Chapter XIV -- Part 2, Conclusion

  Archelaos, Continued

  The scream escaped her lips before her brain caught up to the situation. Heart pounding, nerves jangling, and her stomach dropping, Selàna whirled on her toes, poised to flee.

  “Be at peace, half-mortal.”

  Overwhelmed, she collapsed to her knees. She stared, aghast at the statue, whose face was unnervingly one of flesh and blood.

  “Half-mortal: Take heed, for my time is short,” the statue continued. “I am Tha?s, daughter of the Restorer. I am not here with you now. You speak to my Sending.”

  Selàna’s heart stopped its marathon and began to slow to a more normal pace. A Sending? Did they work in such a strange fashion? Before she could formulate the question, Tha?s began speaking again. The incongruousness of her flesh-and-blood face seamlessly atop the marble statue made her stomach roil. By sheer force of will Selàna swallowed her revulsion.

  “By now you know of the evil done here. Brother against brother, friend turned to foe, and comrade turned to slayer. Even I—yes I!—me, the daughter of the Restorer, could not prevail.”

  “Did the Conservationists encase you in this stone?” Selàna asked. Next to her heart she clutched the bottle of phoenix elixir. Would it be able to overcome the naiad’s stone prison?

  As if reading her mind Tha?s said, “I am not here. I have projected a portion of my memory into this statue, a tether to my dreaming mind. You activated my Sending when you poured the phoenix elixir. Listen well!”

  Projected a portion of her memory? Such a marvel seemed the sole province of prophets; her mother in particular might do such a thing. It hadn’t occurred to her anyone other than a prophet could be capable of such an act. But naiads were divine, after all, and would not have the same limitations as those born to man and woman.

  Selàna straightened and stood at attention. “What do you require of me?”

  “My true body is in stasis. When the—the sundering—came to Zanbil, I and my friends had hope. We believed the rift that turned Zanbellians into Conservationist versus Unificationist would be a temporary thing. A momentary madness. In faith I made a place of retreat. I am hidden in a place I warded against invaders. My Sanctum.”

  Instinct made her pause. To Selàna’s ears it did not sound as if Tha?s had given refuge to anyone else in her sanctum. Did she rescue anyone at all before hiding herself away? Why awaken now?

  Choosing her words carefully she asked, “Is what you ask so simple? Do you know how much time has passed?”

  Tha?s sighed, long and softly. Her eyes shimmered. “Lifetimes. Mortal lifetimes. I am bound here, to Zanbil. You have used the Phoenix Elixir, which means the fighting is over. Now is the time for me to awaken. I must do my part, to restore Zanbil and heal that which was cleaved asunder. This fortress is a prison. Seven spirits are bound here. And it is my fault.”

  Her fault? Lorekeepers never recorded any greater misdeed on a naiad’s part beyond reacting in jealousy where a mortal lover was concerned.

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran. The Conservationists intended to use me to create the shield barrier. My immortality suited their purposes—”

  In her horror Selàna forgot herself and blurted, “But you’re the Restorer’s daughter!”

  “Oh, but it was for my own good! If I were bound and sealed, the wicked sorcerers of Those Below would not be able to touch me. I could not be used for their darker magics. This possibility the Conservationists feared—and not without cause. For my own good I must be bound, an ever-living power source for their ‘barrier of protection.’ For my own good.”

  Bitter laughter rang out. Flinching, Selàna looked away. Though Tha?s aimed her arrows of indictment at her supposed friends, Selàna thought of all the times Zephyra believed herself to be acting in the best interests of her people. Every dryad she received into her custody had to endure her prattle about how in reality she was aiding them by severing their ties to their Mother, the Huntress.

  Shame tugged at her also, for her mistaken assumption that Tha?s had retreated selfishly without regard for saving others. Such betrayal as she had faced would have forced isolation upon her.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “You shall make good your sorrow,” Tha?s cut in. “Obviously you know of the tormented spirits trapped in this place. I felt their joy when they were liberated. Let me share their joy! Free me! Liberate me, and I will anoint you.”

  Was it so easy? Selàna eyed the nymph, and the cuffs placed on her wrists when she was still Zephyra. She thought of her desperation, shame and despair—a darkness within her soul which always seemed to rise up like a king cobra and strike at her. Injecting her with a corrosive venom that obliterated any scrap of optimism left to her, and devoured her every hope.

  Of course she sought to be free such darkness. Every day she scrubbed the temple and mended that which had been destroyed, she did so fervently hoping the Restorer would grant her an audience for her to plead her case.

  And now comes Tha?s, who made it seem as if giving Selàna a priestly anointing was the same as buying a rug at the store. As if one could obtain divine favor so cheaply.

  “I want to free you,” Selàna said, and hoped she sounded sincere. “And I’ll do whatever you need me to do for such a purpose. But I will take nothing from you. Your friends were trying to protect you—however wrongly—from people like me. No different am I than the evil sorcerers of your day—what we now name the Age of Iniquity. You owe me nothing.”

  Tha?s’s eyelashes fluttered in her unmistakable confusion. “N-nothing? You want nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Selàna insisted. “How can I free you?”

  For a long while Tha?s did not answer her. Anticipation made Selàna keep her silence. Dare she imagine the solution might be close at hand? Something within her power, and without great cost? Or would Tha?s oblige her to commit an incredible feat of might or sorcery?

  At last the naiad answered her. “Redeem me. I was foolish. I fled a living death. My friends were careful to not understand me when I refused to take part in their barrier spell, when I told them what the spell would do to me. When I fled I knew mortals would have to sacrificed in my place. But”—her voice choked up—“but I did not think my friends would sink so low! Certain was I that my friends would have to give up their ambitions to fight the Unificationists. They would have to make peace, without me here. I was wrong. Seven mortals sacrificed to make the fortress barriers. Seven! Their spirits cry out. Give them peace, Selàna. Peace.”

  “How? How may I do this? What rite must I do?”

  “Look yonder, and fetch the chalice set on that bench. Collect my tears. Waste no drop!”

  Whirling on her heel, Selàna turned to face a stone bench several paces away. On it sat an alabaster chalice. Yesterday she had found it on the ground amongst the brambles near a bench. Plunder, she had supposed, and placed it on the bench to attend to it later. Shaped like swan’s wings, the rim of the cup embraced the swan theme, with gold inlay along the rim depicting swans at rest.

  Selàna set down her bottle of phoenix elixir and exchanged it for the empty chalice.

  Tha?s wept. In her weeping she uttered strange words Selàna did not understand. Nevertheless, she held the cup below the naiad’s chin and kept her hands steady as the tears flowed into it. All the while she made sympathetic noises, promising to free the imprisoned souls of the seven sacrifices.

  Meanwhile, she considered the inventory of the store room in the temple. To carry out the naiad’s request she would have to transport the tears. The chalice was ill-suited for the task, but she had seen an empty flask suitable for the purpose, and worthy of a naiad’s tears besides.

  When the chalice was full, Tha?s ceased her tears. “Thank you, young maiden. Now. Take heed of my instructions…”

  “That’s four. Four crates. Oh, I’m going to faint. What we could do with this! On the open market—no, I would arrange a private sale. Maybe an auction. With the proceeds alone I could buy a resort island. And another country or two, I think.” Bessa unhooked the veil she’d draped over her nose and mouth as protection from the dust, and used it to fan herself instead.

  Rapturous excitement brought a rosy flush to Bessa’s cheeks. Well, that and the stuffy heat of the warehouse.

  Seeing Bessa find any amusement in their dreary trawl through the warehouse almost brought a smile to Edana’s face. Almost. But there was no point in smiling, with her own face concealed behind a similar veil … and at the moment she was in no state of mind to relax. After so long searching they had at last came to a warehouse that store what she needed: mirrors of moonbow steel. Crated up for sale, no doubt to the civilizations “down below.”

  And one crate included large, full-body mirrors. Of sufficient size, she hoped, to defeat the Shadow Fangs. And free the souls imprisoned inside them. Perhaps, also, free the ones who made up the barrier? But if Tregarde was right about the barrier and how it was made, then she was up against something worse than the Shadow Fangs. Still. At least she had a chance.

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  “What would you do, Edana? With your share of proceeds from the sale of moonbow mirrors, what would you do?”

  The question brought her up short. The primary ambition that had driven her ever since she left Falcon’s Hollow as a child … was to return to Falcon’s Hollow. But now she and Bessa were women, not girls. They did not have the option of just picking up where they left off; their lives had gone beyond their childish imaginings.

  Before Bessa lay a future bright with promise. She would marry Lysander, and they would live on the resort island of Bessa’s fantasy, and raise their assorted children. A daughter named Morwenna, and a son named Nikandros, perhaps. In her free time Bessa would write her plays, and Lysander would do whatever it was he did when he was not in the legion.

  And Edana? If—when—they overcame the giants, overcame Rahqu, where would she go? What kept her from imagining a glorious future for herself?

  Unfettered. The word came at once to her mind. The difference between her and Bessa was that Bessa was unfettered, and she was not.

  “I have unfinished business,” Edana replied, her voice sounding far off even to herself. She gripped the lid on the crate and began dragging it back into place.

  Her tone must have caught Bessa by surprise, for she cocked her head. “With whom?”

  “Myself. My family. I never tried to go to them. Never tried to make my way to Eitan. You are my family … but my father died trying to reach his. And I never redeemed that cost in any way. They were just strangers to me. Names I’d heard. But strangers.” She clapped the dust from her hands.

  The warehouse was drenched in dust, of course. Sooo much dust! But she wasn’t going to complain. Not now, when she finally had a possible way of accelerating their escape from the fortress.

  “Did you ever write to them?” Bessa asked. She picked up her glowlight from off the adjacent crate where she’d set it. At once the shadows shifted along the wall, vanishing into the light pouring through the windows. The glowlights helped them examine closer details, and every place the light of the windows did not reach.

  “No.”

  The small word echoed, bouncing off the walls and striking into her heart. Wincing, Edana tried to shake the feeling of guilt. As a grief-stricken twelve-year-old girl, she had not written to her father’s family because it seemed likely to her they would try and fetch her, or compel her somehow to come to them. But she’d attributed her parents’ deaths to their attempt to reach Eitan, and it seemed to her right and proper to go to her true home, in Falcon’s Hollow.

  “I wanted to come home,” she continued. “And I was afraid. Was it a lifetime ago when you said I should try and honor my parents by the life I live? That’s what I want to do. And what I was afraid I didn’t do. When I was in Kyanopolis, I met many Eitanim who thought I was strange and barbaric. Because I’m—”

  “Siluran,” Bessa finished, and nodded knowingly.

  To Rasena Valentians, Silura was a backwater, and her people were regarded as wild, savage. It was, after all, the outer edge of the world. Months away from Eitan on foot. That the Eitanim should believe outlandish tales of Silura was no wonder, being so far from them.

  “Siluran,” Edana agreed. “And named for my Yriellan aunt.”

  Together they exited the warehouse, and found themselves once more in the unnatural brightness of Zanbil’s air. They stood now on Third West South, the name they gave to the road three streets away from their so-called South Street.

  “Did you think your family would agree with that assessment? Of you being a barbarian?” Bessa asked.

  The pair began approaching Main Street, the thoroughfare that would connect them to South Street.

  “Yes. I was criticized for not knowing certain customs, and speaking with my Siluran accent. Which made it hard for me to fit in. But more than that, I kept thinking I was shaming my parents by my ignorance of Eitanite ways. In my grief I could not bear for them to be diminished in anyone’s eyes. And it would be horrible if I caused my father’s family to think less of him. That’s what I was afraid of doing. Somehow, it seemed better to avoid the possibility altogether. Back then it did not seem as if I was losing anything by not knowing his family. Strangers. That’s all I saw them as, and maybe I resented them a little for drawing my father back to his land. Oh, how stupid I was!”

  Bessa threw her arm around Edana’s shoulders. “You need to forgive yourself. You were younger then. Of course you lacked perspective; there is no need to flagellate yourself over it. When we get out of this we’ll find your family and you can lay to rest your own ghosts.”

  They had come to the familiar sight of South Street and Main, but Edana stopped in place, her heart latching onto one part of what Bessa had said: When we get out of this.

  Maintaining faith in Lady Nensela’s quest was growing harder for her to do. Possibly she ought to have tarried in Elamis, to gather better supplies than she had brought. She had prepared for winter, but here they were in a summer environment. Trapped, and in need of magical devices. And she had left behind a city of magi! What if there had been a more better, more sensible way to come to Zanbil? Perhaps one of the sorcerers in that city could have advised her, had it occurred to her to seek out their advice.

  Then again, Rahqu had not permitted her to take more time.

  “Thank you,” Edana said. “And while I would welcome your company when I do go to my people, I suspect you yourself will be elsewhere.” Her tone brightened with mischief.

  With Bessa’s arm still around her shoulders, Edana could see her quizzical sidelong stare up close. This time, she did smile.

  “Where will I be in your scenario?”

  “Your honeymoon, naturally. I will stay for your wedding, and see you off on your honeymoon. And then I will go to Eitan and find what remnant of Nuriels there may be. I will write to you of my progress, and when the season is right I shall visit you on your island retreat.”

  At this Bessa released her. Edana removed her veil. Face to face, they could see one another’s expressions. Which meant she was just in time to catch the spark on Bessa’s face. The spark that told her Bessa had been struck by one of her ideas again.

  “We may not have to have our travels ruled by seasons anymore. What I want to find in Zanbil is—”

  A shout interrupted them just then. They looked up to see Selàna and Alia running down Main Street toward them.

  “What news?” Edana asked when they reached her.

  Like Bessa’s, Selàna’s face was also flushed with excitement. For the first time since Edana met her, the girl’s hazel eyes were lively, filled with joy and triumph.

  “Did you get the door open to the naiad pool?” Bessa pursued. Though she wore her long hair piled high on her head, the strands that had escaped her bun stuck to her face and neck like plaster.

  To preserve her own clothes Edana wore the undyed linen gowns she’d scavenged in the fortress. Everyone followed her example. And even though the clothes she wore were not her own, she still hated to see them ruined by the salt crust of her own sweat. She would have paid a queenly sum for a fresh bath.

  Selàna held up a small bottle of rock crystal, stoppered with a carved swan top. “I did. But that does not matter. What matters is that with this we can break down the barrier. What matters is that we can free seven souls. And what matters is that I know where to find a staff of teleportation.”

  Lysander’s heart jumped in his throat. An army on its way to his garrison? Or to the place where Lady Nensela’s spirit had fled? Panic died down and his good sense took over when he reminded himself that Lysimachus had the camp in hand. The son of the Sea Lord could handle things there himself. He had sent Lysander to handle this problem.

  Murena reacted before Lysander could. The infernal king curled his lips in a sneer. “Your army cannot breach anything in the celestial realm,” Murena pointed out.

  Archelaos’s lips trembled. A strange sound issued forth from his mouth. It took Lysander a moment to realize Archelaos was laughing.

  “It’s a good thing she’s not in the celestial realm, then! Nensela is in the Great Between. She’s not dead, so she can’t go to the abode of the Seeker. We can deal with her right where she is, in the little citadel she made. We can breach those walls.”

  Ah. At least now Lysander had a starting place.

  Go forth. Conquer.

  “What do you have for an abyssal king?” Lysander demanded, glancing at Arrianus. He started to draw his sword, then stopped himself. It was ordinary steel, nothing special like star metal or moonsteel. Nothing he could use to destroy supernatural evil.

  Because of the ichor he knew Murena and Archelaos did not possess true bodies. What he saw of their forms was a manifestation, a reflection of the power mortals had fed to them over the years. Every time those mortals served the fell kings, they grew stronger. Strong enough to manifest in a corporeal form on Thuraia, and in this form Lysander perceived them now. Were their “bodies” destroyed, Murena and Archelaos would still exist. But they would be significantly weaker. More importantly, they would cease to be a problem in the here and now.

  The problem was destroying the bodies, and Lysander rapidly calculated his options. Were he Lysimachus he could trounce Murena with his bare hands—but wait, hadn’t the Sea Lord’s son anointed Lysander’s body with his own ichor, his own blood?

  Still fresh from that anointing, Lysander felt the sea dragon’s power coursing through his veins. Invigorating! Also a reminder that with his eyes he saw beyond sight, and with his mind he knew that which was beyond mortal knowing.

  His glance strayed to his hands. He flexed his fingers. With his hands he could do things, too…

  Conquer.

  Arrianus tightened his grip on his staff. “I have some ideas. What did you have in mind?”

  “Come,” Lysander said. He leapt up and sailed through the mirror…

  He landed feet first in the morass, but it didn’t bind him, as he knew it wouldn’t. Murena blinked up at him, but Lysander moved too fast for the fell king to react to him.

  Fueled by divine ichor, Lysander grabbed Murena’s right shoulder, lifting him entirely off the floor. Slick, viscous oil dripped down from the demon’s leg stumps. Lysander seized the demon’s left thigh, securing his grip on the Eel. In the blink of an eye, he pitched the abyssal head first into the mouth of Archelaos.

  Archelaos choked as Murena’s stumps flailed in his jaws. Ziri had followed close behind Lysander. One swipe of his moonbow knife, and Archelaos lost his right arm at the shoulder. Ziri tossed a second knife to Lysander, who quickly severed the demon’s left arm. Archelaos had no means to pull Murena out of his throat, except to pitch himself forward in a vain struggle to make his companion fall out.

  Lysander and Ziri swept up the severed arms. Together they clubbed Murena’s stumps, forcing the Eel further into the gullet of the one who had called himself Master of the People. Archelaos gurgled and choked and writhed. In one careless blow Lysander knocked out several of the fiend’s teeth, adding to the substance for Archelaos to swallow.

  Murena vanished. Archelaos, now top heavy, fell flat on his face.

  Arrianus stepped forward. He tapped the morass, which still undulated beneath their feet. He said one word, and the oil slick changed. Instead of bubbling and popping and waving at random, the oil now formed a single swirl. A whirlpool, which surrounded Archelaos. His head and shoulders sank first. It was his turn to buck and kick his way out of a horrible trap.

  In a matter of moments, Archelaos was no more. Lysander stared down at the spot where the abyssal was swallowed. How many generations would pass before Archelaos and Murena regained the ability to meddle with humans?

  Lysander shook his head and forced himself to focus on much more important problems.

  Arrianus spoke his thoughts aloud. “How do we get to the Great Between?”