Slowly, with visible effort, he forced the doors open. Fibrous webbing tried to spin across the gap and snare him, but a faint glow ran through his flesh in response, repelling it. Runes stood out on the back of his neck like brands.
Through the gap, Geraad glimpsed the throne room. The Emperor sat radiant at the far end; down the middle, a path had been cleared, with a single man standing at its center.
*****
Feeling the doors open, Enkhaelen looked back.
Only one person could force his way in against the Emperor's will—and there he was, shining like some legendary knight. Enkhaelen almost regretted involving him, but an end was an end. Might as well deal with everything.
Behind him, others. The expected—Dasira, Cob, the Guardian, his metastatics.
And the unexpected.
Geraad.
I told you to live! he raged internally. Why didn't you go?
But that was typical. The good never knew when to get out of the way.
Deal with everything, indeed.
Resigned, determined, he turned forward again. Rackmar was already approaching, blade raised to menace his ward, and beyond him the Emperor's gaze had turned toward the doors. The time had come.
Pointing one hand at the Field Marshal and one at the dais, Enkhaelen opened himself to the energy of the Palace. It ran like a hot flood beneath his feet—enough to power the city, the road, the shadowless circle. Enough to hold back the Dark itself.
As it flowed into him, turning his flesh incandescent, he said, “Time to die.”
Blue fire leapt from his fingertips—
“I think not,” said the Emperor.
And the cord was cut.
Chapter 34 – White Wall
Even as the arcane bolts flew, Enkhaelen fell. Geraad watched aghast as he hit the floor, arms splaying out limply, empty gaze fixed on nothing. From the wall came a flare of shock and rage as his soul was forced back into his true body.
The bolts went awry. One hit the armored man in the chest, blowing through his ceremonial breastplate only to be absorbed by a white layer below; the other struck the dais more than a yard from the Emperor's feet.
Terror gripped Geraad. They hadn't even entered the throne room, and already their strongest ally had been defeated.
Then he remembered that night in the laboratory when Enkhaelen had collapsed just after handing off his work—his consciousness summoned away. It couldn't have been the first time. He must have known this would happen.
He would have planned for it.
And suddenly, from Tarren and Wydma's minds, he sensed a confirmation: The itch.
In Enkhaelen's fall, some contingency had been triggered. The metastatics would be taking out their mystery papers, reading some unknown orders.
Geraad didn't know what would happen, but his obligation remained. As the Crown Prince forced the doors wide, he fixed his gaze on the armored man his master had tried to strike, and pinned the Cob-mirage upon him. Every move he made, the black sword-wielder would see as Cob's.
Then he released his immobilizing wards and gave the wielder a nudge.
*****
In an outer hall, a pilgrim felt the itch across his arms and chest, where the tumors grew like grapes beneath the skin, and smiled grimly. From the folds of his robe, he drew the fused crystal blade and inspected the paper tied to it.
Floor, it said.
So he buried the blade in the yielding floor and watched in fascination as it drank in the radiance, its facets dancing with irregular light—brighter and faster and hotter with each heartbeat. Its hilt seared his palms but he gritted his teeth and held on, until the overflow made his tumors swell so large that they bent his ribs and deformed his shoulders. All around, other pilgrims drew back from the bruise-like discoloration that crawled up his face.
This was the deal he had made, and as his disease stretched its tendrils across his knuckles and down his thighs, he was nothing but thankful.
Across the Palace, in the halls, on the balconies and walkways, and at several points within the throne room's agitated crowd, more than two hundred metastatics did the same.
*****
The crowd flowed forward, but Dasira couldn't. All she saw was that kneeling figure at the doors, head bent, tattered robe hanging heavy and damp.
People passed between them—a black-clad one, a white one with a seething sword. She glanced up momentarily at that but Erevard's back was already receding into the throne room, his focus elsewhere. Kelturin was there too, with Annia and his other servitors on his heels, striding purposefully through the gap in the crowd.
And behind them, Fiora.
That brought back her voice, her footing. “Hoi!” she cried, and lurched after the Trifolder girl, who half-turned with a hand on her sword. “Where are you going? We need to—“
“I have a mission,” said the girl coldly.
Dasira gestured back at Cob. She'd stepped past him and now saw the dead blackness of his eyes, the trickle of murkwater running from his mouth. “He's our mission. Always has been. The Guardian—it left him. We need to take him and flee.”
“I'm after Enkhaelen.”
“You're a fool! We can't get there! Not even tagging after Kel's heels!”
“And you're a coward!” Fiora shouted, rounding on her fully. A faint shimmer outlined her, like a heat-haze yet somehow metallic. “You couldn't stand up to your own people so you let yourself be used to hunt him, to spy on him, to hinder him in every way. And now you won't even honor his wishes. He wanted this done even at the cost of his life.”
“He's not dead yet!”
“He might as well be.”
Dasira grabbed the girl by the front of her robe, ignoring the tremor in her threads at the silver sword's proximity. Serindas seethed in her other hand, though she couldn't remember drawing it. “You miserable bitch. This is your friend, your lover, the father of your child—“
“It doesn't matter!” Fiora shouted in her face. “If we don't do this, we all die!”
“If you go—“
“You can't stop me.”
“—you're no Trifolder.”
Fiora laughed curtly. “What would you know?”
“I know I've seen your kind before,” said Dasira through her teeth. “I've been visited by your slaughtering emissaries. Just once, when I was in the same state as you, and imprisoned. They came to me offering vengeance and bloodshed, the deaths of all who would oppose me. I've read your book; don't pretend that's not what you want.”
Fiora's eyes widened, then she flushed an angry red. “Who are you to deny me that? You walked the same path.”
“I was wrong.”
“From what you've told me—“
“I was wrong, Fiora. It didn't change anything. It didn't help me recover. And I'm almost grateful that I did it under the Emperor's aegis, because I know who those three women were now. I've figured it out.”
Fiora pried at her hand, glancing away. The Crown Prince and his entourage had made headway through the throne room, the crowd in turmoil around them; the gap was closing. “Let me go.”
“Those weren't Trifolders.”
“I don't care!”
“They served the Blood Goddess. Mother of Mayhem.”
The girl's gaze snapped to her, and she saw the pieces falling together in those dark eyes. Then Fiora shook her head and shoved out with both arms, breaking Dasira's grip on her robe. “You're insane! The cult of the Blood Goddess could never—“
“Infiltrate your faith? Twist it to their ends?”
“I've been visited! I bear the blessing of Brea Eranine!”
“Is that really her name?”
With a snarl, Fiora drew the silver sword. “You don't know what you're talking about, and I won't be stalled further. Do as you like; I have a vessel to kill.”
Dasira burned to throw the akarriden blade at her. She actually saw it in her mind's eye: the spiraling red afterimage as it crossed the distanc
e, the girl's face blanching as it sank in and sucked the life from her.
But she couldn't do it, not even when Fiora presented her back like a taunt. Let her go, said the voice of resignation. Let her die under her own power, and take the child with her. When Cob recovers, she'll be the villain in his eye, not me.
And so she turned, sliding Serindas back into place, and found Arik there at Cob's side. The skinchanger pawed at his shoulder but the young man gave no reaction. The black trail from his mouth had thickened.
Her heart hurt.
*****
“What is the meaning of this?” boomed Field Marshal Rackmar ahead.
Crown Prince Kelturin ignored him. Despite the danger, he had yet to draw his sword, knowing that once he did, his father's judgment would fall upon him. For this brief moment, the throne room hung in equilibrium, Enkhaelen's shots spent and no new threat at hand.
Enkhaelen's corpse lay where it had dropped, arms outspread. Despite Kelturin's intentions, the sight pained him. Enkhaelen had been one of the few constants in his life—a mentor, an authority. To bring him down, to kill him...
Need to reach him first. Focus.
He couldn't look up, lest his father's gaze split him further into his inhuman components. His hands hadn't mended, but he'd learned to use them even when they were spurred and clawed, and the wraith-blade would adapt to his will. As long as his arms and legs held together, he'd manage.
He wished he'd brought an army. To be here with the Crimson Claw at his back, ready to claim the throne he'd never be ceded...
But no. The Palace would just take them as it would take the few who followed him now.
He couldn't let that dissuade him. With each step, he came closer to his goal. If he managed to reach the Throne, he would cut a path to Enkhaelen and hope for the strength to make the kill.
I just need time...
“Halt,” came the Emperor's voice.
He ignored it, only to be forced into obedience as the floor erupted with spikes. Thin and sharp, they rose in man-high ranks to block his path and divide him from the others, and when he peeked up cautiously he found the dais still a quarter of the chamber away. Even if he could leap the spikes, his father's will would catch him before he got close.
“Are you participating in the game now?” said the Emperor, almost mildly.
Mouth open, Kelturin struggled to think of something clever. He'd both begrudged and admired Enkhaelen's ability to deflect his father's ire; in contrast, any sass he tried inevitably ended in punishment. Whatever gifts the necromancer had tattooed into his flesh, quick wits weren't included.
“If not,” said the Emperor, “I don't think I need you anymore.”
Despite himself, he looked up—not so far as his father's eyes, but to his lower face, where a slim smile hung as if carved. “What are you saying?”
“I tire of your self-torment. I think I will put you away for a few decades like Enkhaelen.”
At that, the spikes became tendrils that reached toward him maliciously. He took a step back only to find the floor softening beneath his boots—dipping downward like it did beneath victims for conversion.
With a growl, he unhooked the blade from his back. Its glassy edge gleamed in the light of the walls, and its first sweep carved straight through the tendrils, streaking sparks in its wake. More rose in their place, the white material bulging with regrowth, and from above he glimpsed his father sitting forward, fingers buried in the arms of the throne. His face was haloed in radiance, eyes like furnace flames—intent, almost pleased.
Have you waited as long to kill me as I have to kill you?
A grim smile curved across his malformed mouth. Since the dissolution of the court, every swing of his sword, in practice or in war, had been directed at his father's face.
And so he led with the blade. Threads dragged at his boots and pulled at his shin-guards, but he cut and hacked, kicked, clawed and bulled his way through obstruction after obstruction, until they rose with such speed and thickness that it was like trying to battle through a thorn-hedge. Dimly he heard a ruckus from beyond, but couldn't look—couldn't let his focus lapse. Couldn't break the rage.
Beneath his armor, the tattoos sparked.
*****
Weshker stopped short as the white spikes rose. He had been walking near the back of the Crown Prince's group, Guardian-aspect tucked away for stealth and eyes on Field Marshal Rackmar. Neither Pendriel nor Nerice attended the bastard; Weshker had feared they'd loop around after running from the scuffle by the doors, and their absence steadied his nerves.
Firming his jaw, he stepped out from the group. He couldn't hide among them anyway, not with his russet hair and black scout garb—and since he'd been part of Rackmar's entourage, he was willing to bet the man would let him get close as long as he looked submissive.
Beneath his skin, the crows jabbered and jostled, flexing their wings as if ready to rip free. They drowned out the Guardian's exhortations, which he wouldn't have obeyed anyway. He feared the light that shone from the dais, and if he could avoid confronting it—if he could kill its prime servitor first, to redeem himself before death...
A white shape stepped out beside him and he almost leapt from his skin, hands furring momentarily as his claws tried to come out. It was the sword-wielder who had gone for Cob, black blade now cinched casually across its back. Its blank helm regarded him, then it reached up to crack the faceplate.
“Weshker,” it said in a rasp.
He stared. The voice was familiar but wrong, and the face too: pitted with pox-scars but nearly as pale as the armor. As more of the faceplate came free, he saw the fine threads that coated its inside being drawn out from the man's lips and nostrils and the corners of his eyes, allowing him to blink.
“Erevard?” he said wonderingly.
His former camp-mate looked down at him with clear contempt, then jerked his chin toward Rackmar and his guards. “What do you see?”
Weshker opened his mouth to state the obvious, then hesitated. There was a vagueness in Erevard's starburst eyes, and he recalled the prince and the mind-mage doing something to him. He didn't know whose side anyone was on anymore.
“My enemy,” he hedged. “The one who ruined me.”
Suspicion creased Erevard's features, then he shook himself once as if trying to wake up. If something changed, Weshker couldn't tell. That scary gaze slanted down at him again, taking in his uniform, and the man sneered, “Look how we've risen in the world.”
Then he pulled down his faceplate and strode toward the Field Marshal.
Confused, Weshker dogged his heels. He'd never expected to see his camp-mates again, but Erevard made three—since he was sure he'd glimpsed Maevor. It was almost enough to throw him from his anger.
Then Rackmar snapped, “You! Why are you here?” and a shudder of hate went through Weshker. He wasn't the target, though; the Field Marshal's eyes were on Erevard, the other White Flames shifting forward as he approached, for his body language made it clear he wasn't here to talk. Weshker saw the black sword tilt across his back, the threads of his armor adjusting it to slide right into his hand.
With inhuman speed, Erevard launched himself into their ranks, black blade carving a path through the closest. They had their own weapons—spears, swords—but deployed them like man-catchers, striking for his limbs and neck with the unraveling ends in an attempt to restrain. Weshker couldn't tell if they did that preferentially or by necessity; perhaps their blades couldn't pierce his armor.
But he wasn't there to watch.
Skirting the fray, he advanced upon Rackmar with head bowed, hands loose at his sides. Other White Flames stepped out to block him, and he halted obediently, affecting the slack-jawed expression he wore under Nerice's influence. The Field Marshal's gaze passed right over him.
“Stop that maniac,” he heard Rackmar growl, and the White Flames moved out of his way.
It took all his self-control to drift closer instead of lunge. No
matter the entities inside of him, Rackmar was still larger, heavier, and coated in that white material all the way up to the jawline. Even if he got his teeth around that thick neck, they might not sink through.
But he wore no helmet, too vain or distrustful to have the white substance over his face.
As he took another step, angled as if to fall into position at Rackmar's heels, the man glanced down at him, saying, “Your handlers, are they—“
Weshker stuck his thumb in Rackmar's eye.
He was, paradoxically, too quick; the Guardian's manifestation surged to the fore, but in that first instant, the nail that punctured the eyeball was human. By the time the thorny claw extended, Rackmar was already reeling back, putting the rest of his eye-socket out of reach. Weshker's grasping fingers scored his cheek, taking strips of skin and sideburn along with the ruptured orb, but no more.
The crows screamed at him to eat it, but he wanted no part of Rackmar's flesh and certainly not his visions. In the moment it took him to force the urge away, his foe recovered, and his lunge for Rackmar's throat met a fist instead. That was fine; his thick hide, though not as strong as Cob's elemental armor, could still take a beating, and he wrapped himself around Rackmar's extended arm in retaliation. Claws tore away the bracer and ripped at the threads; pawed feet tamped against the ceremonial breastplate as if to pull the arm right off. His jaws clamped on thin steel, biting through the gauntlet joints until he tasted blood.
Rackmar gave a pained bellow and tried to shake Weshker off, then punched him between the horns when he couldn't. It didn't work; claws affixed, Weshker ignored the hit and the fiery needles of White Flame weaponry that jabbed at his back and shoulders. In moments, a piece of gauntlet came off in his mouth and his finger-claws reached bone.
Then a rope-like stricture caught around his neck, forcing him to grab at the strands or be choked. As the soldiers wrenched him from Rackmar, tendons snapped between his teeth, leaving his maw full of loose metal and fingers. Despite the crows' urgings, he spat those out.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 103