by Layton Green
The jar will take the first breath it feels when it opens.
Asmodeus caught the soul jar in his hand, an inch from his mouth. Close enough to work, Val hoped as he sucked in a breath, praying for the success of this last desperate attempt.
After a look of surprise at the puny thing in his hand, Asmodeus broke into a slow, wicked grin. “A SOUL JAR? FOR THE LIKES OF ME?”
The demon lord crushed the azantite jar in his fist, and his laughter stripped away Val’s last shred of hope.
“COME, WHELP. ACCEPT THY FATE.”
Val stumbled backwards on the walkway. Asmodeus stepped down off the platform, taking his time, knowing the fight was over. As Val shrank away, overcome by the horror of the situation, his eyes fell on Tobar and the crown, and a final desperate idea sparked in his mind. A cruel and ruthless gamble that would probably fail, and even if it did not, might damn him forever. Forcing himself to be strong, he overcame his revulsion of the idea by thinking of his companions, Adaira, and his brothers.
“ART THOU READY TO WORSHIP?”
The demon lord took another step forward. Val stood rigid before him, feigning obedience. Adaira screamed in the background for him to wake up and run. Asmodeus beckoned with an open palm, urging him to pay homage.
Val took a step forward. Asmodeus looked pleased. Val took another step, turned, and incinerated Tobar with Spirit Fire.
A hush fell over the chamber as the gypsy mage turned to ash. The clang of the crown against the empty throne broke the silence, and before Asmodeus could react, Val whisked the crown into his hands and reached as deep inside himself as he could, summoning every ounce of magic he had left. He channeled that magic into a spell for which he had no name, a suffusion of sheer power that he poured into the crown, as if it were a magical battery to be recharged.
A blast of multicolored light obscured Val’s vision, and a shockwave of energy exploded outward.
-42-
That night in the cave, Caleb and the others never saw a shibomos, or any other creature. As the first rays of dawn spilled through the entrance and stirred them awake, they hurried outside and resumed trekking along the beach, seeing no sign of oversized footprints. After lunch, Caleb asked the Brewer if he could teach him how to sing.
“Of course,” he said. “Who do you like? Eddie Veder? Bono? The Stones?”
“I don’t mean sing a rock song. I mean sing like you do. You know, with the power to affect people.”
“I’m not sure,” the older man said, after a moment. “I’ve never thought of it like that.”
“I’m not a very good thief, and I figure I need a skill in this world besides slinging drinks and teasing my little brother. Why not be a bard?”
“Huh,” the Brewer said. “Why not?”
It turned out that Caleb could carry a tune, and over the next few days, the Brewer tried his best to coax out some of the enchanted reactions his own voice evoked. Yet try as he might, despite Marguerite’s claims to the contrary and Luca’s delight, Caleb couldn’t produce any of the same effects.
“My guess is you have some magic inside you,” Caleb said quietly. “Like a wizard, only your voice is your spells.”
“Maybe it just takes time, love,” Marguerite said. “Wizards, they practice for years.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “Sure.”
Marguerite slipped an arm through his, and he gave her a sad, easy smile. She fulfilled him, but the closer they became, the more he wanted something to add to the equation.
Later that day, just before they crested a rolling plateau, the Brewer drew to a stop as the sinking sun turned the horizon into a blood-red stain spreading across the sky. He pointed out a craggy peninsula in the distance, jutting into the ocean like an elbow. “We’re about to get our first glimpse of Freetown.”
Luca’s eyes shone with excitement at the mention of the renowned city. Caleb draped an arm across the boy’s shoulder and, as they topped the hill, enjoyed watching him point in awe at the sea of colorful tents and pavilions. Even after the attack, enough remained of the skyline to induce a sense of wonder, and the distance hid much of the damage from view.
After a quick wash in the ocean, they set camp and had their last dinner under the stars, the excitement of the return to Freetown like an electric current dancing among them.
Night fell. The breeze stirred. The Brewer fell asleep and started snoring as he always did, and Luca soon dropped off. Caleb listened to the surf with Marguerite in his arms, thinking for some reason about the tusker he had helped kill, yet another living creature harmed by his hand. While he didn’t regret the act itself, he regretted the stain on the soul that resulted from all acts of violence.
Yet something had changed. Somehow this woman from another world, with her honest eyes and throaty laugh and skin like warm milk, had made the crushing sadness and pain he felt, the ache of existence itself, more bearable. He didn’t know why things were the way they were. Why evil thrived. Why children suffered. How different universes could exist, what it meant to be born of two worlds.
What he did know was that he loved the woman beside him.
Marguerite stroked his arm as her toes curled in the sand. “Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me about your world.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
He laughed and kissed her neck, and she wriggled away. “Do you . . . want to go back?”
“Ah,” he said. “I see. Of course I do.”
She fell silent.
Caleb whispered in her ear. “But only if I can take you with me.”
She looked up at him, not saying anything, showing him with her eyes how much his words meant.
“Would you go with me?” he asked. “To see my world?”
After a long moment, when she still didn’t respond, he figured he had asked too much. He knew firsthand what a terrifying thing it was to travel across the stars. But then she grabbed his hand and said, in a husky voice, “When it comes to you, Caleb, I figure I’d go about anywhere.”
His heart started to beat faster, and his throat felt dry.
Caleb didn’t understand anything about this insane thing called human life. Especially after coming to Urfe and discovering a whole new world revolving around a whole new sun. He knew he didn’t know much, wasn’t good at very many things. He was even less useful on Urfe than back home. He sure as hell wasn’t a warrior or a wizard, and he sucked at being a thief, too.
There was one thing, though, he was sure about. More than he had ever been about anything. Something that was right for him. After a glance at Luca’s sleeping form, he weighed his decision one last time, knowing he could never look back, wishing his brothers were by his side to bear witness.
He reached into his pocket and took out something he had been holding since the last Romani camp. He had noticed it inside the lone intact wagon on their first pass through. Unable to steal from a camp full of his dead kinsmen, he had let it be, only to pick it up again when he and Marguerite had returned to make love.
Because this was different. A way to honor the fallen.
With a deep breath, he stood and held up the silver ring he had found concealed in a cabinet. A wedding band inset with sapphire gemstones in the shape of tiny suns. He dropped to a knee. “Marguerite, will you marry me?”
She pressed her hands together and looked so stunned Caleb wondered if this world even had the same ritual. But then tears streamed down her eyes, and she cried out in joy and threw her arms around his neck. “Aye, my love.” She peppered him with kisses. “I will.”
“Good,” he said, in a husky voice, “because I want to adopt Luca, and I want him to have a mom.”
She drew away but kept her hands around his neck. “I think I would like that very much.” She glanced at the sleeping boy. “Why wait, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m from the gutters, where life is cruel and short. I’m not
much for a fancy wedding, Luca needs a home, and I don’t need any Protectorate magistrate signing me papers . . . so why not tomorrow? In our own way?”
He thought about it, and realized he felt the exact same. Especially on Urfe, where he didn’t know whether he would be alive or dead from one day to the next.
“Rock on,” he said.
The wedding took place in a waist-deep pool of water near the base of a waterfall, just a short climb into the hills on the way to Freetown. A spot the Brewer knew from past visits.
A slender cataract, much gentler than the one that had threatened Luca, spilled over red rocks into a basin the color of melted emeralds. Soft evening light bathed the river in pink and golden hues. Gushing water drowned the sounds of the forest.
Caleb was shirtless and barefoot; Marguerite wore a sequined white dress he had also found in the wagon, planned to give to her as a gift, and stuffed in his backpack. After the Brewer belted out a medley of tunes, everything from classical ballads to a few stanzas of Dire Straits’s Romeo and Juliet, the couple exchanged vows. Marguerite read a poem she had composed late into the night, and Caleb recited a heartfelt declaration of love and support he made up on the spot. As sunlight slatted through the canopy of redwoods, the Brewer gave a shout out to the Great Architect of Time and Space and Love, then delivered a moving speech about the two people he knew at first sight were destined to be together forever.
Luca carried the silver wedding ring through the water, smiling as he frog-kicked to their side, and handed the ring to Caleb. He hugged the boy tight to his chest, lifted him high, and threw him back into the pool, to Luca’s great delight. Once the boy returned to shallower waters, Caleb slipped the ring onto Marguerite’s hand.
She threw her arms around his neck. The Brewer declared them husband and wife.
Caleb kissed his bride, and they fell laughing into the water.
They decided to camp for another night. The Brewer prepared a gourmet wedding meal of fire-roasted quail, wild asparagus, and mushrooms sautéed with garlic and onions. Luca ate so much he complained of a stomachache.
After hours of dancing and singing by the fire, once the child and the Brewer fell asleep, Caleb took Marguerite by the hand and led her to the beach. Sheltered by a high line of dunes, he made love to his new bride, thinking he had never been so at peace.
As they lay together under the stars, Caleb realized he didn’t need to be a warrior or a wizard or a bard. All he wanted was to spend the rest of his days with the woman lying beside him, and with the curly-headed boy asleep by the fire. Those two needed him not for the things he could accomplish, but just for who he was.
And that, he knew at last, was enough.
-43-
Sprawled on his back and at the mercy of the mummies, Will realized he was no longer the same fighter that had started the journey. Instead of balling up on the ground or looking for Mala to save him, he assessed the situation with icy calm, rolled to the side to avoid a thrusting spear, and thrust himself between the legs of his closest attacker. As the mummy stabbed downward, Will managed to turn to the side and avoid the blow by inches, then grabbed the spear and used it to leverage himself to his feet, grimacing away the pain in his thigh. He retrieved his sword just in time to block another staff thrust.
Whirling and dodging, parrying and counterstriking, he risked a glance at his companions and saw Selina morph into a king cobra that reared to strike one of the mummies attacking Mateo. The snake’s fangs clamped onto the mummy’s face, missing its eye but saving Mateo from certain death. The other mummy snagged the cobra on the end of its staff and flung it away. The snake flopped on the ground and then changed back into an immobile, ashen-faced Selina.
This isn’t working, Will thought, as he narrowly avoided a spear thrust to the chest. Gunnar is dead, Selina gravely injured, and the rest of us are barely hanging on.
As a pair of mummies advanced, Will did his best to isolate his brain and think while he fought. Had the mummies lain dormant in their sarcophagi all these centuries, then awakened on their own to fight?
He didn’t think so. He thought someone had called them to life. The same someone who had affected their journey in various ways during the descent, the same someone who had called out to them and made his presence known.
He remembered Mala’s comment about the mummies. Imbued with unnatural life by a sorcerer.
Will never had the chance to ask Val what had happened to Zedock’s creations. The hordes of skeletons and zombies in the cemetery. But the fact that Val was alive spoke volumes. In Will’s mind, the only explanation was that the necromancer’s death had severed the bond to his creations, stripping them of life.
Which meant killing the sorcerer king might be another way to destroy the mummies and end the battle.
He was here somewhere, Will was sure. Talking in their heads and influencing events. Though he was not at full strength—how could he be?—he was here nonetheless.
But where?
Will blocked a staff thrust, saw a rare opening, and took it. As he lunged for the mummy in front of him, aiming for the exposed eye, Caleb appeared in the mummy’s stead, cringing as Will’s sword descended.
On impulse, he broke off his attack, knowing as soon as he did what had happened. The Caleb-thing grinned and thrust the tip of his iron staff at Will’s gut. As he twisted, the staff just missed his vitals, raking his side instead.
Of course I am here, rasped the sorcerer king.
The second mummy morphed into Val. Holding his side, Will stumbled away and saw his remaining companions in similar states of confusion.
Is fratricide not to your liking? Perhaps patricide suits you better?
Caleb and Val became Will’s mother and father. He gritted his teeth when his parents lowered their weapons and walked towards him with open arms and pleading eyes. Will stumbled back, unable to raise his sword.
The hall shimmered and became a spider web, the mummies giant arachnids rearing up to attack. Will spun first one way and then the other, his pulse hammering, not knowing what was real.
Shall we choose again, perhaps? Condemn your love to the grave once more?
Mala’s voice rang out. “Close your ears! He spins nothing but lies!”
Will overturned a crystal zelomancy board to block the spiders’ advance. He looked to his left, hoping to gain confidence from the sight of his companions. Instead he saw Charlie stumbling in a circle, face ravaged by decomposition, and Lance fighting a losing battle with one arm.
I can’t do this, Will thought. He’ll show me things I can’t bear to see until I stumble.
He snarled and raised his sword in defiance. “Where are you, Yiknoom?”
Dry, rasping laughter echoed through the hall.
The spiders morphed back into mummies. Will scrambled away from the staff thrusts, again and again, desperately seeking an answer. The sorcerer king had yet to reveal his true physical form. Odd for such a vain ruler.
Think, Will. Is he coiled like a dragon, sleeping beneath his treasure? Hidden on a different level of the pyramid?
Have we passed right by him and not known it?
No. Yiknoom is arrogant. As proud as any who has ever lived. If his essence is trapped somewhere for eternity then it is here, smothered in gold and coin, watching over his domain. Taking pleasure in our demise.
A thought struck Will like a thunderclap, almost allowing a spear to run him through. He spun away and repeated his own words. Smothered in gold and coin. Watching.
“Selina!” he shouted, his voice frantic. The mummies had assumed the forms of Mala and Allira, coming at Will with welcoming arms he knew were iron-tipped staffs. “Do you have any strength left?”
“Barely.”
“Are you able to melt something?”
Her voice gasped with pain. “Aye, if I have a heat source.”
A glow stone appeared in the hand of the Charlie illusion. Mala’s voice rang out. “Break it, and you have fire.”
>
The adventuress tossed the glow stone at Selina as their enemies pressed the attack. Will heard Mateo scream. “Melt the gold!” Will cried. “Off the statue in the middle!”
Selina smashed the glow stone on the ground. A flame burst forth, and the sylvamancer channeled it into the statue of the gold chieftain standing on the pedestal, arms raised, overlooking the scene with haughty disdain.
At first nothing happened, causing Will to wonder if his guess was wrong or if Selina had enough power left to melt the statue. But then gold started to drip onto the ground in molten plops, like icing from a cake.
Fools. Minions. Weaklings. Your souls will feed my eternal journey. Bow before my power!
The hall pulsed and morphed into a jungle, the mummies into crocosaurs that rushed Will and his companions, snapping with thrusting jaws. He spun away, staving off the elongated rows of teeth. “More, Selina!”
The jungle became the surface of a sun, throbbing with orange light that stole Will’s vision. He fled backwards, blindly waving his sword in defense. A scream reverberated in his head, not a human cry of pain but something greater, older and vaster, parched by a millennia of clinging to a magical half-life.
The searing light dissipated, and the hall returned to its natural state.
Will’s eyes flew to the pedestal and saw that much of the gold exterior had melted off the statue, exposing pockets of waxen flesh held together by a blue-white light tinged gray, as if the magic had degraded over the centuries. A single red eye blinked and roved back and forth within the socket, desperate and exposed.
The light also revealed Selina, surrounded by mummies and impaled on the end of a staff, her hands fluttering weakly for release. Mateo cried out in dismay as Will absorbed the situation.
Eight mummies remained. He had no idea how injured the sorcerer king was or how long he could live without the protection of his golden shell, but it didn’t matter. Will knew how to end this. As he ran towards the statue, Yiknoom’s voice reverberated in his head, uttering lies and then screaming in rage, trying to distract him. The mummies converged as one, coming straight at Will with their staffs raised, a line of gold and iron.