by Ember Lane
“Like a child dying, a crop failing, a thunderous storm destroying their precious barn. Do you want to take the blame? Do you want to right the wrong? Or shall we have a god to take care of all that for us?”
Mezzerain grunted. “That’s quite the cynical view.”
Joss leaned in. “Let me remind you, he is quite the useless god when all is said and done. He might as well do something.”
Mezzerain brought out a roll of leaf and a pipe. He primed it, lighting it, and puffed away. “He was quite useless, wasn’t he?”
“The worst,” Joss agreed. “Couldn’t even plot properly.”
“Nope, ShadowDancer, Belved, whoever, trapped him fairly easily.”
“So,” Joss said, reaching over and borrowing Mezzerain’s pipe for a reflective puff. “We release him more as a punishment and to take the mundane off our shoulders.”
Mezzerain grabbed his pipe back. “Something like that. Either way, all lands should have a god. They give hope where none resides. We can’t do that.”
“No, no we can't.”
Joss tapped the wedge. “So do we open it?”
“I think so.”
Pog equipped a knife, hacking at the wax seal. Completing his task, he slid the wedge back toward Mezzerain. “It will free his soul from the maze, so be prepared.”
Mezzerain held it up. “Perhaps it will free Valkyrie, and we can begin progressing again.” He eased the top off. A small puff of smoke rose up, quickly coagulating into the shape of his former god. Taric then appeared in all his pomp and glory.
At first he looked a little bemused, like he’d been roused mid sleep, but then a cold shiver rippled through my spine, and I swear I saw a second Taric run past me, melding and molding into the first. The god became clearer, sharper, his royal-blue cape, his cane, all defining him as he began to strut around.
“The mundane, Joss? Quite useless, Mezzerain? Is that what you truly think of me?”
They both hung their heads low like naughty schoolchildren. “Well…” Joss said.
“Quite,” Melinka snapped. “So what have you to say for yourself, supposed God of Valkyrie? Useless would be a word that I would use too. You left Valkyrie to succumb to Ruse. You just gave up.”
Taric shoved his nose into the air. “What do you know of the games of gods? Let me tell you; what I did was masterful. I swapped certain defeat for existence.” He strutted around like a preening turkey. “My plans are masterful.”
“Certain defeat?” I asked, picking up on his previous words.
Taric’s gaze swung on me. He looked down his nose at me as his cane snapped back under his arm. “Valkyrie was the first, the closest to Ruse, if I’d have lived, my brother would have eradicated the threat. Don’t you understand? Valkyrie had the soldiers, but Ruse had the warriors, the spearheads, the ships, and landing boats. Ruse was the first, its lands bred bastards capable of taking any land, whatever the state. No, if Belved had attacked, Valkyrie would have been swept aside.”
Taric appeared quite proud of himself. I couldn’t quite understand his logic, but at the same time, saw the logic that was there. I glanced at Pog, but he appeared consumed by his own thoughts. “So you didn’t bother trying?”
“Trying? Of course I tried.” He smacked his forehead in frustration. “Don’t you understand? We have Valkyrie back. Ruse has retreated. The plan is going…to plan. Sometimes you plan to weather the initial storms.”
Joss the Nine stood and faced his god. “I feel there is much that you are leaving out. Valkyrie would have chosen to fight. You know that!”
“And we’d have died,” Mezzerain suddenly said.
“Yet their soldiers never came en-masse,” Melinka pointed out. “Just enough to spread fear, and most of them were mercenaries brought and paid for with jewels.”
“No,” Taric agreed. “They never did show their true force. Odd.”
“Ruse was too powerful for us, and us alone.” Mezzerain was adamant. He stabbed his finger onto the top of the open wedge. “Belved didn’t kill you, Poleyna did.” I gasped, but Mezzerain tossed me the wedge’s top. “Look at it, Alexa. That’s your land—that’s Mandrake. The deal was done at Kyrie before she was cast down. Belved killed a mere shadow, a part of Taric: no more than that.”
I desperately needed to talk to Pog.
“Not Poleyna,” Taric said softly. “The deed was done by Shylan, none other. Valkyrie was sacrificed so that Mandrake might catch up, might become the force it needs to be.”
Sutech Charm stood. “But so-called Mandrake fell into disarray. The mists prevented us from uniting—by their coddled safety. We ended up at each other’s throats instead of progressing.”
Mezzerain reached up and dragged him down. “Which was why Roland and I were sent—I see that now. Our job was to keep the two sides apart. We didn’t quite envisage the tensions within that cauldron.”
“So Valkyrie and Mandrake now join together, defeat Ruse, and we’re done,” Sutech suggested.
Taric sighed. “If only that were the case. Mine was not the only bargain. The others will rise now. Once word of Ruse’s defeat in Valkyrie becomes common knowledge, the carrion will wake. They will circle, and true allegiances will become clear. Variant is gone. Morlog is truly dead. There’s blood in the air, and there’s nothing my brothers and sisters relish more than the destruction of each other.”
“You mean it’s not over?” I said.
Taric laughed. “My dear, it’s only just beginning.”
Pog reached out, grabbing his wedge, easing its top open. His face lit up, flaming red and yellow, and the stone slowly rose. It was a perfect wedge shape, much like the box. A bright yellow crystal with blood-red veins, it looked way more threatening than the others.
“Vengeance is here!” Stalker announced, zipping around, blue streaks tracing through the air. “Compassion has awoken! Compassion is south, shrouded in night!”
“Is this her?” Vengeance asked, buzzing around me before settling on my shoulder. “She doesn’t seem to be much.”
“It’s her. She’s the chooser. Who’s she going to choose?”
“She has chosen. She just doesn’t like the choice…”
That’s what it all boiled down to. Who was I going to choose if I had free choice? But I knew I had none even though I had Joss the Nine or Melinka sitting there. I had the trapmaster Faulk too.
Or I had Star’s choice, and I was in no doubt that was what was supposed to be.
“Do I have a choice?” I asked him, staring, wanting some reassurance.
“Can I be trusted?” Sutech asked, his lips narrowed in frustration.
“No,” I said. “Not trust. Has your daughter left me any choice, or are we now fated to work together?”
He laughed. “I think she gets her way.”
“I choose Sutech Charm.”
The crystal rose, flying high into the air and spraying its conflicting light around. Pog punched his fists high. “Yes!” he shouted as if it had been his design all along.
Melinka nodded softly, and Joss the Nine steered Taric away, sitting him on a bench, talking softly to him, the god nodding all the while. Faulk looked curiously disappointed as though some part of him had wanted to be chosen. I made a mental note that we owed the trapmaster, and that we needed to repay him.
The crystal hovered before sinking down and into Sutech Charm. For a moment, his entire body was consumed in flame as his skin yellowed to jaundice. Then like Mezzerain, the years sloughed away, and a leaner, sharper Sutech Charm came to be.
Angular cheekbones sat under darting eyes that judged the moment they bore down on you. His hand hovered over his sword’s hilt, and for a moment I thought he would strike each of us down, in turn. Sutech Charm suddenly looked like an avenging angel, whose motives were pure, whose actions would be clinically efficient.
“By the gods,” said Mezzerain. “Do you see people with the clarity that I have?”
Sutech rounded on him. “What
clarity? Mine is not the clarity of brawn, of murder, and mayhem. I see you now, Mezzerain of Kyrie, and I see your motives. Take care not to stray too far to the dark.”
I expected Mezzerain to cower, to shrink back into his armored shell, but the big man roared. “You would have to crush my power, and though your vengeance is sharper than a twenty-folded blade, it is no match for my strength.”
Sutech’s sharp lips formed a razor smile. “Then we should agree that we must be on the same side at all times.”
Mezzerain offered Sutech his hand. “We are agreed, and we are aligned.”
Pog clapped his hands. “Just three to go,” he cried.
But I counted in my head: Stalker-Pog, Warrior-Mezzerain, Unity-Lincoln, Enmity-Glenwyth, and now Vengeance, and that was Sutech. “Aren’t there nine stones?” I asked.
Pog nodded. “But we gather at the last; it never gets housed. I think...it’s the sense I get.”
“These stones, what are they?” Faulk asked.
“They are everything. They are the beginning, and they are the end,” Pog replied.
“Why do they need hunting down? Why do I get the sense they are spread all around, like the next. The next is south, in Ruse. Why?” Faulk looked genuinely confused.
And then it dawned on me. “Because no one can be trusted with the sum of its parts.”
Pog nodded. “Because we all have to be there. If one of us is missing, then it shouldn’t be—it isn’t allowed.”
Faulk nodded, accepting our answers. “I’d like to be there when you reach that point.”
“We might need you to open a door or two to get us there,” Pog crowed, and then he shoved the last wedge toward me. “You can’t delay it forever.”
I reached out, bringing it toward me but uncertain I even wanted it. This, if we’d gotten it right, was my penultimate veil. The reward for my veils, after all, was death. Even though death could mean any number of things: the start of something new, the end of something old, even though it could mean anything, it wasn’t something you hurried toward.
“Do you think it contains the sixth veil?” I asked Pog.
He shrugged. “It could be cake.”
I reached over and punched his arm. “Have a dead one for me!”
He recoiled, fake screaming in pain before rolling over and skipping around our little group to sit beside me. “I’ll open it with you.” He equipped his knife and sawed away at the wax seal. “There, your turn.”
I eased the top off to reveal a rolled-up parchment. Taking it, my hands shaking, I slid my thumbnail through its wax seal.
Do not fear, my brave, brave child. You are nearly at your journey’s end, for this is your sixth veil and probably the hardest yet. Darkness hides in the shadows and nowhere more than where the shadows prevail over the light. One thing, and one thing alone, rules those shadows, and it is the force behind that you must destroy. Destroy the first; kill the immortal, and you will bring hope to the world.
Should you succeed, you will carry the first’s burden.
I let the parchment slip from my hand and stared into the empty air around me.
“What?” Pog asked. “What does it say?”
“It says I must kill a god,” I said, my words dribbling out.
“Which one,” Melinka asked.
“Belved—the first, the one who dominated the shadows.”
I noticed Taric flick me a furtive look, but he quickly looked away.
“Cool,” said Pog. “That is one awesome quest.” He squeezed my leg. “Kill the unkillable.”
“Just how do I do that?”
Pog pointed at Taric. “Morlog died, and he nearly did. It’s not impossible.”
“He’s in Ruse!” I shouted, pounding the grass in frustration.
“Exactly,” Pog said, completely undeterred as usual. “First, though, we have to go get our shadowmana vial, then see if we can find the one person that knows the way to Ruse. We need to find Billy Long Thumb and persuade him to come with us, and then attend a foolish banquet.”
I slapped my forehead. “Billy Long Thumb. I’d almost forgotten about that old rogue. How do you find a dead man?”
“Let’s go get the vial first, then nip down to the gates. See if we can’t track him down,” Pog suggested.
“If it's Long Thumb you’re after, you’ll need a guide,” Faulk said. “I’m your man.”
Melinka stood. “Back here by sunset. I’m holding you personally responsible, Faulk. Do you understand?”
Faulk stared back at her. “Pog, stash my tool bag. Melinka, you have my solemn promise that as long as Alexa and Pog stay out of mischief, we will be back here for sunset.”
She lent him a long, hard look. “That’s got too many holes in it. Mezzerain, Sutech, you both go with them. I’m making you personally responsible for keeping Alexa and Pog out of mischief.”
“Does it involve ale?” Mezzerain asked. “Because my throat is parched.”
“To Pishagys Raad!” Pog cried, undeterred by the debate.
We left the stronghold, retracing our steps to the wizard and witch’s hideout. Aldus met us at its end, making apologies for all his colleagues and thrusting the shadowmana vial into my hands. “You’ll have to excuse them all; they’re all sleeping.”
“Sleeping off hangovers,” Pog chirped, but we didn’t press, just asked for our thanks to be passed on.
We set off toward the gates along a small, narrow road with barely a building lining its sides. As we came to the edge of the northern bluff, they became a little more packed, fishing boats lining stone wharfs, and crab baskets and lobster traps strewn all around. It smelled of rancid seaweed and yesterday’s tide, and after the road had slumped to the waterline, it began to rise, to wind up to the black gates that rose like cliffs and stank of tar, of old wood and rusting iron braces. Commerce clearly thrived atop the gates, horses and carts coming and going, barrow boys shouting, pickpockets lurking. We scythed a meandering course through all until we finally stood upon their top. There, we rested.
Mezzerain bade us over to the gate’s edge. “Sixty feet wide,” he told us. “Each gate is sixty feet wide. The road we stand on is forty—narrows to ten feet where the bars and cafés have grown up. Look, look over the side, and then you’ll see their power.”
I touched the edge, surprised by how smooth the gates were, not a speck of tar coming off on my hand. I slumped on them, and I looked out to sea over the endless ocean.
We stared east toward the mists, though I couldn’t see any trace of them. So I stared south, and there I could see a line of darkness. I could see Ruse but only its beginning, and it spread away like the threat of a hurricane, a storm lurking, its thunderheads letting me know it was waiting, bursts of orange cracking across the bleak horizon like static.
Ruse, it was waiting for me.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Gilden Lode
A beam of light shot up: a pillar of orange, blinking then petering out.
“Did you see that?” I asked, squinting, trying to make out its source.
It shot up again, more defined, brighter, as if it was solidifying.
Pog was already marching toward it. “South, it’s coming over there!”
“It’s coming from the edge of the bluff,” Faulk shouted, half running, half walking.
A crawling feeling of doom cramped my gut. All around us, folks went about their business. Could we be the only ones to see it? I ran to keep up with Pog and Faulk but stopped in my tracks, watching, trying to understand as the beam fought to be born, strived for permanence.
“Something’s—” Mezzerain grabbed my arm. An explosion cracked overhead demolishing the fledgling column. Mezzerain pulled me down covering me instinctively. Now the milling crowds took notice. Now they all ducked down. “What’s happening?” he screamed as a sudden wind picked up then howled over the gates like a tumultuous wave, whipping the air around us to frenzy. Chairs skittered past us, tumbling, rolling. Tables were pi
cked up, flying over the road.
The light shot up again, a yellow tinge to it this time, and it was mighty, a fat beam of power. I started running toward it, now eager to flee the gates. I could hear mighty waves crashing into them, forcing themselves against their seasoned wood like a sieging army. Folks spilled out of the bars and restaurants. Panic consumed the narrow roadway. Advancing clouds then joined in, their bellies afire, racing north from Ruse, thunder, lightning, unstoppable, threatening to engulf all.
Chaos reigned, its fear-filled sword striking at the hearts of all. Some ran north away from the storm; others scrambled around getting nowhere, their fear consuming their actions, scrubbing their reason.
The pillar of light flickered again, changing, now golden, no hint of orange. Pog turned, his expression saying nothing but telling me all. I sprinted forward, taking his hand, dragging him through the crowds, pulling him south, heading toward the fiery horizon. Sutech sprinted alongside us, carving his way through the onrushing tide.
They all surged past us now now, racing north and away from the danger, their screams, their wails, their fear engulfing them. Then Mezzerain was in front of me, like a great breakwater, carving his way through their riot. Sutech flanked him, then Faulk took the other side, and we forged through, toward our doom, toward the single tower of golden light that so attracted us.
And then we came to the gate's end, taking a trail down, racing onto the southern bluff, steered from the road by our blinking guide. We scrambled over rock, through spartan scrub, headed to the ends of the claw, to its eastern tip, to our beacon.
A narrow path, single track, slippery, doused by the now raging sea, led us down, led us around, led us past the signal beam, its source still hidden. At its base, the spray strafed us in salty sheets. The water bullied us into the mouth of a small cave, before it was squeezed and then sucked out. The beacon was now constant as if it wanted us to find its source, and we soon did, even as we cowered against the worsening weather. The light came from the cave, deep inside, breaking through the rocky crust above us.