Ka-CRISH.
The sound of the whip cracking was louder than thunder in the room. Loud enough that the sound itself drove dust from the ceiling. Loud enough it seemed it might rend the sky itself.
Loud enough to send Armor to his knees.
Armor's skin could not be harmed – not by normal weapons – but he could be harmed by sound. His ears were sensitive. More sensitive than the ears of others, as he had demonstrated by his reactions to Siren's Gift.
Sword cracked the whip again. Another pulse of power. Another scream from Armor.
She lashed out again.
And Armor moved. Faster than she had ever seen him move before, even though he was screaming, nearly writhing in pain. His huge hand snapped out. And he caught the whip. Her plan to defeat him was over before it had begun.
"NO!"
She screamed. And the scream was not simply frustration that he had thwarted her. It was pain for Scholar's death. It was disappointment in herself, that she had killed so much and saved so little. It was rage at this moment.
It was… power.
The whip caught fire. Armor screamed as it burned even his hand. But he wouldn't let go. Wouldn't give up. And she saw in his eyes: he was not going to let her get away. This fight would have to end in death.
She jerked the whip, a snap that drew the whip backward and sideways at once in a sheet of blue-purple-red-orange flame.
And Armor…
… good Armor…
… honorable Armor…
… fell.
27
The gun was huge. No… that was wrong. Far away it might be huge, but up close Rune realized it was enormous.
Gods, I could fit my leg in that hole.
She shared a quick look with Wind. Wondering if the Cursed One at her side had enough power to get them out of this. Seeing instantly that the other woman was already stretched to her limit.
The tank hung there for a forever moment.
Then the top popped open.
Cloud's head stuck out. Grinning.
The man knows how to smile?
That was almost as surprising as seeing him there in the first place.
Something whizzed past as one of the soldiers below took a shot at them.
The tank re-oriented. This time something much larger whizzed past – going the other way – and an entire company of soldiers dissolved as the tank shot one of its huge missiles at the army below.
She looked back at the tank. Cloud waved them closer.
The air carried them to the war machine. At one point close to the tank the air tingled as though they were passing through something – a static charge of electricity like touching a faulty glo-globe – then they were clinging to the side of the tank.
Cloud disappeared inside the hatch.
They followed.
The inside was more or less a drab metal box. Gray, with a spot for a pilot to sit, a spot that appeared to be for the gunner aim the huge turret atop the tank. There were some odd stains inside the metal box – blood and black and gray. Rune didn't ask about them. Didn't want to know.
Arrow was piloting – a simple set of controls that consisted of two sticks for steering and a button for firing the bullets.
He looked back at them with a smile.
"Let's find our friends." The smile turned grim. No one had to ask what he was thinking.
If they're still alive.
28
Sword caught Armor as he fell. One arm ended at the wrist. The other was completely gone – along with much of his chest on that side.
He was himself again – the metal sheen disappeared from his body, his Gift dissipating in death.
He was soft. So soft, surprisingly light.
She was crying.
He touched her with what was left of his arm.
"Don't… weep…." His arm fell away. He brought it back. Curled it around her neck. "I'm sorry. The Chancellor held… my wife's life. I had to fight… or he would have killed her…." His arm fell away again, and this time did not return. "This way… I fulfilled my oath…. My wife… will live…." A tear tracked down his cheek. But he did not look sad. "I was always… going to die, Sword," he said. "Do not cry… my daughter."
And he died.
29
Malal fell deeper and deeper into a place prepared for him.
Going….
Going….
And now…
… completely…
… gone.
30
Smoke felt himself drifting. Disappearing into blood loss and despair.
He saw the priest cut down the Imperial Guard. Saw him fall at the hand of the big soldier.
He saw Sword catch the same man in her arms – the man she had all but killed.
Is now the time? Do I use the Second Gift?
Not yet. Not yet.
But he knew he was dying.
He didn't have long.
31
Sword lay Armor tenderly on the gold-veined marble floor.
She stood.
The Chancellor was staring at her.
"I'm going to kill you," she said.
He laughed.
She swept Armor's sword – never drawn, not in this last fight – from his body. Cast it at the Chancellor with the perfect accuracy only her Gift could allow.
And as the sword flew on its perfect course… the Chancellor changed.
Suddenly, the Chancellor was gone. In his place stood a stunningly beautiful woman, with dark white hair that had a strip of white through it and with blue eyes so deep they took in the whole world at once. She held up her hand, and the sword bounced off the air itself with a flash of purple.
"Would you like to know my name, girl?" said the woman. And in the middle of the sentence, the timber of the voice changed. Subtly at first, then faster. And suddenly she stood not in front of the Chancellor, not in front of the beautiful woman.
She faced Devar.
Devar grinned at her, and for the first time the grin was not helpful, not encouraging. It was a leering, ancient grin. The grin of years ill-spent, of time long-past.
It was, she realized, the grin the Chancellor had just been wearing.
"Devar," she whispered.
He took a step toward her, shaking his head. "No. My name – the name I was given as a Blessed One long decades ago – is Phoenix. My Gift – my Blessing – is to take the Gift of any I kill. And take what life they have left, to add to my own."
He disappeared. Then reappeared a moment later, right beside her. She gasped as a sword appeared with him, buried in her thigh.
"You say you'll kill me?" he said. "Kill me?" He barked an ugly laugh, a hungry laugh, a mad laugh. "How can you kill a God?"
She grabbed the sword. It was a rapier, with a sharp point but a rounded edge. Still, she held it hard enough that blood ran down her palm.
But she was touching a weapon. Her Power pulsed.
She yanked it free. Twisted. Caught. Slashed.
Devar stumbled back just in time to avoid being blinded. He now had a cut the mirror of her own – a thin slash that curved from right eye to the right corner of his mouth.
"How am I going to kill you?" she repeated. "I suppose I do it one piece at a time."
Devar – the Chancellor, Phoenix – looked at her. He disappeared again, and this time he was an old woman. Bent double, with a hump on her back so pronounced it looked like she wore a pack beneath her drab blue cloak.
She smiled.
And Sword fell… fell… fell… and….
Dreamed.
32
The old crone – for she was an old crone, as completely as she was a young man when Devar and a beautiful woman when she posed as the Blessed One who had lived a century ago and had power to put a shield of electrical force over people and objects – walked slowly toward the girl on the floor.
In this body she was Seer. She could see through others' eyes. Could make them believe they were in other p
laces.
Could even send them to important memories of their past.
Sword was in her grip.
She pulled out a sparkling dagger of pure platinum. A ritual dagger she had used as a High Priestess before being cast out of the Temple Faithful for blasphemies and heresies.
It had cut out many a heart.
It would cut out one more.
And yet this was not all, was it? This was not the only sacrifice.
She looked back at Malal – boy-Emperor, nothing-creature – and nodded.
"Begin," she said.
The world thrummed as the boy held aloft his hands. For he, too, was Blessed.
And this moment would be the one that sealed her plan – the Chancellor's plan, Devar's plan, the plan of every life Phoenix held inside him – unto its final triumph.
33
Arrow finally stopped cackling madly when the tank shifted in the air.
He knew that all of his laughter didn't spring from the devastation he was visiting on the Acropolis and the Imperial Army below.
Though, Gods, it did have some fun to it.
Some of the laughter was near-hysterical. Cloud and Wind were looking out slits in the sides of the tank, but none of them had seen anything that would indicate where the rest of their friends might be.
Can they even be alive? Is it possible?
Gods, please let it be so.
Rune was slumped in a corner. Bound by a tight wrap of air, but still fading. If she didn't get some kind of help – and soon – it would be too late for her.
Then the motion came. The tank swung through the air, pitching wildly for a moment.
He thought something had hit them. That the troops below might have figured out how to mimic his and Cloud's trick for destroying not the tank, but the people within.
Then it happened again. And he saw why.
The mountain. Fear – or at least this part of it – was splitting open.
Red spurts of lava flowed upward. Cast themselves into the air like an angry beast too long contained in a prison below the earth.
Men screamed below as the fire consumed them.
The walls of the Acropolis – all of them – fell inward.
Only one place – a building near the edge of the cliff, near the very precipice of Fear – seemed untouched.
Arrow looked at Cloud.
"What do you want to bet they're in there?" he asked.
Cloud nodded.
They flew.
34
She is a girl. She is a little girl. She is a Dream, and the Dream is real.
The Man and the Woman are here. But this time she senses more. Senses motion behind them. People fighting. Suffering come.
The Woman looks at the Man. "I will not leave you," she says.
"But I must stay," he answers.
The Woman reaches for the girl. So does the Man.
The girl sees their hands are bloody.
Another man sweeps her up. He is holding something else. Something he puts down for a moment.
Then he cuts her. Her face.
It hurts.
She cries. Not just for the pain. For the loss.
The man picks her up – and the other burden he carries.
He runs.
Then she is back in the room again. The room with the floors of gold and white.
The Woman is there. Not the Man this time, and that seems –
(wrong this is wrong what's happening where is this what's happening)
– strange, but the girl can't spend too much time thinking on the strangeness of it. The Woman is coming close.
She reaches toward the girl.
She holds a rose. "There, we're safe," she says. "You're safe."
(there is a sound in the distance, a crumbling noise)
The girl looks at the rose.
This does not belong.
This is….
The rose draws near.
It has a thorn.
35
The crone drew back her dagger to strike.
The plan – her plan, his plan, Their plan – was nearly at its end.
She would be a God.
She lunged.
And something hit her.
She looked down. Saw the man, Armor. Not dead. Not quite. With one last movement he had kicked her. Not enough to stop her, but enough to make the attack veer to the side.
Instead of stabbing Sword through the heart, she had merely scraped her arm.
Armor's eyes closed a final time.
36
The thorn scratches her arm.
(distant thunder rolling floor ground trembling)
The thorn draws blood.
So much blood, Mother. Why would you hurt me?
(she nearly falls why would she fall what is happening why is the world turning and twisting atop itself)
Why would you hurt me, Mother?
Because….
The rose draws near again.
Because….
Close.
Because Mother would not hurt me.
Mother is dead.
This is…
37
"… NOT HER YOU'RE NOT HER YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER THIS ISN'T REAL!"
The scream tore her loose. Tore her from the Dream.
Sword found something in her hand. Not her treasured wakizashi, but something like it. Only this blade was not of steel and wood and leather – it was made of Light. Of Gift.
Her Blessing. Her Curse.
She swung the blade. The crone danced away. Still, it cut her. Cut her deep, along a left arm that now dangled loose and lifeless.
Sword closed in on her.
"You're mine, Phoenix," she said.
Then the ground pounded beneath her. She lost her footing. Looked at Malal, who was smiling and looking skyward, lost in some beautiful place that only he understood.
There was still one Guard left. The Captain stood shaking his Emperor, trying to call him out of the trance that captured him.
Part of the ceiling collapsed, revealing an ash-laden sky. A gray sky burnt to orange and red by the earth's very fire.
He's going to kill us. Gods stop him, Malal is going to destroy us all.
The crone laughed. And she was gone again. In her place: a little boy, with curly hair the color of corn. No more than ten Turns, but he, too, held a look of ancient wisdom and corruption in his eyes.
He bent his knees as though preparing to jump.
But he didn't jump.
He flew.
He was going to get away. Phoenix was going to escape.
Sword had no time.
The wakizashi was gone. Now she held a shuriken – a pointed star of light and flame. She threw it. Not at Phoenix – but at Malal.
Forgive me, brother.
He was going to destroy them all. There was no doubt of that, just as there was no time to do anything else.
Malal fell.
And Phoenix continued upward. Now at the ceiling. Nearly gone.
38
Arrow guided the tank. Dodging the cascading lava, moving around new mountain peaks that cast themselves up, glowing and deadly.
The Acropolis was gone. Completely and utterly. The Imperial Army in this place but a memory.
Only one building remained. And even it showed damage: one wall tilting at a mad angle, the ceiling partially collapsed.
They have to be in there. Please be in there.
Gods, please let Sword be there.
He was shocked to realize how much that last mattered.
I never got that walk around the lake.
The lake's gone.
What if she's gone?
Shut up. There are other lakes. We'll find one.
Then, suddenly, all was still. The shaking stopped. The lava began to flow not upward but down again, as though released from whatever force had held it there.
A small figure appeared – floating – through the hole in the roof of the building.
> 39
Again, Sword did not think. Barely heard the screams of the Captain of the Guard behind her, shrieking "My Lord, My Lord" over and over as he shook Malal's still form.
She did not think. She only knew.
He's getting away.
He can't.
He won't.
For Armor. For Sister Prasa, for Brother Scieran, for all of them.
He won't.
She held out a hand. And now she held a meteor hammer: a weapon that, like her katana, came from the easternmost lands of Faith. It was a single long chain forged of blue links so bright they could barely be seen, over twenty feet long, with a weighted ball at the end of it that could be used to strike.
Or ensnare.
She cast it. It wrapped around the foot of the boy. He cried out. But flew.
And she flew with him, dragged behind.
40
For the first time in his life, Arrow didn't believe his eyes. Not after seeing a little boy flying out of a broken building, followed by a woman who trailed him like a fisherman refusing to let go of a prize catch.
But he focused. Forced himself to attend, to Look.
"Sword," he breathed.
41
They flew so fast the hot air felt like it was peeling the skin from her face. So fast it was as though they must outdistance time itself.
So fast they would be at the eastern edge of Fear in only seconds.
Sword held to the meteor hammer with one hand.
And now, with the other, she held a spear of the same light.
She threw it. Faster and harder than possible for any but her.
I. Am. SWORD.
The spear found its mark.
The boy tottered.
Plummeted to earth
The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Page 39