by Matt Larkin
His bloody fingers wrapped around the back of the spear and yanked it out.
“Behold, the Destroyer, the savior of mankind,” Rangda said as she advanced. Blood trickled down her face, too. He had probably destroyed many of Ratna’s internal organs. That body would fail very soon. And she would take his. Of course, now he was dying too. But then, if she spoke the truth, she’d just move on to another.
And Chandi was the closest.
Every breath hurt. Naresh rose to his knees.
“Naresh!” Chandi’s voice echoed off the bowl. She was running for Rangda.
Dammit. Why hadn’t she just done what she was told? Because then she wouldn’t have been Chandi.
Rangda glanced back at his wife and smiled. “She’ll do nicely for a vessel, too. A very powerful Moon Scion, isn’t she? First, though, why don’t we let her watch you die?”
Icy claws dug into his shoulder. Her fingers bored through his skin and scraped the bone.
Naresh ignored the pain. None of it mattered. He turned to look in Rangda’s glowing eyes. She could possess someone hundreds of miles of away. But he could go farther. Anywhere he could see.
“What you said about seeing Surya’s face?” he shouted. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Naresh, no!” Chandi shouted.
He Sun Strode into the mist, taking Rangda with him. They appeared in the air above the mists, falling fast. He wrapped both arms around Rangda, drawing his Blessings as hard as he could to hold her against her struggles. Then he looked straight up at the sun.
And he Strode to it.
Absolute light surrounded them, and his lungs stopped working. For an instant, he felt the infinite heat of Surya as it reached out to embrace him. He saw the smiling face of his god, welcoming him home.
CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED ONE
Chandi fell to her knees, a few feet from where Naresh had stood. He was gone. Sweet Chandra, he’d done it. He was gone …
Mists continued to pour from the temple, from the device below. Ice was spreading outward, perhaps covering the entire world. Maybe sunlight would become but a memory. Somehow, she couldn’t make herself care.
Naresh was dead.
She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t even breathe. She sat there, her mouth open, dimly aware of the world ending around her. And perhaps she should let it. But it wasn’t what he would have wanted. And she’d seen his face. He’d done this for her. He’d done it for the whole world, damn him and damn Solar honor.
She half walked, half crawled back toward the metal bowl and slipped down it. She had one last promise to keep. The icy mist filled the lower levels of the temple, clinging to her sarong and kemban. The rungs of the ladder cracked in her hands, and frost coalesced on her clothes.
Not looking up or down, she climbed. The chill stung her eyes and made it hard to breathe. At last she found herself at the base of the lowest level. She turned. She couldn’t see far ahead, only a few feet, so she took each step with care.
The crystal at the heart of the chamber pulsed, emitting a faint blue light. This must be the power source. The Solars had harnessed crystals to build Kasusthali. The Tripurans must have used this thing to focus their own power. Without it, the barrier between worlds would snap back into place—it had to, that was their only chance.
Voices whispered in the mists around her. She didn’t understand the words, but she caught the meanings. Threats. Warnings not to interfere with what had begun.
Rangda was probably already returned to the underworld. And if Chandi didn’t do this, maybe she could even come back again. Spirits were immortal.
She drew a toyak and screamed, slamming it against the crystal with the full might of her Potency drawn. The stick snapped in half, one piece flying off against the wall. A hairline crack appeared in the crystal. The voices intensified, shrieking at her.
Chandi looked around the room. The explosions above had caused rocks to fall here. She grabbed one the size of her head and stood over the crystal.
“Stay dead, bitch.”
She slammed the rock down and the crystal fractured, a piece breaking off. The mists ceased, and lightning began to coruscate over the device, leaping around the room. A hum grew, like the hum of the Time Chamber when it was turned on.
This place would likely explode soon. But she had no reason to care.
Naresh was gone.
She had fulfilled her promise to save the world. She’d done what she could. Now the time had come to rest.
Why should she go through the Time Chamber?
Everything was finished. Everything.
But then, the answer was there, too. It’s what Naresh would have wanted. She had told him she would do it. And how could she break such a promise, when she would never be able to make him another?
With a tremble, she drew her Potency again and ran, leaping over the lightning crackling along the ground. As she rose she dove through the chamber door and slammed it closed, then ran and leapt out to the astrolabe. Her hand caught on a gear and shifted it, but what did it matter? It didn’t matter where or when this thing sent her. She threw the lever.
The machine sped up, the orrery spinning faster and faster, this time in the same direction it had already been moving. An explosion rocked the outer chamber as the water rose. The door to the chamber melted. Lightning crackled through the waters, and things shifted.
The fiery explosion was gone, and now a long solid glob of metal stood where the door once had.
It was done. She had escaped the breaking of the device. Her last promise to Naresh.
She jumped back to the walkway around the orrery and left the Time Chamber. Dust now covered everything down here, and the ladder was cracked and unstable. After a few breaths, she shifted her gravity to the wall and climbed her way out.
Sunlight burned her eyes as she climbed up from the lowest level, exiting into the ruins, or what little remained of them. The rainforest had retaken the entire cliff, and vines and moss covered everything. Monkeys skittered about, squeaking at her like an intruder.
Beyond the edge, by the cliff, Semar and Kala sat on a rock, looking at her.
So.
She shut her eyes a moment, then walked toward them.
“It’s all gone,” she said. She sank to the ground, lacking even the strength to confront these men. These two had cost her everything, but she was too hollow inside to act.
Kala rose, leaving Semar on the rock, and knelt beside her. “What’s gone?”
“The world. We stopped Rangda … but she’d already destroyed the world.”
Kala pointed at the sky. “The sun is shining, Chandi. You are thousands of years in the future, in my time, and the sun is shining again. Is that not proof that you did not fail, that you saved this world for all future generations, including me? You can help the people come through the darkness she unleashed… but only if you go back.”
“And what of my world? Naresh is dead.” She had nothing to go back for. The world could attend to itself.
“I know.”
How did he know? No, the truth was, she didn’t care anymore. Not about any of it.
“I lost the man I love, my husband.” Her chest clenched and she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t weep, much as she wanted to. “Because of you, because of both of you, and your wars and talk of destiny. You saw this coming. You could have stopped it. And now he’s gone forever.”
Kala reached out and stroked her cheek, running his thumb along her jaw as Naresh had once done. It tingled, and it took her a heartbeat longer than it should have to slap his hand away. “How dare you?”
“You still don’t understand, Chandi. There is no losing him forever. You talk of the Wheel of Life, of souls bound together for eternity, but you don’t really believe it. Do you not see that, if he were to be born again, you would find him again? Find yourself drawn to him, in any form, because your souls are tied together? That is the only forever that matters.”
What was he saying? That Na
resh could be reincarnated? Of course he could … So she could meet him again.
Kala’s eyes held something more. Something she couldn’t quite read.
“It shouldn’t surprise you that the same soul cannot occupy the same space … if such a paradox occurred, time and space would begin to bend, to warp and tear.”
“Time is a funny thing,” Semar said. “Eras must end and corruption must be abated. And for that to happen, there must be a catalyst. A person, a soul, willing to take up the horrible burden.”
No. Chandi shook her head. “No.”
“At last you begin to see.” Kala’s voice was soft and warm. And too familiar. Not the voice itself, but the mind behind it. The soul behind it.
“No.” Hot tears ran down her face.
Rahu said he’d only ever seen one man with Naresh’s penchant for destruction. Why wouldn’t Naresh be born again, thousands of years in the future? If the Wheel of Life existed, he would live hundreds and hundreds of lives. And time had distorted when they were together. Kala had refused to even touch Naresh.
“So … I’ll … see him again?”
“See him again?” Kala said. “You will never be separated from him for long. No matter how many lives you live down through the ages, you are bound together for all eternity, passing through it as soul mates. When the stars grow cold, he’ll still be there, I will still be there, holding your hand. When the last embers of this universe burn out, still the flame of love will linger between us. There is no forever save this, Chandi.”
Sobs wracked through her and she fell to her face on the ground, unable to support herself. For how long she cried, she couldn’t say. Kala’s warm hand on her back was a comfort and horrid reminder of all that had gone. “I hate you both,” she said at last, her voice hoarse.
“I know,” Semar said.
She looked up at the Igni. His skin had changed again, it was lighter, as it had been in Tripura, and his hair was shorter. “I have an idea what—who he is,” she said nodding at Kala, “but what are you? You seem to have lived in all of these times. You’re immortal … Are you a god, Semar?”
The man rose from the rock then, and smiled sadly. “I’m … something else. And I’m sorry, for the things you had to lose to get here. I’m more sorry than you can ever know.”
“I don’t believe any of this nonsense about the need to end eras. There had to have been another way to arrest this so-called decay and corruption. And you, from the future, you could have found it!” She rose, grabbing him by his shirt. “Did you try? No! You allowed yourself to become set in your course. You knowingly allowed the entire world to be ravaged in the name of the greater good, ignoring the people you hurt in the process.”
Semar shook his head. “When the foundations are rotted through, the entire house must be razed before it can be rebuilt.”
She pushed him away. “Why on Chandra’s dark side did any of this have to happen? And don’t feed me any shit about fate and cycles of history.”
“You’ll understand one day, but not in this life,” Kala said.
Chandi glared at the bastard. “I will never forgive you. Either of you.”
“You don’t have to,” Kala said, “but you shouldn’t allow hatred to fester in your heart. I’m not just from the future. I see it. It’s how we knew you’d be here, right now. It’s how I knew the things Rahu would do, terrible things. Things I tried to stop … His tyranny may have begun in the Tripura Era, but it bled into many. You cannot begin to imagine the burden the shadows of the future place on a person.” He shut his eyes a moment. “But not everything I’ve seen ends in horror, Chandi. Naresh left you one last gift, a piece of himself within you.” He placed his hand on her abdomen.
Chandi’s breath caught, and her hand drifted to the spot Kala had touched. Warmth lingered there. Naresh was still here. Chandra, could she really be pregnant? A child—his child. Sometimes she had dreamed of peace, dreamed of raising a family with him, and now he was gone. She’d have their child alone? But she would have it, would have him still. Sweet Chandra, her, a mother.
She swallowed. “Boy or girl?”
“You really want me to tell you?”
She shook her head. She supposed not.
“You have to go back,” Kala said.
Chandi looked up at the sun and let it warm her face. “There’s nothing for me back there.”
“There’s a world that still needs you. You can return to be mother to a new era, or leave them to founder through the unknown.”
How could she go back? Why should she care about that world? Landi and Ben were still there, but she’d lost the people she loved most in the world. Here, the sun was warm. Here there was light and peace. And nothing more she had to do but live. Hadn’t she done enough? Hadn’t she sacrificed enough?
But Kala was right. She couldn’t allow her people, her world, to suffer without her. Not if she could stop it. Still, there was one more thing she had to know.
“Kala.” She took a step toward him, and held his gaze with her own. “Is this where you brought Revati? Kakudmi said he asked you to take her someplace safe.”
His face was unreadable. “That was a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
“She grew up, fell in love. She had a son … She’s not part of your world anymore, Chandi.”
Revati had a son? A son? The girl wasn’t even three the last time Chandi had seen her. And she had a son. Despite herself, she laughed.
It was all like a dream, but she walked back toward the chamber. For years Naresh had spoken of honor and duty. And she had never understood. Not until now. It wasn’t about doing things others forced you to. It was about doing what you had to, because you couldn’t disappoint those who believed in you, even if they no longer walked by your side.
She held her abdomen as she walked. Naresh’s child would be born without a father, but he or she would be born in a new world, freed from Rangda. A world they could rebuild from the ruins of fallen dynasties. No nation on Earth would survive Rangda’s mist unscathed. And maybe that was what Semar had tried to say.
Kala walked some distance behind her. It was odd, but in the end, when Naresh found peace with the role he was cast in, he did remind her of Kala. They were the same soul. The man behind her was not her husband, but he was a part of Naresh. And maybe that was enough to know, whatever he’d done, he’d done because he believed it right. Rahu had threatened his world, too.
Beneath the ruins of the Astral Temple, Kala set the machine. “It’s not exact, but you should return a few days after you left.”
“What will I find?”
Kala shook his head. “Your future is your own. You must build the new world yourself. A lot of people will look to you.”
Chandi nodded. She wasn’t going to let them down. Kala turned and jumped from the astrolabe, then walked toward the exit.
“I’ll really be with him again?” she asked.
He didn’t look back. “In every lifetime.”
Part of her wanted to end this one, to move forward now and be with him all the sooner. But she owed it to their child to live. That was duty. That was honor.
That was love.
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KEEP READING
The Skyfall Era has ended. The Ragnarok Era has begun.
The Skyfall Era
Children of Sun and Moon
Currents of Wind and Tide (Interlude 1)
Legacy of Moon and Fire
Fragments of Memory and Dream (Interlude 2)
Avatar of Night and Day
Curse of Witch and War (Prequel)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Who am I?
I’m a writer who loves speculative fiction, especially epic fantasy. I adore mythology and history, and those passions inspire most of my works. I studied philosophy in college, then publishing. More importantly, I went backpacking in India where I met my future wife, Tarannum “Juhi.” She supports pretty much all my crazy obsessions, like writing novels, so I started Incandescent Phoenix Books, and she eventually became my graphic designer. We’re a husband-and-wife team, which is pretty much the coolest thing ever.
I pretty much love to hear from readers, so feel free to email me at [email protected].
If you loved this book and have a moment to spare, I’d really appreciate a short review wherever you bought the book. Every review makes a world of difference.
GLOSSARY
Arun Guard: The elite protectors of the Solar Emperor. They receive the Sun Brand.
baju: a buttoned shirt worn by males and females, typically long-sleeved.
belacan: Solar spicy shrimp paste.
bidadari: angelic beings from Kahyangan.
Children of the Sun: clergy of the Solar faith, led by the Radiant Queen.
dhow: a mid-sized sailing vessel with lateen sails and a long, thin hull.
Djambo Baros: the mythic Tree of Life, which houses the Wheel of Life.
ekor pari: a Lunar rope-whip, called “stingray tail” by the Solars.
gandewa: a hunting bow, used in war by some Solars and by pirates.
Glamour: Moon Scion power of illusion. Used to create superficial changes to appearances. A closely guarded secret.
gudeg: sweet stew made from jackfruit.