Crypt of the Violator

by K. J. Coble

  White foam flecked the corners of his lips and eyes stared wildly into the sky, as though he was seeing some vision. Hands and arms had slackened now, fallen away from his midsection. By the moon’s light, Strayden could see the damp dark of blood, the rent fabric of his tunic dimpled inward where something had plunged into his abdomen.

  “Shit.” Strayden looked up from him, found Asyra there. “You were right. What...what do we do?”

  The burglar shook her head wordlessly.

  “The wards,” Kham hissed breathlessly. Moonlight played in his filmy eyes. “They are broken. She will come.”

  Asyra lurched forward, grabbed the front of his tunic. “What was that?” The passion of her demand startled Strayden. “Who is she? Who is coming?”

  He winced in her grip, head sagging back as she tried to pull him upright. When she released, let him sag back to the sand, he groaned, “All is undone. She will rule.” His head drooped to one side and a streamer of saliva drooled free. A bubble of it, limned with bloody-streak, formed, popped as he wheezed, “We...will rule...”

  The mania continued to fill his eyes, even as they fogged over. But Xass Kham of Xyxian said no more.

  “Gruzh’s greasy beard...” Strayden swore softly. “He’s gone.” He reached out to Asyra, grabbed her by the arm. “What do we do now?”

  She looked back at him and the shiver in her eyes offered little reassurance.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I know someone who might.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ASYRA WATCHED AS LYSSA knelt beside the shape of Xass Kham, wrapped crudely in tent canvas, and peeled back a flap to reveal his dead—still hideously-grinning—face.

  “You fools,” she said with a grimace and replaced the shroud. Standing, she glared at them. “You damn, damn fools!”

  They’d brought the body down when the shifts changed, the Vothans improvising by carrying it between them, as though it was a drunken comrade. The grisly charade probably kept word of the debacle from spreading beyond the Fifth Cohort. For now. The Vothans were notoriously loose-tongued. But they’d gotten Kham’s corpse back to Strayden’s tent, at least.

  Lyssa ran a hand across her brow, the motion causing her white hood to slip back from dark hair and face. “I should have known,” she hissed. “When they put the Vothan Guard in charge of the perimeter, I should have known!”

  “It wasn’t our idea!” Strayden began to protest, but shrank sheepishly when the sorceress turned her glare fully upon him. “Well...it wasn’t just our idea.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Someone else arranged for him” Strayden nodded at the body “to join us. Harald Hegruum brought him.”

  “The Commander of the Guard?” Lyssa frowned. “What else happened? You have to tell me everything, Strayden of Starad. What did Xass Kham do up there?”

  Strayden quickly rambled through a retelling of the whole, botched expedition. Lyssa’s features grew ashy as he spoke. By the time he finished, her face was an iron mask of fear and fury. “The Dome of Patah,” she whispered. “Is that what he called it?”

  Strayden nodded.

  “Damn.” She started to pace around the body, fingers working at the tightly-drawn bun of her hair until a blue-black kink loosened, unfurled down the side of her face. “And he read the inscription and triggered the reaction and the guardians were unleashed to finish off any survivors...”

  “What?” Asyra asked.

  She looked at her. “It’s from the Ekrus Necro-Mallika. Like I told you.”

  “That nasty little book?” A breath of chill blew through Asyra. “Kham was babbling something about the ‘wards broken’.”

  Lysas nodded, almost frantically, and speaking as much to herself as the others. “He was weakening the prison that holds the evil in!” She clenched both fists, shook them, and spun to Asyra and Strayden. “Damn-damn-damn! Don’t you idiots know what you’ve done?”

  Strayden flinched and pressed his lips into the folds of his beard, looked down and away. But Asyra felt a reflexive flutter of rage. “No, we don’t! So maybe you ought to explain it to us!”

  “There’s no time for that,” Lyssa replied savagely. She pointed at the corpse. “Leave aside his sorcerous mischief; he is—was—key to the Emperor’s whole scheme for regime-change in this region. Now he’s dead! How the hells do you think that gets explained away?”

  Both Asyra and Strayden began to protest at once; and both trailed off in the same moment with the realization of Lyssa’s truth.

  Oh.

  “Someone will want somebody’s head for this,” Lyssa said coldly. “Does either of you have a glib comment, now?”

  Asyra looked at Strayden. The enormity of their fix was written across his reddening face, glints of sweat bunching across his forehead. He blinked and looked back at her. She felt her guts squirm. She didn’t want to admit it, but her thoughts turned quickly to blame and deflection—and she wondered if he was thinking the same.

  “Not something glib, no,” the Vothan rumbled and turned his gaze back to Lyssa. “But I had the watch, with the Fifth. It’s known. And I’ll be the first they think of.” He shrugged mountainous shoulders. “It’ll be me to bring this forward.”

  Asyra sighed inwardly with relief, but hated herself for even thinking of avoiding her part in this. “And maybe I can offer some help in that.” She held up her ring finger and waggled the Emperor’s Eye.

  Strayden cocked an eyebrow up at her, but Lyssa nodded in instant understanding. “You think the Eyes will cooperate in that?”

  “Wait a moment—” Strayden began, face reddening further.

  “They don’t need to know everything,” Asyra replied to Lyssa.

  The sorceress snorted. “You think you can keep this from them?”

  “You give them more credit than they deserve,” Asyra said.

  “Wait—” Strayden barked “—a moment!” He glowered at Asyra. “You’re telling me you’re one of the Eyes of the Emperor? Gruzh’s ball sack, girl, when the hells were planning on letting me in on that?”

  “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

  “Not necessary?” He was suddenly shivering with that Vothan rage that could explode in the notorious berserk frenzy. Eyes darted to Lyssa. “You knew?”

  Lyssa opened her mouth to reply, hesitated, and settled on a nod.

  “By the Coiled Serpent Izzliv!” Strayden swore. “I’m surrounding by witches and now spies, too?”

  “I’m not a witch,” Lyssa snapped.

  “Oh, we’re worried about titles now?” the Vothan half-laughed.

  “What are you, then?” Asyra added with sudden venom, the previous night’s exchange between them resurging without her knowing why.

  Lyssa’s eyes flared at her. “A loyal servant of the Emperor.”

  “Hiding behind the job?” Asyra’s innards soured with anger, the hurt of the other woman’s rebuff winding up into a sudden storm within her.

  “At least I know my job,” she fired back. “Some spy. What were you thinking, allowing them to breach the ruins with this fool” she gestured at the body “even joining them?”

  The truth whispered in the back of her mind, the presence, the voice, calling her back to those ruins on the escarpment. It gave her anger even more edge. “What would you know about it? Maybe I was looking after friends who, yeah, weren’t making the best decisions—”

  “Now, hold on...” Strayden started to protest.

  “—but at least I was there, with them!”

  “Friends are supposed to look out for each other,” Lyssa replied, “not encourage their stupidest, most reckless impulses.”

  “Hey, I’m standing right here!” Strayden exclaimed.

  “Ah,” Asyra said with a razor-edged note to her voice, fixating the other woman with her most piercing stare, “so that’s what you call it: a ‘reckless impulse’.”

  Lyssa returned the stare with her icy greens. “I’m not sure we’re t
alking about the same thing, anymore.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “I don’t know what either of you is talking about!” Strayden snarled, throwing out his hands in exasperation.

  “Captain?”

  The Vothan twitched at the voice from outside the tent and whirled to the entry flaps, whipped them aside. Whispered words passed between him and the kid from the expedition, Horsa. He nodded at something said and gestured the kid on his way. Turning back to face them, Asyra could see the redness had faded from his features, to be replaced by growing paleness.

  “Your minder,” Strayden said to Lyssa—and Asya assumed he meant her Church Militant, “was concerned there was a problem. We’re getting loud, it seems. Also, he says you’re expected back in the Emperor’s presence, soon.”

  She winced. “They expect to move off into the wastes, this morning, continue the pursuit.” She glanced at the corpse. “I’ll have to tell him about this now.”

  “What are you going to tell him?” Strayden asked.

  Lyssa kneaded her brow, looked suddenly decades older. “That you discovered him in the ruins, trespassing.” She glanced at Asyra, not for too long. “If you’re questioned, pressed about it, you can embellish; say the Eyes were following him and corroborate the story. Do you think your colleagues will go along with that?”

  “They will.”

  Lyssa looked back at Strayden. “And your men can keep this quiet?”

  “They can, but...” He squirmed a little. “Lass, you’ll be lying on our behalf, lying to the Emperor, himself.”

  “Friends,” she proclaimed and shot Asyra another look—one that bit.

  “Hells,” Strayden said, “I’ve got plenty of friends.”

  “I don’t,” she replied. “Now, if you can hurry, go get a couple of yours, ones that can be quiet, and we’ll move this to my tent.” She didn’t directly look at Asyra. “I’ll need you a moment longer, though.”

  “Right,” Strayden rumbled with a sideways glance at her. He ducked out of the tent with undisguised haste.

  “I’m not interested in enduring a further lecture,” Asyra began when Strayden had gone.

  “That’s good because I don’t intend to deliver one,” Lyssa replied. “How many other Eyes are in the camp?”

  “One that I know of,” Asyra said. “She can be worked—not with—but around.”

  “She?”

  “Yeah. Jealous?”

  Lyssa glowered at her. “I can see you’re not dealing with this well.”

  “How would you expect me to deal with it?” Asyra snapped back. “You’re lying to yourself and you want me to just let you do it.”

  “You think you know me that well?”

  “After all we’ve been through, yeah, I think so.”

  “I cannot be what you want me to be,” Lyssa said with finality. “I can’t.”

  “You’re wrong!” Asyra sprang closer to her, had to step around Xass Kham’s cold form to do it, and grabbed her by the wrist. A part of her reflected on the weirdness of the moment, proclaiming herself to the other, standing over a corpse. But Lyssa didn’t pull away. “You can be whatever you want,” Asyra insisted. “Believe me, I know. I’ve been everything!”

  “And perhaps it’s because of that, you’re confused.”

  Asyra chuckled. “On this, I’m as clear as I’ve ever been about anything.”

  “I’m not,” Lyssa replied, and pulled her hand from Asyra’s. “I don’t know...what it is I feel—about anything.”

  “But you feel something?”

  Lyssa’s eyes shivered. There almost seemed to be a break in her resistance, the two of them drifting imperceptibly closer. But she blinked and the instant was gone. She gave herself a shake. “I’ve already explained that to you.”

  “Lyssa...”

  “No, enough!” she snapped and pointed at the body. “You want to have this conversation now, with this problem in front of us?”

  “I want you to be true with yourself.”

  “Truth,” she snorted. “All right, here’s some truth. If I can’t focus and figure out a way to convince Bazul II otherwise, he’s going to want blood for this. You know it. And it won’t be mine, likely won’t be yours—since I’m pretty certain he doesn’t even know his own Eyes watch the camp.”

  Asyra shrugged. “It’s often better he doesn’t.”

  Lyssa pointed to the tent flaps. “Then it’ll be the Vothan he has skinned alive while all watch him scream and bleed. Is that what you want?”

  Asyra flinched. “Of course, not.”

  “Then we need to put this aside.”

  “You won’t even consider—”

  “Not now!” Lyssa snapped. “Perhaps, not ever!”

  Asyra clenched her teeth together behind tightly-pressed lips. But she felt the immovable barrier of Lyssa’s will now. She felt sick, hurt, embarrassed. The single, obedient nod she offered the other woman hurt like the tightening of a noose.

  A hint of pain might have passed across Lyssa’s face, but was gone as quickly as a wisp of smoke in a breeze. “Good,” she said in a hard, brittle tone. “Good. Now I need to speak with Modyn. Stay here for a moment with...” she grimaced as she glanced at the shrouded corpse “...with him. I’ll be back.” And she was and there was no mistaking her rush.

  Rush to get away from me, Asyra thought miserably. Oh, that was well done. What had been hesitation before was now full-blown resistance. She’d not just frightened her, but driven her away. And maybe she’d been wrong. The possibility of that twisted, knife-edged, in her guts. The worst mistake a spy can make, she thought, feeling vaguely nauseous. Give yourself away.

  Give yourself to me, a familiar voice whispered from the dark corners of the tent.

  Asyra flinched and glanced about the interior, though she knew she’d find nothing. “What is this?” she asked aloud. Was it in her mind? Was it madness? She looked at the body, for a moment was terrified that it would move, that dead Xass Kham would sit up and speak with the Other’s voice to him. “What is it?” she repeated to herself.

  “It is another way,” a very real voice spoke from behind her.

  Asyra whirled with her short word lashing forth from its sheath.

  Its point flickered at the breast of what appeared to be a flesh and blood woman, standing bold and curvaceous and utterly undeterred by the weapon before her. And Asyra knew her, had seen her face in the dust, on the walls of the weird chamber below the Dome of Patah...in her mind. She was beautiful in the way of something tremendously old, proud, confident, and vaguely cruel. But her darkly olive skin, slithering movements, and shimmering black hair held no sense of age.

  Asyra trembled, couldn’t help it. “What are you?”

  “Who I am...” the vision mused. “Who I was, I think you’ve already figured out.” She thrust up her chin. “They called me the Great Beauty, the Sun of Zadam, the Queen of Xyxia, the Blessed-Beloved of the Gods. Thyss-Ulea.”

  The name felt like honey in her skull. But it felt wrong, too. “How?” Asyra rasped.

  The phantom chuckled. “Oh, that’s simple.” She moved closer, sounded of sands hissing together. But instead of reaching out for Asyra, she knelt at the corpse’s side. “This fool thought to ally with me. He broke the wards. Now the chains that bind are loosened.” She looked up at Asyra and midnight eyes sparkled. “Yes, you played a part in freeing me, as you were meant to.”

  “How...” Asyra’s sword trembled in her grasp, but she didn’t lower it. “You know me?”

  “Of course.” Thyss-Ulea stood and faced her again. “You have called to me, with your loneliness, with your pain.” She raised a hand, let it slowly drift to Asyra’s upraised forearm. Contact felt strange, an almost slithering sensation, as if the flesh touching hers was not completely substantial. But the warmth there was real. As was the pressure, slowly forcing the pointed sword down. “I can relieve you of those things.”

  A squirm of unease went through Asyra. “How wo
uld you do that?”

  “Love,” Thyss-Ulea purred. “You poor, confused thing, searching for it with that other poor, confused thing. It’s not what you need, Asyra et Mathala et Fahldan. You need experience.” The phantom drifted very close. The weight of her seemed real. The moisture of her lips as she drew the tip of her tongue over them seemed very real. “And few will have as much experience as I possess.”

  Asyra wanted it, whatever it was, drawing her close. She felt the warmth begin to envelop her, felt the other slide around, begin to embrace her. She could just give herself to it. Now.

  “How do I get what I need?” she whispered into the dark.

  You must come to me, the voice replied, losing immediacy. You were so close already. You know the way.

  Come back to me...

  “What was that?”

  Asyra flinched and spun to see Lyssa halfway back into the tent, again. Her brows furrowed as she regarded the drawn sword, but no other accompanied the expression. Asyra glanced back over her shoulder, was somehow not surprised to find the apparition gone. There might have been the faintest flutter of dust settling.

  “What?”

  Lyssa’s face hardened at Asyra’s hoarse note. “I thought I heard you talking.”

  “Nothing,” Asyra replied and glanced once more at the empty spot Thyss-Ulea had appeared to occupy. “You heard nothing.”

  BAZUL II’S FACE COULD’VE been beaten from iron, for all he reacted as he beheld the corpse of Xass Kham in Lyssa’s tent. His pack of accompanying advisors, on the other hand, ranged from paled faces to hands cupped to mouths in nausea to fidgeting as they eyed their master for some sense of his response. One, the Emperor’s Chamberlain, drifted close to him.

  “We must abandon the campaign, sire,” he said tremulously.

  Bazul looked up from the body, not at the official, but at Lyssa. “The Vothans brought him in, you said?”

  Lyssa hid her reflexive swallow with a nod as she lied. “That’s correct, sire. They felt he must have breached their perimeter when they were changing the watch.” She didn’t look away from those piercing, blue eyes, had to make him believe it—for Strayden and Asyra’s sake.