Blade and Bone

by Jon Sprunk

  “Easy there, big guy,” Emanon said. “You’re squeezing the breath out of me.”

  Jirom loosened his grip, but it didn’t help the frustration brewing in his chest. He was failing these people, and they were paying for it with their lives. “What are we going to do?”

  Emanon turned his head to look back. “We keep going. That’s all we can do. We keep going, and we stay alive until we can make the bastards who did this pay.”

  The ones who did this. Who was that? The zoanii? The Manalish? Jirom didn’t know whom to blame, and that made it even more maddening. But Emanon was right. They had to focus on the task before them. Staying alive. He would worry about vengeance for the slain another day.

  Trying to forget the crashed airship and the supplies his people desperately needed, Jirom told Emanon to take him to the head of the convoy. They had a long night ahead of them before they could rest. He prayed that the gods would let them live that long.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Horace swallowed the last bite of hard biscuit and washed it down with a mouthful of tepid water. The last cool breezes of the morning fled as the sun rose above the rooftops of the ruins.

  Last night he had dreamt again. They were getting stronger. Dreams of death and destruction, of a great black sea swallowing the world. It had ended with him plunging under those dark, icy waters, gasping for breath, and that was how he had awoken. Gasping and terrified in the darkness before dawn. He had lain awake in his blanket afterward, waiting for the light.

  Mezim sat on the opposite side of their meager campfire, licking the crumbs from his fingers. “Sir, I did an inventory of our supplies. We have two full skins of water, a dozen biscuits, and six strips of dried meat. If we’re careful, it should last us three days.”

  Horace nodded. He was thinking of Alyra, trying to remember what her hair smelled like. The wood carving of the sea turtle lay in his hand. The grains and grooves pressed against the smooth plain of his palm.

  “Excuse me, sir.” Mezim pursed his lips as if considering something unpleasant. “I do hate to be a bother, but I feel it’s my duty to speak up when I see trouble.”

  Horace tucked the carving back into his belt. “Out with it, Mezim.”

  “I was just wondering how long we’ll be staying here.”

  That’s a good question. I was wondering the same thing myself.

  “It’s not just the food supply,” Mezim continued in a lowered voice. “It’s this place. And . . . forgive me, but I do not trust her.”

  There was no need for Mezim to spell out whom he meant. Horace had been thinking all morning about the woman they had met last night, who she was and why she was here waiting for them. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn he was still dreaming. “It’s going to be fine, Mezim. We’re not staying long. But I need some answers, and I think she’s the only one who can help me.”

  “Be wary, sir. She is . . .”

  Mezim’s eyes grew wide as he looked past Horace. Then he dropped his gaze and busied himself with cleaning up the campsite.

  Horace looked over his shoulder and saw the woman standing behind him. She looked exactly as she had the night before, with the same dress and her hair arranged in precisely the same manner.

  “Come with me,” she said. “I have much to show you.”

  Standing up, Horace said to Mezim, “Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

  Mezim only nodded as he kept his eyes averted.

  Horace followed the woman out of the half-standing shell of the building and onto the street. Curling wisps of sand blew before them, creating tiny dust devils on the pavestones.

  Quickening his step to catch up to the woman, Horace started to ask, “Where are we—?”

  He lost his train of thought as the ruins transformed around him. The broken walls with their hollow windows vanished, replaced by elaborate, intact buildings, their façades and roofs bright with colors of green, blue, and pink. Fallen towers rose to their full height, gleaming in the early light of day. Most shocking of all, Horace suddenly found himself surrounded by people. They looked Akeshian with their copper-hued skins and dark hair, but their attire was very different. Most of them, male and female, wore simple white tunics that exposed their left breasts, and their curly hair gleamed with oil. Their accessories were mostly beaten copper and gold.

  Horace caught up to the woman as she continued to stroll amid the crowd. The people didn’t seem to notice them. They talked, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying, their language being nothing at all like Akeshian. “Is this another dream?” he asked.

  “Not quite,” the woman answered. “We walk the border of the dream world, but our minds remain conscious. In this state, we have the ability to create whatever we choose, and even project those constructions into the minds of others.”

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  They came to the edge of a great, circular court. A huge pyramid rose before him, blocking out most of the sky. It was constructed much differently than the queen’s pyramid in Erugash. It had three tiers, with the lowest rising fully half the way up its total height. The top tiers were much smaller and sloped more sharply inward, and capped with four narrow prongs that extended up, one on each face of the pointed summit, like stone daggers aimed at the sky. Horace felt tremendous power radiating from within the structure. It called to him, and he recognized it as the sensation that had drawn him to the ruins.

  “Is this the home of the king?” Horace asked.

  “It was a place of learning,” the woman answered. “For half a millennium, magi from every corner of the empire gathered here to study, contemplate, and debate. It was a place of peace, a refuge from politics and strife. It is where I first came to learn of my talents.”

  Horace found himself wanting to approach closer, but he resisted. He tried to imagine what it must have been like to study here, at a place where people weren’t constantly trying to kill you. “So what happened?”

  He ducked his head as thunder crackled above the city. In the blink of an eye, the sky had turned from clear to darkest night. A bolt of vivid green lightning sliced down from the heavens to strike the pyramid’s top. Stone exploded and rained down. A crowd of people standing around the periphery of the court scattered. Their screams rang off the tall buildings. The devastation continued as sprays of chromatic light shot across the sky, accompanied by deep rumbles that shook the ground.

  Horace turned to face the woman, but she was gone. He spun around, but there was no sign of her anywhere. People were running away in panic. Thinking perhaps she had been lost in the crowd, Horace dashed away from the falling debris. As he ran, he tried to remember this was all just a dream.

  A high-pitched whine was the only warning he received before a blazing ball of light fell from the sky. He lifted his arms over his head as the flaming missile landed right in front of him. The sound of a violent detonation rocked the city.

  When Horace lowered his arms, a smoking crater stretched across the street. Several people lay sprawled out around it. He knelt beside a young woman who was caked in a layer of fine gray dust. He reached down to see if she was still alive, but his hand passed right through her. It was all just an illusion.

  Horace made his way through the street, observing everything as it happened. More lights fell across the city, vaporizing the buildings and knocking down walls. Bodies lay all around him like broken toys.

  He came to a huge stone arch in the city ramparts. A beaten track ran out from the gateway to the desert beyond. More flaming missiles rose from the south. This time he had the chance to see them begin their journey, and he sensed the presence of sorcery out on those wasted plains. This was a coordinated attack by scores of zoanii. Maybe hundreds.

  A group of defenders, men and women in long robes, stood atop the city’s outer wall. Their hands were raised to ward off the attacks, and Horace could see the magic forming between them like an ethereal shield. Some of the approaching meteors exploded
against the shield with muffled thuds, but many more attacks got through. Explosions lit up the city with incandescent fire.

  The devastation was complete. A city incinerated in minutes, erased from the face of the earth. Out on the desert plains came a great, dark wave, rushing toward him with gathering speed. Horace took a step backward. This is not real.

  Suddenly he was hurtling up into the darkened sky. Arms and legs waving as he fought to find his balance, he passed into an ocean of stars. Finally, he realized he had no control over what was happening and stopped fighting it. Still he kept climbing higher into the cosmic soup. Something was approaching. A cloudy barrier, glistening like a curtain of dewy gossamer. He struck it and went through as if it were nothing more substantial than cobwebs. On the other side there was only darkness. No more stars. No sun, no moon. Nothing at all.

  Then he felt a vast and powerful presence, like a leviathan swimming beneath him in a languid sea. Horror punched a hole through the center of his chest at the sight of its gargantuan form, the contours conforming to nothing he had ever seen before. There were others, too, barely perceptible to his Sight. All equally huge, swimming through this nether space beyond the veil. He could feel their hunger awakening. Long, gangly limbs unraveled, questing in his direction. Out of instinct, he drew on his zoana, and the power filled him instantly. He lashed out with a bolt of searing fire as hot as he could make it. The white flames jetted out toward the titan closing in on him. The mammoth beast rolled over onto its side to avoid the fire. As its tentacles drew nearer, Horace wrapped himself in a cocoon of pure Shinar and braced for the impact. He blinked, and a rush of movement seized him.

  He was standing once more in the ruins. The dream was over, though his heart beat madly. Legs shaking, he stood in the broken stone archway looking out across the desert. A cold wind washed over him, ruffling his clothes. The only light came from the half-moon, hanging low over the drifting dunes. An entire day had passed?

  “We thought ourselves civilized.”

  Horace tensed as the woman appeared beside him. She, too, was looking out over the plains. “An empire steeped in sorcery, as close to the gods as mortals could become. But we were ruled by pride. We battled for dominance over each other with armies and trade, and finally with all the arcane powers at our disposal.”

  She gestured at the derelict city. “This is a testament to our zeal. And our folly. In the end, it did not matter who was more powerful. All that mattered was that we destroyed ourselves. All that we had created turned to dust. Once, I thought the pain would fade with time. Now I know better. Time only makes the loss more unbearable.”

  “You were really here,” Horace said, finally believing her.

  “Shall I tell you a tale?” she asked, her voice turning slightly wistful. “Of a girl who discovered she had tremendous power at her fingertips. She had a dream that her power could unite the warring cities and bring about a new age of peace. But, unbeknownst to her, the very power that fueled her campaign of conquest was simultaneously fraying the fabric between the worlds. When the Great Ones entered our world, it was at her invitation.”

  Horace recalled a passage from the Maganu Book of the Dead.

  Seven are the Lords of the Abyss,

  Seven the evil fiends who tear at the souls of men.

  Seven are the steps on the ladder down to the underworld,

  Seven the watchers at the Gates of Death.

  Mulcibar had been studying that tome right before he was abducted by Lord Astaptah. “Seven are the Lords of the Abyss . . .” he whispered.

  “Indeed,” the woman said. “Seven great lords presiding over countless hordes of evil servants. They have ever sought to return to this world and reestablish their ancient dominion.”

  “But you pushed them back?”

  She nodded, her gaze cast far off into the distance. “Yes. Eventually and at great cost. When the last invader had been banished back to the Outside, we repaired the tear in the veil as best we could, but what was left was no longer worth calling an empire. Our people were easy prey for the Akeshians, who swept in and seized these lands.”

  Horace could still feel the resonance of the illusionary battle, like a dark blot on the edge of his vision. “That seems to be a common tale in this land. Someone rises up to conquer, and they cause untold misery to everyone around them.”

  “Power always brings the risk of corruption, Horace. Since the beginning of time, mankind has worshipped two primordial forces.” She held up her hands. “The light that creates, and the darkness that destroys.”

  The woman brought her hands together, palm to palm. “They are forever joined, and forever in conflict. Order against chaos. The sun and the serpent. The Great Ones come from a realm of pure destruction, and they seek to return the cosmos to that nothingness. I suspect you have felt their influence in the back of your mind. Watching you.”

  He remembered the presence that had haunted him in Erugash, the feeling that someone or something was monitoring him.

  “You made a choice,” she continued. “Not to embrace their chaos. In doing so, you broke free of their influence and set yourself against them.”

  Horace shook his head. “I was just protecting myself. I’m not part of this war.”

  The woman’s face was perfectly smooth like the finest porcelain. “You are, whether you wish it or not. A master of destruction has arisen, and so the universe requires a master of creation to balance the scales.”

  The chill Horace had been feeling pierced straight through his chest. He knew right away whom she meant. “Astaptah. So he is alive.”

  “He has worn many names over the ages. You need to beware of him, Horace, for he is your match and more in every way.”

  He thought back to everything he’d learned about the former queen’s vizier. The storm machine, the way he’d hidden behind Byleth, building his power over the years. “So how can I stop him?”

  “I have already told you. The knowledge resides inside you. You must face it, or fail.”

  “And what if I fail?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Darkness returns to the world and extinguishes the light. All that you cherish will be eradicated.”

  Those words rested heavily on his mind. He could admit to himself he was afraid. Not just of facing Astaptah again but of the darkness that lay inside him, nestled against his heart like a blood-bloated tick. It had been lodged there ever since the day he lost his family. Every time he used his magic to fight or kill, that old pain flared up again, suffused with rage. How could he fight Astaptah and his own heart at the same time? But if he didn’t, he knew what would happen. As much as he wanted to pass it off as a delusion, he had felt the presence of those vast entities beyond the veil. It may have been a dream, but he couldn’t get those images out of his head.

  “All right,” he said. “How do I start?”

  “As with everything,” she said with a smile. “At the beginning.”

  The landscape changed again, and Horace’s stomach dropped as a circle of tall stone walls rose around them, topped by tiers of empty seats. It was a perfect replica of the grand arena at Erugash. He half-expected to hear the roar of the crowd. The woman stood behind the retaining wall above him, just a few steps beneath the vacant royal box.

  “What is this?” he called up to her.

  “Clear your mind.” Her voice filled the arena. “Find your center and let it guide you.”

  He tried to do as she suggested, but it was difficult to concentrate after all he had seen and heard today, not to mention their new surroundings. He took a deep breath and held it. His qa opened naturally, and the zoana surged into him, filling him with its sweet power.

  The sand swirled around him, forming several sinkholes. Horace backed away as four man-shaped figures of craggy earth crawled out of the ground. They came toward him with lumbering strides. Calling forth the Imuvar domination, Horace split it into four streams of hardened air and struck the rock men, all at the same time,
with a blow to their chests. Two of them collapsed into piles of grown rubble at once. The other two required additional smashing to render them inoperable.

  Horace looked up at the woman. She showed not the slightest recognition of his success. Wearing a neutral expression, she lifted a hand. “The adversary’s resources are inexhaustible. If you defeat one army, another rises to takes its place.”

  Horace wondered if the woman was referring to the horde of undead that had attacked the rebel camp. The ground rumbled, and a dozen more rock men crawled from the depths. Not sure what the woman wanted from him, Horace drew forth more power and demolished them one by one. As a wave of new arrivals climbed out of the ground on the far side of the arena, Horace changed his tactics. He used a combination of fire and water to superheat the moisture inside the rock creatures. They exploded in clusters of two and three. Yet, as fast as he destroyed the earthen constructs, more rose to take their place.

  “You must look with more than your eyes, Horace,” the woman said. “The zoana is the weft of the cosmos’s fabric. Visualize it and see what lies within.”

  Horace tried to do as she said while he continued to detonate the advancing creatures. He extended his Sight to his opponents and saw the power coursing through them. Pure zoana made up the framework of their stony bones and sinew.

  “Look at the vertices of their construction,” the woman instructed.

  Horace used a gust of air to shove back a nearby rock man as he focused. There, at the joints of the magical framework of each creature, he saw tiny motes of Shinar.

  “All things, great and small, are bound together in the void,” the woman said. “Use the positive aspect of your power to unravel them.”

  Another creature lunged for Horace. He was so wrapped up in what he was seeing he almost didn’t notice the rock man grabbing for him with its huge, amorphous paws. Horace stepped back to escape, tripped, and fell on his ass. His vision of the rock men’s inner workings wavered for a moment. Then he saw what to do. He untied the Shinar bindings holding his assailant together. As easy as snapping his fingers, the creature fell apart in a shower of fine grit. With a quick glance, Horace did the same with the rest of the rock men, destroying them in an instant.