Lord of the White Hell Book 2

by Ginn Hale

  Kiram put them both to work, hauling, lifting and bracing ungainly machine parts. Javier however stepped back from them all and knelt on the floor, writing curling Bahiim symbols in tight columns. As Kiram spliced new wires into the stripped harness of Donamillo’s mechanical cure, Javier enclosed them in protective wards.

  Genimo offered to help, but he worked too slowly and too sloppily for Kiram to use him. Fortunately Scholar Blasio asked Genimo to help him with Donamillo’s body. Genimo seemed far more suited to dribbling water between the old man’s lips than aligning delicate glass panels.

  The raucous screams of blue jays became so constant that Kiram stopped hearing them. But the growing darkness outside the windows gnawed at him. He disregarded the stew Genimo brought him in favor of his work.

  Javier looked like he was going to insist but then the infirmary doors flew open and Master Ignacio charged in with a bleeding groom in his arms. Ignacio took all of them and the chaos of machinery in with a single sweeping glare.

  “Blasio!” Ignacio shouted. “This boy needs your help. NOW!”

  Blasio bolted from his brother’s bedside and rushed to help Ignacio lay the groom on one of the cots. As they laid him back Kiram felt bile rise in his throat. The young man was nearly cut in half: bowels hung exposed from a bloody, gaping wound.

  “What the hell happened to him?” Elezar demanded.

  “Some demon tore him open in the shadows of the orchard!” Master Ignacio turned his furious gaze on Javier and his hand went to his sword hilt.

  “It wasn’t my doing.” Javier stood straight and met the master’s glare directly.

  “It wasn’t!” Scholar Blasio insisted. He met Ignacio’s gaze for only a moment and then looked back down at the groom. “It’s my brother’s handiwork. This and Fedeles Quemanor’s madness, and even the murder of the groom last year. He’s done so much harm.” Blasio’s voice broke and he turned away.

  “What in the name of God are you talking about?” Ignacio demanded. Blasio looked too close to tears to speak. He simply shook his head, then lifted a sheet and laid it over the unmoving groom. Then he turned and sat beside his brother’s body.

  The groom was dead, Kiram realized.

  “If you’ll listen I’ll tell you, Master Ignacio.” Javier cautiously stepped closer to Ignacio.

  Ignacio studied Javier and then nodded.

  While Javier spoke with the war master, Kiram tried to put the dead groom out of his mind. Red stains seeped up through the sheet that Blasio had laid over the body. In the heat of the afternoon the smell of blood and death saturated the air.

  Kiram focused on the last glass panel, wedging it into place and then ever so carefully screwing in the brackets that linked it to the curving ribs. With that done, he stoked the fire of his own steam engine. Heat radiated from the boiler and Kiram tossed in more wood.

  “Can you keep it hot?” Kiram asked Nestor.

  “Will do.” Nestor too flinched from the sight of the groom’s corpse. Kiram turned to Elezar. Sweat soaked his already stained shirt and a dark bruise colored the scab that cut across his nose.

  “After we’ve strapped Scholar Donamillo’s body into the red harness, we’ll need to hand crank the mechanical cure until the steam engine’s built up enough force to drive it,” Kiram told him. “Can you do that?”

  Elezar nodded and hefted up the drive bar.

  “Now we just need Donamillo’s body.”

  “Are you sure?” Genimo scowled at the rough monstrosity that Kiram had created from Donamillo’s beautiful mechanical cure. “That thing looks like it’s about to fall apart.”

  “How it looks doesn’t matter,” Kiram snapped. “And I’m not asking you in any case.”

  “No need to shout, Kiram. I’m just saying what everyone is thinking. It doesn’t look like it will work for shit and if it doesn’t, then what happens to all of us?”

  “Genimo,” Elezar said flatly. “Shut up before I shut you up.”

  Kiram found himself smiling at Elezar with exactly the same happy expression as Nestor. Genimo dropped back against the wall, sulking.

  “Scholar Blasio?” Kiram called.

  Blasio rose from his chair at his brother’s bedside. Kiram didn’t have to say anything more. Blasio lifted Donamillo’s emaciated body easily and carried him like an infant into Kiram’s rebuilt machine.

  Master Ignacio stood next to Javier, watching Kiram and Blasio strap Donamillo into the harness. His expression seemed equal parts revulsion and confusion. Kiram wondered what all Javier had confessed to the war master during their quiet, tense conversation.

  “It’s pitch black outside.” Nestor nodded at the barred windows. Suddenly something smacked against the window. A second blow cracked apart the glass. A bleeding blue jay shrieked at them through the opening. Then dozens more birds threw themselves against the glass, breaking the panes as they shattered their own bodies. Black blood poured from them and an acrid steam began to rise from the wrought iron bars that held the windows closed. As the bars crumbled and streams of viscous darkness spilled down the walls, Kiram felt a terrible, sick pain twist through his guts.

  “Get behind the wards!” Javier shouted. He all but hurled Master Ignacio into the circle of Bahiim symbols. Genimo scurried into the circle and stared wide-eyed as the entire window casing collapsed. Blasio dropped to his knees near the steam engine and covered his face with his hands.

  Kiram tightened the last strap of Donamillo’s harness and let the old man’s body hang limp. He grabbed the wires of the second harness and leapt out from the mechanical cure.

  Jays crashed into the infirmary and a seeping darkness followed them, pooling across the floor, burning stones and eating through pieces of iron. The birds screamed and swooped, but none of them seemed capable of flying over the wards Javier had laid down.

  “Get the mechanical cure moving!” Kiram called to Elezar. To Kiram’s relief, Elezar pumped the drive bar fast and the iron ribs of the mechanical cure swung around, building speed. Faint sparks lit up along the harness wires. Javier and Master Ignacio joined Elezar and the mechanical cure spun like a gigantic top.

  Something struck the infirmary doors. They broke open and a wall of darkness flooded the room. Only the blaze in the belly of Kiram’s steam engine and the faint sparks given off from the mechanical cure offered them any illumination.

  Hissing screams and the shrieks of blue jays rose from the darkness. Master Ignacio groaned and Elezar swore as the discomfort of the shadow curse intensified. Kiram gritted his teeth against the pain. And yet Javier’s wards still held the darkness back.

  Javier glared at the black mass roiling over them and mouthed Bahiim incantations as he pumped the drive bar.

  “Nestor? The engine?” Kiram had to shout over the screams and shrieks that tore the air.

  “It’s hot!” Nestor yelled back. Even in the dim light Kiram could see the pain in Nestor’s face but he still locked the boiler door down and gripped the engine release as Kiram had shown him earlier.

  “Let the steam engine take over!” Kiram shouted. “Let go of the drive bar!”

  Elezar, Javier and Master Ignacio released the bar and jumped back as the pistons of Kiram’s steam pump took over. The ribs of the mechanical cure whirled by at a blinding speed and suddenly the faint sparks inside the mechanical cure erupted to brilliant light.

  Only then did Kiram see Genimo crouched over a patch of Javier’s wards, scrubbing them away.

  “Stop him!” Kiram shouted.

  Nestor tackled Genimo and flattened him to the ground but it was already too late. Cold blackness hit Kiram. Agony stabbed through his chest and hot blood spilled down his belly. His knees buckled.

  Elezar and Nestor both lay on the ground writhing from pain, as did Master Ignacio and Scholar Blasio. Blood erupted from wounds that opened wherever the curse touched them. Only Genimo remained unscathed, but he looked terrified when he met Kiram’s gaze. Then suddenly hot white light blazed over
them all.

  Javier stood, hands raised with walls of white light pouring from him. As Kiram forced himself up to his feet Genimo bolted from the sphere of the shajdi’s light, fleeing back to his master in the darkness.

  “Javier, this doesn’t need to go on.” Fedeles’ voice silenced the cacophony of screams. And suddenly he stood there, smiling, at the edge of the shajdi’s light. His eyes were too dark and his skin too luminous. This was not Fedeles, Kiram reminded himself. This was Donamillo wearing Fedeles’ body.

  The whirr of the mechanical cure’s spinning ribs and the steady hiss and clang of the steam engine created a strange rhythm, like the beat of a mechanical heart that even Donamillo’s shadow curse couldn’t stop.

  “Your friends don’t need to suffer, Javier.” Fedeles circled them as if he were enjoying an easy stroll. “Give me the white hell and I will release them. You know I don’t want to hurt Kiram. Why force me to kill him?”

  Javier didn’t respond, but a shudder passed through his body. The light around him intensified, illuminating his bare bones.

  “I’m a patient man, Javier. I can wait while you burn away like a candle.” Fedeles paused only a few feet from Kiram, though he hardly seemed to take notice. Instead he stared at Javier with an expression of rapt avarice. Kiram could almost see Donamillo’s want rising up through Fedeles’ features. “We both know you won’t kill me, big brother. You promised me you would keep me safe.”

  Javier trembled and Kiram hated Donamillo, not just for taking such a cruel tactic, but because he knew it would work. Javier would let the shajdi burn him hollow before he would kill Fedeles.

  Kiram gripped the wires of the second harness. Donamillo was only a foot from him now. He just had to step into the killing darkness of the shadow curse and close the wires around Fedeles’ body. Donamillo’s spirit would be drawn back into his own body and they would all be saved.

  It was the only way.

  Kiram didn’t think beyond that.

  He threw himself onto Fedeles, embracing him and closing the circuit of the harness. Black blades punched through Kiram’s body. Fedeles shouted and shook in his arms. Pain ripped deeper into Kiram, but he held his grip and saw the white sparks of the mechanical cure flurry over Fedeles.

  They both fell to the floor. It was hot and slick with blood and Kiram knew it was his own. He tried to draw a breath but his lungs only brought a red froth up into his mouth.

  He couldn’t survive this. The thought hurt him nearly as deeply as his wounds and yet there was light overhead. The shadow curse had fallen back. This agony hadn’t been for nothing.

  Kiram tried to hold onto Fedeles even then, but strong hands pulled him away.

  “Kiri, Kiri. No, please don’t bleed. Don’t go!”

  Kiram recognized Fedeles’ voice, devoid of Donamillo’s cold tone, crying from a distance.

  But it was Javier who held him. Tears rolled down his face and raw grief broke his voice as he spoke Kiram’s name again and again.

  “It’s good.” Kiram could hardly form the words. “I saved you…” He wanted to say more, but Javier was fading from his sight just as the pain drained from his ruined body.

  He knew he was dying, but he wasn’t scared. He had already crossed the Sorrowlands. Whether it was heaven or a shajdi that awaited him, Kiram didn’t know, but a soft light fell across him and seemed to draw him deeper into its purity. It felt so simple and beautiful.

  Then something caught him, held him. Pale shadows like the hollows of a skull rose from the light. Long bones wreathed in white flames gripped him as if death itself were embracing him and barring him from its respite.

  “I won’t let you go.” Gentle flames licked Kiram’s flesh and he knew the voice was Javier’s.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kiram woke to terrible pain. He felt like he was on fire, like someone had cut him open and filled his intestines with burning coals. He wanted to scream from the hurt. Maybe he did.

  Someone forced something down his throat, something bitter and cold. He spat and slurred a string of angry obscenities but then a deep sleep took him. He dreamed of crows’ wings fluttering over him and then that Alizadeh’s cool hand touched his fevered brow. Darkness closed over him.

  After that he drifted in and out of consciousness, waking at odd hours and searching his dim surroundings for a familiar face.

  At least twice Nestor leaned over him, his pale skin peppered with faded bruises, and assured him that he was safe. Kiram questioned Nestor, but then couldn’t remember most of Nestor’s replies. Words burned away in Kiram’s fevered mind leaving him with only impressions of the conversations: the lingering assurance that Fedeles was better and that Scholar Donamillo had died days ago in his brother’s arms. But above all else Kiram remembered what Nestor would not tell him, which was where Javier was.

  In Kiram’s dreams Javier often lay beside him, whispering foolish jokes or teasing him. But he could never quite see Javier, could never touch him and it frightened Kiram.

  When Nestor gently woke him, he was confused, finding himself alone in the bed. Bright morning light burned at Nestor’s pale complexion, but Kiram was relieved to see that the worst of his cuts and scratches had healed.

  “I’m sorry, but we have to go,” Nestor said quietly.

  “Where?” Kiram tried to sit up and Nestor caught him in alarm. “Where are we going?” Kiram asked, even as Nestor gently eased him back into the bedding.

  “You don’t have to get up,” Nestor said. “It’s just Elezar and me. We’re being sent back to Anacleto.”

  Anacleto seemed years away.

  “You’ll finally get to have your honeymoon,” Kiram whispered.

  Nestor smiled at that, but then concern returned to his countenance. “What should I tell your family?”

  A pang of loneliness caught Kiram at the thought of his family, but then he remembered Majdi’s approval of his gambit for independence.

  “Tell them that I’m fine.” Kiram decided. “That I love them and that they shouldn’t worry.”

  Nestor nodded. He started to rise from Kiram’s bedside but then stopped and looked back down at Kiram. “You’re a hero, you know. All of us would have died if you hadn’t…I can’t imagine how much it hurt.” Nestor’s gaze dropped to black stitches and ropy scars that cut across Kiram’s stomach and chest. “You nearly died.”

  Kiram wasn’t certain that he hadn’t died, but he didn’t say as much. Nestor seemed to be on the verge of tears as was.

  Finally, Nestor said, “I guess I’m just trying to say that I think—no, I know—that you are the best friend any man could ever hope to have.”

  Kiram grinned at Nestor, as he remembered telling Nestor much the same thing.

  “No point in falling in love with me, though,” Kiram responded as cavalierly as he could. “You’re a married man.”

  Nestor laughed and then gave Kiram a knowing look. “I doubt I’d last long against your current suitor, in any case.” His cheeks flushed red but he went on in a whisper. “I’m not against it, you know…It was strange—I mean at first I couldn’t…But I realized that it’s not what all those old priests screech on and on about…You’re both brave and strong and…I think I can see it now…It’s good. Both of you.”

  Kiram raised his brows, amazed that Nestor could be so frank, decent and compassionate and that he could move Kiram so deeply with such a string of broken phrases.

  “Thank you, Nestor.”

  Nestor shrugged despite his flushed face. “Yeah, well, don’t tell Elezar. He’d be pissed if he knew he wasn’t fooling me anymore.”

  Kiram laughed at that and his stitches hurt, but it still felt good. Then Elezar shouted for Nestor and Nestor left Kiram alone. Kiram returned to his dreams, searching them for Javier.

  That afternoon, Scholar Blasio removed Kiram’s stitches with a quiet exclamation of wonder. He hadn’t thought Kiram would survive and yet somehow his mortal injuries had healed faster than the s
cratch on Blasio’s brow.

  “They say God blesses the brave.” Scholar Blasio touched Kiram’s forehead. His hand felt soft and cool against Kiram’s hot skin. “I’m inclined to think you’re living proof of that.”

  Kiram wanted to tell the scholar that he was sorry that he’d lost his brother, but at the same time he couldn’t bring himself to regret Donamillo’s death, only the pain that it had caused.

  “Rest now, Kiram,” Scholar Blasio told him. Kiram felt sick of resting. He wanted to see Javier. He wanted to get up and find him, and yet a few moments later Kiram slipped back into the darkness of sleep.

  When at last his fever broke and his senses returned, he found red scars criss-crossing his belly and chest. He stank of medicinal herbs, but a fresh breeze floated through the room.

  Just from the angles of the walls and the long shafts of afternoon light, he knew at once that he was in his old bed in the tower room. But he was far from alone in the chamber.

  Well-dressed courtiers conversed at the windows and lounged around the empty hearth. Servants attended them, offering silver goblets and dishes of olives and roasted nuts.

  It seemed utterly wrong that so many strangers had invaded the space that had been a private sanctuary for Javier and himself. A year ago no one casually entered Javier’s chambers, much less lingered, spilling wine and dropping olive pits on the floor as if it were a cheap room in a tavern.

  A sensation like horror welled in Kiram as he noticed that all traces of Javier’s wards had been scoured from the floors.

  “No,” Kiram whispered.

  “Are you awake, then?”

  Kiram turned to the voice and suddenly realized that a man had been sitting at his bedside watching him. Kiram didn’t know if he should feel honored or terrified.

  Dressed in violet and gold raiment, Prince Sevanyo looked out of place seated on a wooden school chair. Behind the prince, armed guards and young pages lounged and whispered among themselves.

  Kiram pulled himself a little more upright. He tensed, expecting the motion to hurt, but only the slightest ache arose from his scarred body.