The golem stopped speaking. Without eyes, it was difficult to tell where the thing’s regard rested, but Demascus got the feeling it was waiting for something. “You said you were going to open the conduit?”
“Once you speak aloud the pass phrase of dispensation.”
A pass phrase? Shadow take it! He tried, “Chenraya indicated you’d tell us the pass phrase.” Demascus suspected it wasn’t a particularly good lie, but how smart could this animate chunk of obsidian be?
The golem cocked its head like a bird catching sight of a particularly choice worm in the grass. Was the golem buying his line? The thing’s body language was impossible to read. Was it about to step back and usher them toward the arch? Or was it-
The golem slammed its hands together. A fistclap of sound and obsidian shrapnel exploded outward, catching Demascus in the thunderous wave front. He tumbled feet over head. It was like he was underwater, struggling in a current, and didn’t know which way was up. Then the back cavern wall batted him out of the air. He couldn’t hear anything or feel anything except a body-wide tingle that quickly became an all-over ache. Shapes flashed before his eyes, but they were out of focus. His sense of time suffered …
Something not good was happening in the cavern, he knew that. The golem had pierced his bluff, and then some. He realized he was slick with sweat, as if all the water in his body had decided to escape. Why was he just lying here? Demascus gritted his teeth. He tried to lever himself up the wall. Ouch! He wished the tingles would come back. He slid back down. Low, rumbling noises grumbled in his ear, as if he was deep underwater listening to a fight raging just above the surface.
His eyes finally focused. Riltana was facing the obsidian golem alone! She whirled like a snowflake in a wind flurry, just out of reach of the construct’s massive fists. But lines of blood painted on her exposed limbs and face showed that merely being near the creature’s razor-sharp body was slowly slicing the thief to ribbons.
Three bolts slammed into the construct’s side, splintering the black stone. Chant was still up and part of the fight, he realized. As he himself should be! Demascus struggled to pull himself up again …
Someone hauled him upright. Who? Jaul. The kid’s mouth moved, but the deva couldn’t hear anything. He nodded anyway and said, “Thanks.” The sound of his own voice was one more unintelligible rumble.
Demascus drew Exorcessum. The runes along the blade immediately flickered to life, red and white. “Help me,” he said.
A white rune flared. His body-wide ache faded. The clash of combat invaded his ears once more. Then the rune went dark. The one next to it, the one that had cleansed his blood of spider venom in the warehouse yesterday, was also still dark. Odd. Weren’t they supposed to … renew themselves? He shrugged, and decided to save that worry for later.
Demascus careened back toward the golem, sword in one hand. His other whipped the scarf from around his neck, so that the far end grazed the golem, but failed to grasp a raised arm as he’d intended.
The obsidian humanoid was still trying to mash the thief. Demascus rushed up on its opposite flank and jammed his sword deep into the thing’s core. It convulsed and shrieked like a caged drake poked with a stick.
Riltana yelled, “There you are! Why do you always lie down when things get serious?”
“Because your wit tires me out,” he said, hauling back on this sword. It didn’t budge.
Exorcessum was stuck!
The golem wheeled, yanking the sword out of his hands. Stone shards abraded the deva’s face and outstretched hand. Demascus evaded a hammer fist of black stone. Lords of light, what the Hells had he been thinking? Slashing strikes were better than extended lunges, even for live targets-less exposure to a counterattack. And for a creature composed of animate stone, he might as well have gift-wrapped his sword before he slammed it point first into the golem’s obsidian body.
Another of Chant’s bolts stuck the Gatekeeper’s face. It didn’t care. Despite the damage the pawnbroker and thief had already inflicted, its attention was fixed on Demascus. Apparently it was put out that Demascus had gotten back up.
“It really doesn’t like you,” yelled Riltana, as the golem chased him down.
Retreating, Demascus replied, “You think?”
If he could summon his-
The golem “screamed” in his face, rubbing its head-splinters together so rapidly it looked like a hive of swarming bees. The sound hit him like a club.
For a moment, he saw two golems winding up to deliver a massive punch. Two Riltanas shot him a worried glance. He couldn’t distinguish the floor from the walls. Then his vision snapped back to true, but not soon enough. He wasn’t going to be able to avoid the stone fist hurtling at his head … Except he did, swaying under the golem’s half-ton haymaker like a tree in the wind.
Riltana seemed pinned to the air. Two of Chant’s bolts inched forward like slugs through air thick as clear jelly. Jaul’s slack-jawed expression of surprise, as he stood in the doorway, was graven as if in clay.
Demascus had produced a catch in time. The tables had just turned, though the Gatekeeper didn’t yet know it. Mounting bliss painted everything a sort of glowing orange, like right before sunrise. Time to end this thing.
The deva gazed into the shadows that suddenly welcomed him, whispering their secrets. He took hold of the wavering profile of the Veil of Wrath and Knowledge. He let its moth-wing sheen fall over the Gatekeeper. Points of light shone out. They summarized the golem’s being to the deva’s practiced eye. Its strengths were obvious. Its weaknesses were nearly nonexistent. But every creature, even a monster of animate stone, is tied to the world in some fashion.
And then Demascus saw the emerald flower of light that pulsed in the Gatekeeper’s chest. It was where the power of the golem’s animation was fixed; a magical “heart” of sorts. No, that wasn’t quite right. For there were two emerald flowers. And to fold this creature instantly into death’s embrace, Demascus would have to simultaneously pierce both. Difficult, to say the least.
First things first, he told himself. Before time’s gears renewed their clacking pace. He darted in, under the still-outstretched arms of the Gatekeeper, coming up behind where he’d planted Exorcessum. He draped the Veil around his neck, then snagged the hilt with both hands. Like a wagon precariously balanced atop a hill, where the slightest touch could launch its headlong rush, time raced back into dizzying motion at the contact. Demascus clung to the side of a creature made of razor-sharp rock and hauled on a sword so damnably long it might as well have been nailed into the Gatekeeper purposefully. There was no way he was going to get the sword out! It was jammed in too deep. In its current configuration, he would have to call upon the strength of …
In its current configuration? What an odd notion.
“Demascus!” screamed Riltana. “Let go! That thing’ll slice you to bloody strips!”
She was right about that. But … Exorcessum’s length had always struck him as absurd. And wasn’t it funny how its runes were calming white along one side and savage red along the other? As if they represented an unhappy compromise between two opposing ideals? Two sets of runes. On a blade two sizes too big. Hm.
The Gatekeeper ceased thrashing. It turned until the side of its body where the deva clung was lined up with the closest wall. Demascus realized it was going to throw itself against the stone and use his body as a cushion.
Now or never, he thought. He relaxed his grip on the hilt. Instead of trying to pull the blade straight out, he imagined pulling the hilt apart, separating the sword into-
Exorcessum split with a report like a cannon shot. The Gatekeeper’s body reverberated as if it had swallowed an exploding fireball. It stumbled and dropped to one knee. Demascus remained standing. He gripped two swords. Scarlet runes writhed in murderous glee down the blade in his right hand. White sigils like angel’s wings graced the one in his left. In their mixed light, Demascus smiled.
CHAPTER NINE
THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL
18 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
Unexpected pain yanked a gasp from Madri. had twin daggers just punched into her temples? Where she was, what she’d been doing-it all swirled away from her in a volcanic eruption of agony. She opened her mouth to scream in earnest …
And closed it again. It wasn’t pain. Well, yes, it hurt something terrible, but so did seeing the sunrise after days spent blindfolded.
Something was different. Her mind was … freer. As unexpectedly as if someone had opened a door, she became more herself. She was Madri, plenipotentiary of Halruaa. Whether ghost, or reconstructed figment, or some hybrid of both, she knew suddenly and with full conviction … she was real.
A genasi in a green tunic stared at her with surprise plain in his wide eyes and flared nostrils. “Where’d you come from?” he asked. He was a docent for the Netheril exhibit she’d been viewing before whatever had just happened … happened. And he saw her, when a moment ago she’d been only a shade to his perception.
She laughed. “I’m a stowaway. I survived the shipwreck of a deva’s incarnation.”
The docent frowned, clearly confused. He coughed. “I’m going to have to see your pass.”
“I don’t have one. I’m not even really alive, you see.”
The genasi paused, obviously wondering what he should do about this crazy woman. Madri laughed again. She couldn’t help it; she felt drunk.
“Madam, please, don’t make me call the peacemakers …” She wondered if she should fear a peacemaker’s sword? It probably wasn’t the best time to experiment. She should-
Flicker.
The dimness of the secret crypt greeted her. The painting, chair, bottomless fissure, and the heap of earth were as silent and still as ever. The mask was nowhere in evidence. It could come and go, apparently with a thought, or as so often happened to her, with a yearning. Had it heard her talking to the Necromancer? She shrugged. More important things occupied her mind. Like, what’d just happened to her?
She flopped into the chair and studied the draped painting. Had her talk with what lay beneath borne fruit so quickly? She didn’t see how. She hadn’t fulfilled any of the grisly requirements the thing had described. Madri shuddered. Striking out on her own wasn’t going to be as simple as she’d hoped. Her soul would be stained if she accepted the Necromancer’s help, and she hadn’t yet decided if she was willing to descend to those depths to ensure her independence from Kalkan and Fossil. So, if not the painting, then what? Demascus must have done something. Somehow, the deva had managed to mentally jab her from who knew how far away. She closed her eyes, considering, while at the same time trying her damnedest to avoid flicking across space to wherever he was. She didn’t want to see him again until she had to.
She could sense a faint connection to something not in the room. A line of silvery light, snaking off into nothingness. Well, that was too simplistic, but it was how she imagined her connection to … the deva? To his sword? It was brighter than before, more tangible. More real …
“That rotten snake-licking heartless bastard!” she screamed, surprising herself at the abruptness of her rage. Why? Why had the deva killed her? She still didn’t know. Fossil had declined to explain. It was only interested in describing how, by becoming part of Kalkan’s plan, she could have vengeance. How many murder victims ever get that kind of opportunity? Damn few. So, Fossil had intimated, she should just be grateful and stop asking questions that didn’t bear on the plan.
Madri stood. She faced the draped frame and gathered her courage.
The velvet drape felt like cold blood against her fingers as she flipped it aside. The face was waiting. It could just barely be described as a face. The multitude of shattered portraits, jammed together to form a single entity abiding in apparent unceasing agony, met her gaze with mismatched eyes. Its gaping mouth was like a wound. The frozen vista of paint snared the visage in cruel brush strokes.
“Necromancer,” she said, “Your specialty is death. Why did Demascus kill me?”
The two-dimensional mouth squirmed. The painting whispered. Her stomach lurched.
“… the Sword serves only those to whom Fate is an ally …”
“That makes no sense! Fate wants … wanted me dead?” Her confusion commingled with the nausea that seeing the painting induced. And her headache was back. Unlike before, it didn’t break down the doors of perception; the pain seemed like a live thing, chewing on her brain from inside her skull.
“… the Sword may also serve those who can bend Fate, or deceive it with a tapestry of interlocking lies …” The pain was unspeakable. Her memory of Demascus, telling her again how sorry he was before he broke her neck, danced and mixed with the crazy-quilt image of the Necromancer.
She screamed. The draping fell back over the painting. She dropped into a shuddering fit.
The pain … was receding. She found herself with her face pressed against the dirt floor. The sour smell of grave dirt was literally in her nose. She rolled onto her side. The Necromancer hadn’t answered her question. Instead, it’d whispered some nonsense about Fate. She rubbed her temple. It’d also said something about lies-
“Why are you lying on the floor?” A silver mask floated into her field of vision. Fossil was home. It’d apparently missed her conversation with the whispering painting. The thing was a manipulating liar, first and foremost, but it was also ruthless. If it thought she was going behind its back, it would act. She was still safe, but she’d have to be more careful in the future.
Madri pulled herself into the chair. She smoothed her hair and said, “Pain like an avalanche overwhelmed me.” She swaddled the lie around the truth with expert delicacy.
The mask vibrated a moment, perhaps with excitement. Though how could one tell with an inexpressive silvery facade? It could have been confusion just as easily, or fear.
“So,” Fossil finally uttered. “Kalkan’s prophecy has nearly run its course.”
She waited only a heartbeat before giving Fossil what he wanted, and asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“The Swordbreaker saw far. But even his damos isn’t infallible. Despite its marvelous reach, Kalkan couldn’t foresee whether Demascus would discover his sword has more than a single configuration. Your genesis, Madri, as an unquiet spirit, lies in the power Exorcessum generated when Demascus retrieved it. You are both memory and spirit, a figment-ghost.”
Fossil’s words overstuffed her head with knowledge. What sort of gods-abandoned nonsense was the relic spouting-about her being undead after all, except not really? And …
“What’s a damos?” she said.
“A relic of the Imaskar empire. A portal that vouchsafes the future course of history to its owner who is willing to risk its venomous shackle. The damos is what Kalkan used to devise Demascus’s route into dissolution and ultimate defeat. But we’ve finally reached the frayed ends of Kalkan’s original damos-derived prophecy. He foresaw the possibility that Demascus would discover how to split his sword into two blades. If that happened-and it has-then everything becomes a bit … touch and go.”
It was too much to understand. Madri wished she had parchment and quill so she could take notes. Future course of history? Two blades in one? Touch-and-go prophecy?
Time to wrest the course of conversation back herself while Fossil was in a talkative mood. “Wait. You said I’m both a spirit and a memory? How can that be?”
“Do not concern yourself. It does not matter what you are, does it? All that matters is that we execute our plan to bring Demascus down.”
“I … suppose you’re right,” she said. Though it did matter. Her odds of coming out of this with something more than ashes after they dealt with Demascus depended on her true status. Or so the Necromancer had whispered. She couldn’t press too hard for that particular truth. If Fossil suspected she was lining up her own agenda, the relic angel would “erase” her and begin anew, as it suggested had happened befor
e. Unless that was just a lie to keep her in line …
“Well, tell me more about this damos, then. Where is it?”
The mask rotated toward the heap of earth. “In there with Kalkan’s regenerating shell.”
A surge of excitement drew Madri to her feet. “It’s right here? If Kalkan used it to create a prophecy that saw all of us this far into the future, let’s dig it out and use it again, right now. We’ll just tell this ‘damos’ that the sword split after all, whatever that means, and have it start a new prophecy from there!”
The mask settled its hollow regard on her, saying nothing.
“What, now you’re back to giving me the silent treatment? You know, we’d get on so much better if you’d just be honest. Like you keep saying, Fossil, we both want the same thing.” Except, what was it the Necromancer had whispered, right before she’d collapsed? Something about lies motivating Demascus to accept a commission involving her. But what of it? No exonerating evidence would ever change the fact he had killed her. Of course, she wanted to know why, whatever the answer was … why Demascus had wrapped his fingers around her head and twisted.
Fossil’s voice broke into her reverie. “True enough, figment. We want the same thing. And were it possible to craft a new prophecy now that Demascus has rediscovered how to switch between the most brutish shape of his blade and a more adaptable configuration, I would consider it. But it won’t work. Only a living creature can call on the Voice of Tomorrow. Neither of us qualify.”
“I guess that’d be too easy.” She snorted. “Just out of idle curiosity, how many configurations does Demascus’s gods-abandoned sword have, anyhow?” The more she heard about the blade, the more she wished she’d had something like it when she’d been plenipotentiary to Halruaa. She’d had to undertake more than a couple of tasks in her country’s defense that could have benefited from a divinely amorphous weapon.
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