At last the body was ready. Supernaturally suspended, it hovered unanimated and silent above the Ravine floor, near his rotting corpse. He slipped in through the open mouth, and suddenly, he was the body. The eyes snapped open, and he clutched at the dirt and dust of the Ravine and drew it up into a moth-eaten brown robe, with which he clothed himself. Bending over to retrieve the rapier-length copper rod, he marveled at how easily his torso, hinged at the hips, performed the movement.
His experience of reality was different now. He did not feel cold, and no longer was there any hunger. His limbs were void of the aching fatigue that characterized a mortal life. Nazt had solidified every material he had used and made his body invincible.
He tilted his head back and slashed the tip of the copper rod across the dripping gray neck. The skin opened momentarily, yet yielded no blood. It sealed rapidly again, unharmed as before. He directed the rod at his chest, and a blast of blue filled his vision. Already, he could feel his kesmal answered his beckoning so much faster than before. It was vigorous, malleable, rapid, and deadly. The blue melted into mist around him, leaving his body healthy as before. He clasped his moist hands on the copper rod and felt it was beautiful to appear decaying, and yet to be growing in strength all the time.
Once and for all, he had shed his effete “self”. He would inter the pitiful corpse behind him in the mountain and show himself to the world once again, this time as a Stranger, equipped to be the true King of Siana. They would hear of the Lashki Mirah and tremble.
That was when he heard the hoofbeats echoing among the crags above. Alakil inclined his head, listening intently. It was the first of his many prey, he decided – some Sianian traveler of whom he would make an offering to Nazt. A yellow-toothed smile crept over his face. The power vibrating in his limbs encouraged him.
He turned to the steep sides of the Ravine beside him and began to climb the crags with immense strides, aiming all the while for the clop, clop of the distant horse.
*
“I still don’t understand,” Rafen said, his fists clenched.
He was sitting at the scratched table in the poorly furnished kitchen of Roger’s house. He had an aggressive headache and felt nauseous. It was night.
“Do I ’ave to explain it to yer again?” Sherwin said. “The Lashki attacked Etana to get yer attention, but ’e really did ’is best to make Richard look like the Runi. ’e waited for yer to free Etana and publicly show her affection, and then ’e tried to make sure yeh’d show anger toward Richard. And yer acted like yer were primed to do it: yer hugged Etana, yer tried to kill Richard and—”
“I tried to help him though,” Rafen protested, even though he knew this was a ridiculous argument.
“Yer looked like yer were workin’ with the Lashki, all right?” Sherwin paused, breathing heavily. “And then ’e polished the whole thing off with shielding yer.”
They had barely escaped from their pursuers that afternoon, and it was a mere matter of time before the Sartians caught up with them. Rafen, Sherwin, and Francisco had led them into the Woods and then lost them temporarily before returning home to gather some supplies. They planned to go into hiding until Rafen was sure he could either bring Fritz back or find a lord who would take him in and support him. Presenting himself in the royal court was no longer an option. Even if he showed his phoenix feather, he risked being accused of stealing one now that Richard had gotten there first. Yet before Rafen vanished anywhere, he meant to rescue Etana.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Rafen said. “The Lashki could have killed me in the time it took to protect me.”
“Maybe the Lashki isn’t plannin’ to fight yer in single combat anymore,” Sherwin said simply. “’e gets ’urt, so ’e’s decided it’s too risky. Even if ’e attacked yer then, yer might ’ave done some aggressive kesmal as yer went down. By encasin’ yer in ’is shield, ’e stopped yer bein’ able to shoot any kesmal at him through it.”
“It’s exactly as Demus told me,” Rafen hissed. “He warned me Richard would use anything he could against me. And he said the Lashki would take advantage of it. ”
He made a low sound of frustration.
“You’re right, Sherwin. I acted like a fool. I’d been warned about this, and I still acted like a fool. I would give my eyes to know where Richard got that feather.”
He rose from the table.
Francisco sat down opposite him, his brow furrowed.
“I suppose Zion gave it to him.”
“I suppose ’e stole it,” Sherwin said. “’e hasn’t had a phoenix feather a day in his life, and Etana said that herself. I reckon either Prince Thomas or Fritz weren’t buried with their phoenix feathers.”
“How can you say such a profanity, Sherwin?” Francisco cried.
Rafen sat down again, relieved. For a moment, he had wondered if Richard had been to the Cursed Woods, if somehow there had been a horrible mistake, and Rafen was only the third and a half Runi. But he was a true Runi, and Etana was still his.
“Francisco, I’ve had a phoenix feather for four years now,” he said. No matter how little he wanted to talk about this, the facts were unavoidable. If he and his brother didn’t face reality, soon they wouldn’t be alive. “I meant to tell you when I had Etana with me. She and Sherwin can explain it much better than I can.”
Francisco’s mouth dropped open. “This cannot be,” he said. “Are you sure? His Runiship Richard has been prophesied about.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sherwin said. “Can’t yer see tha’s just Sarient tryin’ to hold onto one of its wealthiest provinces? Through Siana, Sarient can also get the support of Zal Ricio ’el Nria, which ’as always been independent of Sarient. Sarient can convince the Zaldians they’re fightin’ alongside the Runi, and so Sarient’s biggest competitor in the Mio Pilamùr will be working for King Albert at last.”
While Rafen was too tired for this convoluted explanation, a light dawned in Francisco’s eyes as Sherwin spoke.
“Besides,” Sherwin continued, “Adelphia showed me a load of prophecies in which Rafen features, and they’re ten times more authentic than the ones Richard’s in.”
“The barriers are gone,” Rafen said, raising his head.
He had known it immediately on their arrival. He could feel it on the air, and he could no longer hear the muted thrum of kesmal. He remembered the size of the Phoenix when he had seen him at age fourteen; he remembered feeling woefully alone and discovering he wasn’t. Zion was still with them. He would give them the strength to fight for their lives.
“Richard’s probably contacted the philosophers and told them to leave,” Sherwin said. “I’m afraid it’s all stackin’ up against yer, Raf. What Richard said looked like it was enough alone to get yer in trouble – yer being human, the son of Roger, and all tha’. I wonder how he found out yer traveled mostly with Etana last year. An’ who told him yer spent time together?”
“Why did you never tell me?” Francisco said, color draining from his face as he stared at Rafen. Francisco believed him – believed him as quickly and implicitly as he had when Rafen had said Talmon was not his father. “You cannot know what this means,” Francisco said. “You must train. You need—”
“I know what I need,” Rafen said, rising so quickly that he knocked his chair to the floor. “I need to get Etana away from Richard. Sherwin, we’re not fleeing anywhere until—”
“Raf, yer will get killed if yer try to take her now,” Sherwin said. “She’s surrounded by philosophers!”
“I don’t care,” Rafen said. His vision was obliterated by spirits for a moment, and Nazt roared in his head again.
The only thing he was aware of was its anger; it wanted something and had been denied it yet again. Feverishly, Rafen swung around, trying to find the front door in the partial blackness that had settled around him.
His hand landed on the handle and slipped…
*
He was dead. His corpse was lying on the grasslands outside the C
ursed Woods, its glazed eyes unseeing. Yet he hovered above himself, at last attaining the freedom he had before incarnation. He floated higher in the air, the world becoming small and speckled with the odd detail: a cottage, some trees, the blue ribbon of a river. The sky was his now, and he could see in all directions. There was no limit to how much of the heavens he could fit into his consciousness, and he planned to traverse every bit of them before sundown tonight. He should have killed himself while he wore the flesh. It was nothing compared to this.
The light coming from the East was odd: somehow pallid, watery, gradually becoming eclipsed. A great gray wave was breaking along the horizon. Then a roar filled the atmosphere, and it was consuming him. He writhed in the sky, unable to block it out, to think. This couldn’t be happening; it wasn’t possible. He had attained his previous state before incarnation, as the other dead members of the Eleven had. It wasn’t as if they had truly died, so how could Nazt have escaped its bounds? Still, it came to him as he felt the air to the East become a sucking maelstrom, a giant insatiable mouth. The Eleven had failed. They were not united as they had been before incarnation. He didn’t even know where the missing members were. Their unity, essential to the world’s protection, had been broken with his death, because he was the only one capable of joining them again. Not only that, but Rafen knew with irrevocable certainty that since he had died, and died in failure, he had lost all his powers and his right to be incarnate. His essence would never be embodied again, and he had no kesmal with which to change anything, only this omniscient sight. All that remained for him was a hovering existence, soon to be terminated.
And now his Sight showed him Nazt as it had been the moment of his death: a giant wall of tangled, unclothed bodies with smooth limbs of smudged gray and black; toothless, tongueless, gumless mouths; seamless gray skin growing over the empty eye sockets; reaching hands and webbed, distended fingers. The spirits of the air and of the dead were whispering, waiting. The second his breath stopped, there was a fatal pause. Then all the mouths stretched open, as far as they could go, and the bodies convulsed together, screeching. The wall rolled forward, spitting out bodies that tumbled onto the edge of the cliffs, the coastline of Tarhia. The bodies of Nazt inhaled as one, and the air that was sucked into their midst was a visible stream, carrying gulls. The disappearance of the birds into the mash of limbs was eerily silent.
The naked bodies on the land were rising with agility and running sightlessly forward. There were thousands of them, much more than he had ever thought. They covered every square inch, crushing each other, forming layers and layers of writhing, perfectly smooth forms. The top layer ran on toward the thatched houses nearest the coastline. The airborne wave of Nazt continued to sweep forward, while nude forms fell from the sky with lithe thumps. In the great vacuum caused by the breathing of Nazt, the first thatched cottages were being dragged across the land toward the dense field of bodies. Walls and roofs caved inward, and glass exploded. Tarhian peasants fled across the fields of their poor farms. They stumbled and fell, tearing up grass in their desperation as they were sucked toward the running bodies. A gray figure seized a woman and she flew backward, shrieking. The mouth of skin closed on her neck, embracing her. She struggled for an instant before her clothes cascaded from her in a sheet of dust and a pool of gray swept over her body, up to her head. Her brown eyes were wide, and she howled when she realized what was happening. Then the gray over her lips and into her mouth, covered her eyes and hollowed the sockets, slid over the hair, and then she was one of them.
The wave rolled on. Rafen felt the suction from even the Sianian skies, and all he could think of was escaping the world somehow, getting out, falling off. Oblivion was better than this. Even while he was flying toward the West, his spirit felt stretched and moved agonizingly slowly. It was going to be a struggle to even get past New Isles. The grasslands beneath him dragged by. He felt like he was mortal again, and he was swimming in sludge. The atmosphere turned thick and smoky. Beneath him, farmers and peasants had come to the doors of their houses and were leaning against doorframes, walls, and trees, gasping for better air. As the black wave rolled on, they fell into stupors and comas, from which they would only be woken once the final terrible vacuum began, and the screaming, hissing bodies were upon them.
Sarient had fallen. Rafen knew this even though all his thoughts were bent on getting into the West. He could see the bodies dropping from the infinite wave, landing in the sea and vanishing beneath the foam, creating the first layer. And still the great, hovering arc that they had descended from never decreased, seeming to become more bloated instead. The rain of naked gray forms continued until the layers rose high enough, and now smooth-limbed, toothless runners were advancing across the surface of the sea with arms stretched out. The churning wet floor beneath them was comprised of extended fingers, legs, and feet, covered in the seawater that was now exploding over the coastlines of other lands and flooding them. Hara had never had so much water. Ruya was entirely swept away, and the violent tide washed its people into the arms of Nazt.
Rafen was past New Isles. If he’d had a mouth, he would have been panting. The tremendous mental energy it had taken to advance thus far was flagging, and the suction around him was becoming worse. The clouds were ridiculously elongated, and the three moons in the sky were bending their courses to the East.
And then the bodies were in Siana, and he realized his terrible mistake. He had left her behind. He whirled around in the air – a feat that was surprisingly easy as the sucking strengthened. The army of Nazt was increasing as other screaming individuals were snatched up in the vacuum and morphed into the naked gray figures, even while they fought desperately to hold onto trees and rocks. A baby was ripped from a mother’s arms and swept whole into the mouth of one of the bodies, where it melded to its captor, becoming a twisted, proboscis terror.
He was struggling to reach the New Isles’ palace, but trying frantically not to go too fast either, otherwise he would lose control, and it would be over. And then the stones were flying out of the palace’s walls, the turrets were collapsing, the flags were torn from the flagpoles and gone in a second. The people who had not been crushed beneath falling walls were now awoken from their drunken states; they clung to stalls and pillars even as things disintegrated. The great stack of naked gray that was now Siana spilled over toward them. The wave directly above them blotted out the sun and rained bodies. Everything East of New Isles was a solid wall of churning, smoky shapes. Every tiny space had been filled. The wall was unbroken from the southern to the northern horizon. There was no sky, no ground, no atmosphere: only Nazt.
And then he saw Etana, gripping King Robert convulsively, screaming. Even at this moment, her father was embracing her tightly, roaring some scrap of comfort. His face was disfigured with fear, his hair flapping around it in the unnatural cyclone surrounding them. Fighting the air, Rafen tried to dive down, intending to snatch her up and take her with him – and then her feet left the ground, her hands still clawing for her father, her voice unrecognizable as she gave a throat-tearing shriek. He was unable to scream back. He tried to do the kesmal he had been capable of before human birth and discovered his failure had denied him this.
She struck the advancing ranks, and a pile of bodies was already on her. Even as she was fighting to break free, her rich clothes were melting into dust, her mouth becoming a cavity of darkness, gray skin already crawling over one wild blue eye.
He let go; he couldn’t do it anymore. The vacuum had him – a gray mouth was open to receive him. He felt one last stab of drunken ecstasy before he was naked in an endless darkness, screeching at nothing at all, because that was all that was left.
*
Rafen woke with a gasp on the wooden floor, his whole body shuddering and slicked with sweat. Candlelight flared weakly above him. It hurt his throbbing head, but he wouldn’t close his eyes again. He gripped the table leg near him so hard that his knuckles turned white. From the aches in h
is muscles, he guessed he had had a seizure the likes of which he hadn’t known since he was recovering from the Soul Breaker’s Curse.
“Zion,” he breathed.
He was going to live. He didn’t care what it took, didn’t care how many struggles there were, how much pain, how much blood, how much terror… it could not be compared to the domination of Nazt. He was going to live and fight it, because nothing was coming near Etana. He pulled himself into a sitting position.
Sherwin was right. The Lashki obviously had no idea what he was trying to bring about, because he seemed to think he could kill Rafen and still have Siana and the other trophies he desired.
“Richard only heard what Rafen said about him a few days ago, because his messenger had to travel to several other people,” Etana’s voice was saying wearily from the short hall adjoining the kitchen. Rafen’s muscles relaxed abruptly when he heard her voice. She was here! Somehow she had escaped Richard. When he made to leap up, his reeling head prevented him.
“The messenger didn’t want to send it in a letter, probably because Richard is worse once he’s had some time to think about it, and he vents his anger on the messenger later. As it was, he was so furious that he contacted the philosophers surrounding this house. You have no more protection. I hope you’ve thought about where you’re running to.”
“Adelphia’s,” Sherwin said immediately.
“Of course,” Etana said. “Grandmother will take you all in.”
“Where’d he get the feather from, Etana?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I suspect, but I dare not say for certain, that somehow he accessed my grandfather’s. Grandmother Adelphia has had it in her possession for years. I think Richard lost it on the temple dais when the Lashki attacked him.”
The Fourth Runi (The Fledgling Account Book 4) Page 10