Darkfall

by M. L. Spencer

  The officer’s face went slack. He accepted the gift with great hesitance, opening his mouth to say something. But then he closed it again. He stood staring down at the jewel-encrusted hilts with a look of stricken awe.

  “I want you to have them,” Darien said, gazing down at Valdivora, the legendary sword of Khoresh Kateem, and its matching dagger. “They belong to the clans. I won’t be needing them any longer.”

  Sayeed looked up with a frozen expression.

  Darien continued, “The people of Malikar now have a land to call their own. And a capital to rule it from. Sayeed son of Alborz, when I became Warden, I named you First Among Many. Now I name you Sultan of the Malikari Empire.”

  Reaching into the pocket of his cloak, he retrieved the small bronze cylinder that was no bigger than his index finger. He handed it to Sayeed, watching the man’s face as he opened the end of the tube and removed the thin scroll within. Sayeed’s skin went pale as his eyes scanned over the curling parchment. When he reached the bottom of the page, he rolled the scroll back up and replaced it in its container, letting his hand drop limply to his side.

  “Brother…” He shook his head, visibly groping for words. “I do not have the ability to express my gratitude. But only the Prime Warden has the authority to elevate me to such a high position.”

  Darien gestured dismissively. “After I kill Renquist, I will be Prime Warden. For a short while, at least.”

  Sayeed stared at him blankly for another minute. Then, very formally, he went to his knees. He took the hem of Darien’s cloak and brought it up to his face, pressing the fabric to his lips. Darien frowned down at him, feeling repulsed by the gesture.

  “Stand,” he commanded.

  Sayeed rose from the floor with grace and stood before him, his gaze lowered to the ground—another unwanted sign of deference. Darien reached up and firmly lifted the man’s chin until he was forced to look him in the eyes.

  “Never lower your gaze, Sayeed. And never kneel before another man again.” Darien brushed past him, moving toward the hallway. Opening the door, he paused and turned back.

  “Thank you for being my brother,” he said.

  And left.

  39

  The Waking Storm

  Naia stood in the courtyard, ringed by soldiers and horses. Overhead, dark clouds tumbled toward the horizon. Eerie colors erupted within their depths, spreading quickly across the sky. Jagged forks of lightning speared the ground, followed by rolling thunder that rattled the earth. All around them, the entire magic field lurched and writhed as if in pain.

  The horse she was holding crabstepped, looking ready to bolt. Naia ran a hand over the gelding’s quivering neck, attempting to sooth it. It did little good. The beast could sense her anxiety.

  The ring of soldiers parted to admit a lone man into the ragged pool of torchlight: Kyel Archer. Naia sighed in relief. She had been beginning to fret he wouldn’t show at all. Now they only waited on Darien. Looking up at the tortured sky, Naia silently willed him to hurry. They hadn’t much time.

  Kyel drew up in front of her, a scowl of irritation on his face. The silver weapon at his side shimmered with a kaleidoscope of colors reflected from the cloud-light.

  “How is he?” Kyel asked, just loud enough to be heard over the whistling wind.

  “As good as can be expected.”

  “Is he coming?”

  “Oh, yes.” Naia sighed. “He wants revenge. And he needs closure. This is the only way he’ll get either.”

  She thought of the look on Darien’s face when he’d cursed the image of her goddess. She couldn’t blame him for his anger, though he had directed his wrath at the wrong deity.

  “I hope he finds what he seeks,” he said softly.

  The magic field spasmed violently. Kyel winced, and Naia felt the shock of it all the way to her core. The Zakai around them appeared thoroughly unaffected. She glanced back apprehensively at the palace steps.

  The magic field quieted, but still trembled on the far edge of normal. The night was cooling around them, and there was still no sign of Darien.

  She turned to Kyel. “What about you? What do you seek?”

  He stared at the ground. After a long moment, he responded, “I just want this to be over.”

  “That’s all? No more?”

  Kyel smiled regretfully. “I have eleven tiers of power in me.”

  Naia blinked in shock, feeling intense sympathy. She whispered, “I’m so sorry, Kyel.”

  He shrugged. “I’m already coming undone. You have no idea how close I came to killing Darien today. No idea.”

  “And what if you had?”

  Kyel looked away. He stood in silence as the wind rolled over him, whipping his cloak. She waited for him to reply. Eventually, she realized he wasn’t going to.

  She asked, “Do you think me evil, Kyel? Because I killed in your defense?”

  He looked at her, his eyes studying her face as if seeking there for the answer to her question. “No. Not evil. But you weren’t in the right either.” He sighed heavily. “There must be some middle ground. I just don’t know where it is or what it would look like.”

  “I think I know,” Naia said. “And it has nothing to do with oaths, and everything to do with what’s inside. Our decisions define us. Not our chains.”

  The ring of soldiers parted again, this time admitting Darien into their midst. He stalked toward them with the dangerous grace of a predator, his body emanating a penumbra of dark power. His black cloak rippled behind him in the wind, and his long, black hair lashed his face. When he reached them, he drew to a halt and stood staring into the distance.

  Kyel shot a meaningful glance at Naia, one that seemed to question the man’s sanity. To Darien, he said, “I’m very sorry about your wife.”

  The darkmage cast him a leaden stare and said nothing in reply.

  “Where’s your sword?” Naia asked, noting the blade’s conspicuous absence.

  Darien shrugged. “It was time to give it up.”

  A soldier led his horse forward. Another took Naia’s reins and held her gelding for her to mount. She twisted in the saddle, waiting for Darien and Kyel, then clucked her horse forward.

  Darien sent his stallion trotting after Naia’s mare. The horses were skittish as they made their way across the palace grounds, perhaps sensing the tension in the air.

  Ringed by a squad of Zakai, they turned onto the canal road. As it turned out, the escort was unnecessary. It was past the curfew the occupying military had imposed throughout the city. Rothscard’s streets were eerily empty. During the long ride to the Lion’s Gate, Darien saw very few people about, mostly soldiers. Many of the city’s inhabitants had already fled, leaving their possessions behind. Signs of their passage were strewn everywhere in the streets: scraps of garments and shoes, housewares and children’s toys. Stray dogs and rats rifled through the scattered garbage, emboldened by the absence of humans.

  The wind had died down, though the clouds still roiled overhead. Their party rode in silence out the gate and into the thick of the Malikari encampment. Campfires marched toward the northern horizon in perfect, geometric patterns. Beyond them, Darien knew, stretched a struggling train of refugees filing down from the mountains to the north. They would find new homes and new lives, even new customs. It would be a very different society than the one they had left behind. But they would live. Darien felt no small amount of gratitude for that.

  They rode for a long time in silence, past the encampment’s long rows of tents bordered by lines of pickets and earthworks. Overhead, the lights within the clouds strobed in time to the pulse of the magic field. An erratic pulse, like a failing heartbeat.

  Darien was surprised when Naia brought her horse abreast of his. He glanced over at her, unsure of her purpose. She rode for a moment in silence, her body moving with the slow rhythm of her horse’s swaying strides.

  “Tell me about your wife,” she said at last. “Did she make you happy?”
r />   The question caught Darien off-guard. He glanced down, fumbling for the right words to express his feelings. “She did. I didn’t expect her to. She was the singular, most beautiful thing in my life. I ought to have told her that.”

  “I’m sure she knew what you felt for her,” Naia said after a moment.

  He shrugged. It wasn’t a response. More of an attempt to dismiss her concern.

  “Darien.”

  The way she said his name made him glance at her sharply.

  “In my visions … I’ve seen what happens to you.” She was looking at him with vast amounts of sympathy.

  Darien shrugged again, letting her words slide off him. He had no interest in his future.

  Naia said, “The most important part of my training as a Harbinger had to be skipped because we simply didn’t have the time. I never learned how much of what I see is safe to reveal … and how much is best held back.”

  “Then don’t tell me anything,” he snapped, more sharply than he intended. He already knew what she was going to say, and truthfully didn’t care.

  “I think you need to know,” she pressed, reining her mount closer to his. “There are now only two possible versions of the future left to us. And in both versions, Renquist spills your blood in sacrifice. In one version, your death is the catalyst that brings Xerys fully into this world. In the other, it is our only chance to prevail against him.

  “But Darien,” she paused, fixing him with a penetrating stare. “I feel certain it will be up to you—and only you—to determine which future comes to pass. All of us—and all the world—will be at the mercy of your decision. You must make the right choice.”

  Darien rode in silence for a time, head bowed against the occasional gusts of wind. Eventually, he asked, “So today’s my last day in this world?”

  “I believe so,” Naia answered, her expression compassionate.

  Darien allowed himself a dark and fleeting grin. “Good.”

  She stared at him flatly. It was a long time before she looked away.

  The sound of the horses’ hooves became muffled as they transitioned from the packed dirt of the road onto the spongy loam of the prairie. His stallion fought the reins, wanting to stretch its neck down to graze. He had to keep urging it forward. Kyel trailed behind them with the rest of the Zakai, either in a sulk or a gloom—Darien couldn’t tell which.

  “What about you?” he asked Naia after a long interval of silence. “Have you foreseen your own death?”

  “I have seen my own death countless times. That doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s the loss of others I’ve cared about that saddens me.”

  “Quin,” Darien guessed. He knew Naia and Quin had spent time together at the Crescent. He hadn’t realized their relationship had progressed into something more. “I’m sorry, Naia. The gods are brutal, aren’t they?”

  “Don’t blame the gods, Darien. That’s too easy. And it minimizes our own responsibility.”

  He couldn’t deny the logic of her words. He pulled back on the reins, drawing his horse to a halt. He let Kyel pass him by, then kicked his stallion after him. He followed at the end of their small column the rest of the way, flanked by two Zakai.

  They rode in silence for hours.

  Eventually, they came to a long line of serrated hills that marched in darkness toward the foothills of the Craghorns. They pulled their horses up just outside the opening of a large gash cut into a jagged hill. A small stream trickled out, feeding a willow grove downslope. There, they dismounted and, unloading their packs, handed their horses over to the Zakai. At Darien’s directive, their silent guard bowed from their horses’ backs and rode away, trailing the spare mounts behind.

  “The transfer portal is this way,” Naia said, indicating a deep fissure in the cliffs ahead.

  Darien studied the cut warily. He’d been through these same foothills several times and couldn’t remember seeing it before. He asked, “How did you know this was here?”

  “I used it when Quin and I left Titherry.” Naia shouldered her pack and set off toward it.

  The crevasse slanted uphill at a sharp angle, bordered on both sides by fractured granite. Small, sharp rocks that had crumbled from the eroded cliffs provided an unstable footpath. Naia mounted the slope gamely, leaning forward under the weight of her pack. She was wearing a pair of men’s breeches and a good pair of serviceable boots. Darien was surprised he hadn’t noticed that before. She’d planned ahead.

  At the top of the cleft, they came to a water-carved bow in the cliff face. There, Naia waved her hand and muttered a soft string of words. Instantly, the granite wall dissolved to reveal an opening. Darien followed behind Kyel into a dimly lit chamber carved into the cliff itself, taking note of the cross-vaulted arch perched in the center of the room.

  “For a thousand years, no one remembered this was here,” he commented wonderingly, shaking his head.

  Without pausing for the others, Darien strode forward into the portal arch. Immediately, the world around him shivered and disappeared in a brilliant gush of light.

  Darien stumbled out from under the arch, finding himself in a different chamber entirely. Gazing upward, he took in the sight of a dark ceiling riddled with tiny pinpricks of light. He recognized the place. He had been there before, with Azár. It had been the first time he’d ever held her hand.

  There was another flash, and both Naia and Kyel appeared at his side. Kyel gazed around, blinking, looking thoroughly disoriented.

  This time, it was Darien’s own whispered words that unlocked the doorway. He stepped out into a horseshoe-shaped canyon surrounded by charred cliffs that still bore the scars of his own insanity.

  He strode out from the portal chamber then turned back to gaze up at the tall spire of Orien’s Finger. It was from that high vantage he had summoned a fiery holocaust that had immolated Malikar’s armies—men and women of the nation he would later come to defend. With a sigh, he turned his back on the monolith, too weary to confront its silent recrimination.

  “This looks too familiar,” Kyel grumbled.

  Darien set off across the curved valley, outpacing the others by design. He remembered exactly where the entrance to the hidden stair was, beneath a spelled set of runic numerals. Fortunately, he knew the Word of Command that unlocked them. The numerals awakened, gleaming with an inner light. A dark opening appeared in the scorched rock beneath, revealing a set of dim stairs that climbed upward into darkness.

  Darien looked back over his shoulder at the others. “Remember. Shield yourselves. We’ll be walking into the vortex that surrounds Aerysius.”

  Naia dropped her pack on the ground, then knelt to rifle through it. She withdrew two short branches and a sealed earthen jug. Unstoppering the jug, she produced long, oil-soaked strips of cloth and began winding them around the ends of the shafts.

  “This time, I thought to bring torches.” She smiled up at him. The torch in her hand burst aflame.

  Darien accepted the other torch with a feeling of appreciation. Too many times in his life, he had taken too many people for granted. Naia’s name was at the top of his long list of regrets.

  “You first,” he said, moving behind her.

  The stairway was steep and brutal. Even with the torchlight, Darien found it hard to keep his footing. The pool of light they moved within extended only a short distance, enough to see the steps ahead, but not enough to see where they led. The stairs were broken intermittently by short landings, where their party halted to catch their breath. Over the edge was only a vast maw of emptiness. Darien had no idea what manner of death a fall would bring.

  His mind wandered rampantly as he climbed. His thoughts turned to Azár, his beautiful wife. He tried picturing her in his mind. But, to his irritation, every image he summoned was out of focus, as though it had been years since he’d last looked upon her face. Perhaps it was just his mind’s way of coping. If so, it was a cruel trick.

  A ghastly roar shook the mountain beneath their
feet, rattling the stair. Jagged fissures raced across their path, fracturing the steps. Kyel staggered and fell to his knees. He glanced up, eyes wide and startled.

  “What was that?” he gasped.

  Staring upward into darkness, Darien responded, “I think we’re running out of time.”

  40

  The Demon’s Pawn

  Naia tripped.

  Darien reached out to catch her but was a fraction too slow. She hit the floor of the landing with a grunt and a splash. He reached down and helped her back to her feet, stabilizing her until she could find her balance.

  “The floor is wet!” Naia exclaimed through chattering teeth.

  Darien moved past her, his feet splashing through pools of water on the floor. The flame of his torch reflected in a distorted pattern off the surface of the water. Despite the light, he could see only a short distance ahead. But it was enough to make him feel certain they had finally come to the end of the stairs.

  “We’ve reached the bottom of the warrens,” he said.

  “The Well’s up three levels, isn’t it?” Kyel asked. He mounted the last step and stopped beside Darien, his face a jagged dance of shadow in the flickering torchlight. At Darien’s nod, he strode forward a few steps before turning back. “We have to keep moving. Can’t you feel it?”

  “I feel it,” Darien growled.

  He tossed his torch on the ground. The flame hissed out as it struck the water. In its place, he conjured a mist of magelight that trailed ahead of them, lighting their path with a silvery glow. Kyel stared at the magelight with a look of speculation on his face, then turned to glare back at Darien. He flung his own torch over the edge of the landing.