“I’m very proud of you. Just don’t let it go to your head. He would have countered you if he had been paying any attention. Keep going, there are still two more of them. Lourie’s still on the fifth floor, but she won’t stay up there long.”
The iron spike came from nowhere, slamming through Bo’s shoulder and flinging him across the hall. His response was almost immediate, his fingers twitching even as he was thrown, spikes of ice flying through the air and impaling the Privileged who had appeared in the stairwell ahead of them.
Bo tried to wrench the spike from his shoulder, screaming as it seared his flesh. His wrists were suddenly pinned to the wall by air, and then a smaller spike went straight through the palm of his right hand.
Nila stared in horror as Lourie strode into the hallway, ignoring her comrade pinioned to the wall with ice like some kind of insect. Nila sneered, raising her hands, but was instantly batted down by an invisible fist.
Her head pounded as she struggled to regain her feet, and watched helplessly as Lourie approached Bo. The Brudanian Privileged stopped in front of him, then turned to regard Nila for a moment. “What are you, his apprentice? You should have carried extra gloves, little girl. A fight like this will burn them off.” She turned to Bo and put a finger under his chin. “I’ll make the offer one last time. But if you want to survive this moment, you’ll beg me to kill this imp you call an apprentice and you’ll laugh as she screams.”
Bo choked a couple of times.
“Well?” Lourie demanded.
“Nila,” Bo croaked. “Remember the magebreaker?”
“You’re not answering me,” Lourie said. “You have five seconds.”
“You have my answer, you bitch.”
Nila struggled to her feet and reached for the Else.
“And what is that answer?” Lourie said, tilting her head forward in a mocking manner.
“Burn,” Bo replied.
Nila tapped into all of her fury, spurred on by memories of her fear and helplessness at the hands of all who had abused her. She used that strength to wrench sorcery from the Else. It poured through her, more power than she could possibly hold. Lourie turned toward the danger, molten matter compressing into a spike above her shoulder and soaring toward Nila. But Nila threw air behind her fire just as Bo had said, and the spike melted to her flames and was splashed away by the air. She heard herself scream as the flames washed over Lourie and plowed on ahead, blasting through columns and walls.
It went on for several seconds before, with a thought, Nila extinguished it, her eyes on the ash that remained of the Brudanian Privileged.
Bo clung to the wall, his mouth slightly open. “Air, huh?” he said. “I’m really glad you figured that out. Now, would you come help me get this out of my shoulder?”
CHAPTER
51
Tamas and his squad of soldiers went through the Diamond Hall, passing the shattered windows still unrepaired from the night of Tamas’s coup earlier in the year.
They moved through half a dozen large galleries, passing staircases and countless side rooms, but they met no resistance along the way. There was evidence of animals taking up residence in this wing of the palace—chewed curtains, birds’ nests, and scratched plaster walls. Tamas had heard that Claremonte’s headquarters had been in the royal apartments on the north side of the palace, near the throne room. Apparently this wing had gone untouched by his staff.
The battle seemed far away now, the palace almost peaceful. Tamas thought that perhaps he’d made a mistake.
Opening his third eye confirmed that he had not. Claremonte was still up ahead of him, beyond the two scepter-wielding statues that flanked the entrance to the Answering Room.
Tamas motioned for his soldiers to split into two groups and flank the doorway. They rushed forward, rifles at the ready, and took up their positions. Tamas moved forward to open the doors.
He sensed a flare of sorcery behind him and only his preternatural speed allowed him to dodge the ice spike that flew down the hallway and slammed into the door where he had been standing a moment before. Tamas whirled, pistol ready, and grunted as a second spike slammed into his shoulder, throwing him against the wall with enough force to make him see stars.
There were a few moans and a cut-off scream as his men died, nailed to the walls where they stood with sorcery-formed spikes jutting from heads and hearts.
Tamas fought against the pain, feeling the cold deep in his muscles as he snapped the spike off the wall and pulled the broken piece slowly from his shoulder. He jammed his fist into the wound and searched for the source of the sorcery, waiting for a second attack. There, coming down one of the staircases they’d passed a hundred paces back down the hall. It was a slender woman in her fifties with graying brown hair trimmed above her ears.
“Field Marshal Tamas,” she said with a heavy Brudanian accent. “My lord Brude said you would—”
Tamas’s pistol jerked in his hand, and the bullet took her between the eyes. He breathed shallowly for several moments, inhaling the powder smoke, waiting to see if her fallen body would stir. It did not.
He removed the handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it into his wound. It was bleeding too much, the wound too wide. He could barely move that arm, and he was sure that the ice had chipped a bone. Slowly he straightened, feeling his strength wane, and let his eyes wander over the bodies of his men. Not a single one still drew breath.
The door to the Answering Hall swung ponderously at his touch, and Tamas stepped inside the cavernous room, still lit by Privileged sorcery long after the deaths of the men who weaved the spells.
A raised altar draped in velvet dominated the center of the room, upon which Kresimir’s body had been laid out. Lord Claremonte knelt before the altar, his back to Tamas. He was dressed in a fine suit with tails, his hat and cane on the ground beside him.
“Good afternoon, Field Marshal,” Claremonte said. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“No you’re not.”
“A little. Come in. Would you like to know how to kill a god?”
Taniel and Ka-poel rushed through winding corridors, back rooms, secret passages, and servants’ halls.
He could sense the power up ahead of them and he charged forward, with Ka-poel leading their way through the maze of rooms. They passed through small apartments and dark hallways, cutting across marble floors littered with Brudanian and Adran bodies and rooms that had been destroyed by sorcery. He could hear the triumphant yells of the Adran soldiers as they gained ground, but he soon left all sounds of battle behind him.
They entered the cabal’s wing of the palace, marked by ancient runes on the doorposts. This part of the building seemed deserted. They passed a dozen rooms, ascending to the third floor and then going back down to the second before Ka-poel finally slowed in a long hallway that ended in a large, well-lit room.
Taniel could hear voices coming from the room ahead of them. They crept to the end of the hallway and then across to a banister to find themselves looking down into the Answering Room.
Kresimir lay on an altar in the middle of the room and Tamas, holding one blood-soaked shoulder, stood in the doorway. Between him and the altar was Lord Claremonte, and he was speaking in the low, pleasant tone of a man discussing the weather over tea.
Taniel tightened his grip on his bayonet.
Claremonte stood and faced Tamas. He held something in his hand, and Tamas squinted through his pain to make out a piece of sharp flint.
“First of all,” Claremonte said, “we’re not really gods. No more than you are. We’re just very, very old. We were the very first Privileged to walk this planet, back when men had only just begun to live in mud huts. Kresimir used to say we were the first humans, brought into existence by some kind of mysterious maker, but I know that’s bullshit. I remember my parents.”
Claremonte tossed the stone up in the air and caught it. “I remember when Kresimir killed them. He made them scream for hours. Afterward, he
said that their deaths were necessary because they wouldn’t let me go with him. That they wouldn’t let him teach me how to wield this great power inside of me. Once again, bullshit. He did it because he liked to see lesser creatures suffer.”
“I thought you were brothers.” Tamas’s strength had fled him. He was weak with loss of blood, and he fumbled with a powder charge, lifting it to his mouth, only to drop it.
“Brothers in sorcery alone,” Claremonte said. “My other half, the one you call Cheris. She was my twin, conjoined at the hip. By all rights we should have been exposed to the elements, left to die after birth. But our parents loved us and kept us. Kresimir killed our parents and then he separated us with sorcery. We mourned for months. We clung to each other until he pulled us apart by force. Without him, we would have always been one, as we were meant to be.”
Claremonte looked behind him, frowning up at the second-floor balcony.
“What was I saying? Oh yes. Killing a god takes either raw sorcery, like when Kresimir killed Adom’s mortal form a couple of months ago, or it takes something like this.” He held up the sharp stone again. “This bit of flint is tens of thousands of years old. It was struck in a land far from here, long since swallowed by the sea. Kresimir cut himself on it when he was a child and that blood will be his undoing.”
“That’s no sorcery I’ve ever heard of.” Tamas’s vision grew hazy. He tried to press his hand harder to the wound in his shoulder. It must be far worse than he thought.
“The blood loss is getting to you, Tamas. Of course you’ve heard of this kind of sorcery. It’s magic long lost to this part of the world, older than me or Kresimir, and never really understood by any of us. But it exists, and is still used today in a land halfway across the world.”
“Dynize.”
“Yes. All the way on the other side of Fatrasta. Your son’s little savage girl is the strongest practitioner of this sorcery that I’ve ever stumbled across, and that includes even myself. I’ve used artifacts like this to kill all but two of my siblings.”
“Adom…”
“And Kresimir. Yes. I like Adom. He was always kind to me, back before I came into power. I’ve left him unmolested so far. I’m afraid my twin won’t feel so magnanimous, though, with Kresimir out of the way. Speaking of which.”
Claremonte paused, and there was a distinct popping sound. Coughing, smoke rising from her skin and hair, Cheris appeared from beyond a translucent veil of sorcery and stumbled into Claremonte, who caught her with one hand. “Hello, my love,” he said. “What is the matter?”
Cheris hacked, then went behind Kresimir’s altar and heaved noisily. “Our damned brother has gotten his filthy sorcery inside me. I had to flee, but I don’t think he’ll follow.”
“I told you not to eat anything in this city,” Claremonte said, his pleasant voice sounding slightly cross. “It won’t kill you. Adom is too gentle for that.”
Tamas took a step forward. The world seemed to tilt in his vision, the floor spinning. “This doesn’t have to go any further,” he said.
Cheris pointed at Tamas. “Why haven’t you killed him yet?”
Claremonte rolled his eyes. “I had other plans,” he said, addressing Tamas. “In case I lost the election. Plans within plans within plans. Weakening Ricard’s position, toppling the Adran currency. I planned on having power within twelve years, but my other half is less patient than I, it seems.”
“You’re the one who left me in that bloody tower,” Cheris said to her brother accusingly.
Tamas took another step. “Kill Kresimir. Go ahead. I won’t stop you. It sounds like he deserves to die. But leave us out of your machinations. Leave Adro in peace.”
“You won’t try to stop us?” Cheris scoffed.
“Now, now,” Claremonte said. “Don’t dismiss the field marshal entirely, Cheris. Tamas, I plan on uniting this world for a new era. I’d like you to lead it. Say yes and you will be healed. I’ll lengthen your life. I’ll spare your friends and your family. You will hold a place of honor. You will bring peace to every nation on this planet.”
It was growing harder for Tamas to breathe now. He could feel the blood in his lungs, and wondered if he’d been cut in more places than just his shoulder. It took every last bit of strength to grasp the spare pistol in his belt and draw it. His hand wavering, he lifted it and aimed it at Claremonte. “No.”
The pistol evaporated in a splash of light, and along with it Tamas’s hand. There was no pain from the destroyed limb, just a sudden numbness. Tamas stumbled backward, felt the sorcery grip and tear his body. The pain filled his head until he thought it might burst, and then he fell.
The appearance of Brude’s other half gave Taniel pause. He waited for several moments, watching them speak.
“Pole?” he hissed. “There’s two of them. Even if I can get close enough, I only have one bayonet.”
Ka-poel seemed to consider this a moment. She gave him a nod and tapped her chest with one finger.
“You?”
Another nod.
“What can you do?”
She smiled at him, but didn’t have time to give an answer. Out of the corner of Taniel’s eye he saw a quick movement as Tamas drew his pistol. The pistol exploded in Tamas’s hand, and Taniel could feel the sorcery spear through his father’s body.
Taniel leapt the balcony and landed in the hall on the opposite side of the altar from Brude. He saw Tamas’s body topple. “Dad!” The word wrenched from him as a sob, a searing, painful cry of fear and anguish. He stepped forward and felt Brude’s sorcery turn on him, snaking around the altar like a python and snatching at his bones. The pressure was incredible. He instantly felt as if he were wading waist-deep through mud, the same crushing feeling that had held him at bay in Elections Square.
He held the ring bayonet in one hand, the blade between his fingers. He plowed forward, using the bayonet to cut through the sorcery as if it were the prow of a ship slicing through the sea. Cheris rounded the altar to meet him while Claremonte, his face calm, stepped up to Kresimir and raised the flint dagger in his hand.
“Pole, a little help!”
Kresimir’s casket—the small one that Ka-poel had been carrying—soared through the air in an arc above Taniel’s head. The sticks and string burst apart, the bonds around Kresimir’s doll unraveling in the blink of an eye. Sorcery suddenly erupted from Kresimir, blasting both Cheris and Claremonte across the room.
Kresimir rolled off the altar and Taniel froze in place, afraid of the madness in Kresimir’s eye as the god’s gaze came to rest upon him. But there was no madness there. In fact, there was nothing. Kresimir’s face was blank, expressionless. Ka-poel’s doll floated above his head, and Kresimir jerked as the doll moved, mimicking its motions.
Taniel rushed toward Claremonte, only to find himself driven to his knees. He tried to stand, but he felt as if the weight of the world were pressing down on his shoulders. His eyes bulged and his heart thundered as he shoved against the unrelenting, invisible force. Through the slits of his eyelids he could see Claremonte and Cheris, both on their feet, jaws clenched, fighting back against Kresimir’s sorcery.
Taniel realized that the pressure he now struggled against wasn’t directed at him, but was rather the strength of the two gods suddenly pushing against each other. He was only caught in the middle. His whole body shook as Ka-poel’s magic fought to protect him. He could feel every sinew straining, bones ready to snap at any moment. Ka-poel worked her way down the stairs at one end of the room. Sweat poured off her face and her fingers danced like a puppeteer with her hands on the strings.
Claremonte and Cheris moved toward each other with Kresimir between them. Kresimir himself seemed unaffected, but Taniel could see the doll above him dripping wax, the pressure turning it into a formless blob.
Claremonte raised his flint knife and brought it down on Kresimir’s neck. The god toppled before him, and Taniel suddenly lunged forward, freed of the oppressive conflict of sorcery.
He gained his balance and grabbed Claremonte by the front of his jacket, thrusting Ka-poel’s bayonet through the soft part beneath his chin and through his brain.
Cheris’s scream made Taniel release Claremonte’s body and clutch at his ears. She ran toward him, hands raised, and he braced himself for the power of her fury.
Cheris stumbled. Taniel looked to find Tamas at her feet, Claremonte’s flint dagger in his remaining hand. Blood poured from Tamas’s ears, nose, and mouth, and black powder stained his chin. He thrust the dagger through her leg.
She yelled again, but more in anger than in pain. “You think that will kill me?” she demanded. She snatched Tamas by the collar of his jacket and lifted his broken body only to recoil as he spit blood in her eyes.
“Let him go,” Taniel roared.
“You have no power to command me,” Cheris said. “I will drink the blood from your father’s corpse. I will slaughter you and your savage and then I will bring my love back. I have that power!”
“Let him go, and you win.”
Cheris hesitated. “What do you mean?”
Taniel drew the bayonet from Claremonte’s lifeless body and flipped it around in his hand. “Here,” he said. “You win.” He tossed the bayonet.
Cheris dropped Tamas and reached up, but the bayonet arced over her fingertips. She whirled, hand extended.
Ka-poel snatched the bayonet from the air and rammed it through Cheris’s heart. The god gasped once and toppled to the ground. Ka-poel straddled her body and drew the bayonet out, ramming it in again and again until Cheris had stopped moving.
Taniel grabbed her arm. “She’s dead, Pole.”
Ka-poel sneered at Cheris, but let Taniel pull her away. He left her to check Claremonte’s and Kresimir’s bodies while he went to Tamas.
His father lay on his side, soaked in blood. Both legs were broken, his left arm shattered and left hand gone entirely. He still clutched the flint dagger in his hand. “Dad,” Taniel pleaded, feeling desperation grab hold. “Dad, come on!”
Tamas’s eyes fluttered. “Lost one of your pistols,” he croaked.