The New World (28 page)

He wiped away the blood. “I am in Tolwreen, the Eighth Hell, the one designed for magicians.”

The place shifted constantly. New colors and sounds, new scents and tastes, gravity becoming heavier or lighter. It was designed to challenge magicians to imagine. Whatever they imagined became real and presented more challenges. The more clever you were, the more frustrating your torment. Imagine escape and you create a prison. Magicians would become trapped in a maze of their own invention.

You had a hand in this, Tsiwen, but you must have left a way out
. Tsiwen’s wisdom would dictate that no torture should be eternal. If one could demonstrate a lesson had been learned, a reward would follow. Whatever misdeed had doomed a magician, regret, atonement, and change would certainly be sufficient for release.

Of course, one might have countless lessons to learn
.

The blood rain abruptly ended, but from the last drops that hit, thirty-six ministry clerks sprang up, each with sheaves of rice paper. They peppered him with innumerable questions, never waiting for an answer. They pressed in on him, their voices rising, the questions becoming more and more absurd.

Jorim laughed. As daunting as they were, they were nothing compared to his grandfather.
No, wait, don’t think . . .

Too late!

The clerks all flowed together into a colossal version of Qiro Anturasi. The giant stamped his foot, but Jorim dodged. The earth cracked and Jorim fell. He rolled, just avoiding another stomp. More earth cracked and Jorim latched on to the sound. He linked it with breaking ice.

Qiro stomped again and his foot went through. The giant plunged into an icy sea. The resulting wave pitched Jorim ninety feet. As he flew through the air he tried to think about growing feathers so he could flap his way to a soft landing.

When he did hit, it was on a bed of feathers, but they were all made of obsidian. They crackled and sliced, opening his flesh. He rolled off the bed and tried to blank his mind. He tried to think of nothing but pleasant thoughts. Still, the stinging cuts reminded him of the copper ants.

“No, anything but!”

His mind would have summoned the ants, but a gangling figure clawed its way over the edge of a nearby rise. The Viruk started to run, but he’d developed a limp. A cast-iron mask covered his face, blinding him. His ears rose through the metal and he swung his head side to side, listening for pursuit.

A half dozen Fenn came boiling after him. They snapped and hissed, totally feral. They’d shifted into a shape perfect for killing Viruk. Long claws would slice flesh. Their teeth—longer than he’d ever seen on Shimik—would punch through bony armor. Their shape even changed with the terrain, their limbs growing longer to speed them.

Being chased by Fennych was torture for a Viruk,
but it would be paradise for the Fenn
. Something was not right. The punishment was totally out of keeping with Tolwreen’s nature.

What’s happening here?

Facts cascaded together. Jorim cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Talrisaal, this way!”

The Viruk and his pursuers turned toward him. Jorim looked up and smiled. He imagined the sky looked the color of rice beer.
Let’s make Tolwreen work for us
.

Thunder cracked and sheets of the liquid sloshed up around his ankles. The Viruk slipped and slid past in the beer pond. The Fenn all happily dove into it, plunging their muzzles in deep. They greedily sucked up the frothy liquid then flopped onto their backs. Their little distended bellies pointed skyward. They opened their mouths, drank themselves insensible.

Jorim splashed over to the Viruk. “Let’s get the mask off.”

The Viruk held still while Jorim checked the mask.
No seams
. He applied magic, looking for the mask’s
truth
.

Very clever!
He smiled. The mask didn’t really exist. It consisted entirely of resistance to Viruk magic. Talrisaal could never have removed it. Jorim rebalanced the
mai
and the mask vanished.

The Viruk stared at him, then rolled over and buried his face in the mud. “I thought hearing your voice was another illusion of this place. You have saved me again, Wentoki.”

“I’m not Wentoki, Talrisaal.” Jorim frowned. “I have
been
Wentoki, but now I am just a man, trapped just like you. Do you know how long . . . ”

The Viruk looked up. Rice beer washed mud from his hair and face. “A long time. Nessagafel consigned me to this place. I betrayed him to you. He made your creatures my torment.”

Jorim glanced over his shoulder. “They’re not real Fenn, just demons. Nessagafel doesn’t understand real Fenn.”

Thunder cracked again and viscous sheets of rain poured down. The Fenn melted into skeletal demons with hooked horns and gnashing incisors designed to strip flesh from the bone in seconds. Another blast of rain completely drowned them in a quagmire.

The Viruk slowly stood and the rain tapered off. “If you are not Wentoki, how did you come to be in this place?”

“You and I have a common enemy. Nessagafel.”

The Viruk bobbed his head. “A nasty enemy.”

“None worse.” Jorim looked up. “No more rain. I think that’s because we’re not thinking about ourselves anymore.”

Talrisaal’s honey-colored eyes tightened. “This may be true. Self-centeredness is punished here.”

“If acting selflessly is all it takes to get out of here . . . ”

Even as Jorim spoke, the landscape changed. Cool green grass grew beneath their feet and a small, spring-fed pool formed. A small stream began to trickle out of it and back toward the rise over which Talrisaal had run. It eroded the ground and created a massive mud slide. The purple wave cut a swath through the valley nearly a mile wide. Bodies bobbed and sank. People screamed and, for a heartbeat, the unaffected escaped their torments. Demons evaporated. Flames vanished. Chains fell away and the sticks impaling so many evaporated.

Drowning people begged to be saved. Many just watched. Then one heaved a heavy stone at a drowning person. The stone rebounded from the target. It accelerated and snapped the thrower in half. His torso landed in a tangle of crystalline cactus while his lower half crawled aimlessly across the ground.

Talrisaal held a hand out. “If they would just help one another, they could escape.”

“It won’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“Look at them. They have so long used the power of magic that they think themselves gods. You see, that’s the ultimate jest here. They all thought to rival the gods. When Tsiwen created Tolwreen she made it a place where you had to fight yourself. The only way you win that battle is to admit you can’t win. You accept your limitations, work to change them, and move on. They will never escape.”

The Viruk slowly nodded. “But we are not trapped here?”

“No. A god put you in here to punish you. You’re not part of this.”

“And you?”

“I got here by accident.” Jorim pointed toward the ground. “I’ve got to return to Heaven and get Nessagafel back under control. But first, I have to go through seven more Hells.”

“Might I accompany you, Lord Wentoki?”

“I’d be glad to have the company.” Jorim smiled. “When we get to the Fifth Hell, we can hunt down the demons who were chasing you.”

The Viruk grinned and, for the first time ever, Jorim could appreciate the display of sharp teeth. “This would please me.”

“Good. By the way, my name is Jorim.” He pointed to the pool. “I think we dive in, swim all the way to the bottom, and we’ll come out the other end in the Seventh Hell.”

The Viruk scratched at his chin. “That is the one we call Icsdayr. For us, it is the land of predators.”

“Mungdok is what we call it.” Jorim shook his head. “Blasphemers, murderers, politicians, and dishonest merchants are what we have there. Predators sums it up pretty well.”

“We shall not be prey.” The Viruk leaned forward and dove into the water. A few bubbles rose.

“No indeed, not prey.” Jorim smiled, dove, and escaped the Eighth Hell.

Chapter 30

N
elesquin caught himself on both hands. Weakness would
not
prostrate him. Sweat coated him and stung his eyes. He tried to raise his left knee from the carpet. He failed and sank back, taking most of his weight on his shins and thighs. His arms still threatened to buckle, then another jolt of pain ripped up his spine.

A cough wracked him. Lightning shot through his vision. His eyes threatened to burst. He gasped, gulping air. The pain drained and muscles quivered, but he still refused to collapse.

I will not have them find me thus
. He licked his lips, tasting salt.

He forced himself to breathe normally. The drumming of his heart gradually faded. He resisted the urge to thrust himself to his feet. He’d faint. He’d done it twice so far on the trip and would not repeat the mistake.

The outer tent flap snapped open, splashing dawn light over the thin inner curtain. He forced himself up and caught the edge of his cot, but couldn’t summon the strength to pull himself onto it.

Kaerinus slipped quietly into his sleeping chamber. “Another spell, my lord?”

Nelesquin nodded, then shifted to sitting on the edge of the cot. “I know
why
they are happening, but I do not understand why they become more debilitating as we move closer to Moriande. I did not suffer at all on Anturasixan.”

“Proximity means nothing, my lord. You have been parted from your soul for a very long time. You seek reunion with it. Your body, your spirit, they reach out constantly, and this drains you. The sooner we reach Moriande and take it, the sooner we can locate the vessel and reunite you with your soul.”

“Yes, that must be done.” Nelesquin reached over and pulled a blanket around himself. “I pray the search will not take much time.”

“I imagine we shall find it directly. I shall perfect a spell to find it, though my lord’s precautions have not made that simple.”

Nelesquin snorted. “But they were necessary. You successfully severed my soul from my body.”

Kaerinus nodded. “I bound it into a ruby.”

“And you passed it to another who bound it into something else, and he passed it to yet another.”

The slender
vanyesh
tugged on the ends of his emerald sash. “And so on, through a half dozen, all of them slain afterward. Their deaths kept your soul safe.”

“But we know it is in Moriande. This much I can feel.” Nelesquin stood and rubbed a hand over his beard. “The taking of Moriande will accomplish two things. My Empire will be reunified, and I shall be reunified. Then even the gods will tremble.”

Kaerinus bowed his head. “I have no doubt they tremble even now, my lord.”

“Flattery does not become you, Kaerinus. You were not a flatterer when I knew you before.”

“I have spent much time alone, Highness, and have practiced flattering myself.” The
xingnaridin
smiled. “I do not know why your spells did not affect you on Anturasixan, but I suspect it is because, in that place, the rules governing death were blunted. It allowed you to escape from the Underworld.”

“You’re doubtlessly correct. The sooner we take Moriande the better.”

The blanket slipped from Nelesquin’s naked body. He shuffled across to the wooden stand from which hung his golden skeleton. It, naturally, stood almost as tall as he did. He turned and pressed his back to it. The cool metal chilled his flesh, then he invoked a spell.

The metal warmed and the skeleton flowed onto his flesh. The heavy bones split, armoring shin and thigh, forearm and upper arm, with their halves up and back. Thin gold bands linked them at three points, holding them in place. Golden ribs plated his chest, and vertebrae thinned into overlapping strips covering his spine. Where collarbones joined they pooled into a gorget and below the pelvis covered his genitalia. Gold gauntlets warded his hands and the entire skeleton took on a supple vitality that supported him even when he felt weak.

“It would not do for them to know I suffer.”

Kaerinus shook his head. “It might dishearten them.”

Nelesquin laughed shortly. “Not my Durrani. Nothing could take the fight out of them. No, I meant my enemies. Imagine how Soshir would laugh at my infirmity.”

“He would laugh at his peril.” Kaerinus brought a hand up and a black-and-green butterfly picked its way over his knuckles. He watched it for a moment, then smiled. “There is news, my lord. The Anturasi arrived last night.”

Nelesquin drew a robe on and belted it quickly. “Why was I not informed?”

“None of us noticed.” Kaerinus pulled the curtain aside, then sped ahead of Nelesquin to open the tent flap. “When I awakened, I found
this
.”

South of the army camp on a hilltop—a hill that had not existed when they had made camp—a pavilion had been erected. It dwarfed Nelesquin’s tent, and appeared to be made of granite. This feat was rendered even more remarkable by the fact that the walls fluttered in the light breeze.

“This could be a problem.” Nelesquin’s expression darkened. “I had not expected Qiro to follow me, and I certainly had not expected his power to come with him. In fact, when I left him on Anturasixan, he was a broken old man.”

“No more so.”

“Agreed.” Nelesquin looked around. “Wasn’t there a Durrani regiment camped on that spot?”

“I believe there was. The Sun Bears. They have been moved to the other side of Count Vroan’s Free Naleni Battalion. Better you had spared Pyrust, I think.”

“Pyrust’s eventual rebellion would have been dangerous. Vroan will die in the first wave we throw at Moriande.”

Kaerinus smiled. “I have little doubt Pyrust intended him to die at Tsengui, my lord.”

“But Pyrust also thought Vroan had more than mere political value. I do not labor under such an illusion.” Nelesquin straightened his scarlet robe. “Shall we see what the Anturasi desires?”

Kaerinus’ butterfly preceded them, riding nearly imperceptible breezes like a tiny ship on a storm-tossed sea. The pair threaded their way through the endless rows of tents. They’d been gathered beneath their unit standards, with slit trenches dug to the east and water drawn from streams to the west. Smoke from cookfires created a low haze hiding some of the more-distant tents, and Nelesquin enjoyed the fact that his army was so vast he could not easily see from one end to the other.