Of the Abyss

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  He nodded.

  “Because most Abyssi wouldn’t understand what that means?” she asked, recalling how unlike the others of his kind Alizarin was. He nodded again. “So you killed Naples because . . . friendship isn’t important to you?”

  She tried to say the words without judgement, but there was a tremor in her voice she couldn’t help. This was a man she had taken to bed. Had she misjudged him so critically? Did he save her and sacrifice Naples because sex was more important to an Abyssi than friendship?

  Alizarin hissed in frustration, but when she flinched, his ears and tail drooped. “He touched me,” he said, tail lashing swiftly now as he tried to make his point. “He used his power against me. I am a prince of the third level of the Abyss, but I couldn’t have escaped on my own.”

  Cadmia rubbed her temple, trying to see the world through an Abyssi’s point of view. In Alizarin’s world of strong versus weak, nothing mattered but power. Alizarin was the spawn of the previous king of the Abyss. He had proudly bested Antioch, an Abyssi of the fourth level. According to Vanadium, Alizarin had been a plaything of the previous lord of the second level, before he gained the strength to best him. Devour him was the phrase Vanadium had used. Was that all his relationship with Naples was? When Naples showed himself to be too strong, too much of a threat, Alizarin disposed of him?

  She looked at Alizarin’s brilliant indigo eyes. Was she imagining the sorrow there?

  She was looking at this wrong. Alizarin wasn’t a typical Abyssi.

  “You considered him a friend,” she said, trying to make sense of the blood, “but he treated you like . . . like . . .” She struggled to find the right word from Alizarin’s explanation. “Like prey, not like a friend.”

  Ears and tail lifted halfway, indicating she had understood him, but he wasn’t sure what she thought of it. “Yes.” Hesitantly. “Did I do the wrong thing?”

  By Abyssi standards, he had done the only thing he could do.

  By human standards . . . “You did the right thing.” She remembered the moment of Naples’ death with horrific detail, but something had happened just before, something her memory couldn’t seem to wrap around. “If he was so strong, how did you escape Naples’ spell?”

  “Something interrupted Naples’ power,” he said. “Xaz’s Numini, I think.”

  “I . . . oh.” She frowned, trying to recall the distant conversation she had overheard. The words had already slipped from her mind, but she thought someone had been arguing?

  Alizarin turned away from her to kneel next to Terre Verte again. “You should eat, too,” he suggested. “And sleep.”

  “What will you do with him?”

  “I’ll bring him to a guest room. I hope he just needs some time. I will stay with him a while.”

  “Will you—­” She broke off. Did she want him to come to her room later?

  Alizarin tilted his head. “I’ll be with our guest. Sleep well.”

  “I’ll . . . try.”

  She enjoyed their conversations. Could she forget the part of him that was darkness incarnate—­or, more difficult still, embrace it? Had she accepted Alizarin as her lover despite what he was, and if so, was that so wrong? Alizarin had sought a tie to the Numen. He clearly wanted to be more than just an Abyssi.

  He had saved her life.

  He had torn Naples apart, sent his blood splashing across the room, without a moment of hesitation.

  And he had done so, in part, to protect her. How much of her sudden unease was because of what the Abyssi had done, and how much was because she felt uncomfortable with the fact that, given the choice, she would have chosen Naples’ death instead of her own?

  No matter in what form the end came.

  CHAPTER 38

  Umber’s heartbeat was slow and even. Even when it raced, it never matched the pace of Hansa’s own. The pace—­Hansa knew, intellectually—­of a human heart. Like the rest of him, Umber’s heart was stronger, strong enough to survive levels of the Abyss that would burn a human’s soul out.

  After the days in the darkness, they had satisfied all their appetites in aggressive and determined fashion. Now, sprawled across Umber’s chest, tangled in the last vestiges of blankets, Hansa found himself listening to the Abyssi-­spawn’s heartbeat and wondering what was going to happen next.

  “What happens if that witch wakes and really can do what Naples thought he could?” he asked. “He breaks the bond, we return to Kavet, and . . . then what?”

  “Shouldn’t you be asking what happens if he doesn’t wake?” Umber rolled onto his side so Hansa fit comfortably, tucked against his body. “If Azo regains her strength and decides she is furious about Naples’ death? Spawn on the human plane rarely survive the death of a bond. I don’t know if the emotional attachment will have dissipated with his death, or if she is still in love with her now-­dead Abyssumancer. And of course, without Naples, unless this Terre Verte can form a rift, we have no way back to the human plane at all.”

  “That worries me, too.” Hansa had pictured it a few times, as Azo’s and Naples’ flustered servant had brought them all dinner. “But would I sound crazy if I said it worries me less?”

  “Because you wouldn’t be the one making choices,” Umber guessed, correctly. “If the witch can break our bond, you return to normal. You get another chance at that life you wanted.”

  “I don’t think you’re evil.” He blurted out the words without thinking them through. Umber chuckled. “Neither are Azo or Xaz. I have a hard time even thinking Alizarin is, and that’s supposed to be the definition of Abyssi.”

  “Mmhmm.” Umber trailed a hand down Hansa’s back. “If—­” He broke off. “Hansa, are you engaging in pillow talk?”

  “Of course not,” he replied instinctively.

  Umber laughed again. “Fine, we’ll call it deep and important conversation. That happens to occur on the bed. You were saying?”

  Hansa briefly debated the merits of arguing the term “pillow talk,” but he didn’t have much ground to argue. There hadn’t been any discussion as he and Umber had limped up to this room, muscles protesting going up stairs now after so many days of the opposite. They had passed through the door, into the bedroom, and Hansa had moved into Umber’s arms like water seeking level ground.

  Part of him had wondered whether it would be for the last time, whether when he woke the witch would also be awake, and would wave his hand and turn all this into an impossibly elaborate dream.

  “I was saying . . .” He valiantly struggled to remember his train of thought with Umber tickling his chest. “I was saying, mancers aren’t evil, spawn aren’t evil, maybe the Abyssi aren’t evil and certainly the Numini aren’t evil. So why is keeping all of them out of human society the central goal of the Quinacridone, and of the entire government of Kavet?”

  “Oooh.” Umber flopped back onto his back. “Pillow talk just turned to politics. Hansa, I don’t know. I can give you theories. Humans get nervous when other ­people have power over them. Or, given the way Kavet’s government works, one man wrote a good speech and others voted for it.”

  “The Quinacridone made mancers illegal. What happened before that? I mean, yes, Naples was terrifying and I’m not really sorry he’s dead, but since murder and . . . other things . . . are already illegal, what happened to make them pass a law making even animamancers, healers, punishable by death? If we had never tried to arrest Xaz, I don’t think she ever would have hurt anyone. So . . . yeah. What happened, before One-­Twenty-­Six?”

  Several seconds passed as Umber drew a deep breath, and then released it in a sigh. “I don’t know. I wasn’t alive in those days, obviously, and given the way they’re marginalized, the mancers don’t keep much of an historical record. The Quinacridone probably do, since they keep accounts of just about everything, but I don’t know how accurate their portrayal of that time frame would be.�
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  Hansa frowned. It had been a little over sixty years since 126 had passed. He remembered the ancient woman of the Order of A’hknet berating him about it in the marketplace. Maybe she could answer his questions.

  Then what?

  “I just feel like we should . . . I don’t know, change things.”

  “ ‘Show up at the next election and speak to your fellow citizens,’ ” Umber said, tiredly quoting the Quinacridone mantra.

  “Since sympathizing with a mancer is a crime, I don’t think I would get far.”

  “True.” Umber pulled him close again. “Maybe the deep thoughts should be saved until after our new witch wakes. He may not. If he does, he may not be able to bring us to the human plane, much less break the bond. And if he can break the bond, all these thoughts you’re having might fade away.”

  “You’re saying the fact that I now believe you’re more than an Abyss-­spawn pervert might just be the bond talking,” Hansa said with a frown.

  “For the record, I concur that I’m more than an Abyss-­spawn pervert, but yes, it’s possible the bond is affecting you, and when it is gone your opinions will change.”

  The possibility unsettled Hansa enough that he sat up, eliciting a groan from Umber.

  “This doesn’t feel like magic talking,” Hansa asserted.

  “When magic is involved, free will is a slippery concept. How exactly we make our decisions often isn’t clear, and within that ambiguity there is a lot of room for magic to give a gentle nudge.”

  “I went with you to rescue Pearl,” Hansa argued. “I know you put yourself at unnecessary risk to help her. You defended me against Naples, even though it made him more likely to be a problem later. You didn’t let him kill Cadmia—­or more importantly, Alizarin, who is a pure Abyssi, didn’t let him kill Cadmia. That isn’t evil, at least, it’s not what I was taught evil was.”

  “Maybe. But just a week ago, when I tried to point that out to you, you threw it back in my face.”

  Hansa remembered the argument. Spoken like a Quin, Umber had said, after Hansa had ignored all his arguments that he might, in fact, not be evil incarnate.

  “I was scared,” he admitted, “and I was ignorant, and I was an asshole.” He remembered a lot of the things he had said and done, not just around Umber but to others. At the very least, he had been a hypocrite; he had condemned Umber as evil while taking hold of that power with both hands and using it to try to make the world what he wanted. “A week ago, I hadn’t seen a Sister of Napthol pray to the divine and have a prince of the third level of the Abyss come to her aid. I hadn’t spent days walking into the deepest level of the infernal realm. I feel like I’ve finally started thinking for myself,” he finished lamely. “Instead of believing what the Quinacridone says, just because it’s easier than making my own decisions.”

  “Maybe,” was all that Umber said in reply.

  “Losing the bond could make me forget all that?” he asked.

  “It probably won’t make you forget,” Umber said, “but you may reevaluate what has occurred and come to a different conclusion.”

  Hansa shook his head, even though one thing he knew from these last several days was that what he wanted often seemed not to come into play. “I don’t like who I was,” he said. “There are things I want, which the bond might deny me, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back to being one of the Quinacridone’s drones.”

  Umber’s lips quirked, a wry smile, as he attempted to change the subject. “You just don’t want to go back to abstinence. Face it, Quin. Your opinion of me would have been different if you hadn’t done most of your deep thinking in bed.” More seriously, he added, “I hope it isn’t all the bond talking. That’s a selfish wish, by the way. If it is all the bond, once that is broken, you’ll be much happier returning to Kavet than you will be returning as you are now. But yes, I also prefer you as you are now.”

  “So you say,” Hansa said, taking a page from Umber’s book. “And how much of that is because of a bed?”

  “Eh, you’re all right,” Umber returned. “You just need some practice.”

  “Then by all means, let’s practice.”

  They put away unanswerable questions and stayed in bed until other needs drove them out. They bathed, ate another meal, and then looked at each other, wordlessly debating the merits of going straight back to bed.

  “We should check on the others,” Hansa admitted. Maybe the bond had changed him or maybe it hadn’t, but one thing was definitely the same: he had been a guard, and he still had the instinct to keep track of his companions. As he thought about the group that had gone down into that cell, he found himself asking, “Is Naples really dead? I mean, I saw him killed, but what does that mean? An Abyssumancer, killed in a cell designed to hold in power, at the lowest level of the Abyss?”

  “I don’t know.” Umber opened the doorway to the guest room where Xaz and Terre Verte had been moved. “I don’t know how strong Naples was. I know it took an incredible amount of power to do what he did. I have no idea what he might be capable of, or what death in this place means to him.”

  They were speaking in hushed tones now, not because of the subject, but because of the atmosphere of the room they had just entered.

  They stood in an elegantly decorated parlor. To their left, an open doorway revealed the bedroom, where the sorcerer they had brought here lay in the same funeral pose he had been in when they had first seen him. Closer, Xaz was stretched out on one of the sitting room’s couches, her posture more natural but her countenance deathly still. Alizarin was kneeling next to her, his cheek resting on her wrist.

  They crossed to stand beside Alizarin, and Umber asked, “How is she?”

  “Cold,” Alizarin replied.

  Hansa touched the Numenmancer’s brow, fearing the worst, and then snatched his hand back with surprise. “Not just cold—­frozen,” he said.

  Umber reached for Xaz, as if needing to confirm. He brushed frost from her eyelids. “Should we try to warm her?”

  “I don’t know.” Alizarin sounded strangely childlike, and the glow in his blue eyes seemed faded and lost.

  “What about Terre Verte?” Hansa asked.

  Alizarin shook his head again.

  “How soon should we expect retaliation from the other Abyssi?” Hansa’s thoughts hadn’t yet moved past relief for their immediate survival and concern for the two unconscious sorcerers when Umber brought up the larger threat that still loomed over all of them. “The high court was already angry at you for keeping a Numenmancer here. We hoped to be gone before they decided to cause trouble. Now we have no idea when we will be able to leave, and likely more enemies.”

  Alizarin growled, or started to but then swallowed the sound. “We have as much time as we have,” he answered.

  “Was the magic shielding Terre Verte’s cell sufficient to keep the lower Abyssi from noticing his absence right away?” Umber pressed. “Or do they know already?”

  “They might not know,” Alizarin said, though Hansa didn’t like the lack of confidence in his tone.

  “I hate to ask,” Hansa interjected, “but should we be worried about Naples’ Abyssi?” Naples had been significantly more powerful than Baryte. If he understood right, that additional strength was mostly due to age, but some of it had to come from his Abyssal patron, didn’t it?

  Alizarin tilted his head thoughtfully. “I do not know Naples’ patron. He never came to investigate my being near his mancer. He may know he is not strong enough to challenge me, so did not dare interfere.”

  Or he was strong enough he didn’t think you were a threat, so didn’t bother to object. His gaze met Umber’s worried one, as the spawn clearly heard Hansa’s thought and agreed.

  “We have no choice but to wait, and hope Terre Verte wakes and is able to open a rift before consequences catch up to us,” Umber said.

>   They all stood awkwardly for a few moments, staring at the corpse-­still man who remained their only hope for survival like strangers gathered together by the funeral of a mutual acquaintance, unable to even share comfort.

  At last Umber spoke again. “We should probably check on Azo. We may be able to do more good there.”

  It was a sign of how uncomfortable the quiet vigil over the two unconscious sorcerers had been that Hansa felt relieved to leave and seek the . . . would she be called a widow? Azo and Naples hadn’t been married, but the bond was a stronger tie than any human ceremony declaring partnership could ever be. It seemed like there should be a word for the survivor.

  Azo called them into the room when they knocked. Hansa swiftly averted his eyes when he realized she was entirely nude, combing her damp hair in front of an aggressively lit fireplace as if she had just finished a bath.

  “I see you two have been enjoying yourselves,” she purred. Out of the corner of his eye, Hansa saw her stretch, unabashed. “Feeling better?”

  “Quite,” Umber replied, sounding amused, probably by Hansa’s furious blushes. Did you expect her to be ashamed? he asked silently.

  Even if neither Hansa nor Umber was likely to react lustfully, there was still such a thing as modesty—­or at least, there always had been in Hansa’s previous experience. If an acquaintance from work had dropped by unexpectedly, Hansa would have at least put on pants before casually inviting him in the way Azo had done when they knocked.

  Apparently undisturbed by the naked woman, Umber said, “We came to see if we can help you in any way.”

  Hansa was so focused on not looking at Azo—­the wall hangings in this room were particularly complex and fascinating—­that he let out a high-­pitched yip when she touched his chin, tilting his head down to force him to look her in the eye.

  “S-­sorry,” he stammered.

  Since his own attention remained on her remarkable blue-­violet eyes, he couldn’t help but notice that she looked him up and down frankly before meeting his gaze again, as if inviting him to do the same. A moment later she sighed in clear disappointment.