Soulwoven

by Jeff Seymour

  Sherdu’il, Ryse thought. The city of the dragon.

  A flimsy rope bridge stretched across the gorge between the city and the cliff top she stood upon.

  Ryse heard hard breathing behind her.

  Quay, the last to finish the climb.

  “Ready?” the prince asked. His voice was hoarse.

  Ryse followed him to the boulder and tried to ignore the cold that was creeping up her limbs.

  Something felt wrong.

  She opened her eyes to the River, and her breath caught between her lungs and the sky.

  The flow of souls into Sherdu’il was astonishing. The tiny orbs poured over the mountains. They swept in from the clouds. They ran through the valleys and climbed up their walls.

  The cavern at the city’s crown sucked them down like a drunken man slurping his beer.

  The soulflow pressed against Ryse and begged to be used. Even the weakest soulweaver would be powerful in conditions like that. For someone like Tsu’min, or the Duennin—

  “You see it?” Leramis whispered. He was facing the city, puffing staccato bursts of cloud into the air. “It’s like another set of heart dragons, bigger than the rest. A more powerful draw.”

  “There are no more heart dragons,” said Tsu’min.

  The Sh’ma stood a few feet from the boulder, arms crossed tightly over his chest. The hood on his cloak was thrown back. His eyes looked lost in their own depths, buried somewhere a thousand miles or years from where and when the rest of his body was.

  “It’s a wall that draws the souls,” Tsu’min said. “A wall like black glass, sixty feet wide and thirty feet high. It sits at the back of an underground chamber.”

  Ryse watched the wind tug at Tsu’min’s cloak. Next to her, Cole and Dil shivered. Litnig looked as gray as a ghost. Leramis rocked from foot to foot.

  Keep peace… Ryse thought.

  “Behind it,” said the Sh’ma, “the worst of Yenor sits outside of this world, waiting for someone to call upon it.”

  Tsu’min clutched a green bead that hung from his wrist.

  “Sh’nag i’neth,” he whispered.

  Ryse walked behind him into the shadows of the city of the dragon.

  Keep peace…

  She prayed as she walked.

  But nothing happened.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Quay felt tired, and ill, and weak.

  Sherdu’il’s northern staircase slipped by beneath his feet. A warm, sickly wind howled out of the cavern at its head. The snow-capped summit of the mountain soared several thousand feet above, buttressed by a pyramid of dark rock. Below, the city of the Duennin tumbled toward the gorge and a rope bridge that swayed nauseatingly in his memories.

  The others, climbing in front of Quay, looked as debilitated as he felt. The prince had caught up to Cole and Litnig several times and had to wait, panting, for the brothers to resume the climb. Len’s face was gray. Everyone but Tsu’min was breathing hard.

  They were less than sixty feet from the cavern and whatever lay inside.

  A black wall—

  The dragon’s face flashed through Quay’s mind. He told himself to think rationally.

  But it wasn’t working.

  Two swords given to him by the Sh’ma swung from his left hip. They should’ve made him feel better. Swords were the birthright of any Prince of Eldan. The weapons had earned his house its kingdom again and again and again. The ones at his hip were made of gray steel. They were light, expertly balanced, sharp enough to split a blade of grass. He’d tested them.

  They were swords to make a king.

  But Quay couldn’t shake the feeling that they were useless and the battle ahead was already lost.

  He eyed Tsu’min. The Sh’ma was climbing smoothly at the head of the group. His shoulder wrap fluttered and snapped in green, brown, black, and olive polychromy behind him.

  The Sh’ma enter battle only when the outcome is certain, Quay’s father had once told him.

  But the prince thought of the Sh’ma he’d killed at the edge of the White Forest, and he wondered if that was really true.

  We’re all going to die here, he thought. I’m in over my head.

  He looked at the people who’d followed him over hundreds of miles, through hells he’d never imagined he would bring upon them.

  Run away, he wanted to tell them. There’s nothing we can do.

  But in his mind he saw his city burning.

  And he said nothing.

  Quay reached the top of the stairs. Ahead of him, the cave’s mouth loomed smoky, as large as the wall of Tsu’min’s description and easily big enough to fit the dragon Quay had seen when he closed his eyes. The cavern floor angled steeply down from it into darkness below.

  The others were waiting inside. Except for Tsu’min, they looked pale and afraid.

  In the depths of Quay’s memories, a voice whispered, Always be kind‫.

  Quay put a hand on Cole’s shoulder and squeezed. He nodded to Dil and Litnig. He motioned for Ryse and Leramis to follow him.

  And he walked to Tsu’min.

  “You can feel them?” the Sh’ma asked.

  “Feel who?” he replied.

  “The enemy,” Ryse said from his right shoulder. Her eyes glowed white and watery in the smoke.

  “There are six of them,” added Leramis. The necromancer was sweating. “D’Orin Threi, Soren Goldguard, Crixine, Eshan, and two I don’t recognize. I—”

  “I’ll deal with those two,” Tsu’min said. “The rest are yours.”

  The Sh’ma’s eyes swept over the others, and Quay’s followed them. His gaze settled on Litnig longer than it did on anyone else.

  Cole’s brother looked exhausted. He was leaning on a glowing bastard sword made of the same swimming steel as the weapons of the Sh’ma.

  “The two Duennin are the only ones of the six with the power to summon the dragon,” Tsu’min said. “Your task is to disrupt them. You won’t defeat them. Don’t try. Simply keep them distracted long enough for me to get to them.” He pulled two flat blades from sheaths hidden beneath his cloak and slid them into matching rings around his forearms. Quay heard a click as they locked into place. They began to glow dull red.

  “Ready your weapons,” said Tsu’min. Bloody shadows washed over his face.

  He walked forward.

  And the Prince of Eldan followed.

  ***

  The sword in Litnig’s hands glowed bright white. Smoke clogged his nostrils. The air pressed against his skin. The rock beneath him was slick, sharp, and steep, and the cave around it was so deep a black that its darkness was almost tangible.

  The whole place reminded him of the black clouds in his dream. He felt like he was trying to light a bank of fog with a candle.

  A sword, he thought glumly. Why the hell did they leave me a sword? And why’s it glowing?

  The weapon had been waiting for him at the bottom of the Sh’ma’s canoe.

  Just swing it like a club, Cole had told him.

  Somehow, Litnig doubted it would be that easy.

  Litnig picked his way over jagged rock between Cole and Len. The air was warm. The floor was wet. His palms were sweating already.

  A part of him thought that he and the others might reach the bottom of the cave and find the dragon already waiting, or that the Duennin would kill them from the shadows before he even realized what had happened.

  A part of him almost wanted that.

  But the rest of him knew that the Duennin would be waiting for them. Waiting for him. They’d waited for three months, even if he wasn’t sure why. Surely they’d wait a little longer.

  Litnig twisted his hands experimentally around the grip of the sword. It felt strange—too long and too heavy. He was still having difficulty breathing through his nose, and he wondered if the Duennin had broken it in Soulth’il.

  He was beginning to regret not asking Ryse or Leramis to fix him up.

  An image of Ryse with her lips pressed against
the necromancer’s squeezed into his mind. The dark walkers’ anger stirred with it, deep in his chest.

  The feeling grew stronger as he walked into the cavern.

  What will be will be, he told himself, and what was is past.

  The angle of the slope grew shallower, then flattened out. Litnig couldn’t see the sides of the cave, but he had the feeling that they’d widened. Water dripped from the ceiling. Puddles splashed beneath his feet. He saw no light but that of his sword and the blades on Tsu’min’s wrists.

  Until he spotted something glinting ahead in the darkness.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t so much reflecting light as letting the tiniest bit escape while it devoured the rest. Litnig strained his eyes. He wanted to see what it was.

  Four lights kindled in the deeps ahead.

  One of them was white, like his own. Another was a liquid orange-red. The third glowed violet, and the fourth shone pale, gentle blue. They came from weapons in hands—long swords, short swords, a poleaxe.

  The rainbow aurora lit six people standing in a cloud of smoke that seemed to emanate from somewhere much deeper in the cave. The man and the woman with the red eyes took up the center of the group. The blond necromancer Litnig had fought in Du Fenlan stood next to them. So did a strong-looking, dark-skinned Aleani with thick dreadlocks and heavy eyebrows. The fifth and sixth people were wrapped in shadow.

  Sh’ma, Litnig thought. They had athletic builds. One of them looked male. The other looked female.

  Behind them, stretching from darkness to darkness, was a gargantuan wall of crystal.

  It looked like the slabs that had bound the heart dragons, but it was black instead of blue, and it was thicker, deeper somehow. And inside—

  Litnig swallowed. He couldn’t pick out a single shape in the void within the wall, but something in him knew what was there.

  It was the hole in the world from which Sherduan would emerge.

  Litnig tightened his grip on the sword. His arms shook. He held the glowing weapon in front of him and tried to keep it steady.

  “Ramith. Miuri,” said Tsu’min beside him. “’Ta sh’man yrsh’sha.”

  “’Ta sza uash’e’kua’sha,” replied one of the Sh’ma. Its voice filled the cavern.

  Litnig spread his feet to shoulder width.

  Relax, he told himself. Breathe. Relax. Let the fight come to you. Keep your eyes open. Stay smart.

  A voice next to him boomed, “D’Orin! Eler tyaler syorchub! Eut ek idt el rekb!”

  And then Len Heramsun sprinted toward the Aleani by the wall, and Litnig followed just to be moving. He screamed a wordless battle cry. His feet pounded the rock. The rage of the walkers blossomed in his chest.

  He headed straight for the woman with the red eyes, and Cole was next to him, and Dil was next to him, and suddenly Tsu’min was in front of all of them, and the world was exploding in color and sound and motion, and Litnig no longer had time to think.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Len’s legs thundered. His feet splashed through vile puddles. His body burned with the last untapped reserves of a lifetime of energy.

  Directly in front of him for the first time in thirty years stood his son.

  D’Orin’s eyes flashed white in the dim light. Black dreadlocks trailed down his back, and he carried two axes. His skin was the same dark shade as his grandmother’s. His nose was pierced with a wedding band that had been missing from Len’s father’s hand when the body had been found. His teeth were yellow with the stain of mudleaf and filed to points.

  All of him had been wasted. All of him had been perverted, stolen, used against its intended purposes.

  D’Orin could’ve spitted Len with soulweaving from afar.

  But he didn’t.

  The crystal ax of the Sh’ma felt awkward and heavy in Len’s hands, but he’d fought with worse. He didn’t waste one iota of momentum. He swung hard and fast, knew he would miss, knew D’Orin would step back and strike low. He spun away from his son’s first strike, ducked under the second—

  The dance began, and his body moved automatically. The light around him and his son flashed and strobed, there and gone again, bright and lost in turns. He heard the clash of metal on metal. The others shouted and screamed.

  It didn’t matter. The children and the Sh’ma were going to die. He was going to die.

  The only question was whether or not he would take D’Orin Threi with him.

  His son hadn’t forgotten the dance. D’Orin’s axes flashed through the light and the darkness. His grin shone yellow and blue and red and violet and violent and mad.

  Len darted forward and backward. He ducked. He spun. He swung. He pivoted. The dance swirled around the shadow-ridden cave. Twice, Len nearly caught his son with the ax. Twice, D’Orin slid out of the way and smiled.

  He’s toying with me, Len thought.

  For most, Len was a dangerous person to toy with.

  Once, he would’ve been so to his son as well.

  Len’s arms tired. His legs slowed. His lungs struggled to draw in air.

  Please, he whispered to whatever power might be listening. Please, let me do this one thing.

  One of D’Orin’s strikes nearly hit him in the calf. He stumbled and fell. His ax clattered from his hands.

  The fall was enough. His son jumped on top of him, axes forgotten, and let his fists fly.

  Len tried to block the blows. He hid behind his hands and his forearms. He rolled and twisted and bucked his hips.

  But he couldn’t keep up, and he couldn’t escape.

  A fist hit his temple, then his cheek, then his chin, then his forehead. His skin swelled and bled. His skull screamed. His ears rang. The blows fell like rain, and Len clung to consciousness, praying that D’Orin would make a mistake and he’d be able to do what he’d sworn to do.

  He lost track of how many times his son hit him. The world spun.

  And then the storm of blows ended.

  A gurgle pierced the ringing in Len’s ears. D’Orin’s weight went rigid.

  Len peered between his forearms.

  The white blade of a glowing sword was sticking out of his son’s chest.

  D’Orin’s eyes were wide. His arms twitched. His mouth hung open.

  Len reached behind him and found the handle of an ax. He swung it with all his might once, then a second time. Blood spattered his chest.

  And then everything was over.

  The headless corpse that had once been his son toppled down next to him.

  Len rolled away from D’Orin’s body, gathered his feet, and staggered up to one knee. His lips were swelling. His forehead felt enormous. Blood poured from his chin.

  But it was over. D’Orin was dead. Len was alive.

  Yenor’s eyes, he was alive.

  He swayed to his feet and opened his bleeding lips to thank Litnig, the others—the whole world—from the bottom of his soul. The spin of the cave slowed down. His eyes managed to focus.

  His heart froze.

  The sword in front of him wasn’t Litnig’s. The face waiting in the darkness behind it wasn’t that of an ecstatic, sweaty young man flush with victory.

  It was the face of a blonde Duennin woman whose eyes glowed red in the darkness.

  And behind her, coiled below the great crystal wall, was the serpentine, black-scaled mass of the dragon.

  Len’s stomach rose into his throat.

  The long, sleek body of Sherduan twisted over itself in intestinal folds. It rested on four lizardlike legs the size of tree trunks. Its black claws were as big as Len’s whole body. A phosphorescent orange mane ran down its spine, and its face looked like a cross between that of a wolf and a snake.

  Len felt sick if he tried to look straight at it, as though the world was bending around it and his eyes didn’t want to watch.

  It smiled at him. Saliva glistened on its teeth.

  Len’s legs wobbled. His whole body screamed at him to turn and run, but he couldn’t.

  T
he dragon didn’t speak to him. It didn’t need to. He knew what it would have said.

  I have come.

  The ringing in Len’s ears subsided. He heard shouting. Hazily, he became aware of motion in the cave. The others were breaking and running up the tunnel. The black-haired Duennin with the orange sword was fighting against his former comrades. The blonde Duennin was standing motionless in front of the dragon and smiling.

  Blood dripped from her white blade.

  D’Orin— Len thought. His son had been murdered. His death hadn’t been an execution but a cold-blooded betrayal.

  Len had failed.

  He’d failed his son, and he’d failed his people, and he’d failed the world.

  There was nothing left to live for.

  Len Heramsun fell to his knees and waited for the end.

  “Run!” someone shouted, but he didn’t want to run. He knelt in front of the dragon, and he listened to the thunderbellow hiss of its breath, and he knew that all was lost.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder.

  He tried to break free, but the hand was insistent and strong. It slipped under his armpit and yanked him to his feet, and then it grabbed him by his collar and turned him and dragged him away.

  Len looked up into the pale, sweat-covered face of Litnig Jin. His legs began to move again.

  Litnig let go of him and took off toward the mouth of the tunnel.

  Len stumbled after him.

  He ran, like the others.

  He ran, but he asked himself, Why?

  FIFTY-NINE

  Litnig’s heart raced. The sick tang of fear filled his mouth.

  He ran as fast as his long legs would carry him.

  But the cavern slope was steep. By the time he burst from the cave’s mouth and started down the steps that lay beyond it, his head was spinning. His chest burned. His breath had grown ragged. He careened from side to side.

  He couldn’t see the others. He didn’t know if they were in front of him or behind him, or if they were lost or safe.

  And he couldn’t bring himself to stop and find out.