The Black Shriving (Chronicles of the Black Gate Book 2) (65 page)

Tiron felt a fist close around his heart. He knew nothing about Kethe's powers, but he had seen hundreds of men die in countless makeshift infirmaries across Ennoia. He knew in his gut that Kethe was slipping away. She was dying. She had crossed a threshold over which he had never seen men return.

Iskra closed her eyes, tears finally brimming and running down her cheeks. She took in a deep breath, straightened, then looked to Audsley, her gaze again firm. "There is only one thing to be done."

Audsley blinked. In the firelight, he looked like a hellish version of himself, his hair spiked with drying blood, his clothing torn, his rotund face stark with intense emotion. "My lady?"

"In Starkadr. There are Portals to Aletheia, are there not?"

"I - yes. Yes, there are."

Tiron leaned forward. "You would send her there?"

"I must." Iskra rested her hand on Kethe's shoulder, pain and love battling in her eyes. "It is her only hope. That the Virtues will take her in, consecrate her, and find a means to bring her back from death's door."

Audsley opened and closed his mouth several times. "But, according to Ascendance, this is a good death. She is sure to be reborn a Noussian. Do you think – I mean, should we -"

"Magister." Iskra's smile was tired. "I find that with each passing day the tenets of Ascendancy mean less and less to me. I want Kethe to survive. I want you to take her to Aletheia and deliver her to the Virtues."

Audsley simply gaped at her.

"Iskra," said Tiron, fighting to be both gentle and firm. "We can't spare Audsley. He is the only one who can operate the Portals in Starkadr. We need him to remain connected to the emperor."

Iskra shook her head. "He will return to us. We can spare him for a day if it means saving Kethe's life. Audsley, my family has an estate on Aletheia. You will take Kethe there, and ask my family to convey her to the Virtues. I wish more than anything that I could spare you, that you could stay and watch over here, but I can't. You must come back to us. As quickly as you can."

"I, ah, as you command, my lady," said Audsley, his voice tight with fear. "To Aletheia?" He gulped. "I visited, once. A long time ago."

"You are a Noussian," said Iskra tiredly. "Your presence on Aletheia's streets will not be questioned as long as you don't go above the Fifth Ward. My family's estate is in the Seventh. You should have no difficulty reaching them." She fixed Audsley with her eyes. "Will you do this for me, Magister?"

Audsley wilted. "Of course, my lady."

A weight seemed to lift from Iskra's shoulders. "Thank you. Let me say my goodbyes to Kethe, then you must depart at once." Again she caressed Kethe's cheek. "Hold on, Kethe. Please. For me. Don't let go. Just hold on a little longer."

Tiron stood with a grunt and motioned for Audsley to do the same, then stepped aside, leaving Iskra with her daughter. "All right." He placed a hand firmly on Audsley's shoulder. "Why don't you tell me about what happened in Starkadr, and why you ran out into this demon battle as if you had business there in the fray?"

Audsley surprised Tiron; he didn't bob his head and gulp, but rather frowned and blinked a few times before he nodded. "Very well. Yes, a clean disclosure is probably best. After Temyl made his, ah, graceful exit, I followed clues to a series of laboratories where Sin Casters known as Artificers had worked right up until the very end. There they bound - well - demons into objects of power, such as that sword we used to fly our platform. I found some other items which allowed me to hunt down the demon that was in turn hunting us, and in the bowels of Starkadr, I killed it." Audsley's eyes glittered as he held Tiron's gaze.

"You killed it." Tiron mulled that over. He was leaving things out. Something had happened to him to give the portly magister backbone. It had given him the confidence to run out into this horrendous battle, and, more impressively, survive. "And where's Aedelbert?"

"Ah." Audsley paled and looked down. "In Starkadr. Don't think me callous for not insisting on returning immediately to retrieve him. Events have been, how shall I say, pressing. But he grew scared of me after the battle with the demon. Aedelbert grew shy after seeing me throw fire around, and who can blame him? I shall try to collect him when I pass through Starkadr en route to Aletheia. Perhaps we can both seek healing in that fabled city."

"Hmm," said Tiron. "And these items you mentioned. Can anyone wield them?"

Audsley shook his head. "Remember how the platform required both a combination of knowledge and will? So do these items. The, ah, demons bound within them are terrible beings. I would not wish them unleashed in the mind of anyone else."

Tiron sighed and rubbed his face with both hands, then raked his fingers through his close-cropped hair. "And what were demons doing in Starkadr to begin with? Why was one loose there? Is there a third Black Gate we have to worry about?"

He wanted nothing more than to sit and rest his head against the wall and close his eyes. But he forced his fatigue down and pressed on, trying to examine their problems from all angles.

"Well, I was going to discuss this with Iskra as soon as I had a moment alone, but given the situation..." Audsley gave a hesitant shrug. "The Sin Casters used the demons as a source of continuous power. There are thousands of them bound into lead blocks in the foundations of Starkadr, and I believe it is their strength that allows Starkadr to keep flying, all these centuries later. Demons are bound into the Portals, their magic allowing us to cross impossible distances with but a step. I would hazard that it is their might that allows Aletheia to fly, that keeps Nous above the waters, that made the city of Bythos possible."

Tiron felt his chest clamp tight as if he'd been punched in the gut. Despite himself he made the sign of the triangle, his mind spinning. He had thought himself well past being shocked by anything, but this – this filled him with a deep and powerful horror. "You're sure of this?"

Audsley nodded unhappily. "I saw their prisons myself. The demon that killed Meffrid and Bogusch was one the Sin Casters had freed, perhaps in the hope of binding it to a weapon. I think now that it was the sculpture Temyl spat on in the command center. Perhaps Temyl awoke it purely by accident."

"By the Ascendant," whispered Tiron. "The existence of the entire empire depends on the power of demons?"

Audsley hesitated, then nodded again. "Yes. I hadn't thought of it that way, but yes. Without them, the Solar Portals would close. Each city would be cut off from the others. Yes, I believe that to be a fair statement."

Tiron stared out at nothing, then laughed, a hollow, broken sound. "Ascension itself is only made possible through the slavery of demons. And nobody even knows it."

"Well, those who do must keep quiet about it," said Audsley. "It would be a disaster if the people of the empire discovered the truth."

Tiron sat down on a small barrel. He felt dizzy from the revelation. "The Aletheians. The Ascendant himself and his Grace. They must know?"

Audsley shrugged. "Perhaps not. Perhaps all this has been forgotten over the centuries, lost like so much other knowledge."

"Does... You're a Noussian; you should know. Does this invalidate all of Ascendancy, then? Is the whole religion a lie?"

Audsley bit his lip, brow lowered in thought. "No, I don't think it does. At least, it's never been clearly stated that one's soul passes through the Solar Portals en route to your next city of rebirth. As such, the Portals aren't a necessary component. Rather, they allow one to grasp the scope and scale of the journey one's soul must undertake before passing through the White Gate. Were the Portals to close, that visceral understanding that's made possible by the experience of traveling from city to city would be lost - but the soul would still complete its journey in time, regardless."

Tiron shook his head in wonder. "Thousands of demons, bound in Starkadr. And they're safely bound? Not about to escape?"

"No, I believe they're safe. The demon I killed was trying to free the greatest one, but I stopped it in time."

Tiron sat up straighter. "And if you hadn't?"

"Ah." Audsley's face went stiff. "I'd rather not contemplate that outcome. Perhaps that demon alone would have been sufficient to end the empire. And if not, it could have quickly freed others. With Starkadr under their control, they would have been able to use the Portals to attack the empire from all directions at once."

"By the Black Gate," whispered Tiron. The full scope of Audsley's accomplishment was starting to hit him. "And you stopped... that."

Audsley took off his spectacles and stared down at his bloody, dirty shirt for a clean spot to wipe them on. He gave up and returned them to his nose. "Well, I suppose I did, at that. Yes."

Tiron rose to his feet and bowed low before the magister. "The empire may never know or appreciate what you did, Audsley. But I do. Thank you."

"Oh, of course. Think nothing of it. I was just, um, focused on helping you and Lady Kyferin with your tasks." Audsley beamed and blushed at the same time. "Think nothing of it, I beg of you."

Tiron grunted and passed his hand over his face. "All right. Then let's tend to Asho and the Vothaks. That's what they call them over there – their pet Sin Casters. Vothaks. Supposedly they have medusa blood running through their veins, but for all that they're good people. They helped me save Iskra from a political assassination." Tiron knew that he was rambling, that the shock and exhaustion was getting to him, but still he managed to find amusement at Audsley's horrified expression. "Here, I'll tell you all about it."

So saying, he clapped Audsley on the shoulder and led him toward the others, feeling for the first time that the magister was an equal, a man with whom he could speak freely. Just as much a warrior, in his own way, as he was.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Tharok opened his eyes to a world of shadow split by beams of sunlight that plunged down from the ceiling at identical oblique angles. Motes of dust glittered like gold in those columns, gently turning. He was still alive, though so weak he felt as if he couldn't move. Something had roused him, pulled him from the depths of slumber.

The texture of the cavern's silence had changed. No longer was he alone. Beyond the small cinders of his dead fire and the burned male medusa lay the nesting cavern's entrance. It was empty. He could barely make out the great circular confines of the space beyond.

Tharok sought to push himself upright, but froze as pain lanced through him. His back was snarled into a mess of wounded immobility.

The sunlight that speared down through the narrow slits served only to make the darkness all the more forbidding and impenetrable. Tharok forced himself to grow still. That he was still alive spoke volumes. The medusa could have killed and eaten him while he slept.

A slow rattle whispered out from the depths of the cave, echoing around him like the most terrible of caresses. Tharok's instincts locked up, screaming at him to run. That sound had haunted the nightmares of his kind for longer than recalled history. When he heard it, he knew he was prey. Only his exhaustion and augmented force of will kept him from fleeing, shrieking in terror.

Again came the rattle, the slow and languorous shake of a tail, and then he saw movement, something vast and sinuous moving beyond the columns of light. It glided briefly into view, then went back into the darkness.

A hint of coils, a subtle hiss, the caress of scales on rock.

Any hope he might have harbored of controlling the medusa through his newfound ability was immediately discarded. This was too alien, too powerful, too
other
for him to attempt to meld with it. There was no chance of imposing his will upon the medusa.

Once more came the rattle, and this time the medusa moved forward, closer to the light, skirting its edges so that Tharok could see just a hint of her upper torso, erect and statuesque where it flowed up from the body of the great snake. The coils undulated as she approached. They were brilliantly colored: eye-stinging yellow along her belly, blending into the most lurid of crimsons up her sides and giving way to pitch black on the overlapping carapace running down her spine.

His attention, however, lingered on her upper body. Sculpted into a vision of female perfection, she was naked, powerfully muscled, her skin the color of darkening coals, a smoldering, dusty red with a fan of soft yellow scales rising up across her abdomen and between her breasts. A mass of snakes wreathed her face, hissing and undulating as if they were caught in underwater currents. And her eyes... Her eyes were as pitiless as the sun, a glaring nullity that burned his vision so that he was forced to lower his gaze, bright motes scoring his sight.