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When the Villian Comes Home

Page 16

by Gabrielle Harbowy


  A part of me expected these two to simply rip into the rabbits with their teeth, feasting on the raw and bloody meat. Instead, Zariel swiftly and efficiently gutted the two rabbits, then impaled them on spits over a small fire.

  “We have little time,” Zariel said. “When Armand’s men fail to return, he’ll know where we are.”

  “Good,” said Jenny. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her gown, then turned to spit out a bone.

  Zariel tilted her head. “Good?”

  “I summon the Serpent God. Armand and his army arrive. The god eats them.” She took another bite of rabbit. Still chewing, she said, “I won’t make the same mistakes my Daddy did.”

  “You want him to find you,” I said. I had designed traps for years. I knew how to recognize them.

  Jenny nodded. “He killed my Daddy. So I’m going to kill him, his family, and his army, and then I’m going to destroy what’s left of his land.”

  I didn’t know what bothered me more: the calm, total conviction in her voice, or the fact that when I thought about my wife and son, I knew precisely how she felt.

  5

  Frelan Gorge was a beautiful sight. Rather, it would have been beautiful, had I been here for any other purpose. The river far below was a ribbon of darkness, sparkling in the light of the moon. Trees and bushes covered the cliffs, transforming them into walls of lushness and life. To the north, a cloud of mist rose from the base of a small waterfall.

  Jenny pointed to the fall. “That’s where we’re going.”

  “You’re certain?” asked Zariel.

  “I can feel it.”

  I followed behind, biding my time. It would have been so easy to grab Jenny and fling her down the cliff, but I remembered how easily she had smashed me to the ground the last time I attacked her. She had dragged me from the grave, and she could send me back as quick as thought.

  I frowned as I thought about that. “Why me?”

  “What?” Jenny asked.

  “Your father knew the traps as well or better than me. Why not resurrect him?”

  “Yes Jenny,” said Zariel, a nasty edge to her voice. “Why him?”

  Jenny looked away, and I sensed I had stumbled into an old argument. “You were nice to me. He wasn’t.”

  “I was what?”

  “When the slaves were working on the first temple. I wanted to watch them laying the foundation and mixing the blood into the mortar. I wasn’t tall enough, so you lifted me onto your shoulders.”

  I couldn’t remember. Either death had rotted the memory from my brain, or else Jenny had confused me with another worker.

  Up ahead, Zariel used her magic to burn a tangle of thorn-covered vines out of the way. There was no path, so we were making our own. As I watched the vegetation smolder, it occurred to me that the burnt plants would make it easy for Armand’s trackers to follow.

  “Besides, if Daddy were here, he’d want to summon the Serpent God.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He had his chance, and he failed. So now I get to be the God Rider.”

  I kept my face still and prayed she couldn’t read my thoughts. I might not be able to destroy her myself, but there were plenty of traps in Tarzog’s temple that should do the trick.

  Thorns tore my skin as I followed them toward the falls. I could hear the water crashing down, and the vegetation was thicker here, forcing Zariel to expend more of her magic. With her smaller size, Jenny seemed able to slip through the thinnest gaps like...well, like a serpent.

  Finally, the trees thinned away, and we found ourselves on a rocky shore. Water trickled over my feet, and I could see how the riverbank fell away a few steps in. So long as we stayed by the edge, we should be safe. Any further, and the current would toss us down the falls.

  “Where’s the temple?” Zariel asked, glancing about. My dead eyes seemed to handle the darkness better than theirs, but even I couldn’t see any sign of the temple. And Tarzog hadn’t built small. His temple had been the size of a modest palace.

  Jenny was kneeling near the falls, craning her head. I stepped toward her. A single push, and she would plummet to her death. Jenny glanced up, and I froze.

  “I can see something behind the water,” Jenny said. “A door.”

  “How do we get down?” Zariel asked.

  “We don’t.” Jenny smiled at me. “Right?”

  Grudgingly, I nodded. “That would be a decoy, something to delay Armand and his ilk. If Tarzog patterned this temple on the one I designed, that door is nothing but a façade. But with the water pounding down, most heroes will slip and fall to their deaths before they reach it. If not...the door at the other temple had hinges concealed on the bottom, so it would fall open to crush anyone who tried the knob. This one probably does something similar.”

  “Which means the back door should be back this way,” Jenny said, wading upstream.

  I watched a branch float over the lip of the falls, and wondered how many workers had died building Tarzog’s decoy trap. “It wouldn’t be in the water,” I said.

  They both stared at me.

  “Tarzog needed men to dig and build.” I pointed to the river. “The riverbed is stone, and the current is too strong.”

  “So where is the door?” Zariel asked.

  If Tarzog had followed the same plans...I glanced back toward the falls. Sixty paces from the front door, and another twenty paces to the right. I hurried along the shore, then turned back into the woods, ripping through the foliage until I reached a lightning-struck tree. Half of the trunk had rotted away. Splinters of blackened wood hung down like fangs. Grubs and worse squirmed within the blackened interior.

  “Go on,” Jenny said. “Open it.”

  I nodded. It would have been too much to hope for her to go first. Reaching past the fangs, I felt about until I found a small metal lever. A quick push disarmed the trap. On the original temple, rusted nails had protruded through the doorframe. Those nails were designed to shoot down, pinning an intruder in place. An instant later, two steel blades would spring out from either side to decapitate the poor fellow. I had been quite proud of that one, actually. I doubted this tree could house such oversized blades, but I didn’t want to take my chances on whatever Tarzog had substituted.

  I stepped into the bug-infested rot, and my feet began to sink.

  Seconds later, I was in darkness.

  5

  I brushed dirt and rotted wood from my clothes and, without thinking, grabbed the torch from the left wall. Tarzog had been left-handed, and wanted to know he could roam his temple without having to carry detailed notes about various traps. The right torch would work too, but its removal from the sconce would prime a trap eleven feet down the hall, which would spray oil down on the head of whoever passed. The oil itself wouldn’t hurt anyone, but if they carried a lit torch...

  The flint and steel hung from the sconce, good as new. I half expected the moisture in the air to have rendered the torches useless, but Tarzog hadn’t skimped when it came to his temple. The black, tarry goo coating the end of the torch caught on the first spark.

  I toyed with grabbing the trapped torch, but decided against it. Even assuming dust and insects hadn’t clogged the nozzles, the oil spray had only a six foot radius. There was a good chance one or both of my companions would survive.

  And if truth be told, I didn’t want to see Jenny burn. Tarzog had tested the trap on his tailor, who had been caught spying. I could still hear his screams, as clear as the sound of my own footsteps, and the smell would follow me to my grave. Beyond my grave, actually. Why couldn’t death have taken that memory? I didn’t think I could inflict such an end on this little girl.

  Besides, there was a better way. A quicker way which would not only take Jenny and Zariel with me, but would destroy this accursed temple as well.

  So I did as I had been commanded. I led them on
hands and knees through the hall of gods, as the stone statues of long-forgotten deities fired poisoned darts from their eyes, mouths, and in one particularly disturbing case, from his penis. I tiptoed around the edge of the spiked pit with the crushing walls, though not without a moment of regret. I had worked hard to design the system of weights and wheels that forced the walls inward, and I would have liked to know if it still worked after this much time in the jungle.

  The plan was identical to the temple I had designed, all except that rotted tree at the entrance. I wondered if Tarzog had used a bit of necromancy to keep it decaying all these years while retaining its strength.

  “How much further?” Jenny asked. She was chewing her thumbnail again.

  I pushed open a door, ignoring the trapped knob on the right. This had been one of Tarzog’s favorites. The hinges were hidden on the same side as the knob, and the door didn’t even latch. Friction and a tight frame held it in place. Anyone who bumped the knob would take a poisoned needle to the hand. Actually turning the thing would trigger a spray of acid from the floor.

  “We’re here,” I said, stepping inside.

  One advantage to being dead: my body didn’t react with the same throat-constricting terror I remembered from my last time in this room, back in the other temple. Or maybe my time with Jenny and Zariel had numbed me to fear. The walls bulged inward, carved to resemble barbed scales on the coils of an enormous snake. Arcane symbols spiraled around the floor and ceiling both.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jenny said. She took my torch and ran to the closest wall to study the carvings worked into the snake’s body. In one, dead warriors lay scattered before a giant serpent who had reared back with a horse and rider in its jaws.

  The Serpent God was one ugly snake. Curved horns like scimitars grew in twin rows behind the eyes. In addition to the huge fangs, smaller teeth lined the jaws, each one dripping with venom.

  “Look at this, Zariel,” Jenny said, moving farther along the wall. “Here he’s collecting his sacrifice.” The snake’s coils circled a pit of terrified old men, women, and children.

  “Forget the pictures,” Zariel snapped. “Armand’s trackers are probably making their way through the jungle even now.”

  Jenny stuck out her tongue, then squatted down, holding her torch close to the floor to read the symbols.

  I turned my attention to the back of the room, where a thick book lay open on a raised dais. This was perhaps Tarzog’s most brilliant idea. If his enemies had penetrated this far, it would mean Tarzog himself had fallen. Vindictive bastard that he was, Tarzog planted the book here to destroy those enemies.

  The pages were blank, but in order to discover that, you had to set foot on that dais. Any weight of more than ten pounds would trigger a collapse of the entire temple.

  I stepped soundlessly toward the book. No amount of magic or power could save them. With Jenny dead, I would be back with my wife and my children. Perhaps we would all rest a bit easier, knowing-

  “Stop that,” Jenny said without looking up.

  My body froze in mid-step. Unable to move, I toppled forward. My wrist hit the floor first, hard enough I could hear bone snap. I ended up on my side, staring helplessly at Jenny as she turned around.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what Daddy did to trap this room, but I can’t let you get to it.”

  “How?” It was all I could do to force the word past my dead lips.

  Jenny shrugged. “Daddy killed you. He killed your family. I knew you’d try to get me in the end. That’s what I’d do.”

  “Clever, isn’t she?” asked Zariel. Something in her voice warned me an instant before she struck, but I couldn’t have stopped her even if I wanted to. She waved her hand, and Jenny began to scream. Black fire danced over Jenny’s skin. She flopped on the floor like a dying trout.

  “Such a clever girl,” Zariel repeated as she circled Jenny’s body. “Marked by the Serpent God, heir to the power of Tarzog the Black.”

  Zariel snapped her fingers, and Jenny went still. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be, or else the magic keeping me in this half-living state would have failed. Shadowy flames continued to burn, though Jenny’s clothes and skin were unharmed. Zariel’s fire fed on something deeper than flesh.

  “For two years I’ve dragged this whelp from one refuge to another,” Zariel said, her voice growing louder with each word. “Two years of living like a common thief. Two years of her whining and arguing, her stubborn refusal to follow even the simplest instructions.”

  She turned to me, her eyes wide. For a moment, I thought she was going to destroy me, but she clasped her hands and said, “That little brat pissed her bedroll every night for six months after her father died. Six months!”

  Zariel pulled the vial of blood from her pocket. “Well, little godling, Anhak Ghudir said you would be the one to lure Rhynoth from his rest, but the prophesies never said who would command him.” She bit the stopper from the vial, spat it to one side, and swallowed the contents.

  Grabbing Jenny by the hair, she dragged the motionless girl to the center of the room. Jenny’s eyes were open and alert. She could see everything that was happening, just like me.

  A part of me took some perverse joy at seeing her own torments turned back upon her. I might have failed, but Tarzog’s line would still end.

  Zariel began to chant. “She is here, great one. Descendant of your own children, heir to the powers of the first serpent.” The rest was in another tongue, full of hacking, angry syllables.

  At first, I didn’t realize when Zariel’s chanting changed to genuine coughs. Only when she staggered back a step did I realize something was wrong. One hand clawed her throat. Blood dripped from her left nostril.

  The shadowy flames on Jenny’s body flickered and died. Jenny’s arms were shaky as she struggled to sit up. Hugging her knees to her chest, she whispered, “That hurt.”

  Zariel dropped to her knees. Her expression changed from panic to anger, and she raised one hand, but when she tried to speak, only a pained croak emerged.

  Jenny crawled over and kicked her in the stomach.

  “How?” Zariel asked, her voice hoarse.

  Jenny rolled her eyes. “I swiped the blood a week ago. Daddy always told me the only henchman you could ever really trust was one who was already dead.” She pulled a heavily padded tube from inside her dress. “This is the virgin blood. You drank a blend of four different sea snake venoms, mixed in bat blood.”

  She stood up, her knees still shaking slightly. With her free hand, she took the torch from Zariel, then kicked her again. The effort nearly made her fall back.

  “You wanted to know why him?” Jenny whispered, pointing to me. “Because he went to stay with his family in the dungeons every night. My Daddy would have let him stay in the huts with the other workers, but he refused. He never complained about the smell. He didn’t tell his son to stop whining. When his boy fouled himself during the night, he didn’t force him to sleep in his own stink!”

  She ended her tirade with one last kick, then turned to me. “I used to sneak down to the dungeons to watch Daddy torture traitors. One night I saw you coming, so I followed you.”

  She unwrapped the vial of blood as she talked. “I’ll let you die, if that’s what you want. Or you can come with me.” She swallowed the blood, then smiled. “I’ll even let you ride the Serpent God with me. But I am going to summon Rhynoth. Armand and his men are going to die. I’m going to conquer this land, whether you come with me or not.”

  She glanced back at Zariel, who had stopped moving. “Who knows,” she said. “Maybe you’ll help me mend my evil ways.” The wicked grin on her face told me how likely that was. “You might even get a chance to kill me.”

  I doubted it. Look at how efficiently she had outsmarted and disposed of Zariel. Jenny was truly her father’s daughter. Even more dangerous
than Tarzog the Black. After all, Tarzog had failed.

  On the other hand, what purpose would my death serve? I couldn’t bring my family back. I couldn’t stop Jenny. The only possible blessing I would gain from death was my own peace.

  The floor began to shake as Jenny chanted the same words Zariel had. Rhynoth had awakened from his millennial slumber, and he would be here soon.

  Jenny’s shoulders slumped as she finished the incantation. She began to chew her thumbnail again, wincing as the nail tore free and began to bleed.

  “I’ll understand if you don’t want to come,” she said, never looking at me.

  I closed my eyes and made my choice.

  5

  Prince Armand brought an army. Perhaps he knew what he was about to face. I doubted it would save him, but who knew?

  All I knew as that when Jenny rode the Serpent God, her hands clinging to the horns as her half-cape flapped behind her, she didn’t look like an evil sorceress. She looked like a little girl, smiling and laughing as she prepared to wipe out an entire land. And seeing that almost made me feel alive again.

  JIM C. HINES’ newest book is Libriomancer, a modern-day fantasy about a magic-wielding librarian, a hamadryad, a secret society founded by Johannes Gutenberg, a flaming spider, and an enchanted convertible. He’s also the author of the Princess series of fairy tale retellings as well as the humorous Goblin Quest trilogy. His short fiction has appeared in more than 40 magazines and anthologies. Online, he can be found at http://www.jimchines.com.

  THAN TO SERVE IN HEAVEN

  Ari Marmell

  “This is a jest.”

  I say it, even though I know that it can’t be. Through the thick haze and shimmering heat that clouds my vision every waking moment, the parchment casts its meaning at me in unmistakable terms. The letters burn without fire, scribed by the highest hand, written in a language older than life itself.

  A language that cannot, by its very nature, be used to lie. If it is written, it is truth.

  And yet, I cannot believe it.

 

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