That gave Jorim an idea. He flew up to the mouth of the river and the demons came after him. Just as they reached his altitude, he ripped a hole into Wandao. The river gushed, bringing with it a storm of the copper ants. Wet and angry, they poured over the demons, biting flesh and gnawing through wings. Thousands of demons fell to the fiery lake.
Jorim smiled. “We might get out of here.”
The Viruk shook his head. “This isn’t a lake. It’s a womb.”
Demons crawled from the lake like insects emerging from cocoons. Some now had copper mandibles. Other sported extra pairs of limbs. Some were even wreathed in flame. Whatever had killed them just made them stronger, and they were still intent on ripping the two companions apart.
A new flight of demons launched itself, then something odd happened. A volley of arrows arched up over the basin lip. Some demons, stuck through, spiraled down into the flames. Others fell to the ground and melted away.
More took to the air, but odd, winged creatures—apes of an emerald hue—soared up to engage them. The fleet among them flew high and hurled rocks, while the heavier ones soared up to meet the demons retreating from the stones. Demons and apes both fell, but far more of the demons.
Then below, ten-foot-long lizards poured into the basin. Sharp teeth filled their mouths. One lunged high enough to pluck a demon from the air. The lizards munched and demons screamed.
“If they don’t make it back into the lake, they’re not reborn!”
Jorim nodded to his companion. “That could be, but I’m not eating them.”
“Jorim!”
Jorim’s jaw dropped open, and it wasn’t just the giant hammer-headed ape cresting the basin, or the fact it had a demon clutched in a paw like a snack. The beast had been fitted with a bridle and he knew the driver saddled between its shoulder blades.
He swooped down immediately. “Nirati!” He avoided the ape’s slothful swipe at him, and landed on its spine. “How?”
“I knew you were in trouble. I came to help. Kunjiqui has a gate to the Underworld.” She beamed. “Here we are.”
In the wake of the lizards’ sweep rode a company of the oddest mounted archers Jorim had ever hoped to see. Blue-skinned men rode golden-antlered hinds. Leading them came a man riding in a chariot pulled by four of the hinds. He barked orders in some guttural tongue and the cavalry complied. Arrows flew, demons fell, and Talrisaal swooped down.
Jorim looked at the man. “Prince Pyrust?”
The charioteer nodded. “We can’t stay here. They will overwhelm us eventually.”
Nirati pointed off to an odd blue spot. “We came in through there. It will take us back to Kunjiqui.”
Jorim shook his head. “We can’t escape. We have to push on through the last Hells. Nessagafel, the first god, wishes to undo all of creation and remake everything. He’ll succeed unless we stop him.”
Pyrust ran a hand over his jaw. “Fight our way through the Hells so we can assault the Heavens and throw down a god?”
Talrisaal nodded. “As daunting as that sounds…”
Pyrust laughed. “Not daunting, challenging. A worthy fight for a worthy reason. What have we got to lose? We’re already dead, and if we fail, we’ll be unmade with the rest of creation? Lead on.”
Chapter Forty-nine
36th day, Month of the Eagle, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Quunkun, South Moriande
Imperial Nalenyr
Kaerinus’ expression made clear the fact that he was not bringing good news. If possible, it was even worse than word that the vanyesh had been destroyed. That had hit Nelesquin particularly hard because the vanyesh were crucial to generating more troops.
The Prince knotted his robe’s sash. “What is it now?” He held up a hand. “No, wait, I know it has to do with Qiro.”
“It does, sire, and your troops.”
Nelesquin shook his head. He took the small leather pouch from inside his sleeve, poured the scrying stones into his palm, then let them dribble through his fingers. They bounced across a tabletop. He read the pattern, the play of black and white stones, the angles at which they rested, and let go a large sigh.
“Not a complete disaster. Tell me.”
“I wish telling would suffice. You need to see it.”
“I have no desire to ride south at the moment.”
“No need. He brought a company here.” The magician led the way through the corridors of Quunkun. Pairs of Durrani warriors had been stationed every twenty feet to deal with intruders. They snapped to attention, hammering right fists to left shoulders as Nelesquin passed.
“Remind me, Kaerinus, to choose a new Dost. I should have done that already.”
“That, Highness, is perhaps the only bright spot in this whole affair. Holgaara of the Ox clan has worked tirelessly to drill these new soldiers. Working in the pocket world has not only aged him, but apparently made him wiser. The new soldiers follow him almost fanatically.”
If they follow him that closely, I will eventually have to destroy him.
They descended broad circular stairs to a vast storeroom just below street level. It had been cleaned out of anything useful. There had been some rice available and, when it turned out that it was not poisoned, it was distributed to the troops. Still, I would have thought there would have been some of it left.
Qiro awaited them, Holgaara beside him. The new troops waited behind them, arrayed in neat ranks ten wide and deep. They contrasted poorly with Holgaara. They contrast poorly with Qiro.
Nelesquin glanced at Kaerinus. “I thought you said they brought me troops. These are shallow-skulled, stoop-shouldered wildmen. We’ve not seen their like in these parts for eons, and these are more brutish than ones that haunted the jungles of Ummummorar.”
Qiro smiled. “You will find, Highness, that you are mistaken.” The cartographer joined him at the base of the stairs, then nodded to the Durrani.
The blue-skinned warrior turned and shouted orders in some pidgin tongue. The soldiers split evenly and with precision in their movements. Half of them bore spears, the other half cudgels. The weapons had been crudely manufactured, but had a brutal quality to them that intrigued Nelesquin. The spearmen attacked when ordered to, and the clubbers parried, then attacked in response. Most of the spearmen blocked the blows, but several of those who failed went down hard.
The drill continued. The sharp clack of wood on wood echoed within the storage chamber. More soldiers went down and a few would never rise again. The injured, when they could, crawled away and the survivors paired up again.
Nelesquin clapped his hands once and Holgaara shouted an order that ended the fighting. The warriors sprang into their ranks again, with little concern for their fallen comrades.
“You have done well, Holgaara. Take your troops back and continue training.”
The Durrani bowed, then shouted another order. The injured and dead were hauled away, leaving the three men alone in the bowels of the Bear Tower. Nelesquin descended the last step to the room’s floor, spread his arms wide, and turned back to face Qiro.
“How is it, Master Anturasi, that I ask of you a simple thing, and you fail to deliver it even after you tell me you can?”
“You asked for an army, and I found it for you.”
“I wanted you to build me an army. You said you could breed Durrani and women here. What happened?”
Qiro’s expression hardened. “What happened, sire, is that no one took into account what we did when we created the Durrani. On Anturasixan we had ample food. We did not have enough here to grow another army.”
“Not enough food?” Nelesquin frowned. “Our stores, Kaerinus?”
“Running low, but we have more food coming up from Erumvirine.”
“Good.” He rubbed the center of his forehead. “How, Qiro, did you find these brutes?”
“
Be careful calling them brutes, Highness, for they have more claim to this land than you do.” Qiro smiled slowly in the manner of men pleased with their own genius. “The pocket world encompasses all that was Nalenyr, if you will recall. We have stripped it of metal for your dari armor, and I wondered if we might be able to strip it of food. Harvests are cyclical, of course…”
“I am aware of the vagaries of agriculture, Master Anturasi.”
“I’m sure you are, Highness. So I wished to explore reaping more grain. My limits here, of course, pertain to things that are known, so I wanted harvests that were unknown. Records have been kept throughout the Imperial period—rather exact ones, if one knows which minister to bribe. I had to delve past that, so I did, into the time before.”
“The time before?”
“Yes.” Qiro’s smile grew. “You yourself noted that men such as these had not been seen in this area for eons. This is because I have opened a path to history and have brought them forward into my pocket world. They breed prodigiously. Half of them I have slaving to gather food, the other half train as soldiers.”
“How many do you have?”
“Twenty thousand.”
Nelesquin’s jaw dropped. “Twenty thousand? When did you start?”
“Just after I began the river’s narrowing.” Qiro nodded. “Ten thousand more become available each day, fully trained and armed. You will have ninety thousand when the walls collide.”
Nelesquin covered his mouth with a hand. As crude as they were, the brutes might work, making up in numbers what they lacked in quality and endurance. Waves of them pouring over the river wall and invading North Moriande could sweep away all resistance. There was no way the Empress could kill all of them.
“Kaerinus, work with Holgaara. He is the new Dost. Have him reorganize the forces. I want Durrani in charge of each brute unit. Have the brutes work with our remaining creatures so they get used to each other. I cannot have panic break my army.”
“As you wish, Highness.”
Nelesquin nodded, then graced Qiro with a bow. “You have done well, Master Cartographer. My victory shall owe much to you.”
“Our victory, Highness.” Qiro returned the bow. “And this is not all I shall do for you. The enemy might prepare themselves for what you will bring, but they never can be prepared for what I bring.”
Urardsa, the Soth Gloon, lurked like Grija’s shadow in my room. Pale, with an oversized head and seven eyes, black and gold, he watched me pull on a clean robe and tie my hair back. I caught his reflection in the mirror, as I dabbed at a bloody droplet on my neck—a remnant of shaving.
“Say whatever you have to say, ghoul, and no riddles.”
“Virisken Soshir dies soon.”
I laughed. “You can’t even pretend to be direct.”
“This mission to assassinate Nelesquin will be the end of you.”
I turned. “The end of me, or the end of Virisken Soshir?”
The Gloon opened his hands but remained mute.
“When I recovered the memory of who I had been, you told me I could die, but I think I was already dead. I think Virisken Soshir died when Nelesquin did, and was only resurrected because Nelesquin was. What started so long ago has to be finished. If that means I die again if he does, too, my life will have served well.”
The Gloon rose from his crouch and paced to the window. The owl moon’s bright light limned him. “Frustration is not my goal, Master Soshir. Once I, too, was blind to the future.”
“I remember. You were Enangia. You came on the Turasynd expedition. You fought, and well.”
“In the city are many life-threads. Too many. And too many end quickly.”
“Mine included, I assume.”
The Gloon grunted. “There is more to life-threads than beginnings and ends. Colors and textures. Patterns. The pattern could continue, or it can change. Something old, something new, or nothing.”
He stared at me. Though shadow hid his face, his eyes glowed. “Nelesquin would repeat the pattern of the past. Cyron, the Empress, they would make a different pattern. The past we understand. It has problems for which we know solutions.”
I frowned. “The problems of the past are never the same as those in the future.”
“If you know this, then why do you believe you are the solution now?”
I started to answer, but words stuck in my throat. Nelesquin and I had been friends who grew to be rivals. I had chafed beneath his superior attitude—which had been born out of nothing but his birthright. This had led me to resent him, resent my father, and desire power for my own. I knew the stories of my past, and I had been every bit the petty tyrant Nelesquin was.
But this time it was different. I was no longer Virisken Soshir. My sense of who I was had been shaped by my training and the years I’d spent as xidantzu. Soshir had spent his life in service to the Empire and himself. I had served many, shielding them from evil and misfortune.
It struck me that I really did feel Virisken Soshir was another person. I could not escape responsibility for who he had been and what he had done, but I didn’t need to be imprisoned by it, either. Nelesquin might well have been an old problem, but applying an old solution would only kill me along with him.
I regarded the Gloon carefully. “I am the solution because Nelesquin will never make himself vulnerable to another. No one else could even get close. He wants to defeat the Empress, but he wishes to crush me personally. It’s the only way he corrects the mistake that killed him in Ixyll.”
“This explains access, but not reason.”
“The reason I am the solution is that I will stop him to save others, not for myself.”
“You may well succeed.” He cocked his head to the side.
“What? What do you see? Tell me.”
“I see the futures, Master Soshir. I do not decide them.” He shrugged. “But if you wish to succeed, remember, this mission can only be accomplished by those who should be dead.”
Chapter Fifty
36th day, Month of the Eagle, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Shirikun, North Moriande
Free Nalenyr
Keles did not come fully awake until someone dragged him upright in the bed. The xunling roots had done nothing to keep the shadowed stranger away from him, which was odd. They never let anyone near him until ordered back, not even Geselkir or Jasai.
Who?
The man wrapped a sheet around him and lifted Keles into his arms. Being carried like that felt at once alien and yet normal. He worked a hand free and rubbed his eyes. Keles stared at the man, then knew he must be in a fever dream. The square jaw, the beard, the half smile—all very familiar.
“You look like my father.”
“I am your father.” As untrue as the words had to be, the voice triggered all sorts of memories. “Easy, Keles, don’t struggle. I don’t want to drop you.”
“You can’t be. My father’s dead.”
“Not dead. Just lost, for a time. In time.”
The man carried Keles to his suite’s antechamber. A wooden platform with a gold railing and eight gold disks filled the room. Pieces of furniture had collapsed beneath it. A huge globe, six feet in diameter, on a gimbaled stand dominated the platform.
“What is this?”
“Your grandfather has his map. You have your book. I have this.” He lowered Keles to the platform, then sprang over the railing and got a chair. He placed Keles in it, then ran back to the bedroom and dragged the heavy blanket to drape over him. “It can get cold.”
Keles weakly shoved the blanket off. “I can’t…I have to wake up.”
“Keles, you have to trust me.”
“Trust you? I don’t know you. I don’t know this thing. I am delirious. This is a dream.”
“No, it’s not, son.” The man started the globe spinning. A sphere of brilliant lig
ht surrounded the platform. It became opaque, hiding the world. Keles’ stomach lurched. They were moving, and the tingle of magic pricked his flesh with needles.
The word “son” resonated through him, distracting him. He’d heard it said in that tone, in that voice, over eighteen years before. Ryn Anturasi had bent down, smiled reassuringly, and used that very sentence to quell Keles’ fears about his father’s last voyage.
“You never came back.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Mother is dead.”
“I know.”
Keles looked over at him. “How?”
“I did something I was not supposed to do. I saw things I was not supposed to see.” Ryn Anturasi slowly shook his head. “One of them was your mother’s death.”
“But…”
“It happened in the future, yes.” Ryn rested his hands on Keles’ shoulders. “My father sent me to the Dark Sea not to kill me, as many have supposed. He sent me to look for something very specific. He knew it was out there, on one of the islands, buried deep in the ruins of a Viruk fortress. I went, I dug, and I found it. It was an opaque sphere as big around as my head. I was told to find it, put it in two sacks, lock it in a chest, and bring it to him. You know how Qiro gives orders.”
Keles nodded. “You disobeyed.”
“I did.”
“Jorim takes after you.”
“And you after your mother.” The man’s voice caught. He squeezed Keles’ shoulders. “I studied the stone. I caught visions. I saw many things from the past, all fascinating, and then I dared look into the future.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
“How can you see nothing? Doesn’t it work?”
“It works too well.” Ryn came around and sat back on the railing. “I was looking too far, so I refined my vision. I saw the future we are in now. I saw your mother die. So I looked for other futures, but she always died. So I began to look into the past.
“There was a god, Nessagafel, the first god among the Viruk. The creator. His children cast him from the Heavens and trapped him. On the earth, Virukadeen was destroyed. Nessagafel was no more, or so everyone believed. But it wasn’t true. Down through the years he has attempted to engineer plot after plot to free himself so he could start over. There are dozens of people—human, Viruk, Soth—whom he has used as his agents. Prince Nelesquin was one and your grandfather is another.”