Spellbreaker

by Blake Charlton

  She redoubled her efforts, made it impossible for Holokai to perceive anything but her body. The door rattled, as if the limb touching it were trembling.

  It was more than he could resist. She knew. She made him focus on her beating heart, the heat of her flesh. Blood in the water. Then the footsteps sounded again, coming at her.

  Unseen teeth closed around Leandra’s shoulder, punched through her robes, into her skin.

  But contact transformed Holokai from a monster in the dark to glorious text, a billowing sea storm of rubicund prose. She bored into him like a parasite, consuming those passages that could fit into her body and snapping those that barred her way.

  Her hands closed around the luminous red prose of his mind, and she saw into his memory: sunlight streaming down through forests of coral; the torch-lit jungle of his home island; a taste of blood growing stronger in the water; his admiration for her; his all-encompassing desire for his son. Holokai would be a slave to his son’s safety. Her mother would never release the boyish god. There was only one possible future.

  With a thought, she scattered his mind and for an instant she became a two-ton shark, thrashing as spears and harpoons punctured her side. She was vomiting blood into the water. So much blood she thought she would turn all the oceans red and herald the world’s end as the Sea priests had foreseen.

  In the next instant, she was just a woman standing on a ship. Boards creaked, water splashed. There was no blood, no shark. She had gutted him and then absorbed all of his prose. The only thing left of Holokai was his lungi, lying slack on the floor next to his leimako.

  Leandra bent down and picked up the weapon. When she stood, she found that her head nearly bumped against the cabin’s ceiling. She had grown taller. Her arms and legs coursed with vitality and strength. She felt no pain or blood running down her back. The leimako wounds had closed.

  It was a nauseating, cannibalistic feeling to know what had changed her, whom she had consumed. The sadness grew worse in her heart. But after a long breath, she put her sadness aside. There had been no other way. An image of her paralyzed father falling back in his chair flashed before her and she prayed that her mother had found a way to save him.

  Then she wondered again who she was that she could do such things as paralyze her father and take apart gods. She wondered again at the dimly perceived destiny she could sense drawing closer. When she focused on that, the pain went away. The world seemed crystalline in its clarity.

  She stepped out of her cabin and went on deck. Dhrun waited for her. His expression darkened as he pressed his palms together, both pairs over his heart. When he straightened, she handed him the leimako. “Give this to Peleki and tell him that I saw Holokai off. We are to go to Keyway with all haste. After you speak to Peleki, join me.”

  Afterward Leandra walked to her usual spot on the forward deck and stared down at the bay water, which was presently reflecting the growing blue of a dawn sky. She knew then that if she dove overboard and into the water, she would take a long and pale shape, teeth and scales and fins. There she would experience Holokai’s deep ocean memories, the glory of the hunt, the intoxication of blood in the water.

  “Lea?”

  She turned and saw Dhrun.

  “Peleki says we’re almost to Keyway.”

  Nodding, she leaned on the railing. “These are strange days. Strange and bloody.”

  Dhrun stepped beside her and placed all four of his hands on the railing. “Captain Holokai?”

  “My mother got hold of his son.”

  “He had a son?”

  “Born a few days ago, apparently. Poor Kai, it compromised him. He couldn’t do otherwise.”

  “I see. How soon until his reincarnation?”

  “I retained a majority of his prose.” She stood taller to emphasize her new height. “Most of the prayers meant for him will come to me. But with enough prayer, there will be another version of Kai swimming around his island. Maybe he’ll remember that he’s supposed to be serving me, but little more than that.”

  They stood in silence for a while. “How do you feel?”

  “Heavyhearted. But the loveless helps me understand clearly.”

  “How clearly.”

  “Crystalline.”

  He did not reply, so they watched the standing islands. A brisk wind was blowing. Peleki brought the ship around a wide limestone formation and through the maze they saw Keyway Island.

  The tide was low enough that they should be able to sail into the island as soon as they reached it. Though Leandra was not physically tired, her heart would welcome the familiar quarters of her hidden sea village. Most particularly she looked forward to seeing Master Alo and hearing his sour but somehow endearing complaints.

  Well, maybe she wasn’t entirely excited about seeing the old man. She would have to explain their many new hardships and dangers … not to mention that she had failed to secure any new funds. But never mind that for now.

  As they sailed, Leandra discovered that she found Dhrun’s proximity comforting. Suddenly, and to her own surprise, she asked, “Dhru, would you do me a favor?”

  “Gladly.”

  “Tell me why you converted yourself into the Ixonian pantheon. Why break into my bedroom and reveal yourself as a neodemon?”

  “Ah, but one of the conditions of my conversion is that we would not talk about what came before it. I was promised amnesty.”

  “Of course,” Leandra said. “I was only curious.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m not sure. Something about what happened with Kai.”

  “Then I’ll make you a trade.”

  “What kind of trade?”

  “I will tell you why I converted myself, if you take the loveless off.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To humor a friend,” he said.

  “I don’t have any humorous friends.”

  “But you have at least one humorless friend who should be humored. Do it for pity’s sake.”

  “Pity?” She looked at him. His brown eyes met hers. She couldn’t say what it was she saw in them, but she found herself saying, “All right, if we can find a way to take the loveless off so that it can be preserved until we put it back on, I’ll do so.”

  “For a whole day,” Dhrun added. “At the least.”

  “Are you a god of wrestling or bargaining?”

  “In some ways they’re not all that different.”

  Leandra frowned at him but said nothing.

  “Do you want me to take my Nika incarnation?” he asked. “Would you rather talk to a woman?”

  “No no,” she said faintly and looked back at Keyway Island. “I don’t mind you staying like this.” She paused. “All right, a whole day if, and only if, it’s possible to put it back on. So, tell me how you ended up in my bedroom.”

  Dhrun took a deep breath. “Where to start … well … Nika was always the one who had the ideas. Likely you guessed that. She was the only one of us with any legitimacy. Her cult is ancient, coming from a Cloud Culture religion that predates the union of Ixos. The cults of the Cloud People are always small, and because of her origin she always had trouble recruiting followers from the Sea and Lotus Peoples. But somehow she managed to scrape by in a tiny Upper Banyan temple. But for the past century, her cult has become less fashionable even among the Cloud People. Then one day, she realized that her only remaining devotees were three old priestesses.”

  Dhrun stood up straighter. “So Nika went looking for possible allies to form a divinity complex. Someone who could make her cult more relevant and powerful, but no one in the pantheon wanted to fuse their soul with a dusty old goddess. So, eventually, she started searching for … alternatives.”

  “And by alternatives, you mean neodemons?” Leandra suggested.

  “I mean neodemons.”

  “Go on.”

  “This was maybe five years ago, just when wrestling was becoming so popular. They built the arena right after that r
ainy season. Before that we’d wrestle in the yards of winehouses, in rings at festivals, that sort of thing. But after the arena was built, we’d wrestle before thousands. All those men and women, praying for their favorite to win.”

  “And those prayers incarnated the god Dhrun.”

  “Incarnated him with some … dark requisites.”

  Leandra had been watching Keyway Island as they drew closer. Now she looked with interest at her companion. “Dark requisites?”

  “People in an arena pray for some horrible things; the mildest of which would be for their less favorite wrestlers to be injured. The darkest prayers—especially after a favorite loses a match and all the money bet on him—were for blood.”

  “Before you formed the divinity complex, Dhrun would sacrifice his own wrestlers?” Leandra asked in surprise.

  “Neodemons don’t choose their prerequisites.”

  “Of course,” Leandra said weakly.

  “And there were worse things than sacrifice, at least I’ve come to see it that way. Dhrun’s cult arranged death matches. The blood sport produced the strongest prayers.”

  “But there were no rumors of such a cult. We were completely unaware.”

  “The cult was well organized, very secretive. And that is where the third member of our trinity comes in, the one you know as Dhrunarman.”

  “The young wrestler who won the tournament last year?”

  “He was that too. But before he was renamed as a championship wrestler, he was named Tonoki.”

  Leandra had to remind herself that her Dhrun was the product of these three different people—Nika, Dhrun, and Dhrunarman. And though her Dhrun had inherited the experiences of all three of these souls, the resulting divinity complex was entirely unique from his predecessors. Or her predecessors, depending on the moment.

  Dhrun continued. “Nika discovered the blood sport and the sacrifices. She saw that the cult was on the cusp of discovery. She knew that you would have deconstructed Dhrun rather than try to convert him. So through a long negotiation, she convinced Dhrun and his young devotee that we three needed to form a complex. Dhrun brought raw strength and his powerful cult. Nika brought her mandates for honor, which helped negate the mandates for blood.” He paused, his expression troubled.

  Leandra frowned. “And Dhrunarman?”

  “He was chosen to become a popular champion, someone the citizens saw as one of their own. His celebrity was meant to popularize the sport and win a larger number of prayers to compensate for the lost blood sport prayers.”

  “But how did you know he would become a celebrity?”

  Dhrun sighed. “We decided that he would become the champion of an especially exciting and popular tournament.”

  “Especially exciting and popular because it was rigged?”

  “So … how would you feel if you learned that your deity is not only a murderer but also a fraud?”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “No, no, I am anything but kind.” She flexed her hands and felt the powerful prose that had once been Holokai’s moving through her. “Anything but kind.”

  Dhrun didn’t reply. They watched the water. Then Dhrun said, “I wonder if you remember … During that tournament, you and Holokai brought down a neodemon of theft.”

  Leandra frowned at her companion as she searched her memory. Then at last it came to her. “Yes, that young air goddess who came in from the Outer Island chain. She picked pockets at the arena and gave the coins to the beggars in exchange for prayers.” Leandra laughed. “I had nearly forgotten.”

  Peleki was belting out orders. It seemed that the tide was indeed low enough for them to sail into the island’s pool.

  “Perhaps you don’t remember,” Dhrun continued, “but you took down that air neodemon during one of the matches in which Dhrunarman was wrestling. You made a rather … spectacular impression on him.

  Leandra laughed. “Your wrestler fancied me?”

  “Something like that. And Nika was perhaps a bit envious. She was, after all, an ancient goddess and you were only a mortal. In any case, the confused mixture of admiration and competitiveness led us to break into your bedroom one night and, in our Nika incarnation, see if we didn’t look better in some of your dresses.” He laughed. “When we did, Nika’s jealousy eased a bit. Then you caught me in the bedroom, and the Dhrunarman admiration was overwhelming. There was nothing left to do but convert to you and the pantheon. It has worked out rather well since then, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I would.” Leandra nodded and looked back toward the arch in the stone of Keyway Island. With all hands but her own and Dhrun’s rowing, they were speeding through the tunnel.

  Leandra could see the pool at the village’s center ahead. There were no lights burning in the village. That seemed odd. Usually Master Alo was industrious in the early hours, which usually meant that the rest of the village had to be industrious as well.

  “Lea,” Dhrun asked gently, “why did you ask me about my past?”

  “I’ve always been curious.”

  “But why now … why after Holokai?”

  She pursed her lips and stood up straighter. “It’s hard to say. What happened with Kai…”

  But whatever reason she was going to give flew away from her mind as the catamaran cleared the Keyway tunnel and slipped into the pool. It was then that Leandra first saw the bodies.

  There were only two of them lying on the dock, but their arms and legs were splayed at such angles that they could only be dead. Involuntarily, Leandra shouted and pointed at the corpses.

  At first Dhrun seemed confused but then he sucked in a sharp breath.

  Leandra noticed that in several places the railings around the walkways had been burned out. It seemed all of her followers in Keyway were dead. She yelled, “Peleki! Turn the boat. Turn, we have to get out of here!”

  Her mind raced with fear. How could anyone have found Keyway? And why, an hour ago, had she not felt the possibility of her present fear? Then, with horror, she remembered that one man could blind her to certain futures.

  “Lotannu!” she whispered. Right after she had bought the first godspell from Lotannu disguised as a smuggler, she had sailed back to Keyway and thought she had spotted something large flying from island to island, following her.

  Icy terror closed its fingers around her heart. “Lotannu, if you did this to my people, I swear…”

  But once again, she could not finish her words.

  Above her, the circle of dawn sky visible from the pool was darkened by the shape of something massive. At first she thought it was some new kind of neodemon.

  But then she saw, arcing across its foresail, a jagged blaze of lightning.

  * * *

  A thunderclap rolled through Keyway Island. Leandra barked orders but could not hear her own words. Fortunately neither Peleki nor the sailors needed orders to know they had to back-paddle for their lives. With painful slowness, the sailors halted the catamaran’s progress, reversed her course back toward the tunnel.

  Using her godspell of misdirection, Leandra mentally reached out for the airship. As before, she sensed the remnants of a divine mind that had aimed the airship’s lightning, but now the mind had been stripped down to its basic subspells, not enough of an intellect left to misdirect. Hopefully this meant the airship’s aim would be impaired.

  As if to oblige her curiosity, lightning fell from the ship and struck the highest point of the island. The flash dazzled, the thunderclap deafened. A corona of blasted rock rose from the lightning strike and then rained upon the catamaran. The larger stones punched holes into the deck.

  On the starboard hull, a sailor screamed and went down grabbing his shoulder. A bloody limestone shard clattered onto the deck beside him.

  Another line of white energy arced down from the airship and struck one of the village staircases, transforming it into a chaos of splinters. Another shower of debris.

  Leandra tur
ned, intending to bellow orders to the crew, but found herself lifted into muscular arms. A confusion of crimson text exploded around her. Another flash and thunderclap. For a moment she thought she had been struck by lightning, but then she realized Dhrun had picked her up and was running for the starboard hull.

  Indignation jolted through Leandra, and she struggled with the impulse to scold Dhrun or at least deconstruct one of his limbs. But just then a rafter from some blasted village structure crashed onto the forward deck where she had been standing.

  Before she could fully appreciate her gratitude, Dhrun hurried them both down a hatch and below the deck of the starboard hull. Above them, Peleki screamed orders and the crew replied with war cries. There followed a double thunderclap, a wail of pain, more war cries.

  Through the hatch a square of dawn sky was visible with no sign of the airship. Then came another flash, another thunderclap. Then strange quiet.

  Leandra invoked her prophetic godspell, but felt nothing. Lotannu must be in the airship and blinding her to futures his influence created, and there were no longer future hours free of his influence. “What do we do?” Leandra yelled.

  “Stay down here!” Dhurn replied.

  Leandra looked back up at the hatch and saw that the view of sky had been replaced by dark stone. They had passed into the tunnel. “Put me down!” she yelled. When Dhrun didn’t, she hammered her fist against his chest. “Put me down or I’ll break you down into loose punctuation, you lumbering heap of paragraphs!”

  Dhrun started as if noticing an insect bite and put her down.

  Another thunderclap rocked through the ship. Leandra hurried up the hatch. The deck was a mess of stone and wood. Fortunately little rigging had been damaged and the sails were mostly intact. The air felt strange, too warm and wet. There was a strange scent—something of seawater and smoke, something vaguely rotten.

  The crew, divided between the two hulls, were stationed with their paddles. Peleki was on the aft center deck, waving his leimako and yelling. As Leandra made her way toward the lieutenant, a flash came from the tunnel’s mouth and was followed by a thunderclap, then debris splashing into water. She had taken only a few more steps when another blast tore through the tunnel. Then another. She clapped her hands over her ears but the sound seemed to pass right through them.