by Jenn Lyons
The girl looked at him. “What if you do? Surely you’ll just die a second time? You killed a dragon, so I cannot dismiss your skills, but she is the demon queen of war. Here you’ve had Khoreval to aid you. You won’t have that advantage when you Return.”
“Wait. Is Xaltorath male or female?”
“Xaltorath is a demon. She is whatever gender amuses her.” She raised her chin. “She has been female when I’ve met her.”
“I see.”
“My point is this: what do you propose doing to stop Xaltorath, which would not be done better by the Emperor?”
“What bothers me is Gadrith’s admission he wants the Emperor to show up. I think Xaltorath’s whole role in this was nothing but a diversion to draw the Emperor’s attention. They are up to something, and it will be something terrible.”
“Gadrith?” Her eyes narrowed. “Gadrith, minion of Relos Var?”
“Don’t tell Gadrith that. I’m sure he doesn’t think he’s the minion of Relos Var.”
She scoffed. “Relos Var excels at pulling the strings on all manner of puppets, even those who hate him.”
Kihrin chuckled too. Mostly, he watched the Chasm before them with reddened eyes and a sick heart. “I have to stop Gadrith. This is all my fault.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “Don’t blame yourself unfairly for something you couldn’t possibly be responsible for causing.”
“I don’t think I am,” Kihrin said, still looking out at the distance. He turned back to the woman. “Will you help me? Please?”
“Who is Elana?” she asked instead. “A wife? A lover?”
“No, none of those,” he answered. “Not for me, anyway. We should hurry.”
“Tell me her story,” she said. “And I will tell you my name.”
He hesitated a moment before answering. “I was . . . imprisoned. It was a lifetime ago. Literally. I was . . . dead. But trapped. And Elana freed me.” He laughed. “I guess I never have had good timing for running into you, have I?”
“You didn’t—” she protested. “Whoever you think I was. This woman Elana. Whoever you have worked me up to be, you must let that person go. She doesn’t exist. I’m not someone who will come scampering to you because you snap your fingers or flash that pretty smile.” She paused. “Do you have any idea how insulting the idea is? That Xaltorath would try affecting the prophecies one way or the other by showing my image to you? Never was your image sent to me. As if all that were required for a future romance to fail or succeed would be your endorsement alone? As long as you want it . . . well, I, of course, would bow to your whims over my own opinions.”
“Hey, I said nothing about romance.”
Her expression turned flat. “Don’t be coy. I have eyes to see how you look at me.”
“And who just said my smile was pretty?” As she turned redder, he said, “Maybe he—sorry, she—wanted to make sure the prophecy failed, and she knew you would react this way. Maybe she just wanted to ruin things.” Kihrin cleared his throat. “And as much as I’m enjoying this conversation, we need to leave.”
She crossed over to the dusty, unused hearth. It was very large, befitting the size of the tower, tall and wide enough to march a column of soldiers through it. She stared at it.
“What are you doing?”
“Lighting a fire.”
“Don’t you need something to burn?” Even as he asked that question, flames flickered and built in the hearth, blue and purple and with tiny flecks of green, nothing like a natural fire. “Never mind. My bad. Now what?”
The woman pulled herself onto her horse’s back and held out a hand for Kihrin. “Now we ride.”
As he took her hand, she said, “My name is Janel Theranon.”
He settled in behind her, handing the spear back to her. “Thank you. I only wish I would remember.”
“Remember?”
“I won’t remember when I wake. Neither of us will.”*
She started to say something, perhaps a denial, but instead she shook her head.
“So. Why did we light that fire?”
She smiled and tightened her hands on the reins. “I’ll show you.”
The horse tossed his head with excitement as she urged the great beast forward, and with a fierce, wild cry, she leapt her horse into the flames.
The horse landed on a hillside of bones, leaping clear of the bonfire flames behind it. They were now in another place.
They were, Kihrin realized, at the Chasm.
He was at a loss to hear much over the roar of an avalanche of rock and debris falling in reverse, flying up out of the giant crevasse in the earth to block out the sky. The rock wall created was never-ending, and he didn’t know where it went or how it gathered. But the net effect gave him a moment of dizziness as if everything were upside down.
“Duck!” Janel pulled him down, sliding sideways across the horse’s saddle as a large ball of lightning sailed through the space where they had been a moment before. The roar of battle surrounded them on three sides as demons galloped and stomped and slithered and danced at humans who fought with spears, swords, maces, and arrows.
Kihrin’s every instinct was to slip off the horse and rush into the battle like sliding into a warm bath, but Janel held on to his arm. “No!” she screamed over the din. “Cross the Chasm.”
He looked at her and then at the wide, ugly crack in the earth. He could see the crack move, trees toppling on the far side as the Chasm grew wider.
No, not wider, he realized. It was moving. Moving as if the canyon itself was encroaching farther into the Land of Peace.
“I’ll never be able to cross that!” he screamed back.
Janel impaled a demon, letting it turn to light on her spear, before she looked back over her shoulder at him. “There’s a bridge. Can you not see a bridge?”
“What? What kind of bridge—” He squinted and looked at the Chasm. There was a bridge, a rickety, small, and neglected thing swinging in the high winds like a toy in a hurricane. “That? This is a joke, right?”
“No!” Janel turned in her seat and put her arm around Kihrin’s waist, pulling him off the back of the horse. “If you can see it, you can cross, but here we must part ways, for I cannot.”
The horse screamed a warning. They looked over to see a large group of demons riding toward them—their focus making it clear they were not here to attack the normal soldiers guarding the Chasm.
“Go!” she said again.
“Come with me,” Kihrin said.
“I cannot . . .” Janel protested. “I cannot see the bridge. No demon can!”
He put a hand on her ankle in the stirrups. “You’re infected, but the transformation isn’t complete. Something is keeping it at bay. You’re not truly a demon.”
She cocked her head and looked at him with a sad expression. “Yes, I am.” She kicked her horse into a gallop then, and the beast screamed as it sprang forward to meet the incoming charge.
As Kihrin scrambled back toward the Chasm, the sound of Janel’s laughter floated toward him. She impaled a demon on her spear, held forward like a knight’s lance, while she casually ripped the arm off another demon and used it as a mace. There was something about the way she reveled in that stark, horrible brutality that reminded him of Xaltorath. He saw the resemblance.
Still, there were so many demons. Far too many for even a demon queen’s daughter to fight.
Kihrin looked at her, then back at the bridge.
“What the hell. I’m already dead,” he muttered to himself as he ran into the fray.
“You were supposed to cross the bridge!” Janel screamed when she saw him again, sometime later.
“Not without you!” he screamed back.
“I cannot see the bridge. What part was unclear to you?” She pulled her spear out of a dead demon, not paying attention as it disintegrated.
“But I can! I can lead you.”
“Why would I want to go to the Land of Peace?” she yelled, clearly
exasperated. “I’m not dead.” The surrounding dim ebbed as the demons fell back, regrouping for another onslaught.
“Are you sure?” The lull in the fighting made it quiet enough to talk in a normal tone of voice. “Shouldn’t you have woken by now?”
Janel paused, and a look of horrible realization came over her. She put her hand to her chest where the dragon’s teeth had bit deep.
“I’m pretty sure if you die here, you die in the real world too,” Kihrin said. “Just because I could heal you here doesn’t mean that what I did affected your living body.” He held out his hand to her as a mighty bellow seemed to shake the ground where they stood. “Come on. I’ll lead you across.”
“It will destroy me . . .” she protested.
“No. No it won’t. I’m sure of that!” Kihrin yelled.
She took his hand and slid off the side of her steed. “I would take it as a kindness if you did not kill me any more than I may already be.”
“I promise, my lady.”
As a gigantic demon crested the rise, the pair took off running for the slender rope bridge.
86: RETURNING
Kihrin sat up and gasped for breath.
Teraeth bent down next to him. “Took you long enough. What did you do, stop and pick flowers?”
Kihrin glared at him. “Some of us haven’t died before, thank you very much.” He shook his head. “I don’t remember what happened to me while I was dead. I remember dying though.”
“No one remembers what happens to them in the Afterlife,” Teraeth agreed.
“Really? You don’t remember?”
“All right,” Teraeth allowed. “Most people don’t remember. Don’t blame me. You didn’t want to join the Brotherhood.” He presented his hand to Kihrin. “Come on, we have work to do.”
“Wait!” Kihrin looked around the church, at the towering statue of Thaena and the dead and mourning clogging the aisles. “How did I end up here? What’s going on? Where is everyone?”
Teraeth ticked off points on his fingers. “You were sacrificed to Xaltorath, but since Xaltorath didn’t receive your entire soul, he’s not technically under anyone’s control. So Xaltorath is starting a Hellmarch,* summoning up every demon he can. High Lord Therin, Lady Miya, and General Milligreest have left to send him back to Hell. Galen went back to the Blue Palace to oversee the evacuation of your surviving family. Meanwhile, Gadrith was wearing the Stone of Shackles when Sandus killed him, so the Emperor is dead, and Gadrith is wearing his body like a fancy new cloak. Tyentso’s gone to stop him.”
Kihrin blinked. “Damn it, we had a plan.”
“Which worked beautifully right up until the point where it didn’t.” Teraeth sighed. “Such is the way of plans. Nobody could have predicted Gadrith would be capable of responding so quickly.”
Kihrin scowled. “Is Tyentso strong enough to kill him?”
A pained look crossed Teraeth’s face. “She’s counting on the fact that he won’t be able to cast spells while he’s adjusting to his new body.”
“Remember what Tyentso said about possessing my body? He’s been planning this for years, Teraeth. He knows how to cast spells in Sandus’s body.”
Teraeth made a face. “Doesn’t matter anyway. He won’t be alone.”
“Thurvishar,” Kihrin said, his chest growing tight. What were the odds that Jarith had been able to successfully arrest him? So poor even Kihrin wouldn’t take that bet.
“Plus, we have no idea what powers the Crown and Scepter themselves will give him.”
Kihrin nodded. “Okay. Let’s go back her up.” He took a step, stumbled, and sagged when he tried to catch himself.
Teraeth looked surprised and cursed under his breath. “You need to rest. You can barely walk.”
Kihrin shook his head. “Being dead was rest enough. Wait, I need a sword.” He cast his gaze around the room.
He stopped at Jarith’s body and looked sick.
“The High General brought him in,” Teraeth said as he saw Kihrin’s expression. “Soul dead. He was probably killed by a demon.”
“Damn it all.” Kihrin walked over to the body, bent down, and pulled out the sword that was in Jarith’s scabbard. The blade was Khorveshan, sharp along one edge and wickedly curved. It was nothing like a normal Quuros dueling blade, and four years before, Kihrin would have had no idea how to wield one. He did now.
His old weapons trainer, the Thriss lizard man Szzarus, would be so proud.
Kihrin leaned the dull end against one shoulder, holding the hilt with his other hand. “Okay, let’s go.”
Teraeth held out his hands. “Where? I don’t know where Tyentso went.” He didn’t sound happy about that.
“We’ll figure something out.” Kihrin stumbled through the halls, managing not to curse as he tripped over dead bodies.
Teraeth put an arm under his to steady him. “You couldn’t fight a leprous rabbit in this condition.”
“Just give me a minute to catch my second wind,” Kihrin said.
The two men paused on the steps of the cathedral. It seemed like most of the City was on fire, a hearth-like wind blowing ashes and smoke up into the sky. The noise as people screamed, fought, panicked, and died was an unintelligible roar.
There was a flash of purple light in the distance.
Kihrin pointed. “Did you see that? Magic . . . That came from the Culling Fields.”
“Are you sure . . .?” But as Teraeth asked, there was a flash of red, a flash of purple, and then lightning.
They looked at each other.
“Quite a trick you pulled there, brat,” Darzin said as he stood up from the twisted, withered tree he’d been leaning against. Behind him, flashes of multicolored light brightened the sky. “I’d heard someone sacrificed to a demon couldn’t be Returned.”
Kihrin pushed Teraeth away from him so Kihrin was standing on his own, and the blond man cocked his head and regarded Darzin. “Yeah, funny thing about that. I suppose you should probably go ask Xaltorath if he really received an acceptable sacrifice. I’ve got a funny hunch he lied about having to do what you say.”
Darzin pulled his sword from his scabbard. “Doesn’t matter. We already have what we want. Who’s your friend?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Kihrin said back. “Shall we end this?” He lowered the sword from his shoulder.
Thurvishar was looking past Darzin, toward the center of the Arena. He showed no interest in Kihrin or Teraeth, but was staring at the bright light flashes. Dread stole over Kihrin. If Thurvishar was still here, that meant Tyentso had been wrong about Gadrith’s decline in power. She was fighting the man himself.
That was not a good sign.
“End this?” Darzin laughed outright. “Oh brat, you can hardly stand. Do you really think you’ll be any good against me?” He waved the sword in front of him.
“Are you too afraid to find out?”
Darzin’s nostrils flared. He stepped forward, nimble feet dodging the fallen branches and bleached white bones of the Culling Fields floor. He came in with a quick sword swing.
Kihrin blocked it easily and took a step to the side. “You need to work on your stance.”
Darzin’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t waste breath on a reply. He attacked again, slicing to Kihrin’s off-side, feinting, and then sliding to the right to thrust the blade at Kihrin’s thigh.
Kihrin again reacted, moving his sword to block the feint, then leaning back just enough so that Darzin’s sword sliced through the fabric of his kef but no deeper. Darzin and Kihrin circled each other, until Kihrin’s back was to the center of the park. Darzin lunged forward. Kihrin caught the inside of Darzin’s blade against his own, and while the blades were trapped there, Darzin lashed out and punched Kihrin in the face.
Kihrin staggered back and wiped the blood from his nose.
Darzin shook his head. “Oh, come on, this isn’t even a challenge. The least you can do is put some backbone into it.”
Kihrin re
adied his blade again.
Thurvishar sighed as he watched the lights fade from the center of the Arena. “What a tragedy. She was magnificent.”
“What?” Kihrin’s eyes flickered to Thurvishar in horror, and Darzin saw his chance.
More than one person saw their chance. As Darzin swung at Kihrin, a wall of energy—fine deadly webs of glowing blue lines—spread out from Thurvishar. Teraeth vanished from where he had been standing and reappeared, almost in position to slice his poisoned blades across Thurvishar’s back. Almost, but not quite.
Teraeth flew back as if he’d run into an invisible wall.
Kihrin wasn’t distracted. Too late, Darzin tried to stop himself, but he was already committed to the sword swing. Kihrin stepped inside Darzin’s blade, holding his sword next to his body with one hand on the hilt and the other hand directing the back end of the sword. He sliced across Darzin’s wrist, then in a single quicksilver-smooth motion lifted the sword and brought the blade up and across Darzin’s throat.
Kihrin stepped backward as Darzin put his hand to his neck, shock widening his eyes as blood gushed outward. Kihrin didn’t have to see beyond the First Veil to know what Darzin was doing.
He was healing himself.
“Not this time.” Kihrin swung his sword in a tight arc with all his remaining strength.
Darzin’s head and several of his fingers tumbled onto the grass.
“I’m sorry,” Thurvishar whispered. “I have no choice. None.”
Kihrin turned to him in time to see the branches and roots of trees twisting out of the ground to wrap around Teraeth—the real Teraeth—who struggled at the bonds with little success of freeing himself.
Kihrin held up his sword as he moved back to confront Thurvishar. “You’re gaeshed.”
The magus smiled. “If only I could answer.”
“Notice how I didn’t ask you.”
“Yes, perhaps that’s for the best.”