Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  No longer.

  The figure we saw was silent and somber, sitting cross-legged atop a cliff, its head crowned with dead branches. I might have thought it a statue had Johina the Mirthful not acknowledged us as we sailed past, slow hands rising in a salute, fingers forming the shape of a blossom.

  The children of heaven themselves were depending on us to prevent darkness from swallowing the world.

  It was a terrifying truth.

  Jahno finished the work of translating the scroll. The Scattered Prophecy remained incomplete, for there were pieces of the puzzle yet missing, but we had as many as the Koronian scholars had assembled over the centuries. We knew that Miasmus dwelled within the hollow of a volcano, its entrance sealed by a great boulder. That was the rock that Tarrok was to cleave, and the final way that Evene was to open. We knew that an army of the risen dead awaited us, and that my blades—and now Vironesh’s—were meant to scythe through them. We knew Miasmus must be enticed to swallow the seed of ending—the Barren Teardrop, the blood of the nameless god—which Zariya must ignite with the seeds of beginning.

  How many seeds, we did not know, and the rate at which the rhamanthus seeds dwindled while being used in battle was alarming. Nor did we know what form Miasmus took, nor what would happen if we succeeded in restoring Miasmus to the heavens and ushering in a new order.

  To the frustration of Lirios, his role in the Scattered Prophecy remained a mystery, for none of the pieces explained what the Quick was meant to do.

  We passed the isle of Trask, every bit as barren and dead as Kerreman, the terrible cries of the unseen Luhdo the Loud echoing over the empty hills.

  And then there were only the dying seas between us and our final destination.

  It was a strange time. Behind us, the army of the risen and returned was spreading death and destruction in its wake, but our company was alone at the end of the world, sailing toward an unknown fate. Ishfahel’s gift continued to sustain us, and the longer we subsisted on nothing but the Gentle Rain’s water, the more I felt at once hollowed out and filled with a peculiar lightness and brightness, as though radiance as well as blood flowed in my veins.

  I should have thought that Vironesh and I would spend a great deal of time sparring in those final days, honing our skills to a fine edge; and yet, neither of us were inclined to do so.

  Vironesh shared with me—and with all of us, for every hand capable of wielding a blade would be needed—the knowledge he had gained in fighting the risen dead. They fought without strategy or regard to their own safety, weaknesses that could be exploited so long as one remembered that an injury that would kill a mortal foe was a mere inconvenience to them. Many of them were slow to react, relying on their own inexorable forward momentum and terrifying numbers. Contrary to what the Traskan refugees had told Tarrok, it was not necessary to behead them to slay them, merely to sever their spines. Once slain, they did not rise again. Unlike the sea-spiders, the risen and returned were not capable of inhabiting and animating their mortal victims.

  It was a small mercy.

  On the day that we sailed past Trask, Vironesh cut the Barren Teardrop from my flesh, reckoning that it would be best if I had a few days to heal.

  “Such a small thing on which to hinge the fate of the world,” Zariya murmured, seeing the seed of ending glowing amber and bloody in the palm of my hand. “I’m sorry I was so angry at you, my darling.”

  “You said you weren’t angry,” I reminded her. “Only hurt.”

  Her lips curved in a faint smile. “I may have lied a bit.”

  I wished …

  I wished so many things. All of us did. During those final days, we made our collective peace with death and shared the hopes and dreams of what we wished we might do if we survived.

  “I would like to show you the desert in springtime with all the flowers blooming,” I said to Zariya.

  “I would like to see it, my heart,” she said.

  Tarrok wished to see his wife and his twin sons, praying that somehow they had survived the fall of Trask.

  Kooie wished to sleep without nightmares.

  Jahno wished to see a Barakhan dancer perform.

  Everyone had wishes. The sea-wyrms wished to lay a clutch of eggs and raise a family together.

  Lirios wished to be mated.

  Tliksee wished to dive deep into clean seawater and eat fresh fish until his belly was near to bursting.

  Essee wished for a world in which kindness prevailed over cruelty and bloodshed was unnecessary.

  Vironesh confessed in a low voice that he wished to find redemption and a final chance at attaining honor beyond honor.

  Evene wished to learn to play the lute, a surprising choice that she blushed upon admitting.

  I kept my truest, deepest wish to myself, for I wished to tell Zariya that I loved her with all my being, that I was a fool for not understanding it sooner. At the end of the world, it did not matter, or so I told myself.

  Of death itself, we did not speak. The specter was with us always. The hopes and dreams and simple small pleasures of which we spoke seemed so very distant, like something from another lifetime, memories that brought us comfort in the sharing. Some days we went for hours at a time without speaking, each of us occupied with our private thoughts. Some days it seemed as though we were caught in a never-ending dream; that there had never been anything but this, sailing across the dying seas on an endless quest, and never would be.

  It wasn’t true, of course. A week’s time after we had sailed past Trask, the isle of Miasmus came into view on the horizon. We gathered in the prow of the ship to observe it. At a distance, the isle was a dark smudge with a smoking peak at its center, casually darkening the skies. Now I felt the first stirrings of Pahrkun’s wind rising within me, a harbinger of the battle to come.

  “This is it!” Jahno said in a reverent voice. “We have reached the farthest west.”

  That day we drew near enough to ensure that we could anchor at a safe distance, yet make landfall the following morning.

  Under the starless night skies, we could make out glowing rifts in the isle’s rocky surface. The scent of ash and sulfur hung in the air, and not even the sweet, clean aroma of Ishfahel’s water could dispel it.

  We took turns standing watch that night, unsure if the army of the risen dead had the capacity to go on the offensive and take the battle to us. It seemed it was not so. The isle of Miasmus awaited us, silent and smoldering. The ship’s hold was dark and unwelcoming without the gentle glow of the ooalu moths flitting from vine to vine, and it stank of rotting vegetation; nonetheless, I slept soundly after my watch, my body readying itself for the coming battle.

  At dawn, Kooie, who had stood the last watch, poked his head into the hatch, tendrils stirring, and whistled us on deck.

  Zariya hung back to let the others precede and I waited patiently behind her. Once the remainder of our company had climbed the ladder and exited the hold, she handed me her canes and pulled herself up the first rung, her arms grown strong and sinewy by dint of long effort and practice.

  I tucked her canes under one arm and prepared to follow, but Zariya paused and turned back toward me, holding herself in place with her left hand. Her lustrous eyes shone with purpose and her delicate features were set with determination. “Khai, my darling, come here.”

  Perplexed, I obeyed.

  With her free hand, Zariya clasped the back of my head, fingers sinking into my hair.

  She kissed me, and there was nothing sweet about it. It was hard and searing and urgent and possessive; the press of her soft lips against mine, the thrust of her darting tongue into my mouth. It sent a bolt of desire through my body as galvanizing as the lightning that forked from her fist.

  I gasped when Zariya released me, my heart thudding against my ribcage.

  “I am not venturing into near-certain death without kissing you properly at least once,” she said in a fierce whisper. “And if by some miracle we survive, I intend to do a
great deal more.”

  A wild laugh escaped me.

  Zariya raised her brows at me. “Does that amuse you, my shadow?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No. But I thought, you and Jahno … you are so well suited.”

  “I am fond of Jahno,” she said. “And if, again, by some miracle we survive this undertaking, I may very well ask him to father my children. But I am not in love with Jahno. Only you. Only and always you.” She studied me. “Have you anything to say?”

  I gazed at her. “Just that I love you with all my heart and soul, but it is only since Papa-ka-hondras that I truly understood it.”

  Zariya smiled. “Good. Let this be the end to any dishonesty between us, my darling.”

  I climbed after her in a daze.

  Above deck, Jahno was ladling out dippers of water. This time, all of us drank deep, including the sea-wyrms.

  I touched my fingers to my lips, still feeling the hot, urgent press of Zariya’s lips against them.

  I felt Pahrkun’s wind rising in me, rising and rising. I would channel it. I would cut down the army of the risen dead, my weapons like a scythe in a field of wheat.

  Honor beyond honor.

  And here at the end of the world … love.

  Essee uttered a sharp, shrill trill and Eeeio and Aiiiaii took up their bits, towing our ship toward shore.

  Closer and closer we drew toward the isle of Miasmus, until we could make out the restless figures of the army of the risen dead awaiting us. Jahno consulted with Vironesh on the best place to attempt to make landfall, both of them arguing and pointing.

  That was when the dying sea erupted.

  It was a sea-wyrm larger than either Eeeio or Aiiiaii, and like all of the creatures that Miasmus the Risen Maw spat forth, it had been transformed. Its scales were black and dull, and the ridge of fins that ran the length of its neck was in tatters. A sickly green light glowed in the hollow sockets of its eyes. Here and there chunks of flesh were missing and white bones showed in the ragged wounds; but it was filled with all the animating force of Miasmus, and it was coming straight for our vessel, jaws parted in a silent hiss.

  After the uneventful night that had passed, it caught us unprepared, all of us having come to trust that the battle would begin on land.

  Eeeio and Aiiiaii dropped the tow-lines, heads rearing. Zariya fumbled for a handful of rhamanthus seeds.

  The black wyrm dove deep, plunging beneath the ship.

  If it got its coils around the ship, we were doomed before the battle even began. I raced to the stern, drawing my weapons, and leapt atop the railing, balancing there. The black wyrm surfaced, coiling in on itself. Its tail lashed out in an effort to swat me loose. I jumped high, high enough to let it pass beneath me, slashing downward as it did so, the blade of my yakhan glancing off its hardened scales. I caught myself and balanced, the ship swaying on the waves of the wyrm’s passage.

  The air was filled with whistles and trills. I ignored them, waiting for the black wyrm to make a second pass.

  Instead it surfaced on the port side of the ship, its head looming high, preparing to lunge across our width.

  With a fierce shout, Zariya unleashed the lightning. The black wyrm’s scales were scorched and singed, but it was undeterred; not by one strike, not by two, not by three, and I realized it could sink us before it would succumb to the lightning.

  But then Eeeio was there, launching himself at the black wyrm, his massive jaws closing around its coiled midsection.

  “The sea-wyrms say to stay out of it, Khai!” Jahno was shouting at me. “This is their fight!”

  I had no choice. Eeeio dragged the black wyrm away from the ship; twisting its sinuous neck, the wyrm savaged him in turn. Aiiiaii darted into the fray, the entire length of her body undulating frantically. In the desert of Zarkhoum, I had seen nests of serpents intertwining until I could not tell where one ended and another began. In the desert of the dying seas, the sea-wyrms’ battle was a similar sight writ large, tangled coils churning water that began to run red with Eeeio’s blood.

  “I can’t see where to strike!” Zariya said in frustration, impotent sparks crackling from her hand.

  “They’re too knotted up,” Jahno said soberly. “Strike one and you’ll harm all three.”

  All we could do was watch in horror.

  At last Aiiiaii succeeded in entangling the black wyrm’s jaws in her coils. With an impossible effort, Eeeio lifted his head, the undead wyrm’s midsection still clamped between his own jaws. Arching his powerful neck, he brought his head down hard, crashing against the surface of the sea, severing the creature’s spine.

  It sank beneath the waves.

  Eeeio swam painfully over to the ship, resting his chin on the railing. The nictitating membranes that covered his eyes were closed, and blood streamed from the myriad gouges that rent his flesh, too many and too deep to hope they were not mortal. Aiiiaii crooned and stroked her chin along the length of his ridge.

  There would be no clutch of nestlings for them to raise. My eyes stung with hot tears, but cold anger rose within me.

  “She says rest well, great warrior,” Jahno murmured. “You have made Dulumu the Deep proud today.”

  Eeeio sighed, his chin sliding from the railing, the shining length of his body slipping beneath the waves.

  Aiiiaii and the Elehuddin keened in grief.

  “I hope you are planning on killing a great many of those gods-bedamned undead creatures today, shadow,” Evene said to me, her voice thick.

  My teeth were clenched so tight that my jaw ached. “I am.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Aiiiaii towed us toward the isle alone.

  For as much as we had made our peace with death, it was different now that one of our number had died, the first casualty our company had suffered since Papa-ka-hondras. Now the final battle had truly begun.

  On the shore, the army of the risen dead awaited us. There were at least a thousand of them, human and inhuman, armed with blades of obsidian or such weapons as nature had gifted them.

  There were eleven of us to stand against them.

  It seemed that such a thing must be impossible; and yet we were no ordinary mortals. We were the defenders of the four quarters, Sun-Blessed and Shadow and Seeker, the Thunderclap and the Opener of Ways, the Quick. We carried wind and fire, the seeds of life and death.

  And we did not have to defeat the entire undead army, only fight our way through them to gain Miasmus.

  The isle of Miasmus was not large. I gauged the smoldering mountain at its center to be no more than a league away, but it would be the hardest league any of us had ever traveled. Simply making landfall would be the first challenge. Upon drawing closer, we saw that the shoreline consisted of a vast sprawl of uneven fingers of jagged black basalt protruding into the sea, all of them lined with the risen dead. Even if we hadn’t lost Eeeio, it would have been impossible to attempt the slingshot maneuver that had worked so well at Papa-ka-hondras.

  At least the army of Miasmus did not venture into the sea after us. It seemed that while they were able to traverse the sea’s floor, with the exception of the terrible black wyrm, the transformations wrought upon them rendered them fit only for fighting on solid ground.

  Aiiiaii investigated warily, returning to report that the waters surrounding the outermost spit were deep enough that she could get sufficiently close to form a living bridge for us to traverse. The problem, of course, was that we were likely to get slaughtered in the process. We needed to create space.

  “I know you must conserve your energies to face the final challenge,” Jahno said reluctantly to Evene and Tarrok. “But the way must be opened long enough for us to disembark, and the army of Miasmus held at bay long enough for us to regroup.”

  “I will find a way to do what is needful if it takes the last breath in my body, Seeker,” Tarrok said in an implacable tone.

  Evene lifted her chin, the noose tattooed around her throat stark in the morning light
. “So will I.”

  All of us checked our weapons one last time. I wore my desert woolens, dingy and frayed and familiar. My yakhan was whetted to a razor’s edge, the central tine of my kopar honed to a keen point. A length of rope was wound around my sash. I carried the Barren Teardrop, the seed of ending, in a pouch knotted on a thong around my neck. Zariya carried the last of the rhamanthus seeds in a pouch at her waist. All of us carried water-skins of Ishfahel’s gift.

  Zariya’s bearers would be the most vulnerable members of our party. We had modified the sling that we had built on Papa-ka-hondras so that instead of four poles, it now consisted of a double yoke that two people could carry, the sling hanging between them. Seated in it, Zariya would have sufficient freedom of movement to wield the rhamanthus. Those bearing the yoke, however, would have little or no means of defending themselves.

  Our course of action decided, Vironesh and I conferred. There was a large part of me—and I daresay of Vironesh, too—that wished to argue that we should take up positions on either side of Zariya and her bearers, to protect her at all cost. Protecting our Sun-Blessed charges was the destiny to which we had both been born, the thing we had been trained and shaped to do; and though Vironesh had failed with Prince Kazaran, he now saw a chance for redemption in assisting me in attaining honor beyond honor.

  But this was the end of the world, not the snake pit of plotting and betrayal that was the court of the House of the Ageless.

  Honor beyond honor meant something different now. Zariya was not defenseless. The fate of the world might depend upon her survival, but it also depended upon our company winning our way across the jagged plains through an army of the risen dead. We could not afford to be less than strategic in our approach. I knew Evene could not part the army of Miasmus forever; I knew from our experience in the flight from Papa-ka-hondras that they would fall upon us from behind.

  “I will take the rearguard, little brother,” Vironesh said to me. “The vanguard is yours.”