didn’t bother to answer me. We had reached the bottom of the stairs.

  There were twenty of the strange stone beds arranged in a circle around the dais. Half of the space was filled with the armored bodies of Elven warriors and I almost laughed at the idiocy of it all. Even if I tried to resist here there were too many in the small space for anyone to fight effectively. But perhaps that was the empress’s strategy. If I did not have space to move or flee, then I could not escape into the wilderness. Even if she lost a hundred more warriors to me in this shrine, the woman believed almost anything was worth being rid of me.

  “Lie on that platform.” The empress pointed at the stone bed on the other side of the room. My head was beginning to ache again.

  “Please reconsider, Telaxthe.” I gave a last plea, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. The empress was past reconciliation and my fate would end here. I deserved it. Even if I had lived a blameless life and killed no one, betrayed no one, I had taken more than my share of time and lived longer than any human was meant to.

  “The platform!” she commanded again. It took me a few steps to reach the bed and the feel of the cold stone was much more soothing than it should have been. Malek would have laughed at the irony of this situation.

  I turned my head and saw Dissonti give Telaxthe the Ovule. The strange globe looked dead in her hands but when she moved to place it on the dais the glow of its etchings pulsed weakly.

  “Seeding from four eight seven seven six three eight,” Dissonti said when the empress placed the globe in the dais.

  “What does that number mean?” My body tensed and every muscle screamed. The number sounded familiar. I had heard it before, a long time ago when I was searching for Iolarathe.

  “It is the location of this world and Radicle,” Dissonti explained.

  “Is the last number the Radicle?” My blood surged and I began to shake. I remembered the old Elven that had first explained how the strange devices worked.

  “The last two.”

  “Stop!” I sat up and the gathered Elvens drew their weapons with a deafening scrape of steel.

  “Sent the human across the void to seed world four eight seven seven six three nine.” The old Elven’s words slammed into my memory like a punch from Thayer.

  She was on this world. My daughter was locked behind the doors of a different Radicle.

  “She was sent to this world!” I screamed again and moved to get off of the platform. This changed everything. If my daughter was on this world, I just needed her name. Then I needed to find Radicle Three Nine and I could pull her from the abyss.

  “I don’t care!” Telaxthe’s voice echoed my cry. Something pierced my back and I screamed with surprise. The point of a blade stuck out of my chest. Pain seared through my body along with intense exhaustion. The blade pulled from my back and I felt the cool embrace of the stone bed.

  “No!” Blood filled my mouth, choking off my last plea. The light from the Ovule was glowing brighter than the sun and I felt the strange magic course through the stone and my bleeding body.

  My vision began to blacken and I tried to reach up a hand to stop the empress. She was across the room, and my body felt like it weighed more than all of the stone beds put together. I could not stop her. I was so close to my daughter but now she would be lost to me forever.

  I screamed again with the last of my strength. The glow of the Ovule filled my eyes until there was nothing else but its endless light and my outstretched arm.

  The limb was covered in my skull armor. Their mouths opened to screech in unison with my own pain.

  Chapter 39-Iolarathe

  “I miss Relyara,” the girl sighed from behind me.

  “You’ve said that already.” I glanced back over my shoulder.

  “Not today I haven’t.” She stuck her tongue out and I fought to keep the smile from my lips.

  “You also haven’t told me that you miss Nyarathe or Siltia or Wenrathe either.”

  “I miss them as well. Although Deadflats is a shithole. They should all move into the valley with Relyara’s people.”

  “Where did you learn that word?”

  “What word?” She skipped up a few steps and grasped my hand in her smaller one. Once it had been only big enough to wrap around a single one of my fingers, but she was no longer a baby.

  “Shithole.”

  “You just said it.” She smiled and it reminded me of Kaiyer so much that I had to look away.

  “No. You said it first, and then I asked where you learned of the word.”

  “Do you agree with me that it was a shithole?” She squeezed my hand and swung our arms together.

  “Yes.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “But Nyarathe has an important job and Deadflats is the best place for her to do it.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter where I learned the word.” She swung our arms in cadence with our walk and her smile grew even larger. She smelled like Kaiyer: smoke, lavender, and rich oils. When we lay together in our campground at night I would often push my head against the nape of the girl’s neck and inhale the scent of her hair until I fell asleep.

  It helped keep the nightmares of dragons aw
ay.

  “Your hood is coming off.” I thought about fixing it for her, but she hated it when I did that.

  “There is a clearing up ahead.” She pointed up the trail. Sure enough, there was a break in the jungle canopy that exposed our path on the side of the mountain. The sun hung to the west and the two hundred yards of barren trail was clearly illuminated. It would be visible for many miles.

  “Then make sure your hood is up.”

  “But . . .” She frowned.

  “You know the rules,” I interrupted what I guessed she was going to say with a shake of my head. “Stand to my side so if someone happens to be looking they will just see me alone.” She nodded and moved to the inside of the mountain path. Vaiarathe was more than skilled at moving through the wilderness, and while I almost never left a trace of my presence, the girl might as well have been the wind. She could walk across a field of long grass and there would be no mark of her passing. If our luck ran out, and the O’Baarni ever caught us, I wanted her to have the greatest chance of escape I could give her.

  We approached the clearing and I tasted the heat of the sun on the side of the mountain. Butterflies spun through the air and the untamed scent of wildflowers accompanied the thick earthy fragrance of the humid jungle. I reached up to check my own hood out of habit but it was in place.

  “Stay in my shadow,” I warned her and then we walked through the sun with our heads bowed.

  We made it about halfway across the sunny gap when Vaiarathe made a sudden move toward me. I spun my head around, thinking that perhaps she smelled something that I didn’t or noticed movement. I realized she was grabbing for my hood. The girl was fast and I gasped with surprise when she knocked my cowl from my head.

  “Damn it, Vaiarathe!” I knocked her hands away, but it was too late. My hair was exposed and now any O’Baarni within thirty miles of us could have seen the shine of the sun reflecting off of my red mane. I pulled the hood back in its place with another curse, then I grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her forward into the shade of the tree.

  “Why did you do that?” I tried to keep from screaming at her. I could taste the rotting fear in the air and it took me a second to realize that it was my own.

  “You are hurting my arm, Mother.” She winced and looked down at my right hand.

  “You know the rules. What were you thinking?” I tightened my grip on her. I was shaking now and I felt tears sting my eyes. How many O’Baarni saw us? How soon would they be on this mountain range? Did the dragon see us? I thought we had a good lead on our pursuers, but that could have all been lost now.

  “I wanted him to see you.” Her bottom lip quivered a bit.

  “He’s dead!” My left hand lashed out before I could even think and struck the girl across her beautiful face. “They killed him and they want to do the same to us! How many times do I need to explain this to you?”

  “He’s not dead! He saw you! We just need to wait for him. Please, Mother!” Her eyes gushed tears and she sobbed. I doubted I had really hurt her, but she was probably as surprised as I was that I slapped her.

  “No Vaiarathe. Your father was supposed to meet me. I waited for him. I waited months for him. The only ones that showed were the people who are trying to kill us. They have never stopped chasing us. If he was alive, he would have met me when he promised.” I hated saying the words, but I also hated that my daughter kept telling me that he was still alive.

  “You hit me.” She reached up with her right hand and touched the spot on her cheek. The red mark had already faded and I doubted she felt anything but the memory.

  “You put us in danger and you keep speaking of your father.” Her teary green eyes told me that she didn’t think my explanation justified the blow. Her scent hardly ever changed, so I had become much better at reading facial expressions since the wonderful girl came into my life. “I am frustrated, Daughter. Continue walking. I have to figure out how to shake our pursuers now that you revealed us to them.” I tugged on her arm and the girl bowed her head before she fell in step next to me.

  “Don’t you miss him?” she said after a few painful minutes of silence passed between the two of us.

  The question sparked the flame of emotions in my chest and I gritted my teeth to keep them bottled. I swore to the damn Dead Gods that if I did not love this girl so much I would have killed her three hundred times since she was born. She seemed to know exactly what to say to anger me and distract me from my goal of keeping us alive.

  “Yes. But I have you, so I am thankful.” I smiled at her and hoped that she could not feel the pain I was trying to protect her from. I wanted her to know more about her father, but discussing him was so painful I hardly ever allowed it.

  “He misses you too. He doesn’t know about me,” she said sadly.

  “Damn it, Vaiarathe. Just stop talking about him, please.” I wiped my eyes with my fingers and sighed. “Help me figure out how to escape the hunters that follow us.”

  “They are following him now.” She shook her head. “We really should wait—” She caught my glare and stopped midsentence. Then the girl pursed her lips and clasped her hands together.

  “Maybe the next Radicle will have an Ovule? Then we can be gone from this world?” She smiled back up at me and batted her long eyelashes. The simple movement washed away the sadness in my chest and I found myself returning the grin.

  “That would be wonderful. Nyarathe’s scouts think the entrance to the caverns below this mountain is along this trail.”

  “What kind of worlds do you think we can journey to?” It was a conversation we had multiple times a day, but I never grew tired of dreaming with her.

  “Maybe one that will be just like this, only without humans.” I smiled.

  “But some of them are good.”

  “Not the ones that follow us.”

  “Those are O’Baarni. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. Just like humans.” She nodded as if she had just told me that the sky was blue and the moon was green.

  “All of them want to kill us, so I will conclude that they are not good.”

  “Am I human, O’Baarni, or Elven?” She had never asked this question, so I paused for a few seconds to think of an answer that was close enough to the truth.

  “Which would you prefer to be?”

  “Elven!” She smiled so wide that her green eyes closed with the effort.

  “Why?” I wanted to keep her talking while I focused on reaching our destination. O’Baarni were the most obvious threat that my daughter knew of, but I was more frightened of the monster I made a deal with those many years ago. I did not know where the dragon lurked, but I knew she hunted me as well. If we reached the cave in time I doubted that she would be able to follow.

  “We are a kind people and help each other.”

  “It wasn’t always that way.”

  “Oh I know, you’ve told me before that we used to be mean. But that isn’t the case any longer.” She inhaled and seemed distracted for a second. “There is a mango tree over there,” she pointed up the slope. “And it has a beehive in it. We should get some mangos and honey!”

  “We don’t have time.” I sighed when her face fell. I almost pointed out that the reason we needed to hurry was that she had pulled down my hood, but I realized that I had made that point clear enough when I slapped her. “Once we travel to the other world, we will have plenty of time for collecting honey. Remember how we slept in my old cottage in Relyara’s valley?”

  “Yes.” She smiled again. “Will we have orchards and a garden in our new home?”

  “Yes, just like that place; we will find a home next to the river so we can fish and raise livestock. There will be plenty of time for collecting honey.” She tightened her grip on my hand with excitement but then she lost her smile.

  “Will there be other children there? Boys and girls my age?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “There might not even be humans or
Elvens on the new world.”

  “Can’t we choose? We should only go to a place where we can make friends.”

  “They might not want to be our friends.” I laughed lightly at her words.

  “Everyone wants to be my friend, Mother. Remember those human children? They loved me.”

  “Oh yes I remember them. Do you recall how angry I was with you?” It had been five or six years ago and we were camped on the outskirts of a human settlement of a few thousand. I was planning a way to steal supplies and perhaps take a hostage to extract news, but Vaiarathe slipped away. I found her after a frantic half-hour of search playing with a group of human children. There were no adults around so I was able to avoid killing anyone.

  “It was worth it though. You never obeyed your parents.” She stuck her tongue out at me and I didn’t know if I should get angry or laugh at her.

  “Who told you I never obeyed my parents?”

  “Nyarathe. Then I asked Relyara and she confirmed.” Her smile was so smug that I did indeed laugh. Surely the Dead Gods were paying me back for the trouble I gave my parents.

  “My parents were fools. I hope you don’t think the same of me.”

  “No. Of course not, Mother.” The smile fell from her lips and she looked pensive. “I do wish you would listen to me about—”

  “No more today, Vaiarathe!” I growled at her. “I don’t want to hear you speak anymore of him. Just give me today please? Your stunt with my hood has created a dangerous situation and you should be thankful I am not angrier with you.”

  “Fine.” She spat the word and then looked away. I knew she was mad at me, but I was displeased with her as well. She still maintained the grip of our locked fingers so I suspected that she was not very upset.