An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3)

by J. D. L. Rosell

  "Tal?" he mouthed, his voice all but stolen by the sight.

  His gaze traveled to the one standing over him, dark-robbed and strange-skinned. Hashele's eyes blazed a cold blue as she bared her pearly teeth at the company. Her hands were clenched into claws at her sides, and rivulets of Tal's blood crawled down them to drip onto the rug.

  No one had attacked yet. But from the tenor of their shouts, it would not be long.

  Garin raised his head to look beyond Hashele as Pim's warning came back to him. Mind the walls. With darting eyes, he studied them, but could not detect anything malevolent. Heavy curtains draped over each wall as if covering a great window, but no light peeked around. Unease curled through Garin as he wondered what lay behind them.

  Then a different sort of buzz ran through him. Garin became aware of words being spoken that he did not understand, yet reverberated within his mind. He glanced over at the warlock still leaning on him and saw Kaleras' mouth moving. Only as his gaze dropped to his hand did he recognize the power building within the aged man. Looking up, he saw Hashele's stiff mouth moving as well, and her clawed hands were no longer empty as air rippled around them.

  Before either incantation could be cast, the walls erupted.

  Garin was struck dumb with terror as three monolithic shapes tore down the draperies. They stood nearly as high as the chamber, two dozen feet tall, and had the rough shape of a man, though morphed so that each component of their body seemed formed of a series of clay jars. Their tan bodies glowed with a green light from the thousands of runes scrawled across them. The glyphs animated these creatures, Garin guessed — and likely protected them as well.

  The artificed giants threw aside the last of the curtains still stuck to them, then came upright again. Only as Hashele screamed a word did they turn and face the company.

  "Golems!" Falcon screeched as the juggernauts began to close in.

  The Shorn Veil

  Tal jerked back to consciousness as sorcery filled the air around him.

  Spitting and ignoring the blood dribbling down his chin, he forced himself upright. Prodigious shapes towered impossibly high over him. For a moment, he thought he dreamed them; but as his vision resolved, he identified them for what they were. A trembling terror ran through him.

  Golems.

  Products of witchery, golems were crafted by sorcerers for specific purposes. Those he had seen before, like the one Magister Elis had possessed, were used as beasts of burden. They were notoriously finicky servants, however, liable to break down at the degradation of even a single rune. Yet, if the inscription was flawless and well-maintained, they could be nearly indestructible.

  Tal stared up at these golems, made larger than any he had witnessed before, and had no doubt these had been made to last.

  He tried to lever himself upright, but his sorcery, mending his body even after his mind had retreated from it, had not yet healed him from Hashele's torments. He would not be moving anywhere quickly.

  The three golems, one for each side of the room that did not boast the door, took a step forward, causing the floor to tremble. The room was large, but crowded with these new enemies, there was nowhere to escape.

  Only as a plume of flames burst against a golem's chest did Tal think to wonder why the guardians had awoken at all.

  He turned his head and felt torn between elation and horror. It seemed a maddened delusion to see all those he longed for, the companions he had been torn from so soon after being reunited, now present with him.

  Ashelia, Helnor, and Wren, all three charging Hashele.

  Kaleras and Aelyn, sorcery flaring in their hands and projecting toward their targets.

  Falcon, standing with his knife raised before Rolan, as if he had any hope of protecting the boy.

  And Garin, his arm around Kaleras, his hands empty, and his eyes wide as he stared up at their towering enemies.

  Tal had craved the sight of them again. Now, he would watch them die.

  Stand, damn you!

  Tal reached for the sorcery, more than he knew was wise, and flooded his veins with it. As it ignited his blood, it seemed he must burst into flames. The magic rushed to his wounds, healing by his body's instinct. Bones cracked back into place; flesh wove together; muscles, torn and weakened, knit themselves whole.

  Yet even as he stood, he knew it was not enough. He was still restrained by the Binding Ring. While its captive, he could do nothing to assist his friends. He could not protect them.

  You always knew it would come to this, he thought as he raised his hand and stared down at the milky white band. Now is the time. He stared at it with his secondary vision, and the intricate knots that composed the band's enchantment appeared around it in ghostly blue light. He knew of no way to undo this enigma. Still, he had to try.

  He could try to cut off his finger again, but it would be in direct violation of the terms by which he was bound. The consequences of such an act would be too great to bear. Yet Hashele had inadvertently allowed a small way to circumvent his cage. You will not cast your sorcery in any spell — those had been the words she'd used to curb his magic. But he did not have to use spells to wield it as a weapon.

  Drawing on his sorcery, Tal reached for the artifact.

  Though he was not violating any command, the Binding Ring still resisted. Cold seared through his limbs, and though it paled before his previous punishments, it still nearly paralyzed him. He tried to think through the numbing pain as he stretched invisible hands toward the enchantment. He had not thought the pain could grow. He was wrong. Even brushing the artifact's spells nearly knocked him unconscious.

  A moment later, he found himself on his knees, his hands pressed to the carpeted ground. Yet though the maelstrom tore through him, he had not lost sight of his quarry. Hissing in breaths, Tal focused again on the knots.

  Cut! he urged his sorcery. Break! He threw everything he had against it.

  Like a hammer hitting an anvil, Tal felt his sorcery rebound from the ring and eviscerate him. Wounds across his body tore back open as the magic undid the healing it had just facilitated. Tal nearly fainted again. It was all he could do to cling to consciousness.

  Fight it! Don't let them die!

  A snarl ripped from his throat as Tal clenched his hands into fists against the ground. Once more, he threw himself against the enchantment.

  Garin leaped aside as Kaleras unleashed his spell.

  It tore free of the warlock with a resounding blast. Blue light, so intense he couldn't stare directly at it, seared into the nearest golem a dozen feet away. Garin sheltered his eyes and waited, his heart fluttering in his throat. Surely, if something could destroy these monstrous creations, it was such a casting.

  Kaleras spasmed, then sagged against Garin as the spell faded to a dark afterimage. Garin blinked rapidly, gritting his teeth as he pitted all of his brittle strength toward keeping the warlock upright. He strained to detect the smoldering ruins of the golem.

  Instead, through his dazzled vision, he saw the unharmed juggernaut take another ground-shaking step forward.

  Garin stared, jaw agape, as the golem descended on them. Only as he realized that the wise, powerful Kaleras had no weapons against these creatures did his stupor rip away.

  Do something!

  Unceremoniously dumping Kaleras to the floor, Garin stood upright and threw up his hands. "Keld thasht!" Sorcery swelled in him, seeming to flow in from the surrounding air, and flames roared free of his palms. The clanging, impossibly melodious Song cut through the din of battle, uplifting his spirit and reinvigorating as it passed through him like a phantom wind.

  But though he had summoned as mighty a column of fire as he had ever managed, the flames splayed over the broad chest of the golem and left no mark. Garin cut off the spell, fear clenching his chest tightly. The Song had an urgent edge to it, its component sounds turning harsh: hammers pounding, rocks crumbling, waterfalls crashing.

  Ilvuan! he cried out into the swirling anxiety
filling his mind. Please, help!

  The Singer didn't answer. The golem took another step forward. Two more, and it would crush them under one trunk-thick foot. Garin watched it come on helplessly. He had already sifted through his thin knowledge and knew there was nothing he could do. He was only sixteen summers old. He was just comprehending what he was capable of as a Listener and a Fount.

  I don't want to die, I don't want to die, please, don't let me—

  Through his silent pleas, through the perilous strains of the Song, a whisper brushed past his mind. With the desperation of a drowning man lunging for a dark shadow on the water, Garin honed in on this new thing with all his attention. A hint of melody underlay the rest of the tumult. And not one — three minor songs spiraled around the room, weaving around the greater Worldsong as if they were minor accompaniments.

  The closest golem took another step forward. Rattled out of his reverie, Garin stared at his impending death for a split moment — then his animal instincts took over. Reaching down, he grabbed Kaleras, who had sat up on the ground to lean against the doorframe, and began dragging him toward the room's exit. He would fight from there, for they would do no one any good dead.

  But he had barely begun to move Kaleras before the warlock once more hummed with sorcery, enough that Garin could not budge him. Whipping his head back around, he saw a strange distortion in the air around the man similar to a muggy day's heat. His aged face was pulled back in a snarl, though his skin sagged and his eyes drooped halfway closed. But as Kaleras spoke, none of his weakness seeped through, and his words reverberated with authority and power.

  "I hold you, Extinguished. Call back your creations, or I will break you."

  Garin, astonished by the statement, only then noticed that the golems had ceased their movement. He followed Kaleras' gaze to Hashele. The Soulstealer, surrounded by Wren, Helnor, and Ashelia, was frozen in place, her cold blue eyes locked with the warlock's. A hint of the same distortion hovered about her.

  When the Extinguished did not answer — Garin wondered if she could, or if Kaleras' spell had completely immobilized her — Wren cried out and thrust her sword forward. Ashelia tried to stop her and Helnor roared with warning, but Wren's momentum carried her forward. Her blade pressed against Hashele's middle.

  The sword shattered.

  Wren flew back to skid across the floor and bump against a golem's foot. Even as far back as he stood, Garin felt the force of the impact and winced at it. A moan sounded next to him, and he looked down to see Kaleras sagging to the ground, the spell's distortion flickering in and out. Out of the corner of his eyes, Hashele made the slightest movement, her stiff face morphing into a leer.

  But something else worked through Garin's mind, triggered by the breaking of Wren's sword. The shattered bracer. Suddenly, he recognized why the three songs underpinning the World's Song sounded familiar. They were the same, mournful sound that had emanated from his stone bracelet when he had broken free of the Ravager's bonds.

  The dragon song.

  Ignoring everything else, thrusting aside how close to death he and Kaleras were, he opened the whole of his mind to listening. The Song swelled in greeting, but he sifted past it to those minor songs underneath it. Three of them, as he had detected before, filled him with a deep, unending sorrow.

  The song of their deaths, he thought. The song of their species' extinction.

  He reached for them as he had done with the bracer's hidden denizen, coaxing them to cease their singing. Relief, he promised the three dragon revenants. Comfort. Release.

  At once, as if waiting for this chance the entirety of their eternal half-lives, the dragon songs seeped out of their own, self-contained loops and joined in the greater chorus. The Song's refrain wavered, its harmonies scattering off-key and out of rhythm. For a moment, it seemed as if it would fall completely apart.

  Then the parts were integrated into the whole, and it inflated to triumphant climax.

  Garin opened his eyes, hope soaring in his chest, and looked to the golems. They remained unmoving, but something had changed about them. The runes. The green light that had shone in intricate swirls had faded from them. He waited with bated breath, watching for any sign of lingering sorcery within the monoliths.

  With a resounding crack, one of the bellies of the golems across the room split up its middle and began to crumble.

  The others quickly followed suit. Garin jerked around to see the one closest to him teeter as it fell apart.

  "Watch out!" he screamed as he lunged for Kaleras. He was determined to move the warlock this time, no matter what spell he maintained. It wouldn't matter if he restrained the Extinguished if they were all dead. "Run!" he grunted as he heaved at Kaleras' quivering body.

  But his paltry strength and determination weren't enough. Kaleras remained in place, his wavering spell continuing, even as the golem above them split and shards fell around them. Terror filled him like he faced Heyl's descending hand again.

  "Please," he begged the unhearing warlock. "We must go."

  Kaleras' eyes shifted minutely toward him, just brushing the edge of Garin's face. Flee, the warlock's lips might have said, but Garin could not hear.

  But Garin knew that flight was hopeless for the others. Wren, Ashelia, Helnor, and Aelyn had gathered around Tal, still lying prone in the center of the room, his expression frozen in a pained rictus. Falcon and Rolan were nowhere to be seen; Garin could only hope the bard had dragged the boy out of the door to the relative safety of the exterior hall. He could flee there himself.

  But he would not leave the others beyond.

  He rose from the warlock. He could do nothing for Kaleras; the warlock's choice had been made. But maybe, if he added his strength to the others, they could form a strong enough shield to weather the golems' collapse.

  With one final glance back, Garin ran forward.

  Moments later, he heard the crumbling of pottery and felt the wind of the golem collapsing at his back.

  The ring's enchantment was slowly unwinding — but Tal was breaking faster.

  He had lost sight of where he was. He barely knew who he was. He could not see anything but the Binding Ring, could not hear, could not smell or taste. Only the impossibly wound knot remained, and the blistering pain billowing from it, and the sorcery he wielded against it like a chisel and hammer.

  How much he had cut through, he could no longer tell. All he saw was the work left to do.

  Cut, he urged himself, driving the sorcery against it with as sharp of an edge as he could form. Cut. Cut. He had let go of all other concerns, knowing he could do nothing for them, knowing they could not help with the task. And all that could not free him must be cut away.

  Cut. Cut. Cut.

  His sorcery, at first an inferno burning him from the inside out, had petered to a resilient fire in a winter-locked hearth. At times, it gave out as he pushed it hard against the enchantment's locks. Cut, he would tell it, but like brittle steel, it would shatter under the force. Painstakingly, he was forced to gather the pieces for the next attempt.

  Only a few memories did he keep, and these he used to bolster his will against the task. Ashelia. Garin. Falcon. Wren. He linked their names together like a mantra, a chant reminding him why he could not succumb, why he must succeed. Kaleras. Rolan. Helnor. Aelyn. Again and again, he recited the mantra. Where his mind wandered, drowning amid the endless misery, the names of his friends chained him to the task, as if they were a spell of their own.

  Always, he pushed against the pain. It surrounded him like a red sea, like the lake of blood he had swam through in his dreams. Only it was not water that touched him, but acid, burning through his skin, his muscle, his bone, until it reached whatever lay at his spirit's core. Tal felt himself eaten away by the Binding Ring's punishments. In his saner moments, mere glimpses amid the madness, he wondered if he would ever recover.

  But all he could do was push on, and on, and on — for the task called to him. And if he did not
heed the task, then he must descend to the Light Below. Always, it beckoned, like the syrens' summons in the Vale of Mists. It promised all he could not have while drowning in the red sea. Rest, it whispered. Sleep. No more pain. No more struggle.

  His mantra of names was his lifeline. Hanging over the bright abyss of the Doash, Tal clung to it, and hoped he could hold on long enough.

  Cut. Cut. Cut.

  Always, he had to turn back to the task. He sawed, hacked, and pounded against the Binding Ring's enchantments. Knot after knot uncoiled only to reveal a more complex set beneath. Despair muttered mockeries in his ears.

  Too weak, too weak, just like the Hunt's Hollow boys always said. Bran the Bastard! You're nothing, always nothing. You will never be more than nothing.

  But this, too, lent a kind of strength. Ever before, he had prevailed in the face of adversity, even thrived in it. For the entirety of his life, Tal had stared the Night-held World in the eyes and smiled in defiance. Would he surrender to it now? Would he let a simple knot defeat him?

  If a ring confounds you, how can you kill a god?

  But that was not the task. In some other life, Tal knew, that doubt might have been important. But now, he severed it from him. It would not serve.

  Ashelia, Garin, Falcon, Wren. Kaleras—

  Something, a vague sensation from far away, split through his awareness.

  Abruptly, part of him had returned to his body. Tal raised his head and saw with his eyes again. Figures were gathered around him, shadows in his flickering vision. But that was not what had drawn him back. Tal stared beyond them, pushing a bit of the sorcery to his eyes with a few muttered words.

  And then he knew.

  Father.

  With aching slowness, shards of something — the golem, he recalled — fell toward Kaleras. The old warlock lay sprawled on the ground, his eyes locked on something to Tal's right. He either did not see the danger or could not prevent it. No fear showed in his expression.