It knows me, he sensed. It remembers.
And then it spoke to him:
Pale One.
Pale One.
Thank you.
Every mountain: snowless, treeless, and crowned in fire. Every blade of grass: a poisonous spine. The skies, lightless and dead as the insides of our prison moon. The oceans, far and deep with smoke in place of water. This is not the world as ever it was. This is the world as it will become. For your ancestors’ sins, we give this vengeance. For your hubris, your treachery, we do unto you in spades what you did to us.
A wind, howling like a seaborne storm, erupted from the void behind the Ur. It blasted his face and stripped the witch girl nearly naked. The Ur voice rode on it, willing the world to despair.
The warlock’s voice reached its crescendo. Only a few words left, he knew. The otherworldly wind pushed and pulled at him, wanting to tear him apart. The girl clung to his leg. His scabbard slapped against her cheek.
“Look at me!” he heard her scream. “Look, damn you! Look!”
He looked.
“Not…too…late,” she said.
Four Swords
It happened in three breaths.
In the first breath, Archmyr hoisted the crossbow to his shoulder, his heart a rusted bell ringing beneath his bones. In the second, the witch girl closed her eyes and begged him for death. Foolish girl, he thought during the third breath.
Doesn’t know me at all.
He pulled the trigger. The black quarrel knifed through the dark. When it hit the warlock’s temple and erupted from his forehead, the Pages Black fell to the ground. Too busy exulting, the Sleeper failed to see the warlock collapse.
To damnation with the Ur, he thought. …with all of you.
The Ur invocation’s last syllable, palpitating at the tip of the warlock’s tongue, never cut the cavern gloom. The warlock’s fragile, stick-limbed body fell to pieces. His head struck the ground with a hollow crack, while the bones in his arms shattered and tore his parchment-thin skin to rags.
Some sorcerer, he thought. One little bolt.
The Nether wind died to little more than a chilling breeze. Grey robes fluttered atop the warlock’s corpse. He heard the witch girl exhale, then sob.
“They’re still here,” he said to her.
And they were.
Shoulder to shoulder, starlit eyes smoking, the Ur massed just inside the tower door. A sea of white fires, they seemed, a forest of malevolence. He sensed hundreds, no…millions, crowding to break into the world. He waited to die, for everything to go dark.
And yet…
“Something…” the girl grunted. “Something is holding them…back.”
“Your dear old dad didn’t finish the spell,” he said.
Aware, the Sleeper turned. His eyes fumed with white fire. Springing his swords from the ground, he loosed a withering roar. “You!” he boomed at the girl. “Little meddling creature! What’ve you done?”
All that, and it’s her he rages at.
“You failed, Grim,” shouted the girl. Archmyr stood still as death as she wrenched herself up while bracing on his arm. “Your brethren cannot come,” she laughed. “Go to them. Look at them. They await you.”
Grimwain glared, all teeth and smoldering eyes. He raised his swords, which glowed with cold white lights, carving up the cavern dark like moonbeams. As he stalked toward the girl, smoke trailed from his footsteps.
“Move,” he said to Archmyr.
I shouldn’t. I should help her.
No. It’s pointless.
As he drowned in doubt, Grimwain shoved past him. The girl scuttled backward, but Grim was on her in the blink of an eye, teeth bared like knives, frozen swords crossed over her throat.
And all I do is watch.
“It should’ve been you.” Grim leaned in close to the girl. The pressure of his blades drew blood on her neck. “We should’ve taken you from the cradle when you were a screaming kitten. You’d have grown in my image, and you’d have read the words in place of your weakling father. No matter. You’ll do it now. You’ll speak the final word for him.”
“Never. Do it yourself,” she cursed.
“Would that I could.” The fire in Grim’s sockets scalded her cheeks. “But these words aren’t for us. We who roam the stars need no such book, no such language.”
“Fool.” She hissed beneath his blades. “I am a wizard no more. And these irons…the Nightness is gone. Ask Them.” She glared at the Ur host thrumming behind him. “ Go ahead. Ask!”
“You lie.”
He pressed his blades against her naked throat. Two lines of blood dribbled down her skin. “The Nightness…” she sputtered. “None left… Killing me makes no difference.”
“Wizard or no...” Grim’s saliva dripped between his teeth and onto her cheek. “…you’ll read the final word.”
“Nev…er.”
Archmyr glanced to the Ur, shivered out the last of his warmth, and looked back to Grimwain and the girl. Bravest thing alive, he mused. Old Man Degiliac would’ve liked her. He paid it little mind, but felt his hands falling to his sword pommels.
Grimwain roared again. Molten starlight roiled in his eyes and lit the tips of his fingers like white candles. “You will!” he raged at the girl. “Else I’ll string your insides across the underworld. I’ll hunt down every person you’ve ever known, ever loved. Pick up the book. Finish the spell. I command you.”
If she doesn’t say the word, it’s me who pays, thought Archmyr.
So be it.
Choking beneath Grim’s steel, the girl closed her eyes. Grim set one swordpoint above her breast and raised the other one into the air. “A hundred years more.” he seethed. “All for a word.”
Grim wheeled his blade for her neck. Its moonlit edge tore through the darkness, the white steel singing.
Maybe the haunted men were right.
Maybe she can’t die.
But maybe she can.
Grim’s sword never found its home.
Archmyr turned it aside.
How he came to stand above the girl, swords in hand, saving her life, he never could have said. Ringing against his silver blade, Grim’s sword spun aside and wounded the island surface. The vibration in his hand hurt, but felt so, so good.
Exhaling, Grimwain backed away. White fire burned between his teeth. “Pale One. You’re here because I allowed it. Stand aside.”
“My name…” He clenched his teeth, “…is Archmyr.”
“Your name counts for nothing. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I do.”
“Do you not remember the taste of our fire, the waking only to be ashes again and again? Do you not know what I am?”
“I do.”
“And yet you oppose me?”
“Yes. Always knew I would.”
The girl crawled away. He saw her fear, her terror of four swords swaying, and he knew he had done the right thing. His courage swelled inside him. I’m a fortress, he told himself. I’m graven of ice. I’m the last Degiliac, the only Degiliac. Thillria belongs to me. He glanced at the Ur. Never to them.
Grimwain stood before him, for the first time hesitant. The tower door remained half-open, ten thousand sets of starlit Ur gazes burning a ghastly image in his eyes.
Don’t look at Them.
Look at him.
Grimwain twitched his swords.
“Archmyr!” the girl cried out. “Run! He cannot die.”
We’ll see.
Grimwain glared at the girl, then came for him. Silver swords flashing, he traded a flurry, opened a hole in Grim’s guard, and shouldered the almighty Sleeper to the ground. For the first time in ages, he felt right again. “All these months,” he said. “I’ve just been waiting for someone worthy.”
Grimwain leapt back to his feet, his white eyes smoldering. “She’ll love you not, Pale One. Her heart’s as black as ours.”
He said nothing. In a rage, Grimwain attacked. Ringing stee
l shattered the air. Moon and silver met, flecks of ruinous steel raining. He’s fast, he thought as Grim’s blades flashed through his field of vision. But angry. Fight calm. As always.
Ugly in his anger, Grim came for him again and again. Pale sparks showered his boots. Ur voices chittered in the back of his mind. Grim tried to circle him, to butcher the girl. But with frightening precision, he drove the Sleeper’s blades back and expelled the Ur voices.
And all the while, he kept the witch girl safe.
As he fought, the Ur haunted the threshold behind Grimwain. In the absence of the warlock’s invocation, the tower doors reversed on their colossal gears. The grinding shook the underworld, more than once throwing his balance. A little while longer, he thought between sword strokes. It’ll be closed. I’ll have succeeded. And failed.
Once, when Grimwain backed away, furious that I’m still alive, the fell faces of the Ur enthralled him. There were so, so many. His gaze swam amid the ocean of hollow white eyes and lank, lurking bodies. Their voices invaded him, begged him, commanded him. I can still save myself, he knew. The Needle. The warlock. We could raise him again. Just for one word.
The Ur crowded the narrowing gap between door and tower. With shadow hands, they clawed at the mortal world. He might have pitied them had he known no better. They were beautiful, perfect in a way no human could ever hope for. The knowledge of all things lived inside them, and the fire in their eyes was that of creation’s very first stars.
He traded a hundred sword strokes with Grimwain.
But all the while, he saw only the Ur.
Whatever goodness had lived within them was long, long gone, he knew. Their civilization, founded in light but fallen to darkness, was unknowable, unsustainable, and incompatible with all other life. Ruined by eons of imprisonment, they would destroy the entire universe if freed. They were darkness. They were entropy. There won’t be any peace. Any slow sleep. They’ll find our souls wherever we are.
The island quaked again. Grimwain speared for his neck, and missed. The tower door groaned, and in the sliver remaining open he glimpsed but a few hundred Ur claws. Hateful, Grimwain crashed over him. The fight moved from near to far, drawing ever closer to the tower. He felt his swords slowing. He felt Grimwain’s grow stronger.
“Second…best,” he sputtered.
“Indeed,” Grimwain growled.
“No. Not me. You.”
With three strokes like snapping flames, he battered back Grimwain’s swords. The tower door thundered shut. The silent screams of a million Ur evaporated. In the space between breaths, he caught Grimwain’s concentration breaking. Once, twice, and twelve times, he flashed his silver swords, bleeding Grim in a dozen places.
Grimwain staggered, but kept his feet. The girl screamed, and then fell silent.
He advanced, slapping Grim’s swords to the ground, slashing his throat, and piercing his ribs with both silver blades.
Blood raining from his lips, Grimwain fell to his knees.
But then rose again.
No matter how many holes I put in him…
“Run!” the girl shouted. She sounded far away, lost in the void behind him. “Take the boat! Save yourself!”
Too late for that.
He backed away. Grimwain scrabbled to take up his swords, but he pierced the Master a dozen times more. Bone and sinew snapped beneath frosted steel. Fountains of blood showered the obsidian island surface. Grimwain hissed in pain, and then laughed.
“Fool…” Grim spat a gout of blood on his boot. “There’s no…killing me. A thousand armies…this earth…brought against me. To what end? The Hunter…denied. More Archithropian assassins than…might fill the Undergrave…all butchered. Give up, Pale One.”
Why? he thought to ask. I know what they didn’t.
Smirking, he leaned close to Grimwain’s ear and whispered. Fear fell like a shadow over the Sleeper. Even as Grim’s skin knit itself anew, he set his swords on the back of Grim’s neck and carved open a wound. Grim rattled and shook. His ligaments healed and fresh blood welled beneath his skin.
Not. Fast. Enough.
Dropping his swords, Archmyr ripped the dread object from the wound in Grim’s neck. The Needle, blacker than black, was so sharp at its tip he winced just to see the brazier lights gleam against it. A substance like oil dripped from it, Ur shadowstuff given liquid form. Black Moon shard, he knew. Poor fool stumbled on it. Stuck himself.
And let the Ur in.
Whoever the poor creature kneeling before him was, it embodied the Sleeper no longer. His fingers, wet and scarlet, curled like burning paper. The white light in his eyes winked out. No longer did his flesh reknit, but instead went grey, sapping his skin of all color. As the hollow, ruined man wept his lifeblood into a puddle, he looked up to Archmyr.
Dying.
“The Needle…” Grim’s breath rattled in punctured lungs. “If you would not burn…put it back. Sustain me…not too late…”
“I can’t,” he said. “Apologies.”
“Then you’ll…have no peace. None. Until your dying day… you’ll dream…only of us. When you…close your eyes…we’ll be waiting.”
“I know.” He nodded.
He let the Needle fall. He lifted one of his swords. His stroke was swift and terrible. Silver steel met flesh and bone, and Grimwain’s head rolled to a stop five steps away.
The quiet after Grim’s death felt dreamlike. For time unknown, he stood above his fallen Master, head bowed with exhaustion. His breaths were long and slow as an ocean heaving, his eyes clouded by ethereal smoke. He might have stood forever frozen had not the girl come to him.
“You killed him.” Her eyes were wide as moons.
“So it seems.”
“What now?” she asked.
“The book. And the Needle.”
“What of them?”
He looked at her. “Do you know how to destroy them?”
She thought hard. “No. But we are surrounded by water. We could throw them in.”
“Simple. I like it.”
He took up the Needle. The girl shambled off and returned with the book. “Oldest things in the world,” she remarked.
“You’d like to keep them, wouldn’t you?”
“A part of me would.”
Thinking nothing of the vast power in his hands, he walked to the far shore and hurled the objects into the lake. The Needle sliced into the water, sinking like a falling star. The Pages floated for a time, but sank thereafter, making no sound as it tumbled to the unknowable depths.
When he returned, he knelt beside Grim’s corpse. The Sleeper’s body had crumbled to ashes. The girl reached down to touch the black powder, but thought better of it.
“Gone,” she said. “And with only you and me to see it.”
“And his kin.” He nodded at the tower.
“What about those men? The ones in cloaks? And the Wolde?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “If they’re still here, I’ll be rid of them. If not, it means they took the boats. Which means we’re dead.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She raised her wrists, still bound in irons. “Help?”
“We’ll find a key. Don’t worry.”
She looked at him. In the brazier light, she looked angelic, the only living thing left in the world. “You saved me,” she said. “Why?”
“I’ve no answer to please you. I did what needed to be done.”
“Is it true? When we die, we go to them?”
“Only the worst of us. Me. Not you.”
“Maybe your deeds today will spare you.”
A shadow darkened his face. “I think not. But when I die again, I’ll let you know. It’s a promise.”
She smiled at that. He could not recall the last time he had made someone smile.
“Archmyr,” she said his name. “I feel like…like I know you.”
“You do. We met long before now. We were different then. It’s best you don’t remember.”
�
�Am I your prisoner?” she asked.
“Prisoner?” he exhaled. “No. You’re free.”
“Does that mean we can leave?”
He exhaled. His stomach felt barren. His bones hurt. His eyes felt dry, as though the Ur had burned them out of his skull. I could lie down here and never wake again.
“You prefer the dark, they tell me,” he exhaled. “I hear you can fly, that nothing can kill you. You don’t need me.”
“I told him the truth.” She nodded at Grim’s ashes. “When the door opened, my magic fled. Besides, the irons.”
“A shame.”
“No.” She shook her head. “The power…it will come back. All of it. I can tell.”
“When the moon falls again.”
“Long before that.”
Her hands still bound, she stood beside him. Without the Ur, the Sleeper, and the warlock, he felt as though he were floating atop an ocean.
“The darkness…” She shivered. “I need your help. Or are you finished with me?”
She held out her hands, the chain taut between them. He took them and squeezed. It felt strange to touch another human, but somehow with her...
“It’ll be a hard journey.” He looked down the brazier-lit path. “Even if we make it, the Wolde’ll be waiting on the surface.”
“Will they kill us?”
He nodded. “They’ll try.”
“An hour ago, you were the world’s enemy,” she said. “You were my enemy. Everyone in Thillria wanted to kill you. And now…”
“Now I’m just Archmyr. I’ll help you if you let me.”
“Why?”
“Because.” He shrugged. “Why not?”
There seemed little else to say. That he lived had yet to settle within him. Helping the girl to walk, he peered back to the Ur tower. The Ur monolith looked as if it never had opened. All its mystery had vanished.
For now.
“We should hurry,” he said at length.
“I know. I just wonder—”
“If someone else will try to open it?” he said.
“Yes.”
“They will.” He was sure of it. “But I’ll be long gone. You’re the one who doesn’t die. It’ll be your problem.”
In silence, he led her to the shore. When he and she came to the water, black to the end of all sights, he stopped.
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