Gaelan felt the ka’kari form in his hand. He squeezed it and it sheathed his entire body. He dropped into the alley.
He wasn’t quite invisible. Not in the rain that hit his body and gave a weird distortion to the air. But the alley was narrow. The rain came in gusts and fits as the wind blasted it periodically into the cold, damp space between the rickety buildings.
One blast threw a torrent as he walked between a torch-carrying basher and the wall.
“Herrick, you see something over there?” the basher said to another.
“No. Want to check it out?”
The basher swallowed—but went toward what he’d seen.
Gaelan was already past them. He came to the door. Rubbish was piled high in front of it to disguise what it was, but the door opened in, so the rubbish was no problem. Gaelan wrapped sound-dampening magic on the hinges and looked once more at all the men guarding it.
When no one was looking, he opened the door and slipped inside.
Inside, there was nothing but a short hall, a false wall that lay open, and a stone ladder beyond it. Gaelan got on the ladder and began sliding down.
He was almost all the way down when someone carrying a torch stepped into the stone tube and began climbing. Whoever he was, he was nimble as a monkey, climbing fast for a man with only one hand on the ladder.
Gaelan stuck one foot against the wall, then hopped, stuck the other foot to the other wall. Pushed his hands against opposite walls and flattened himself against the back of the tube. Being invisible wasn’t much help if someone actually bumped into you.
The climber paused just below Gaelan, switched which hand was carrying the torch. It brought the flaming brand within inches of Gaelan’s face.
But the ka’kari, true to its word, true to its nature, devoured the light, devoured the heat, turning it into its own magic, making Gaelan feel even stronger.
The climber continued on, and Gaelan slid to the bottom of the narrow tube and stepped out, invisible, into the Chamber of Nine.
The Nine’s subterranean chamber was a horror and a wonder. A relic of a bygone age. It was circular, but with a ceiling so high it disappeared in darkness, giving the impression that a person inside was at the bottom of an inescapably deep pit. The floors, the walls, even the stone desks and chairs were carved with every kind of loathsome animal: rats and snakes and hydras and spiders and twisted dogs and skeletons. All glittering obsidian, sharp, cutting angles. The numerous entrances were well-hidden. A crescent-shaped dais held the benches for the Nine, and over them, the Shinga’s thne. The only illumination came from an oil-filled ridge set in the wall behind the Nine, casting all of them in shadow.
But their hoods were back now. Some had shed their cloaks completely, like Gwinvere. Gwinvere’s beauty was sword and armor both.
Scarred Wrable had told Gaelan, “You never get to see the whole drama. When you’re a wetboy, you only come in at the end.”
“The fact is,” a tall, fat man was saying, “I think we need to be ware of this young Gyre lord, Regnus. I don’t think we can control him.”
A muscular man with lots of scars and a flattened nose—he had to be Pon Dradin, head of the Bashers—said, “I say we continue to support Bran Wesseros. If—”
“He’s too martial. The Gunders—”
“Are morons,” the tall, fat man said. “Every last one of them.”
“Where is Scarred Wrable? I thought he was supposed to report by now,” a hawkish little man said.
“Enough,” the Shinga announced, standing. “I’ve decided.”
Then his head fell off.
The ka’kari made a very sharp blade.
The Shinga’s head hit the table in front of him and rolled off. His body collapsed a moment later.
Nine pairs of eyes widened. For an instant, everyone was speechless. Then the room was plunged into darkness.
Gaelan flipped into the center of the chamber. Some of the men shouted, but the room was warded against eavesdropping. Six recovered enough to pull alarum ropes—each of which had been cut.
Opening the oil channel full, Gaelan waited until the oil circled the entire chamber, then ignited it with a spark. Light flooded the room, astounding in its suddenness.
He stood in the middle of the chamber, ka’kari coating him in a skin, his arms folded, head down. He opened his eyes, lifted his head, shrugged the cloak off his shoulders.
The Night Angel was a vision of judgment. Big, frowning, narrowed eyes. Blank face. Mouth a slit. Skin slick. Utterly alien. Without compassion. The darkness seemed to ripple about him as if he were afire with dark flames.
The men of the Nine had reacted to their terror and surprise differently. One was hiding beneath his table, barely peering out. Pon Dradin, the Basher, was ready to fight, meaty hands folded into fists. Count Drake was seated, pensive, hands tented.
Gwinvere’s eyes blazed, furious.
“I,” Gaelan said, “am Sa’kagé. It is time for a change in leadership. Any questions?”
Gaelan strode to Gwinvere. She expected him to kill her, become Shinga himself. He could see it in her face, her brave, haughty, furious face. “Gwinvere Kirena,” he said. “Shinga Kirena.” He bowed before her.
A moment later, recovering first, Count Drake bowed low in obeisance before her.
Pon Dradin moved forward, saying, “Over my dead—”
Gaelan crossed the distance between tem in a blink, and punched Pon’s fist so hard it shattered all the bones in the big man’s hand.
“No,” Gwinvere said, as the man sank back, holding his ruined fist. She was recovering already, mentally nimble as a cat. “Not over your dead body, Pon Dradin. Your services are required.”
* * *
A pair of stricken bashers carried the old Shinga’s body out of the chamber. A third carried his head. All looked very nervous about the figure standing cloaked in the middle of the room.
They left as quietly as they could, and shut the door behind themselves, leaving the figure alone.
Gwinvere pull back her hood. “Where the fuck are you?” she demanded.
Gaelan shimmered back into visibility. It was just the two of them.
“You asshole,” she said. “I didn’t need you to hand me the shadow throne! In one more day, the last piece of my plan—”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Gaelan said.
“What?” she snarled.
“I needed you to know I’m not a threat to you.”
“So you do it by beheading my predecessor? Pretty fucking clever way to be unthreatening,” Gwinvere said.
Gaelan let the storm rage right past him, cool. “I don’t want to be Shinga. I could have taken it, just now. You know it, and I needed you to know that I know it, too. This work—working for you—suits me. I want to stay, and you’re the greatest danger to me. Now you know I’m a tool for you, but not a threat to you. You don’t have anything I want.”
Her eyes were hard. Then she flashed a sudden smile. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said.
He cocked an eyebrow. Of course he still wanted her body, but it seemed beneath her to mention it now. Too obvious for the subtle Gwinvere Kirena.
“I found him, Gaelan. I found out where the man who killed your family is hiding.”
* * *
“And that’s what took me to Chateau Shayon,” I say.
“Baron Rikku was the man who hanged your wife and daughter?” Yvor Vas asks.
I stare at him. Hard.
Shit, so there were some discrepancies in the story I told him. And usually I’m such a good liar.
“Sorry.” The skinny redhead gulps. I’ve never given an interview like this to anyone in the Society. He can’t squander this opportunity. If things don’t exactly match up, he’ll just have to puzzle them out later. He’s afraid of me, but he’s ambitious, too. And too focused on the wrong things. “Can I…can I see it?”
I stare at him.
He raises his hands in surrender. “I don’t mean touch it or
hold it or anything. I just, you know, want to see it.”
I put a platinum ball on the table, polished, lustrous, covered with spidery runes. I roll it around with a fingertip. Tiny blustreams of fire fill every rune, then I snatch it back, make it disappear into me.
His eyes are wide. “Lord Eric Daadrul. The bearer of the Globe of Edges himself. Sir. It’s such an honor to meet you.”
“Mmm.”
“How’d you bond it?” he asks. Like it’s a throwaway question.
“Your own blood, need, and the ka’kari’s element.” Like it’s a throwaway answer.
“Its element? How’s that work with the silver ka’kari?”
“Easy. Got stabbed. Had blood, need, and metal in me all at once.”
He nods, filing it away. Then his voice hardens. “I’m gonna need you to hand over that ka’kari, Lord Daadrul.”
“Why?” I ask. “You’ve already got the red.”
He blinks.
“And no man can bond two ka’kari at the same time,” I say.
Yvor Vas talks. Buying time, maybe. Trying to process. “It’s for my sister. She’s dying. We have—had—the same disease. I bonded the red on accident and I got well. So I know it’ll save her. You have no idea what I’ve had to do to get this far. What it’s cost me. What I’ve done. Now hand it over. You might be impervious to blades, sir, but you’ll burn like any man.”
“So it’s not for Gwinvere?” I say.
A quick grimace. “What do I care about some whore?”
It tells me two things. First, he knows Gwinvere. Second, she really didn’t send him after the ka’kari. To learn that fact is the whole reason I told him my story, most of it true. I figured Gwinvere had to be in the Society of the Second Sun or she never would have found me in the first place, but I didn’t know—and I needed to know—if she’d try to kill me for the ka’kari. Immortality is a tempting prize.
“That’s really noble,” I say. “Murdering someone to save your sister, I mean.”
“I just listened to your story. You’re the last man in the world who ought to preach to me.”
~He does have a point there.~
Yvor stands and squeezes the red ka’kari in his hand. It covers his body with a slick red sheen. It burns away his clothing. He’ll have to work on that.
“Fight me,” he says. “I don’t know how to get the ka’kari if you die while it’s still inside your body.”
I stand, wobble. Kids these days. “You poisoned the ale,” I say. “You poisoned the ale?”
“Ironic, huh?”
I fucking hate irony.
He throws a fireball at me.
I bring up the black ka’kari in a shield. With a whoosh, it devours the fireball.
“That’s not the Globe of Edges,” he says.
“And I’m not Eric Daadrul.” With a little sleight of hand, as if they’re coming out of my skin, I produce five little metemptingic balls: blue, green, silver, white, gold. They roll uncertainly around the tabletop.
“You have all of the ka’kari?” he asks, terrified, but greedy too, not yet understanding.
“Counterfeits,” I say. For just such occasions as this. I roll out my fake of the red ka’kari last.
Fear in his eyes, despite the suit of fire on his skin. Confusion. The Society only knows about six ka’kari—and what he’s just seen doesn’t fit any of them.
“You didn’t lure me here to take my ka’kari,” I tell him, sadly. “I lured you here to take yours.”
A conflagration.
I’m hurled through the back wall of my safe house into the marsh surrounding it. I knew fire might be a problem. That’s why I chose this place. No need to burn down the whole Warrens—not that they’re much worth saving. I land calf deep in marsh mud.
The black ka’kari coats my body as Yvor comes out of the burning doorway.
Fireballs burn smoking, hissing trenches in the marsh. I dodge, flip, disappear.
He throws a fan of flames in a full circle.
A splash as I land behind him.
He whips around, throws jets of flame.
They curl around my torso, burning the night on either side of me. What hits me is mostly absorbed. The ka’kari burns blue iridescence at every joint and curve of my body as it devours the fire.
I ram two daggers deep into his chest.
The torrent of fire trails off, trickles down to nothing. His ka’kari drops into the mud, leaving him naked, mostly held up by my daggers. He looks me in the eyes and says, “I should have…”
He dies.
I let him slide off the daggers, drop into the muck. I pick up the red ka’kari from where it’s hissing hot in the marsh mud.
There are no words. There is no light.
* * *
Nigh unto seven hundred years ago, there was a great fire in Trayethell. A light so bright it burned men to pillars of ash many leagues away. That fire was Jorsin Alkestes: mad man, savior, king. The war was lost long before that last battle was fought. But fight he did, teeth bared, laughing, incandescent. A light so bright that the great men and women of an age flocked to him like moths to a flame, and burned.
On the last day, Jorsin Alkestes, murderer and friend, took Curoch and Iures in hand at the same time. A lesser man would fear to touch one. But he, magnificent he, he bent the Blade of Power and the Staff of Law to his will.
As krul, the twisted un-men, swarmed over the last barricades and spilled through the streets, slaughtering women armed with little more than sticks and children throwing rocks, one man fled who had never fled in his life: Acaelus Thorne, unwanted treasure in his hands, left the fight. Under orders. He crept like a coward, outran the krul who chased him, stood among the corpses and filth and cowards at the mouth of the pass into the Fasmeru Mountains, and looked back. The krul were a black blankeheld tight over the face of the burning city.
A light bloomed from the castle’s highest balcony. From a hundred points lightning cracked down. Every flying narokghul dropped from the sky, becoming a smoking, bleeding rain. The bleak clouds rolled back in an instant, as if shoved aside by giants’ hands, and the light swelled ever brighter. Acaelus staggered up to a group of deserters, leaning against a granite wall at the mouth of the pass, catching their breath, weaponless, bloodied, their eyes dim, the eyes of the shamed and broken. But now those eyes reflected one sharp light. Those who had slumped now stood.
Titans rushed for the castle, smashing through three-story stone houses, stone shrapnel turned into dust motes dancing in the light of a rising sun. The earth heaved upward, just once, sweeping men and krul and titans and a hundred other kinds of monsters off their feet. Even Acaelus fell. Dogs whined. It was as if the earth herself were flinging her power into this enterprise. Into Jorsin Alkestes.
And then, just as they all stood again—obliteration. Light that blinded. Light that burned. Light that boiled the bloody river. Light that purified. Light that roared.
A rushing wind filled the blindness that followed, Acaelus knew only that it felt as if his very body were afire, veins burning inside his skin. Time shattered, scattered, thrown about and blown about. He came to himself, and the first thing he saw was his own blackened skin. Smooth, burnt perfect black, like he’d been dipped in tar.
Acaelus stood, feeling curiously whole, unconscionably strong. There were pillars of ash around him, howling winds already blowing away the remnants of what had been men. Against the granite wall, etched by light, shadows stood. Ghosts of the men who’d been vaporized. One shadow was different. One shadow stood, defiant, one fist raised, edges perfect, outline crisp—Acaelus’s shadow. The others were dim, washed out. Bleached by a flood of light that had continued even after the men who had cast them were burned away. But through all the fire, one man had stood.
The black skin retreated into his body, unbidden, leaving him naked. His clothes and even his armor had been burned away.
Acaelus looked at leagues of wasteland. Nothing stirred but what was
stirred by the wind. Death had taken the throne from Jorsin. A gleaming black dome huddled where once Trayethell had stood.
~Acaelus. Mourn later. There is work to be done.~
The voice came from inside his own head. The black ka’kari. It had saved him. It had been a secret gift from Jorsin Alkestes, who had told bull-headed Acaelus Thorne to flee, to live.
But Jorsin hadn’t said he meant Acaelus to live forever.
I’ll come back and take it off your hands, Jorsin had promised with his roguish grin when he’d given Acaelus the treasure. The liar. He was wan, washed out, but his eyes burned with a fevered intensity. He’d been spending every day fighting and every night with archmage Ezra, making…something. Never sleeping. Working on some last-minute salvation that Acaelus only slowly came to understand wasn’t coming.
Jorsin Alkestes: emperor, genius, archmage, tyrant. Jorsin Alkestes was a light so bright he left shadows standing centuries hence. The semblances of men, burned onto granite walls. And one shadow was perfect above all others. A walking, breathing shadow. A shadow as flickering as the ghosts thrown by a candle, as mutable as a king’s promises. A shadow who devoured light and life.
Light is, but a shadow undefined becomes simply darkness. And light had been too long denied the man who had been Acaelus Thorne. He was thin, fraying, a bowlful of smoke. He was becoming undifferentiated darkness.
What if the light itself had been a lie?
* * *
Mount Tenji is the tallest mountain in Ceura. When I was a kid, people used to make pilgrimages up the mountain. It’s been too cold for that for centuries. It’s a volcano, but it hasn’t erupted in more than a hundred years. Some smoke from time to time is all.
I reach the crater on the sixth day of climbing. I’m buried deep in many layers of coats. The wind is blowing snow everywhere.
You’re good for a lot of things, I think at the black ka’kari, but keeping me warm isn’t one of them.
~You left off part of Oath of Sa’kagé the other day.~
Noticed, did you?
~“Until the king returns, I shall not lay my burden down.”~
I pause. Jorsin Alkestes is dead. He’s not coming back.