In the Claws of the Tiger

by James Wyatt

  “There is another possibility,” Mathas said. “Perhaps the Fleshrender is overconfident. It’s possible that it never considered that we might escape. Maybe we’ve already slain what few guards could be spared.”

  “I prefer that possibility,” Janik said, “and for that reason, I doubt it.”

  Dania stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, smiling. “Sometimes, Janik, the worst possibility is not the one that proves true.”

  “Maybe so, but I find it’s generally better to prepare for the worst. Unless you’ve got information you haven’t shared, I’ll brace myself.”

  “See for yourself,” Dania said, rounding a corner. They stopped before a towering stone door that yawned into an enormous vaulted chamber. An elaborate tracery of lines and symbols writhed over the floor, inlaid with a dull silver but echoing the lines of flame in the pinnacle chamber. A massive stone block stood at the center of the room, carved with snarling tiger faces—a motif also repeated in the carvings on the walls. A large stone tablet leaned against this block, which Janik presumed to be an altar. Runic symbols were carved into the surface of the tablet.

  The ceiling gave off a dim red light that illuminated every corner, but darkness seemed to hang in the air despite that light, as if the shadows had substance. A palpable presence was in the chamber, brooding and malicious.

  No giants waited and no zakyas threatened. Maija stood a few paces in front of the stone altar, her fingers twisted in the gestures of a spell. Krael faced her, snarling, his flail swinging slowly in his hand. The warforged lay motionless on the floor, cut in half at the waist. An enormous sword, looking like it was made of pure midnight, hovered in the air near Krael, dancing around him and occasionally lashing out to cut him.

  Janik realized that Krael looked very weak. The magical sword bit and sliced him faster than his undead body could regenerate, and Maija’s spells had taken a toll as well. Janik wasn’t sure how much longer Krael would last, and he noticed in himself a strange urge to rush forward and help his old enemy—help him defeat Maija.

  “Dania,” Janik said quietly, “it’s time. Whatever power you have to fight this thing, I sure hope it works.”

  Though Janik had spoken in a mere whisper, Krael heard it, for he turned his head to glance at the doorway. In that instant, Maija completed her spell, engulfing the vampire in a blinding burst of sinister, red-black flame.

  When the blaze of hellfire subsided, Krael was gone.

  DEATH

  CHAPTER 19

  Janik, my love,” Maija said with a sneer, “how kind of you to come and offer yourself in sacrifice.”

  The floor rumbled as though the fiend imprisoned in the ziggurat were stirring, restive in his bonds. Janik’s eyes grew wide as he looked around for any sign that Dhavibashta might be breaking free.

  “Janik,” Dania whispered, “there is still time. I need you all to keep her busy, and we need to weaken her if I’m going to force it out. Go!”

  Janik needed no further encouragement. Drawing his sword as he ran, he closed the distance to Maija but came up short as the midnight sword slashed through the air in front of him, missing his throat by less than a hand’s breadth.

  “Hang on, Janik!” Mathas called from near the door. “I’ll see if I can eliminate that sword!” Janik heard him chanting, but watched Maija’s mouth curl into a wicked smile.

  “I don’t think so, dear Mathas,” Maija said, thrusting her hand forward as if to punch, launching an invisible force that sent Mathas crashing against the wall behind him. With the wind knocked out of him, Mathas couldn’t continue his spell. Janik brought his short sword up to block the slashing arc of Maija’s magical blade. The clash of the ebony force and Janik’s steel sent black sparks crackling into the air, stinging Janik’s eyes.

  Dania advanced just behind Janik, moving with caution, her sword flaring with holy power in her hand. Auftane came up next to her, holding his mace in both hands but looking a little unsure what to do.

  “Don’t hold back, Auftane!” Dania shouted, sensing his hesitation. “At least not until I can get the spirit out of her!”

  “Cast me out of this vessel, Dania?” Maija said, an expression of genuine surprise crossing her face for an instant. “That seems unlikely.”

  With a quick gesture, she directed her sword away from Janik to slash at Dania, catching her off guard and making a long, shallow gash in her upper arm.

  “And extremely inconvenient,” Maija added.

  Janik, no longer threatened by the sword, tumbled forward past Maija, coming out of his roll right behind her. He aimed a fierce jab at her lower back—a potentially crippling blow, if placed just right. At the last instant, Maija turned slightly and his eyes met hers.

  So many nights he had gazed into those warm pools of brown. Her eyes had always been windows to him, letting him see everything that was in her heart, anything that troubled her—and all the love she held for him. Was it some trick of the rakshasa that he thought he saw that love still? Or was Maija showing herself to him despite the Fleshrender’s control?

  His attack lost its strength and glanced off an invisible force surrounding her body. He stood helpless, transfixed by her eyes.

  “Janik,” she murmured softly, “heart of my heart …”

  “Janik, no!” Dania screamed. The first thing he noticed were Dania’s inhuman, quicksilver eyes, but then he saw the flash of fire in Maija’s hand. He leaped backward, throwing himself onto the floor as another blast of flame roared over him, searing him with its heat though it failed to engulf him. He landed hard but kept rolling until he could get his feet under him again. Maija’s fiendish cackle echoed louder than the blast of fire.

  Auftane made a wide circle around Maija and hurried over to Janik. “Let me help you,” he said, one of his curing wands in his hand. Janik saw Mathas, leaning weakly against the far wall, launch a bolt of lightning from his fingers toward Maija.

  Janik gaped in horror as the lightning forked to pass harmlessly around Maija. With a flick of her wrist, she deflected part of the spell back at Mathas. The lightning crackled up and down his body. He fell to the floor and lay still.

  “Help Mathas, damn it,” Janik barked at the dwarf. He had better be alive, Maija, he thought, or … or what?

  Or I’ll never forgive myself for bringing him here, he thought. He shifted his grip on his sword and advanced warily toward Maija again.

  “So you’re playing the cleric, are you, dwarf?” Maija growled, and she thrust her palm in Auftane’s direction, sending him sprawling on his face. The wand clattered across the floor. “Tinkering with the power of the gods?” She emphasized her last word by slamming her fist into her open hand. Auftane convulsed once with the force of an unseen blow, then lay still.

  In that instant, Janik managed to land one solid blow on Maija, his sword jabbing into her shoulder. Her cry of pain sounded like the roar of a zakya, but she ignored him, turning her attention to Dania instead.

  “Now you, Dania,” she snarled. “I always knew you lusted after my Janik.”

  “It wasn’t lust,” Dania said, still on the defensive against the wildly swinging sword. “Not love, either.”

  Janik cocked an eyebrow as he managed to nick Maija’s other shoulder with his blade. Maija gestured dismissively at him, knocking him back.

  “The truth is, Maija,” Dania said, “I wanted to be you.”

  Maija stepped backward at that, making Janik wonder whether some remnant of Maija’s own will expressed her surprise that way, or whether Dania’s response had taken the Fleshrender aback. In any case, it was the distraction that Dania needed. With one mighty blow, she smashed her sword into Maija’s dancing magical blade, shattering it into tiny shards of darkness that melted into the floor. Then she extended her arm straight out in front of her, the tip of her sword leveled at Maija’s throat.

  “Out,” Dania said.

  Janik wasn’t sure what he had expected, but that wasn’t it. Some elaborate ri
tual, perhaps, or a lengthy prayer invoking the power of the Silver Flame. But not this, just a simple command—spoken with such authority that if Janik could have stepped out of his own skin, he would have. Dania’s voice echoed in the chamber, resonating with power.

  Maija stood transfixed, her eyes locked with Dania’s. Slowly, Dania’s sword arm lowered, but both of them were otherwise motionless. Janik stood helpless, watching as silent conflict raged between the two women.

  Silence settled on the room. In the stillness, Janik felt some resonance of the battle he was witnessing, and he realized what had failed to sink in before: Dania was no less possessed than Maija. At least four wills were involved in this battle, with Dania and the spirit inhabiting her body pitted against the Fleshrender and the far greater evil that rumbled in the earth beneath the place. Janik wondered whether Maija’s will played any part at all, or if she was just the battleground, the piece of land these titanic forces were fighting over.

  Janik had spent months arguing with Dania, but he had to admit that she had been right. This was different than the Last War. He had served Breland, even described his work for the crown as the true conflict, from which the massed armies and bloody battlefields were a mere distraction. But all his intrigues and exploits were no more than a shadow.

  The real war was being fought right in front of him, and it was a war Janik didn’t know how to fight. He shifted his sword in his hand, suddenly aware of its irrelevance.

  The floor of the cavern began to shake—the merest tremor at first, not enough to break the silence. But it grew, until first the stone tablet rattled against the altar, then Dania’s armor softly clanked, then the room rumbled. Trickles of dust started falling from the ceiling. Janik’s body tensed for action, but he had no idea what to do.

  The rumbling stopped, and Maija cried out and convulsed.

  A shadow seemed to seep from her body, a smear of darkness without form or feature. It slowly separated from Maija and then sloughed her off as if stepping out of a robe. Maija slumped to the floor, discarded.

  Dania didn’t move. Her hands hung at her sides, her sword dangling from one and her shield from the other. She didn’t lift either as the dark spirit slid forward, engulfed her—

  And melded into her.

  “No!” Janik cried.

  As the darkness sank into Dania’s skin, Janik saw a spasm of pain cross her face, and she dropped to her knees, her mouth stretched in a silent howl. She drew a long, tortured breath, then began wrestling her face and body under control.

  But whose control? Janik had no idea whether the Fleshrender, the argent spirit that inhabited Dania, or Dania herself was the will that moved Dania’s body. Whichever it was, it moved her body with agonizing slowness—lifting one knee off the floor and planting the foot, dragging her arms forward to rest on the raised knee, shifting the weight forward and dragging the other foot until the body stood erect. Dania’s face was calm except for a muscle twitching wildly beside one eye.

  Janik stood tensed in a defensive stance, his sword gripped firmly between him and Dania. He watched carefully for a sign of who was in control and what her intentions were.

  Slowly, Dania’s head lowered and turned to the right. Then her right arm rose, the sword hanging limply from her hand.

  “Janik,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  She extended her arm, holding the sword out toward Janik and lifting its point toward him. He stepped back.

  “Take … take my sword,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Take it!” Her voice was regaining strength.

  Janik sheathed his sword in one smooth motion. Hesitantly, he stepped forward and lifted the sword from Dania’s fingers. His hands tingled where they touched it, but the sensation was not unpleasant—certainly not the biting pain Krael had endured.

  “Now, Janik,” she said. “Do it now.”

  Janik’s eyes widened. “Do what?” he asked, knowing and yet dreading the answer.

  “Kill me,” Dania said.

  “No!”

  “Kill me!” she repeated. “And the Fleshrender dies with me!”

  Her eyes met his, and he realized with a start that they were again their normal dusky blue. They pleaded with him in a way her voice could not manage, even as one eye twitched, reflecting the struggle that raged inside her.

  Her words at the pinnacle of the temple came back to him. “Do not let your heart be troubled, Janik. I have chosen this path, and I am not afraid.” He had not understood at the time, but now he grasped her meaning. She had known that this was how she would defeat the Fleshrender.

  And she had been counting on Janik to do it, to kill her. His fingers shifted on the unfamiliar grip of her sword.

  “Janik,” she said, gaining a little more control over her voice. “Back in Karrnath, I swore an oath by everything holy that my sword would bring an end to this. Please—” her voice was a desperate gasp—“fulfill my oath!” A spasm of pain passed across her face, a sign of the struggle for control that raged within her.

  Janik lifted the sword and stepped back a little, testing the heft of the weapon, thinking about swinging it. For a moment, he almost convinced himself he could do it.

  Then he saw her eyes again. The sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the stone floor, sparking motes of silver light.

  “I can’t, Dania.” His gaze fell on Maija, lying on the floor like a discarded robe. “I can’t do it.”

  “Janik!” Dania cried, but he turned away.

  As he turned, he saw a small cloud of shadow detach itself from the ambient gloom of the chamber. It quickly congealed into a human form, then Krael stood before him. The vampire ducked past Janik to pick up Dania’s sword.

  Silver light flared as Krael’s hand touched the hilt, and the smell of burning flesh reached Janik’s nose.

  The vampire’s voice was choked with pain. “I told you I’d return the favor if I could, Dania,” he said, grimacing in agony as the sword continued to sear his hand.

  Dania did not move to defend herself. Janik felt paralyzed. He thought a flicker of a smile crossed Dania’s face, and she began to nod—or else bowed her head in acceptance.

  Then Krael swung the sword with all his strength, cutting deep into Dania’s shoulder. Krael screamed along with Dania’s cry, smoke and silver fire surrounding his hand.

  Janik’s heart was suddenly a lump of stone in his chest, and he couldn’t seem to draw a breath.

  “No.” His lips formed the words, but he had no breath to give them.

  Krael dropped the sword and stepped back. Dania was drenched in blood but her body was slow to fall to the ground. A soft white light surrounded her, a contrast to the shadow that emerged as she fell.

  Janik’s heart pounded again, a brief terror seizing him as he saw the Fleshrender take shape before him. The spirit was clearly visible, like a zakya with ebon fur. It was a black flame raging, shadow streaming from its insubstantial form like a radiant darkness. Even as the life ebbed out of Dania, Janik could see the life pouring out of the fiend, for it bore the same mortal wound in its shoulder. As Dania slumped to her knees and then, lifeless, onto the floor, the fiend staggered away from her, falling to the floor a few steps away.

  As Janik continued to stare, the fiend’s body dispersed into wisps of darkness and was gone.

  RECONCILIATION

  CHAPTER 20

  Janik fell to his knees and stared blankly around the room. Mathas was near the door, slumped against the wall, his head lolling to one side. Auftane lay on his face halfway between Janik and Mathas. Maija’s crumpled form was close, and Dania lay in a spreading pool of blood. The serpent torc was still coiled around her neck, and the eyes seemed to stare up at him.

  He looked over his shoulder at Krael.

  “What was that you said about returning the favor?” he said. His own voice surprised him—it was flat, emotionless. He felt a sea of rage and pain churning inside him, but managed someho
w to float on its surface, not letting himself feel it. He merely observed it, noted it, and tried to keep from collapsing on the floor.

  “She helped kill Havoc,” Krael said, “and freed me from his control. And I freed her.” Krael’s voice was shaking as he cradled his wounded hand to his chest.

  “Then you accomplished a great deal with that one blow,” Janik said. “You repaid your debt to her, fulfilled Dania’s oath—which I presume you prompted, one way or another—and you got your revenge against the Fleshrender for making you a vampire.”

  “It’s been quite a day.”

  “It certainly has.”

  “What about you, Janik? Is it time for your revenge?”

  “What?” Janik said.

  “Aren’t you going to kill me?” the vampire said, his voice growing stronger. “I assume you still loathe me, after all our history, and I did just kill your dearest friend.”

  “So you did,” Janik said, his gaze falling on Dania again. “I find I’ve lost my taste for revenge. Just go, Krael.”

  Krael walked slowly to the door. He peered intently at Auftane as he walked past, and kneeled briefly beside Mathas.

  “Leave him alone, Krael!” Janik called. “Leave before I change my mind.”

  Krael stood and stepped into the doorway, then turned back. “They’re still alive, you know. They need some attention.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Janik … I’m sorry it had to end like this. Dania was a worthy adversary, a woman of spirit and purpose and conviction. I’m … I’m sorry she had to die.”

  Here comes the pain, Janik thought, and he bowed his head so that Krael wouldn’t see the sudden rush of tears.

  When he looked up, Krael was gone.

  It took all his strength to get to his feet. He knelt beside Maija first, fearing the worst despite Krael’s words, and gently rolled her onto her back.

  She looked like she was sleeping—she even made the quiet whimper she used to make when Janik would extricate himself from her arms early in the morning, trying not to wake her. He felt her pulse—strong, slow, and even—and then hesitantly brushed the back of his hand down her cheek. He wanted to stay there, to watch her until she woke up, to be the first thing she saw. But Auftane groaned and twitched, so Janik hurried over to check on the dwarf.