by Matt Larkin
Pohaci trembled, starting to advance on him.
Chandi rushed forward and grabbed her before she did something stupid. They were probably no match for Rahu, even if he wasn’t in Malin’s body. “You mean like how two sisters you separated would wind up sending you back to the underworld?”
Rahu sneered, then chuckled. “I had high hopes for you once, Chandi. Of course, even when you were grown, I didn’t really recognize you. Not until that day in the Astral Temple. Now I’m sure; I know who you are and what you’ve become.”
What was he talking about now? It didn’t matter.
“Why?” Pohaci demanded. “Why do this to me?”
“Your father thought you might be his. He wouldn’t see you murdered like the rest of your family.” Rahu shrugged. “House Shravana could identify him, same as his family could. They could ruin all we were building. So they all had to go. You, he wanted to send away. He thought I sent you to Malayadvipa. But I’d never throw away so useful a tool. We needed recruits, after all.”
“You let her put this thing inside me!”
“I made you strong, child. You can still serve me, if you bow. You both can.” He smiled at Chandi, the corners of his mouth barely twisted. “Even you, even after all you’ve done. Leave the Solar and join me, girl.”
Chandi laughed. “Leave Naresh? You are a lunatic.”
Rahu shrugged. “Word came today he wiped out an entire fleet off Puradvipa. You know, I’ve only ever known one person with such a penchant for destruction, trailing chaos and desolation in his wake everywhere he goes.”
No. Naresh was a good man. He loved her, and he did what he had to. “I swear I will destroy you one day,” Chandi said.
Rahu reached a hand out past them, and Chandi glanced over her shoulder to see several jagged rocks lurch free from the ground. “What makes you think you’ll live through today? Maybe I shall give your husband a reason to hate, and see just what he’s capable of.”
Chandi’s hand tightened on Pohaci’s shoulder. “Run,” she whispered.
And Pohaci launched herself into motion, rolling under the rocks as they flew toward them. Chandi too dove under the missiles, and drew her Blessings, launching herself back into the rainforest. They could lose him in dense woods. It was their only chance.
It was almost sunset, wasn’t it? “Shift as soon as you can,” she shouted at Pohaci. “Meet me back at the ship.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
What now? Sisterly love? Not really the time for the crocodile to decide she had a heart. “Just do it! I can take care of myself.”
An inhuman shriek tore through the rainforest, and then another.
Sweet Chandra, the sound shredded her mind. “What was that?”
“Leyaks!” Pohaci said. “Still want me to shift?”
Chandi kept dodging around trees. Her Potency Blessing made her agile, but she didn’t know the rainforest as well as Pohaci. She couldn’t reach her full speed. Could Pohaci escape the leyaks on her own? Or would they hunt down even a crocodile in the forest?
“Come on! We have to get back down to the beach, back to the ship.”
A leyak crashed through the nearby canopy, leaving splatters of blood across the leaves. Chandi pulled a toyak from her sarong and drew her Blessing harder. The thing dove straight at her. She dodged to the side, swinging as hard as she could. The stick cracked across the thing’s skull, sending the head crashing into a tree. Her toyak snapped in half, one piece flying off into the woods.
Pohaci grabbed her and pulled her along. “We don’t have time to fight them all. This place will be swarming with the creatures soon.”
“How many?”
“Too many.”
They scrambled forward, toward the beach to the east. Just a little farther.
But they weren’t going to make it. If Chandi didn’t do something, Rahu would catch them, or the leyaks would.
“Hold on to me,” she said.
Chandra, she was going to lose her mind with this kind of thing. But she wouldn’t let her sister fall to Rahu. The man had taken too much from her already. Too much from all of them.
She drew her Glamour, bending light around them, then pulled them both to the ground. The underbrush seemed to blend around them, as their skin and clothes became translucent. The demons might smell them, if they paused long enough. Once, the effort of such a Glamour would have left her trembling in an instant. But the Amrita had changed her. It had almost destroyed her, but it had made her strong, too.
She held the illusion as the creatures crashed overhead, and even as Rahu passed them by. When he had gone, she pulled Pohaci up and they ran on.
They just had to reach the shore and get to the ship.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY
The wind was up, casting Landi’s hair out behind her. These days, she always wore it unbound, as she’d often done before becoming a potential for the Arun Guard. Without the Sun Brand, her days as a Guardswoman were over. Even with it, she wasn’t sure what was left for her to protect, save her husband and her oath.
“Stay on the ship,” she said to Ben. “We may have to leave in a hurry.”
Ben shrugged, swaying his locks. “Ah, my dear, I’m more than happy to leave Bukit in a hurry. In fact, I’m in enough of a hurry we could leave without even stopping. Right now, that is.”
“I’m going ashore to look for Malin, Ben. I have to do this, alone. Wait for me.” She leapt down into the ship’s rowboat.
“Ah, you know, I’m always waiting for you!” he shouted. “Eagerly! Fervently! Lasciviously!”
Landi decided it was best not to acknowledge the snickering crew. She tried to hide her smile as she rowed toward the beach. Ben was… Ben. And his irreverent, nonsensical, beautiful wit had become so ingrained in her life she could almost hear his lines even before he spoke. Not that even she could guess some of the things that came out of his mouth.
She shook her head. Now wasn’t the time. She was rowing into the Lunar capital city. She’d been to Bukit’s harbor once, when they rescued Naresh. She’d never expected to see it again. Back then, Malin had maimed Naresh, had almost killed him. Now here she was, trying to find the weretiger and reunite him with his wife.
On the shore, Landi made for the harbor to the north. Her arms ached from rowing the boat, but it was a good ache. The pain of hard labor, like a heavy bout with a keris sword. Her time in the Guard had made her strong. She had to be twice as strong, twice as tough as a man to make it. And she’d proved she was.
And yet maybe she’d been a fool to join the Arun Guard at all. All her heart had wanted growing up was her music. People called her a prodigy, but she wasn’t. She’d worked day and night to master the flute. Or not the flute, so much, as the human heart. The sounds that could pull its strings and make it sing and weep all at once.
Maybe when this was over, she’d take it up again. She’d been released from the Sun Brand, so maybe it was a sign to go back to her music.
The rowboat scraped onto the beach. People were screaming in the distance. A pair of women rushed down the side of the cliff, slipping over the rocks. That slope was steep, and probably quite dangerous. Landi tried to Stride closer, forgetting again she couldn’t. Instead, she ran toward them.
That was Chandi, though she didn’t know the other woman. Landi hesitated a moment. What was the girl doing here? Last she’d heard, Chandi was all but banished from the Lunar Empire.
Something shrieked, the sound of it tearing at the edges of Landi’s mind, and she stumbled, falling to her knees and clutching her ears. Surya, what was that? More shrieks followed.
As Landi regained her feet, Chandi and her accomplice leapt off the last ten feet of the cliff path to reach the beach. Chandi ran quickly, but not as fast as Landi knew she could. The other woman must not be a Moon Scion. Landi ran to meet them, drawing the keris. Whatever chased them would soon regret it.
When she saw Landi, Chandi stumbled to a stop, falling on he
r backside. “L-Landorundun?”
The other woman pulled Chandi to her feet and glared at Landi, then urged the girl to keep running.
“What’s going on, Chandi?” Landi said.
Someone had followed them down the cliff. It was him. Malin. Tioman’s lost husband, and the last thing she had to do. Just bring him to her, and she was free, free to leave the chaos and war and politics behind. Free to be just a wife, maybe a mother. Free to live.
Almost free. Landi started for Malin. The man looked her over and smirked, then continued advancing. So the weretiger had turned on Chandi again. And she’d make him pay for that. Landi shook her head … No. She sheathed the sword. She’d come here to talk to Malin, not fight him.
“Landi, stop!” Chandi said. “He’s not who you think.”
The other woman kept trying to pull Chandi away, toward the shore.
Landi turned to face Malin. Whatever Chandi was trying to say, it would have to wait. She had an oath to fulfill. “I bring a message, Malin.”
The weretiger advanced until he stood face to face with her. “So do I. You should have listened to Chandi.”
He struck fast, faster than she could ever react without the Sun Brand. His palm caught her in the chest and flung her through the air. All her breath escaped her, even before she hit the sand. Her chest wasn’t working.
Someone lifted her from behind and dragged her toward the sea. She gasped, finally sucking in air. “Ma-Malin! I bring word … from Tioman.”
The man froze then, rage and confusion and Landi couldn’t tell what else passing over his face in an instant.
“She wants to see you—she lives!”
Chandi was still pulling her toward the sea.
Malin shook his head twice, then doubled over, grabbing his temples. When he looked up, his face had grown dark. “Then she can die, too, Guardswoman.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Landi asked Chandi, at last getting her feet under her and running.
“Rahu’s spirit has possessed him!” Chandi glanced back at her. “How are you alive?”
Rahu’s spirit? What in the name of the Sun? It sounded like one of Ben’s ridiculous stories. But Landi never remembered seeing Chandi this frightened except when Rangda herself had taken Ratna.
“Go to the boat. Ben is on the dhow,” Landi said. She ran beside them, then fell to her knees in the sea, yanking free the keris even as she dropped. Surya, let this work. She plunged the keris into the waters. Even if the dragon heard, how long would it take? “Tioman! I found him, Tioman!”
That horrible shrieking came again, closer this time, and she looked up. The flying heads looked like leyaks. Which was impossible because they didn’t exist. Landi embedded the sword in the sand and stood to face Malin—or Rahu—as he drew near.
Chandi’s friend had pushed the boat into the water. Landi could join them … but she couldn’t let the chance at Malin go. She had to get him to the dragon. She rubbed her sternum where he’d struck. Damn, he was strong.
“Chandra’s dark side,” Chandi swore, then ran at Malin. Then she vanished, becoming just a ripple in the air.
A heartbeat later, Malin recoiled as if struck. He launched his hand out and grabbed something, Chandi suddenly appearing in his grasp. “He smells you, bitch,” Malin said.
Surya above! Had Chandi really just done that? So much had changed … Landi ran toward the weretiger, who flung Chandi at her. Landi tried to dive to the side, but not fast enough, and collided with the Lunar.
She pushed Chandi off her and tried to stand. Then something rose up out of the sea in a shower of saltwater behind her, and she spun. Glistening turquoise had never looked so beautiful. The dragon flew up from the sea and landed on the beach, only her tail still in the waters.
Then before Landi’s eyes, she began to change, her form shrinking, her claws and whiskers retracting. Tioman’s humanoid form was disturbing—she was still blue—but it didn’t leave one trembling the way her draconic form did. She walked toward her former husband. “Malin. It’s time we were reunited, my love. Come to me.” She beckoned him toward her.
Malin grabbed his head again, shaking. “Impossible … I …” He looked up, glaring. “You are nothing to me, girl. Serve or perish!”
Tioman recoiled as if struck. “Don’t you know me? I’ve changed, but I’m still Tioman. You promised me the world, Malin.”
Malin sneered, then dashed toward her. He shoved the dragon backward, causing her to stumble. “Malin is just a shell. And you are nothing but a tool.”
“No! I am your wife!” Tioman reached for him again, and he slapped her hand away.
“Tioman,” Landi said, “I don’t think this is going—”
“Stay out of it,” the dragon said, barely glancing at her. It was enough to see her eyes had turned red. “Malin—”
Malin’s fist cracked against her jaw, and Tioman fell. He kicked her in the stomach, flinging her back into the sea.
Landi looked up at the weretiger, the ghost that had just dropped a dragon. Oh. Damn. She jumped in the boat with Chandi and the other woman. “Time for us to go.”
A roar erupted from the depths of the sea. The clouds above darkened and began to swirl. The evening breeze picked up, becoming a gale that tossed the small boat despite Chandi’s best efforts to steer.
Tioman broke from the sea again, returned to her dragon form. As she rose, so did the waves. With her every bellow the sea turned more tempestuous.
“Help me with the oars!” Chandi said.
Landi moved to comply, though she lacked the Moon Scion’s strength. The other woman pushed her aside and grabbed an oar, moving with clearly superhuman strength. Was she a Moon Scion after all?
The stormy sea dropped out from under the boat, and they fell at least three feet to crash back down. The impact jarred Landi’s teeth.
“Tioman!” Landi shouted. Her rage was going to kill them all.
“Are you insane, woman?” Chandi’s friend said. “The dragon can take care of itself.”
Indeed, Malin was retreating back up the shore. And for all Tioman’s roars and snarls, she did not pursue, though she hurled wind and water at him and the leyaks. She couldn’t leave the seaside.
“We have to go to the Astral Temple,” Chandi said.
“What? Why?” Landi had fulfilled her oath, but this hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped. Not at all.
“Naresh,” Chandi said. “We need Naresh.”
Landi rubbed her sternum again. She had fulfilled her oath, and it was past time to be gone from here.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-ONE
Tua Pek Kong’s face still bore the burns of his ordeal, but Naresh thought the Tianxian had begun to recover. Nothing remained of the two navies, but his dolphins had rescued about forty Tianxian sailors. Now they had reunited with the small garrison Tua Pek Kong had left inside the Astral Temple.
The Tianxians had taken over Tohjaya’s former throne room as their base of operations here, though it looked more like an infirmary at the moment. Half of the admiral’s men were injured, some badly. The worst hadn’t made it through the first night after the battle. Others bore burns, cuts, or arrow wounds.
“Without your ships, you are cut off from your emperor,” Naresh said, kneeling beside Tua Pek Kong’s mat, where the man had been meditating. “Your only choice now is to join the people of the Skyfall Isles. The woman I killed, this Witch-Queen, was a mere servant of the real enemy. Rangda Demon Queen will come for this place, and we cannot let her have it. You have heard the stories of what it’s done—eclipses and cyclones. Surya alone knows what else it can do. We cannot allow such a weapon into the hands of a being bent on destroying humanity.”
“Your words are bitter medicine, Naresh.” The admiral stroked his mustache, though one side of it had burned away. “They sting like the salve my healers give me.”
Naresh spread his hands. “The future is what we make it.” It sounded like something Semar would sa
y. Part of him wished the fire priest was here now. For that matter, why shouldn’t he be? This could well become the Isle’s last stand against Rangda. Naresh could not allow this place to fall. “Stand with us.”
“And what guarantee do I have of friendship, here?”
“My guarantee. I give you my word, if you hold this place in trust with us now, you will be welcome as guardians in the future. Your emperor can rest assured that this weapon will never be used again—but only if you help us now.”
Tua Pek Kong inclined his head. “I can hardly refuse after you have saved my life.”
More than once. Naresh was glad he didn’t have to point that out. He left the temple and walked out into the rain.
It was a clean rain, no longer the storm-darkened sky the Witch-Queen had called down upon them, but the natural weather of late in the rainy season. The dry season would return before too much longer, but the Demon Queen would come before that. From what he’d seen, nothing remained of Ratna. There was only the monster inside her, and it had eaten away her body and soul.
And in a way, Naresh was doing the same thing to himself. Those memories he’d lost were really gone, those years off his life really spent. He couldn’t feel his life force now, not the way he had that day, but he knew it was real. His every breath was borrowed from the universe, and now his body would give out that much sooner. It was a frightening sense of mortality … and yet gratifying. His energy, his life, was the same energy flowing through all beings, flowing through all the cosmos. One day that energy would run out and his soul would return to the Wheel of Life, to be born anew. Fresh, and, he hoped, in a world without this darkness overhanging it.
Surya, when had he become so introspective? He shook his head. Semar might be proud, but Naresh had no time for such reflections. He did need the Igni here. For that matter, he needed Kertajaya, too. And most of all, Chandi.
Naresh hunted down the Tianxian scribe. “I need paper and pen,” he said.