IT IS NOT BLACKMAIL. IF YOU CAN OPEN THE PORTAL AGAIN AND FREE US, THOSE OF US WHO ARE HERE WILL CROSS OVER. WE WILL HOLD THE PORTAL OPEN UNTIL THE OTHERS ARE FREE AND THEN CLOSE IT AGAIN. YOUR WORLD WAS NEVER MEANT TO TOUCH OUR PLANE. BUT YOU MUST FREE THE OTHERS. ALL OF THEM. OR THE PORTAL WILL REMAIN OPEN. AND ALL THIS WILL COME TO PASS AGAIN.
Marielle swallowed. It wasn’t blackmail. And yet, it sort of was. To get rid of them, she had to free them. With no guarantee that they would go.
WE WANT TO GO MORE THAN ANYTHING.
“Of course, we’ll free you,” Jhinn breathed. “Right, Marielle?”
Marielle chewed her lip. Leave them trapped and they’d have to make more avatars and build more cities and kill people every year to renew the blood magic. Wait. How were these dragons trapped without a city on top of them or blood every year?
THE MAGIC USED HERE IS POWERFUL – THE SACRIFICE OF AN ENTIRE CITY. IT WAS ENOUGH TO HOLD US ALL. PERHAPS, THE MAGE THAT TRAPPED THE DRAGONS ON YOUR PLAIN WAS NOT AS POWERFUL. PERHAPS HE SACRIFICED FEWER SOULS AND HAD TO RESORT TO MORE PRIMITIVE WAYS TO RENEW THE BONDS.
That made a lot of sense.
Which meant she would have to go back to the plains and go against her conscience and sacrifice innocent souls year after year to keep these dragons trapped.
Or.
She could trust the dragons, find a way to open their portal, and set them all free. And all this would be over and done with. There would be no more dragons on the Dragonblood Plains. No more sacrifices. No more Legends and madness and horrific death.
“It sounds too good to be true,” she said aloud. “Which usually means it is not true.”
IT WILL REQUIRE A SACRIFICE.
“It would be worth it, Marielle,” Jhinn said. They were so close to the crescent now that his face was brightly lit with it. He smiled beatifically in the bright portal-light.
Their gondola surprised her when it bumped up against a stairway. She looked up to see that the stairs spiraled around a central pillar. Bridges from the streets led to the pillar and at the top of it, on a wide platform, was the largest shell Marielle had ever seen. It was shaped like a conch, but larger than a ship.
MAGIC IS A MATTER OF WILL COMBINED WITH POWER.
Marielle was no mage.
ALL THE POWER YOU WILL EVER NEED IS COMING THROUGH THE PORTAL.
Which was true. She could smell the truth of it.
WE WOULD ASK THIS BROTHER OF THE WATER – BUT HE CAN NOT AID US IN THIS. ONLY SOMEONE WHO CAN CLIMB UP ON LAND CAN HELP US NOW.
“Please, Marielle,” Jhinn said. “Just think, you can save the Dragonblood Plains and the whole world from the dark magic that has bound these dragons to us. And you can free my people to seek our place on the eternal seas.”
Behind him, Rajit coughed and sat up. He looked – healthy. Healed. His eyes were huge with shock. He’d been listening, hadn’t he? How shocking would it be to turn your back on your family’s weird cult only to find out they’d been sort of right all along?
But how was he well?
A memory of Jhinn splashing water across the boat leapt to her mind. Some had landed on Rajit. Some had landed on her. He’d also bathed his brother’s head with the magic-water. She felt her own head. The wound across her scalp was completely healed. Stunned, she pulled the bandage off her head, staring at the dried blood on it.
WE HAVE ALL THE POWER NEEDED. BUT WE NEED YOU TO HAVE THE WILL. SET US FREE.
So, she just had to climb up the steps and blow into the shell? The gondola bumped again against the lowest step. It would be easy to step off the gondola and mount the steps. Too easy. Nothing in life was so easy.
Jhinn rushed to his brother, speaking to him in a low voice as Marielle swallowed, looking up at the shell. They’d proven they had the power, but did she have the will?
YOU MUST WILL THE PORTAL OPEN. WILL US AWAKE AGAIN.
And what would that do?
YOU WILL HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE. US, OR THE STONE PEOPLE BELOW. ONLY ONE OR THE OTHER MAY LIVE ONCE THE HORN IS BLOWN.
What did that mean? Right now, those people were stone – their souls sealed up to keep the dragons free.
THINK OF IT THIS WAY. WHEN YOU CHOOSE TO FREE US, YOU WILL BE FREEING THEM, TOO. FINALLY, THEIR SOULS MAY GO ON FROM WHERE THEY ARE TRAPPED. ON TO THE LIFE BEYOND. OVER THE BRIDGE OF LEGENDS TO THE LIFE BETWEEN THE WORLDS.
Where the dragons lived?
YES.
That didn’t seem like much of an afterlife.
ONLY BECAUSE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ANY OF THIS. WE SPEAK TO YOU AS TO A CHILD. IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO TELL OF WONDERS AND LIFE YOU CANNOT YET COMPREHEND.
She stepped out of the boat. Not because she’d decided yet – she hadn’t. She’d almost died in that gondola more than once. She just wanted to feel dry land under her feet again.
She was moving up the steps before she realized it, drawn by the pulses of sweeping magic scent washing down from the conch shell in waves of turquoise and sparkling gold. She remembered the first time she’d met the Lord Mythos and smelled that residue on him. Remembered when she’d smelled it on Tamerlan when she met him, too – a residue of the Legends he had smoked into existence.
And now here she was, mounting the steps to this conch about to make the biggest decision of her life. Would she use that addictive magic? Would she make a choice that would affect tens of thousands of people?
Her palms were sweating, her head hot and dizzy. She couldn’t pull her thoughts into order. They were as scattered as when she went into the clock, jumping from memory to memory of her time in the lives of others through the past. She was ill with the choice set before her.
She’d seen how much caging the dragons had cost the people of the Dragonblood Plains. She’d seen how they had suffered under having to give their children to the dragons. She’d seen how the Legends had offered themselves to save their people.
And it would all happen again.
Unless she stopped it.
Right now.
She was at the top of the platform and she could see over the city. Her shadow, long and inky black, spread out over countless shops and homes and markets. Over palaces and canals, bridges and city squares. With the portal behind her, she loomed like destiny itself.
And beneath her shadow were row upon row of people who would never live again if she freed the dragons – except for in this new way she couldn’t understand.
But hadn’t they made that decision when they chose to become sacrifices in the first place? So why did she feel such a pang of guilt and pain at the thought of damning them to the next life while undoing their work completely?
Down the streets that fanned out before her, she saw movement and strained her eyes to see. Was that Tamerlan and Etienne rushing down the street toward where she was? It was hard to tell. They were still so far away that they seemed like nothing more than moving specks of shadow.
Perhaps, it was only her imagination tempting her with the thought of giving this horrible choice to someone else. She was the woman who acted, not the woman who chose. She was the woman who carried out plans, not the one who made them.
She turned and saw an empty shelf built into the side of the platform. It was large enough to contain many items, though it was empty now. Chiseled into the shelf were words she could not read.
No matter, she was not here for whatever had rested on those shelves. She was here for the great shell that filled the platform. With care, she followed the line of it to the narrow end, running her hand along its smooth surface as she went.
If she blew it, she would undo the work of centuries, destroy a part of the world to save the rest.
Did she dare do that?
This should be the decision of someone else – Etienne perhaps. He had been trained for this. Or even Tamerlan who was at least the son of a Landhold understanding the politics and history of this. Or Jhinn who believed all this through to his core – but it couldn’t be Jhinn.
It should no
t be her.
It should not be a lowly watch officer the daughter of a red-door woman from the Trade District.
But if she left this decision to Etienne or Tamerlan, she couldn’t be sure it would be them who made it and not the Legends who controlled them.
Who better to make a decision about justice than a member of the Jingen City Watch?
She had heard the story of this from both sides. Both sides had claims of injustice, of wrongful deaths, of wrongful imprisonment. Both sides had a proposal to make for the future.
So, which of them was right? Which should she rule in favor of? Which side lined up with the Real Law right now?
There was another small set of steps that led up to where a person could place their lips on that huge conch shell and blow.
Marielle climbed the steps, her mind racing so fast that she nearly tripped as she climbed them, and in the light of the bright Crescent moon portal, she stepped up to the conch shell and made her choice.
26: Never Fast Enough
Tamerlan
Tamerlan turned the next page, but there was nothing on it – nothing but a dark smear that looked like blood.
When we found the book, a fight broke out among us. A disagreement about how to proceed. Ram explained. He was still the only Legend voice Tamerlan could hear clearly. The others screamed and shouted in the background – fighting over something he didn’t understand.
A disagreement that drew blood?
Belgarian thought that the dragons should be freed. He was mad – he would have doomed us all! I bashed his head in. A messy business. Blood spattered on the book.
Tamerlan shuddered.
Someone moves at the other end of the city! Look!
He looked. He thought he saw a gondola moving through the canals. But that was impossible.
A great danger lies there. You must stop the people in that boat before they reach it!
It wasn’t Jhinn, was it? He was going to wait for Tamerlan to come and get him before moving from the lake.
Trust no one! No one!
There was a roar from the shadows as Etienne launched himself at Tamerlan and it was all he could do to leap out of the way, narrowly dodging the other man’s attack. His sword flashed in the portal light and Tamerlan drew his awkwardly.
Smoke! Call me and I will come!
He didn’t dare. Ram was too close already. His thoughts and desires already taking over too strongly.
“What are you doing, Etienne? We’re on the same side!” His sword came up just in time to parry Etienne’s attack – a sudden viper-like backhand slash toward Tamerlan’s throat. “You’re insane!”
“I know now,” Etienne said, his face twisting. He looked more like the Grandfather like that than he did like Etienne.
“You don’t know anything! We’re on the same side! We’re here to defeat the dragons and save our people!”
“Maybe I don’t want them defeated. Maybe I just want their power.”
“There’s power here,” Tamerlan said, feinting and then leaping back to grab the lantern from the podium. “Coming from that portal!”
“I know,” Etienne said with a wicked smile. He held up a hand and lightning crackled between his fingers.
Run! It’s the Grandfather!
Tamerlan didn’t hesitate, he ran.
With a sword in one hand and a lantern in the other, running through an unfamiliar city was crazy. But he fled, sliding down the steep slope of the dragon’s tail on his hip to land roughly on his feet. Maybe he would smoke.
Faster! Faster! Ram was screaming in his mind – or maybe his thoughts were. It was hard to distinguish one from the other anymore.
The rows of people stared at him inhumanly, sending thrills of terror through him even as he sprinted between them, his breath coming in gasps his legs screaming as he threw every ounce of energy into running.
He turned to look behind his shoulder, nearly skidding into one of the still figures – a hooded lady with a beautiful face and lips parted slightly in the faintest of smiles. It looked like she might exhale at any moment.
He gasped, but his turn had shown him Etienne right behind him, his feet pounding on the cobbles.
Tamerlan turned back toward the portal, slipping and skidding on the slick stone street, nearly losing his lantern. Ram forced him forward again. The Legend’s power was taking him over every time he had the slightest moment of weakness. He pushed at it, but fighting it grew more difficult by the minute as he lost track of what was Ram and what was him. What were Ram’s desires and hopes and dreams and what were his?
Run! They thought together. Faster!
He ran faster.
Smoke!
He was fumbling for the rolls of spice before he realized what he was doing. He jerked his hand away. If he did that now, he’d lose control entirely. He didn’t dare. He didn’t dare.
He –
A horn blast filled the air – loud and incredibly resonant. It shook through him so that his legs wobbled and he lost the lantern as he tried to keep his feet. It fell away, skittering across the cobbles and smashing to pieces, the light vanishing.
Tamerlan stumbled a step, grabbing a hold of one of the frozen people as he tried to keep his feet. It was a street vendor by the look of him – dressed in furs and with more furs in his hands held up like he was planning to make a last sale before his soul was stolen – an older man with a lined face and hooked nose.
Tamerlan took a deep breath. The world was calming. It was going to be okay. He just needed to stay calm.
He patted the statue absently on the shoulder.
The street vendor’s eyes opened.
Tamerlan screamed, leaping back, knocking into Etienne. His sword flew from his grip and for a few desperate minutes ,there was nothing but terror and a deep sinking feeling in the pit of his belly as he scrambled wildly across the cobbles to retrieve it.
By the time he had his sword and was back on his feet, he saw Etienne leaping up, too, with his own sword in his hands.
None of the frozen people had moved. But all along the street, their eyes were opening.
Fear gripped his heart, forcing it into a staccato rhythm as he lifted a hand.
“Peace, Etienne. Don’t fight with me. Whatever this is, we need to stop it.”
He had the creeping sensation that the statues behind him were creeping forward in the darkness, coming to get him.
“I don’t play by your rules, Hunter,” Etienne said in a voice that sounded nothing like him.
Gulping down fear, Tamerlan leapt forward sprinting again toward the bright moon-portal, as hard as ever before, as if he could run fast enough to leave these nightmares behind. As if he could outrun the eyes watching him from every direction.
Something inside him was screaming like a frightened child. It was all he could do to shove it aside and run on.
He’d been running for an hour – or maybe it only felt that long. A stitch formed in his side, sucking his breath away when the next horn blast made the air shiver. He heard Etienne cursing behind him. The other man hadn’t flagged.
Maybe it had been more than an hour. He’d started to taste blood in his mouth a while ago, felt like his lungs might explode a little after that, but still he’d run, fear giving him the strength he needed to keep going.
This horn blast was not a good sign. The last one had opened their eyes. What would this one do? He swallowed as the sound of a wind swirled in the air as the tone of the horn faded away. No, not a wind. It was the sound of thousands and thousands of people drawing breath.
He could feel fear-tears starting in his eyes. He blinked them away. He had no time to let fear steal his senses. He was already losing his mind as Ram chanted endlessly in his head.
Faster, faster, faster.
He ran on.
He didn’t know how much more time had passed. Too long, he knew. He was limping now, barely able to keep stumbling along, too exhausted and sore.
He stumbled
out into the open and saw a boat tied to a jetty. It was old and it knocked against the canal wall in the strong current that seemed – impossibly – to be flowing toward the waterfall at the other end of the city.
He didn’t stop to think. He just leapt from the canal wall into the boat, cutting the rope with the blade of his sword rather than fumbling with the knots. The boat was moving the moment the rope was hacked apart, flowing down the canal faster than he could run.
At least this way he wouldn’t have to worry about Etienne putting a sword through his back.
Faster, faster, faster.
He wasn’t even rowing, and the boat was streaking toward the portal.
A massive pillar rose up in front of the portal bearing a shell so big it could be a ship on top of the pillar. What was that for?
It’s the same as the smaller shells – a way to echo magic and transform it. There was a shelf full of smaller shells on that platform. I took them all and I used them. I found a way to do it without sacrificing an entire city – a way to use blood magic and a lesser shell to make a sacrifice of just one person to quell a dragon. Anamay was the first. But then the others followed. Some came to me willingly like Ablemeyer and Chaos. Others, I forced to serve – like the Grandfather and the Great Thief.
Tamerlan shivered. If he did what Ram was demanding, he would be forcing people to “serve” which was just a nice way to say “die.”
Some will volunteer. That Scenter who works for you will volunteer. Mark my words.
Anger hardened in Tamerlan’s heart.
He shoved against Ram, battering and fighting until he thought he was fighting his own mind. No one would do that to Marielle. No one! He would die a thousand deaths before he let that happen!
But as hard as he fought, he was losing, losing his mind inch by inch by inch.
The great horn sounded again and this time, the crescent moon of a portal above them began to enlarge, glowing brightly as it opened, opened, opened.
Oh no.
The water under his rowboat sped up, and now it was racing down the canal toward the tower faster than he’d ever seen a boat go before. In the distance, he saw another boat tied up at the base of the pillar and a familiar figure crouched within it. Jhinn? He was at the tower? How had he gotten here?
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 77