by Tim Jones
Kendik moved Anarya so she was lying on her back next to Sezhi-na's corpse. Anarya was breathing slowly but deeply, and appeared to be asleep. Kendik examined the exit to the room. It was blocked by rocks, and looked dangerously unstable. He turned back to Atlan and, working with as much patience as he could muster given his extreme fatigue, freed the big man's hands, inch by patient inch.
Then he sat down against the wall and rested—in fact, among all the evidence of chaos and carnage, he dozed off.
A noise woke him. Anarya was getting to her feet. She appeared dazed, disoriented. Kendik wondered whether the Horror was coming back.
Anarya blinked, focused on him, and opened her mouth. "I remember everything," she said.
Chapter 29
"Everything?"
"Almost everything. There is a gap in her—in my—memory, just before I left the kaer. He must have captured me then, drained off enough of me that he could create that copy, that echo ... this." She ran her hands down her body, then turned to stare at the disfigured corpse on the floor. "I used to look like this, once. Pale, so pale, because I had lived underground for so long. Men found me beautiful. They would see me, emerging from the kaer, and have their heads turned by a pretty face and a sad tale. And if they were not sufficiently distracted, he made sure I would have the skills to kill them."
"And women?"
"Would be stirred by pity, perhaps, or also by lust. As you were, when I emerged to greet you."
It was true enough.
"But someone else saw me emerge—Sezhina. She was nearby when you arrived at the kaer. She had picked up your trail in the mountains and followed you to see what you might be planning. She had contemplated re-entering the kaer herself, and was thinking about revealing herself to you when I emerged. She saw me, and knew me. She resolved to follow us and see where I would lead you."
"Sometimes you sound like Anarya, sometimes like Sezhina. Which are you?"
"You can see the answer to that. You are talking to Anarya Chezarin. Your lover."
"But she was not real. She was the creation of a Wizard."
Anarya nodded sadly. "Yes, and so were her memories. The mother and father she remembered—they were real people, I suspect, whose images and histories Dinazhe placed in her mind, but they were not her parents. My real mother was Isuassa, who took me down into darkness." She paused. "I believe—I believe Anarya was a work of art to him, as well as a tool. He wanted to create her as well as he could."
Anarya surfaced from the well of memory and looked at Ken-dik. "Even when you know Anarya could not be real, you loved her," she said.
"Yes. When she offered herself to me, I could not turn her down. I suppose that is love. Do you ... do you remember that?"
Anarya smiled, and Kendik fancied that he could see the thoughts and habits of the older woman moving beneath the young woman's skin. "I do. When I think of first love, I remember offering myself to you, and I also remember Gikkil, that young man whom I found at a turn of the path, those many years ago. How amazed we were to see each other, in the dawn of a new world! How each of us feared lest the other was a Horror, or Horror-tainted!" She paused and shrugged. "The world was new then, and now it is old."
"But your memories contradict each other. They cannot all be true."
"No. That story Sezhina told us back in the Houses of Garlen contained much truth, and many lies. She did live in the dark far under the kaer, but that was after she—after I—had been rescued by Dinazhe from the Gnashers. It was he who led the cult. They managed to blockade themselves against the nightmares outside, and survived long enough that the Gnashers gave up on them and went after easier prey. After he had drawn her life essence off, Dinazhe did let Sezhina escape into the outside world. I believe he was not so wholly evil then, or maybe he was merely careless. What she told us of her life after the kaer was true. I stayed behind, bound to the entrance to the kaer, to emerge whenever outsiders sought entry."
"But why are you still here? Why did you not fade out of existence when you had led us away from the kaer? The hills are not full of Anarya Chezarins."
"I believe it is because Sezhina was so close to me when I came forth. As I said, we are—we were—closer than sisters. Her vitality sustained me as it diminished her."
She shook her head sadly, but Kendik pressed on with his interrogation. After so many lies, so many partial truths, he had to know.
"Was anything the young Anarya believed about her life true?"
"The happy childhood? The Horror slaying? The armor that was a gift from King Varulus? No, none of that is true. Though perhaps the armor did come from Varulus, long ago. It was certainly fine enough. Dinazhe may have gifted it to his new creation. I believe he did love her, in his way, if only because he played so large a part in creating her."
Kendik nodded. What he really wanted to ask bubbled up in his chest, robbing him of breath: do you still love me? But this was neither the time nor the place.
"Let's get out of here," he said.
"Many rocks," observed Atlan. His assessment could not be faulted. The departing Horror had pulled down the pillars of rock on either side of the exit to the room, and now there was a pile of rubble in the doorway.
"Many rocks," Atlan repeated, "but I am strong." He proved it by scrambling to the top of the heap and shoving rocks out of the way.
"Come and help!" he called. So they did, and after half an hour of hard and painful labor, there was a gap big enough to crawl through.
Now that they could leave the room, Kendik didn't want to. Inside, they had the company of two corpses. Outside, who knew what awaited them? To buy time, he asked Anarya what Dinazhe had been doing to Sezhina and the assassin.
"He was using those wounds on our shoulders to draw out our life force. It was horrible. Each time he did it, I felt violated. And his eyes would close, and his lips part ... When we find him, I want to be the one to kill him."
"Why didn't he touch Atlan?"
"I don't know. He was fed more than either of us, though he was treated with no more kindness."
"Told me I was the strongest," said Atlan. "Saving me for last." He stopped abruptly, worn out by the effort of so many words.
"And what did he use this life force for? Was he making more copies of you?"
"He was too far gone for that. He was using it to keep himself alive. That letter from the t'skrang—the one that revealed his true nature—weakened him almost to death. He was barely strong enough to capture us. When he returned me to this place, he had to get his servants to chain me here. They did not want to do it, but he threatened them with the Horror."
"Leave here now," said Atlan.
Kendik stopped rationalizing the delay to himself. He was afraid. He had been afraid ever since they left Borzim for Lake Vors—afraid, in fact, ever since the first time Death had taken a personal interest in him, when, still dreaming, he had turned aide from the thrust of T'shifa's dagger. He would still be afraid when they left this cave, and he would continue to be afraid as they hunted Dinazhe, found him, and killed him and his Horror. But it was time to set aside his fear. Following Atlan, he began to climb the rock fall. He was almost at the top when he realized that Anarya was not following. He turned back and saw her kneeling beside the body of Sezhina. She bent down, gently kissed the ravaged, familiar face, and closed the corpse's eyes. Then she straightened. "Now I am ready," she said.
Atlan was waiting for them in the darkness on the far side. "Found something," he said. They bent down to examine it, their light quartzes picking out the pitting and scarring of the floor. Here and there, blue stones glittered in the light.
"Looks like it was scared, too," said Anarya.
Kendik gave Atlan two blue stones to replace those that had been taken from him, and picked up a handful more for himself. Each rounded end nestled smoothly in his palm; the sharp end protruded outwards.
"All we need now is a sword for me, and armor for both of us," said Anarya. "Sezhina knows w
here to look for it."
Having nerved himself to go after Dinazhe, Kendik objected when Anarya led them back towards the upper levels of the kaer. Though they were moving further away from known danger, the vast silence and scale of this place oppressed Kendik, and he had no desire to wend his way through any more of it.
Anarya stopped once or twice, hesitating for a moment over the right route. But her newly augmented memories did not play her false. They emerged into a long, level tunnel that led to a great iron door, now hanging loose from its hinges. Beyond the door was an armory. Many had died to defend it, and gaps showed where weapons had been lost or scattered, but against the black rock walls hung swords and maces, bows and spears, dull with disuse.
"No armor, though," said Anarya. "There used to be suits of it over there. Perhaps the people took it, thinking it would protect them against the Gnashers."
"Would it?"
"It takes more than armor to stop those teeth." She was reaching for a long, slender sword as she spoke. "No time to clean it," she said, regretfully. "I will do that later, when it has spilled blood." She waved it, feinted, thrust, and parried. "It will do. Sezhina was many Circles higher than I in our Discipline. My head is filled with more swordcraft than before, but my muscles still have to learn it."
Atlan selected a massive sword, which he slung across his back, and an equally massive bow. Then they retraced their steps. With a couple more false turnings, Anarya led them back the way they had come, and beyond.
The lower they went, the less evidence of human occupation they saw. The tunnels were less like tunnels and more like caves. The passages between them had not always been widened and smoothed; there were some tight squeezes, but none so tight that Dinazhe's Horror had not passed through them. By following that burnt and pitted rock, and the occasional blue stones, they went deeper and deeper.
They rounded a corner and stopped abruptly. Expecting another narrow passageway, they had come instead to a cavern that extended well beyond and below the reach of their lamps. The mental imprint of the Horror, which had been weak before, was much stronger here. They listened, but could hear nothing save a slow dripping of water in the far distance.
"Does ... did Sezhina remember this place?" whispered Kendik.
"She never came this deep."
The pathway contracted to a narrow, irregular gash that reached the floor of the cavern via abrupt zigs and irregular zags. The dripping grew louder. In the quartz light, Kendik saw oval droplets falling from some fissure unguessably high above, and followed their trajectory to see his own face, pale and serious, reflected in a pool of water that quivered and stilled to the rhythm of the drops.
Kendik had walked on some distance, closely followed by Atlan, when he realized that Anarya was not with them. He had to walk back most of the distance to the pool before he saw her. She was standing there, staring at her reflection in the water.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Whom do you see?" she replied.
He peered at the water. "I see you," he replied. "We need to -"
"I see two women. One young, one older. They change places, moment by moment." She straightened and looked at him. "These two women need to walk the paths of the world together, so they can become one. Should we defeat Dinazhe, I may not stay long with you in your palace."
Kendik did not know what to say to that. He turned on his heel, and together, they walked onward.
"Light," said Atlan, and stopped. They shielded their quartzes and peered into the darkness ahead. There was a light there, faint but steady, though it was not bright enough to illuminate its surroundings. There was still no sound.
"No talking," said Kendik. Swords drawn, they crept forward.
They passed through the narrow exit to the great cavern. The light waxed stronger, glowing on the end wall of the tunnel ahead of them. Still there was no sound. Still they felt the Horror's presence. Still they crept forward.
The blue-white glow that painted the end wall spilled out from an opening to the left. They stopped before they reached it, none of them quite daring to peer round the corner until Kendik stepped forward. He narrowed his eyes against the light and tried to resolve what he was seeing. There were light quartzes, a work bench, glass retorts ... heaps of scrolls, as clear a sign of Dinazhe's presence as fear and dread were of his Horror's ...
"We have found his lair," he whispered. He took a step forward, and another. The room was a mess. It was cluttered with glass and iron and wood. Three skeletons were propped up against the wall, looking as if they needed only a Nethermancer's instructions to shudder into life. In fact, as he peered at them, he fancied that the bones were surrounded by ghostly scraps of flesh.
Anarya and Atlan appeared in the doorway. "This seems to be his workroom," Kendik said. "I think —"
But he did not get the chance to say what he thought. A door—a solid slab of rock—slammed shut across the entrance to the room, trapping him within, shutting Anarya and Atlan out. At the same time, a portion of the seemingly solid rock wall of the cave to his left rippled out of existence, revealing Dinazhe standing in near darkness, with the Horror beside him.
"You were always too eager," Dinazhe said. "Now you will pay."
Kendik did not allow himself time to think. Before Dinazhe could form his hands into the shape of a spell, or his mouth into its words, Kendik lunged at him with his sword. Dinazhe stepped back, stumbled, and fell, his robes floating open around him. Kendik saw a flash of blue on the old man's chest.
Kendik, overbalancing in his lunge, stumbled too, but recovered and swept his sword round towards the Nethermancer. His sword tip caught one of Dinazhe's legs, and the Nethermancer cried out as it slashed his calf.
Then Kendik himself cried out. In his eagerness to get after Dinazhe, he had for a moment neglected the other danger in the room. Now he felt the clasp of tentacles on his waist, and had to turn his next blow, aimed at the Nethermancer, into a backhanded slash at the tentacles holding him. He felt them part, and felt also the Horror's pain in his own mind; but other tentacles, swift and deadly, clasped his sword arm and forced it back. He saw triumph on Dinazhe's face as the Nethermancer rose.
He had one hand free, one hand with which to save himself. And in it ... the blue stones, crystalline and sharp. He formed his left hand into the shape of a fist, with the crystals poking out, spun round, and slammed them into the Horror's flesh.
The effect was immediate. The Horror screamed and jerked backwards. The noise from its maw, which had been about to close on Kendik, was deafening. Its growing hold on Kendik's mind abated, and the tentacles on his sword arm slithered off.
He felt a sudden flare of heat against his back, and whirled his sword in a forehand arc, pivoting to face Dinazhe as he did so. The heat died as the Nethermancer, his concentration broken, scrambled to safety. Kendik saw the flash of blue once again and realized that Dinazhe also carried blue stones around his neck, presumably charged with his own magic.
Then Kendik knew, knew why the Horror needed to excrete the stones, knew what he must do. A glance over his shoulder showed him that the Horror was recovering, its maw opening wide again. He ignored it and turned towards Dinazhe. Again he sensed the old man's fright.
"Not so confident when it's just you and me in a tight corner, are you?" he said.
Dinazhe's mouth moved again. Lunging forward, Kendik attempted to disrupt the spell, but his sword bounced off the Neth-ermancer's chest. Dinazhe smiled, but his smile vanished as Kend-ik's sword whipped upwards and sliced the necklace that held the stones. Flicked up by the sword's motion, the stones arced through the air, their glare so bright they were hard to look at. Kendik leaned forward and caught stones and necklace together in his left hand.
Dinazhe screamed and lunged for him. Kendik jumped out of his reach and turned to face the Horror. To its left, he saw the ghostly forms of the three skeletons solidify, pull themselves free from the flimsy restraints that held them, and surge forward. They i
gnored the Horror, ignored Kendik, and went straight for Dinazhe.
Kendik did not know whether the defensive spell Dinazhe had cast on himself would protect him against the vengeful revenants of Kaer Volost, and he did not wait to find out. As long as the dead kept Dinazhe occupied, that was good enough for Kendik.
As the Horror approached, another gust of fear and dread assailed him, but it was like adding more effluent to the River Opthia: the saturation point had long ago been passed. Tentacles reached out for him; no matter how many were hacked off, there always seemed to be more. The great maw, dripping with ichor, lined with plates of bone and hide, yawned open. He ignored it. He hacked at the advancing tentacles with his sword, distracting the Horror for a moment. Then he lunged forward with his left arm and plunged Dinazhe's brightly glowing stones as deeply as he could into its blubbery flesh.
Ichor spurted over his hand, and he screamed as it burned him. He shook his hand frantically, stepped backwards, then staggered as something hard crashed onto his left shoulder, narrowly missing his head. Dinazhe had dispelled the revenants and was now using one skeleton's thighbone as a club: a primitive weapon, but it still hurt.
Distracted by Dinazhe, Kendik did not see the portal open. But he felt its effect: the air in the room howled as it was sucked into the black, swirling vortex that had opened behind the Horror. Kendik had realized that the thing excreted the blue stones to get rid of the surplus magic which would otherwise have made it too highly charged to remain in the physical world, now that but two fingers' width separated True earth and True water. Now, swollen up with all the extra magic that Kendik had thrust into it, the Horror was being expelled from Barsaive and returned to its original plane, where magic crackled like lightning among dead worlds and doomed nebulae.