by James Maxey
Bitterwood closed his eyes.
“You’ve made your judgment,” he said.
“Father, I implore you; repent your blasphemy and you’ll be released unharmed. You may live out the remainder of your days here in paradise.”
Bitterwood chuckled. “You live in a hole beneath the earth. How can this be paradise when you know that the stars above you are nothing but a lie?”
“Why do you think the world outside is any different?” Adam asked. “How can you know that the stars you look upon at night are real?”
Bitterwood didn’t have an answer for this.
Adam continued: “You’re a legend, father. The dragons call you the Ghost Who Kills. Yet, you aren’t a ghost. Does this make your struggle any less just? The dragons think of you as a force of nature, a supernatural being that slays without cause. Does this make you evil, father? Or are you a good man because you’ve you fought to make the world a better place?”
Bitterwood kept his eyes closed. He hoped Adam would go away. But he could still hear Trisky below, calmly munching on the grass.
Bitterwood sighed. “A lifetime of murder has corrupted me beyond redemption.”
“If you believe this, why do it?”
Bitterwood opened his eyes. He looked down upon his son. Adam was a man now, yet still had a boyish softness to his eyes. There was an innocence within him, a hope and faith that the world was a good world guided by a watchful, benign power. There was a light inside him that had long since burned to ash within Bitterwood.
Bitterwood had never been called upon to justify his actions. If he owed anyone an explanation, it was his own son. “It is said that if a man’s only tool is a hammer, then he will treat all the problems of the world as a nail.”
“Why do you answer me in riddles, father?”
“Hate was the only tool that remained after the dragons took everything else,” Bitterwood said. “In a single day I lost my God, my family, my home, my hope. Hatred kept me warm in winter. Hatred slaked my dry throat in times of drought and fed me in times of famine. I would have died long ago if not for my dream of a world without dragons. Perhaps, in the end, all the evil I’ve done will lead to good when mankind rules this world once more.”
“The goddess will never allow mankind dominion over the earth,” said Adam. “She says the race of man is unworthy. Listening to your words, watching your actions, I can’t help but wonder if she’s right.”
Behind Adam, the air began to rip. Prisms of light opened to surround a black gate. A woman stepped through. She resembled the goddess statue on a human scale; tall but nothing unnatural save for the hue of her hair.
“Sorry to interrupt this heart-to-heart,” the woman said. Bitterwood instantly recognized her voice as belonging to the goddess.
Adam threw himself to the ground.
“Oh, stand up and stop groveling,” the goddess said, sounding mildly agitated. “It’s starting to get old. I miss the days when guys your age couldn’t take their eyes off my breasts. You don’t know what I look like above my toenails.”
“I’m not worthy to gaze upon you,” Adam said.
“Worthy or not, I need you on your feet. Or on your butt, to be precise. Mount up.”
Adam rose, still averting his eyes as he climbed back into his saddle.
“Here’s the deal. I worked with the first matriarch to design the gene maps that would help her race slip out of the genetic noose it was caught in. But as we speak, Blasphet is attacking the Nest, trying to bring extinction to the entire species. He won’t succeed, of course. He doesn’t know about the sky-dragon population over in Tennessee or the big colony down in Cuba. Still, I’m a little pissed off that Blasphet’s wrecking a thousand-year-old project that’s one of my bigger success stories. So, Adam, I’m sending you and the other riders to stop him. I’m sending your dad along. Also, the big guy.” She cocked her head toward Hex.
“You want me to fight for you?” Bitterwood asked.
“You’ve shown a lot of talent for breaking things. Go break Blasphet.”
Bitterwood frowned. Was this a trick? Blasphet had long been one of the most difficult of Albekizan’s relatives to target. Normally, he would gladly accept an opportunity to face him. But not under these conditions.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t come here to serve you. I came here to find Zeeky.”
“Sure,” said the goddess. “So let’s cut to the chase. Go kill Blasphet and I won’t hurt Zeeky.”
“How do I even know she’s alive? Why did you send a replica to greet us?”
“I have her busy elsewhere right now,” said the goddess. “She’s not been hurt. For what it’s worth, I like the kid. She’s spunky. Reminds me of me when I was little.”
Bitterwood ground his teeth as he thought the offer over. What did it matter if Blasphet was attacking the Nest now? Even if they were outside the mountain, the Nest would take several days to reach. This must be a trick.
The goddess waved her hands toward Hex. The vegetation around his jaws loosened.
“How about you?” she asked. “Think you can take out your uncle?”
“Where’s Jandra?” Hex asked. With his head free, he strained to stand. The ground beneath him bulged as the full force of his muscles was brought to bear. In the end, the effort was futile. For every vine he snapped, two grew to replace them.
Suddenly, the rainbows behind the goddess rippled and a young woman stepped out. It looked like Jandra, though Bitterwood knew he couldn’t trust his eyes. This one was even less authentic than the earlier one. She wore no helmet.
Jandra looked up into the tree, then glanced over to the vines that covered Hex.
“What have you done to them?” she demanded.
“They aren’t hurt,” the goddess said. “Merely detained. I’ve offered them a chance to go to the Nest to fight Blasphet. So far, they don’t seem all that hot on the idea.”
“I’ll go,” said Jandra.
“This is further evidence you aren’t real,” said Bitterwood. “Your eagerness to do her bidding shows that you’re another doppelganger.”
Jandra looked as if she had no idea what Bitterwood was talking about. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “But, here’s one thing I understand: Blasphet. He escaped from the dungeons right before I left. He’s got a cult helping him, the Sisters of the Serpent, and one of them almost killed me. I’m finding there aren’t a lot of easy moral choices in life, but this one’s fairly simple. Anything that Blasphet wants to do, we should want to undo.”
“What happened to your helmet?” Hex asked.
“I’ll explain later. You coming?”
“Draw nearer,” Hex said.
Jandra walked closer. Hex’s nostrils flared as he sniffed her.
“She sweats,” he announced, looking up at Bitterwood. “It’s her.”
Bitterwood nodded. A dragon’s sense of smell rivaled that of a dog.
“I’ll go,” said Bitterwood. He didn’t care much about doing the bidding of the goddess, but getting free of these vines was an improvement over his current state.
“And I,” said Hex. “My uncle has tarnished my family’s reputation even more than my father. Unlike Shandrazel, I’m not encumbered by any romantic ideas of law. I’ll gladly gut the old monster.”
“Swell,” said the goddess. She snapped her fingers and the kudzu began to writhe. Bitterwood was spun downward and deposited on his feet. Hex rose as the vines lost their hold on him. He shook like a wet dog to free himself of the last of the clinging tendrils.
“If I’m going to face Blasphet, I’ll require a weapon,” said Bitterwood.
“Naturally,” the goddess said. She reached up and grabbed a low hanging limb of the cottonwood. The branch snapped off in her hand. Before Bitterwood’s eyes, the raw wood warped, the bark and leaves falling away as it straightened into a wooden bow six feet long. The goddess grimaced as she bent the bow into an arc and plucked a strand of her own ha
ir. The hair wove and grew into a long silken cord that knotted itself around the ends. She tossed it to Bitterwood. He snatched it from the air and gave it a pull. It felt perfectly balanced, and was a good match for his strength. He looked up to find that the goddess had reconfigured the bark and remaining wood into a quiver of arrows, fletched with fresh green leaves.
She threw the quiver to him. “I’ve always believed in recycling,” she said. “You’ll be happy to know your equipment is 100% biodegradable.”
Bitterwood wasn’t happy to know this. He wasn’t even certain what the word meant, though he felt it was similar enough to degradation that it must mean something unpleasant.
“Time’s wasting,” said the goddess. Another rainbow opened before her, the largest yet, wide enough for Hex to step through. “Go get him.”
Jandra cast the goddess a stern look. “When we get back,” she said. “I want to see Zeeky.”
“We’ll talk about it,” the goddess said.
Bitterwood moved next to Jandra and Hex. He stared into the black rip in the center of the rainbow. A shudder passed through him as he gazed into the void.
He felt as if the void was gazing back.
Chapter Twenty-Four:
Long Slow Fall
“Kill the gray one,” Blasphet said, moving toward the stairs that lead up from the Thread Room. “Bring Metron up to watch the festivities. The attack of the sun-dragons should be well underway. The burning bodies of valkyries must be falling from the sky like stars.”
As one the twenty women lowered their long knives and advanced toward Graxen. Graxen braced himself, running his eyes along the chain of attackers, searching for the weakest link. Unfortunately, the drugged smoke continued to play with his senses. It looked as if a rainbow had suddenly erupted in the air before him.
Then he slipped into madness. From thin air, a huge beast shot into the room. It was copper-colored, serpentine, and seemingly endless, studded with more limbs than Graxen could count. The serpent writhed, its body undulating as it trampled half of Blasphet’s assassins beneath its claws.
The serpent hadn’t come through alone. He was being ridden by a man in a white uniform, his eyes hidden behind a silver visor. The rider wielded a crossbow and coolly lowered it toward Blasphet. There was no way the rider could miss at such range. Yet as he pulled the trigger, one of the sisters leapt up and hit his arm. The shot went high, striking sparks on the ceiling above Blasphet’s head. Blasphet winced as the bolt bounced against his skull. Then he quickly turned tail, slithering toward the door he’d entered.
With a back-handed slap, the rider knocked aside the girl who’d grabbed him. The copper serpent curved his head toward Blasphet, preparing to strike. The beast’s eyes seemed unfocused in the smoky air. Suddenly, the serpent stumbled. The rider tumbled from his saddle as the serpent rolled to its side, succumbing to the poisoned torches.
Graxen’s eyes were drawn by a motion to his left. He spun in time to find a tattooed girl attacking him. He thrust out his wing, knocking her knife away, then lunged forward, biting her throat with a quick snap of his jaws. He pulled back as she fell to her knees, clasping her neck with both hands.
Graxen coughed as he searched around the room for other attackers. The arrival of the giant serpent had caused so much confusion that no one was watching him. The atmosphere was increasingly difficult to see through. Some of the torches the assassins had carried had been knocked against the tapestries. The aged threads hissed as flames devoured them.
Jandra plunged into the rainbow gate, in pursuit of Hex and Bitterwood. In her previous journeys through underspace, she had exited the other side an instant after she entered. This time, something was different. She felt as if she were engulfed by the void, falling through a space that was not a space, a place disconnected from the normal world of up and down, back and forth. It was a place without light or sound. And in this nothingness, a familiar voice called her name.
Zeeky? she thought, before she stumbled back into reality. She was in a room full of smoke, with the dead bodies of sky-dragons underfoot. Bitterwood was helping Adam get free of Trisky’s unconscious form. Hex had dropped to all fours, gasping for breath.
“J-jandra,” he whispered, “the air…,” before slumping to the ground.
“The smoke is poisoned,” shouted a gray sky-dragon standing near a blackboard. The name “Vendevorex” was written on the board, the white chalk seeming to glow.
“You’re Graxen, right?” Jandra asked. “Shandrazel’s messenger?”
“Yes,” he answered. “How did you get here? What is this rainbow?”
“I’ll have to answer you later,” Jandra said, fanning smoke away from her eyes. She reached into the pouch on her belt and threw thick handfuls of silver dust into the air. Despite the flames the air here was humid; she knew the Nest was located on an island. She commanded her tiny helpers to gather the water molecules in the air.
“Where’s Blasphet?” Bitterwood asked Graxen.
Graxen pointed toward the stairs down. “He fled mere moments ago.”
Now that the nanites had bonded to the water molecules, Jandra commanded a dozen small, localized showers to rain on all the torches and tapestries burning within the room. A second later the room went dark, with only a few red embers still visible. Content that the flames were extinguished, Jandra commanded the nanites to emit light. A soft white glow lit the nightmarish corpsescape.
“You must be Jandra,” Graxen said. “Vendevorex’s apprentice.”
Jandra nodded. She looked back toward Bitterwood, but he was gone.
“Blasphet has sun-dragons attacking above,” said Graxen. “We have to stop them!”
“If my father went after Blasphet, I must aid him,” said Adam.
Before anyone could move, the rainbow rippled once more and a tall, silver-haired man stepped out. He was bare-chested, and sported long golden wings.
“Who?” Jandra and Graxen asked simultaneously.
“Gabriel,” said the angel. “I’ll take command. The goddess has explained the full situation. Blasphet’s servants fan through the Nest, slaughtering valkyries. Adam, Jandra, since you cannot fly, it’s your duty to stop them. The goddess is sending the remaining long-wyrm riders to other areas of the Nest to assist. Meanwhile, the valkyries are under assault from sun-dragons. Since only I can fly, I’ll deal with them.”
Graxen stepped up. “I can help.”
“If you wish,” said the angel. Without waiting to see if anyone would question his orders, Gabriel leapt over the dead bodies to the stairs, darting up them with superhuman speed. Adam followed as quickly as he could, drawing his sword.
Jandra knelt before Hex, placing her hands upon him to see if she could identify the poison that had claimed him. To her relief, he was still breathing. The smoke wasn’t fatal.
“Aren’t you coming?” Graxen asked.
“Not until I neutralize the poison,” said Jandra. “He’ll be a big help if I can revive him.”
“If you possess Vendevorex’s healing arts, please, save Nadala,” Graxen said, bending low over the body of an unarmored valkyrie.
“I’ll do what I can,” said Jandra, as visions of molecules danced before her. She’d work better without any distractions. “She’s safe with me. Go!”
She gave him a dismissive wave as she turned her concentration once more to Hex. Graxen ran up the stairs. The clicks of his claws were drowned out as unseen gears in the walls started to chatter and grind.
Arifiel aimed herself toward the sun-dragon that lagged behind the rest of the pack. She folded her wings and went into freefall, undulating like a snake swimming through water, racing toward her target. The tattooed woman astride the sun-dragon spotted her and pulled the reins to guide the dragon’s head upward, but there was no way the gargantuan beast could move swiftly enough. Arifiel aimed for the dragon’s left wing, a massive sheet of feathery flesh. As the dragon beat a down stroke, she extended her hind-talons. Her claws
sunk into the hide with a satisfying jolt as she ripped long, parallel shreds from the wing. The sun-dragon listed, losing speed, its movement crossing the tipping point between flying and falling. Arifiel kicked, tearing one last shred as she pushed away. The sun-dragon craned its neck toward her. Arifiel caught the look of terror and confusion in its eyes.
Then, without warning, the dragon’s rider gave one last squeeze of the bellows and a geyser of white flame shot toward her. Arifiel spun, pulling back from the worst of the flame, but cupfuls of the fluid splashed across her shoulders. She spasmed from the intense pain and found herself falling in the same path as the injured sun-dragon. She fought to regain control of her limbs, but each motion was utter agony as the liquid flame trickled across her scales.
The sun-dragon struck the water a hundred feet beneath her, creating a huge circle of waves. Cool droplets splashed against her face. A scream tore from her throat as she forced her injured shoulders to obey her will. She pulled from her dive, darting across the lake at neck-breaking speed.
She glanced up at the remaining sun-dragons. More valkyries charged them and the night again was lit with a web of flame. She needed to return to combat, no matter her injuries. She needed a weapon. She wished she could get back into the central tower to recover her spear. She wondered if Sparrow would ever make it to the control panel.
As she thought this, the island rumbled and the grates slowly rose. She tried to focus on her mission, ignoring the screams of the dying valkyries above her. Burnt feather-scales drifted through the air, filling the night with their stench. She flew only inches from the barbs and spear points that studded the Nest until she reached the tower. Through sheer will she beat her wings, shooting up the stony surface, until she found the bell room. She landed inside, avoiding the bodies of the girls that Sparrow had killed. Sparrow had made short work of them, certainly, and she’d apparently had no problem reaching the gear room. Arifiel could do no less. She retrieved her spear and steadied herself. She felt lightheaded. Blood streamed from the charred flesh of her shoulders. The battle sounded faint and distant compared to her labored breathing. She badly wanted to lie down to catch her breath.