10: His Holy Bones (17 page)

But he knew of more than one way to get into a room. Kahlil closed his eyes and flicked his fingers apart. The Gray Space tore roughly, throwing off arcs of flame. Kahlil stepped into the cold gray world.

The ropey texture of the Gray Space resisted him and Kahlil twisted and bent as he fought his way forward through the door and into the huge chamber.

High on a dais, the yasi’halaun hung in a tangle of wires. Huge bolts of white light shot from it, scorching the walls and then flashing out to the surrounding stones. They lit the room like flashes of lightning. Pieces of the stone cracked and crumbled into the rolling waters. Even from the Gray Space, Kahlil could feel the intensity of the yasi’halaun’s power. It was only a matter of time before it ripped the entire chamber apart. There was no way that Kahlil could leave the Gray Space to free Jath’ibaye as long as the yasi’halaun continued to feed.

Kahlil raced up the dais. The yasi’halaun seemed to sense him. Arcs of light lashed out, striking the air as he passed through it. Kahlil’s skin tingled, but the Gray Space protected him. The yasi’halaun, like the Rifter whose body it came from, could not penetrate deep into the Gray Space. Kahlil wondered if the Gray Space could destroy the yasi’halaun the way it could kill a Rifter.

He hoped that the Gray Space could at least contain its fury.

He stood over the yasi’halaun. He reached out so that his right hand hovered over the yasi’halaun’s hilt. Hopefully his flesh would disguise the bones beneath for at least a moment. Terror blossomed through his chest at the thought of what he was about to do. His heart pounded violently. Despite the cold of the Gray Space, sweat beaded his arms and back. If he was wrong, the yasi’halaun would burn him to ash and leave  Jath’ibaye to die.

But he didn’t have time to come up with a better plan.

He tore open the Gray Space, dropping out into the raging heat of the huge chamber and at the same moment yanking the yasi’halaun into the Gray Space he had just escaped. Searing pain shot through his right hand, but he didn’t release the yasi’halaun until it was buried deep in the Gray Space. Then he jerked his seared hand back and snapped the Gray Space closed.

The chamber plunged into silent darkness. A few patches of moon water glowed dimly at the edges of the steaming, choppy waves. Kahlil felt the blisters rising across the palm of his right hand with a kind of relief; at least he still had a hand.

But what he didn’t have wa time.

He rushed to the ladder and bounded down from the dais. Struggling through the hot water that filled the chamber, he raced from one of the yellow stones to another, reading the burned,
eroded Payshmura script.

He found incantations of distance, words of sacred spaces, and worlds crossed. The Palace of Night, Kingdom of Day, holy exaltations, they were useless to him. Then across the chamber he saw the simple engraving that he needed. A small black keyhole cut into the stone face.

Kahlil slogged through the water, twice slipping, but never losing hold of the key. Finally he reached the stone and jammed the ush’hala into the keyhole. He wrenched open the deathlock. Chilling air hissed up over him from the Gray Space contained within the stone.

Kahlil thrust his hands through the stone, groping desperately into the frigid Gray Space. His right hand brushed something hard. A shoulder. His knuckles scraped the curve of a chest. He groped a thick arm, but it hung limply in his grasp.

Kahlil grabbed the body and wrenched Jath’ibaye out of the Gray Space. He tried to take Jath’ibaye’s dead weight, but his own body was too exhausted. Kahlil’s grip failed and Jath’ibaye fell into the water.

Kahlil caught him roughly and jerked his head above the water. Jath’ibaye’s skin looked deathly pale, almost blue. He felt frigidly cold in Kahlil’s arms.

“You have to be all right,” Kahlil whispered against Jath’ibaye’s icy cheek. “You have to be here with me, because I came back for you. I died and I came back, because I had to be here to save you.” He knew he was babbling, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t think. All he could do was hold Jath’ibaye and beg him to live. “I am your Kahlil. Nothing can harm you while I am here. I swore that. Don’t make me a liar.” Tears burned down Kahlil’s cheeks.

 “John,” Kahlil whispered, slipping into English, hoping that hearing the words might call him back to his human body. “John, I love you. Please wake up.”

Kahlil felt the slightest breath of air against his wet cheek. Jath’ibaye still slumped against him, but his chest rose as he drew in breath. Ripples spread across the water.

Jath’ibaye’s eyes fluttered open for a moment, then closed again. He drew in another deep breath and straightened just a little in Kahlil’s embrace. His lips were still white and his skin a waxy blue, but he was alive. Joy surged through Kahlil.

Jath’ibaye raised his hand weakly and touched Kahlil’s chest. He drew in another deep breath and his hand slid over Kahlil’s shoulder and down his back. Rivulets of water dripped from his wet fingers and slid down Kahlil’s bare skin.

“Kyle?” Jath’ibaye’s voice was rough.

“I’m here,” Kahlil assured him.

Jath’ibaye slowly opened his eyes. “I came for you.”

“I knew you would,” Kahlil replied.

The slightest smile curved the corners of Jath’ibaye’s pale mouth.

“Is that why you aren’t wearing any clothes?” Jath’ibaye asked and Kahlil laughed, though the sound emerged as more of a sob. The relief that swept through him equaled what he’d felt when Jath’ibaye had come for him before, tearing through the armies amassed at Vundomu, when he’d thought he’d lost his lover to the inhuman fury of the Rifter only to find this same man, still caring for him, still taking him in his arms. All at once exhaustion rose up in Kahlil like a wave. It was over. They could go home now. Together.

Jath’ibaye seemed to arrive independently at the same conclusion. He clumsily pulled his feet beneath him and stood.

Kahlil wrapped his arm around his broad chest, steadying him.

“You feel different somehow…” John’s gaze searched his naked body. “Your hand…”

“It’s just a little singed.” Kahlil held up his blistered right palm. “I’ll be fine.”

“I meant your other hand. Loshai sent me your finger—”

Feeling strangely smug, Kahlil lifted and displayed his left hand. In the dim light, the protruding bones of his ring finger looked as delicate as porcelain.

“I found a spare,” he said.

With plain hesitation, as if he were afraid he might shatter it, Jath’ibaye reached out to touch the finely carved bone.

“How did you…?”

Kahlil shrugged. The answer seemed obvious to him now. “It was the will of Parfir.”

“That you should find a spare finger?” Jath’ibaye’s confusion showed on his face.

Kahlil couldn’t keep from rolling his eyes. “That I should be divided to bring you here and then be made whole again so that I could protect you. You really should read the holy book sometime. You might find that you understand your own miracles better.”

Jath’ibaye stared at him for a long, searching moment, and suddenly Kahlil felt the bond between them open, radiating up from his bones. Jath’ibaye’s face lit with sudden recognition and joy. He laced his fingers with Kahlil’s and drew him close.

“I understand myself just fine,” Jath’ibaye murmured. “The miracle here is you.”

•

Six days later John waited in the high courtyard of the kahlilrash’im barracks. Overhead, rays of morning sun lit the heavy mist clinging to Vundomu’s heights. Warmth would come with the afternoon, but just now winter’s chill still filled the air. John’s breath drifted in white wisps, trailing the words he silently mouthed.

He paced slowly over the incantations that Ji had so long ago instructed him to carve into the flagstones. His blood had fed the countless names of suffering and pain, of fury and rage, but at the time he hadn’t seen a function beyond those words. He’d looked at the immense maze and had only perceived how any outside forces would be funneled inescapably inward to the name of death at the heart of it all.

He hadn’t ever stood at the center of it, in the place of death, and surveyed the immense spell encircling him. That had been Ji’s domain; he’d created this incantation at her instructions and for her. But now, turning slowly and taking it in, John had no doubt that even then Ji had possessed the insight and foresight to know that one day he would stand here in her place.

John knelt and ran his hand over the weathered flagstone. For a moment he forgot about the power and purpose locked away here and only thought of Ji. He missed her, probably more than he could have ever missed even his own mother. He took consolation in knowing that she had chosen her death and that with it her soul had at last been set free.

The wail of the Gray Space wrenching open brought John’s attention to the edge of the courtyard.

Pesha staggered out of the thin, cold air. Her black eye and the dark bruise coloring her jaw lent her the appearance of a badly battered child. But pride radiated from her bright expression and seemed to animate her movements as she hefted the massive blade of the yasi’halaun up and brought it to John.

“Saimura and Ravishan freed the last six ushissa’im and destroyed the remaining hungry bones from the northern ruins last night,” Pesha informed him. “There are no more left for the yasi’halaun to feed on.”

John nodded; last night Kyle had brought him the same news from the ruins—as well as three more botanical texts.

“How is Saimura holding up?” John asked and for a moment Pesha’s smile wavered.

“He’s sad. We all are,” she said. “But…he’s all right. He seems to cheer up whenever I ask him about all the music and entertainment in Nurjima. He misses the city.”

“Well, if Hirran has anything to say about it, he’ll be back there soon enough,” John replied.

At the mention of Hirran a kind of hopeful expression lit Pesha’s angular, bruised face.

“Representative Hirran hasn’t returned from the Bousim lands already, has she?”

“Not yet.” John suspected that Joulen would delay her as long as he possibly could. “Her younger sister, Par’sho, returned yesterday. As I recall she was asking about you.”

“Was she?” Pesha’s delight brought a smile to John; despite all the horror of the past, the killing incantations at his feet, and the deadly blade in his grip, life went on all around him. The knowledge warmed him more than the thin rays of morning sun.

“Would you mind if I—I mean, if you don’t need me to do anything more—” Pesha began.

“Go,” John told her easily.

Pesha grinned at him and something in her expression reminded him just a little of Kyle when he’d been the same age. Then Pesha bounded out of the courtyard, leaving John alone once again.

John lifted the yasi’halaun and felt it shiver in response to his touch. Twenty-nine years ago, here in Vundomu, he’d taken the remains of the Rifter before him and made them his own. Now he held the same bone, but from a different history—one that had imbued it with hunger and rage and made it an embodiment of everything John fought against in his own nature.

And now the souls of the tortured, broken, and wronged filled it—fed it. Somewhere among them Laurie’s fury and suffering smoldered. The hilt felt hot against John’s palm. The blade flashed as if reflecting distant lightning as John lifted it and carried it past incantations of torment to the very center of the courtyard, where he’d carved the name of death into the stones with his own fingers.

Despite the rising sun, the air felt cold and the yasi’halaun in his hand too hot. Fear whispered through John’s certainty. If he was wrong, he didn’t know what he might unleash. He wished Ji could be here to reassure him; more than that, he longed for the comfort of feeling Kyle at his side. But John had ordered him away; he wasn’t safe so near the yasi’halaun. Still John stole a quick glance to the kahlirash’im’s watchtower and noted the flash of a spyglass. He offered a wave and felt a rush of assurance as he turned back to the yasi’halaun, the maze of incantations encircling him.

Standing at the center of the spell John could see it, not as a trap drawing life and power down into desolation, but flowing in reverse. From the heart of death, countless paths led beyond the words of torment, pain and rage, stripping them away and granting a final release.

The yasi’halaun stung John’s hand and began to shake violently in his grip.

John wondered if it was as frightened of this as he was. Or perhaps it was enraged at the threat he presented, when it had been meant to devour him.

White flames lit up along its blade and hilt.

But John held it, drawing it to him. Flames poured from the yasi’halaun, engulfing John’s hands and burning through his coat and shirt front. John choked on a cry of pain but didn’t release the yasihalaun even when he felt the hilt searing into the exposed skin of his chest. Smoke rolled up over John’s face. Every reflex in his body screamed out to hurl the blade from him. But John drew it deeper into his body; his lungs convulsed as if filled with flames; his heart jerked in the grip of the yasi’halaun’s burning rage.

“I will not let you go,” John whispered and he felt the yasi’halaun’s shudder in his grip and then go still. “But I will give you peace.”  

As the yasi’halaun dissolved into his flesh, John took in all those souls that it possessed.

John clenched his mouth shut to keep from crying out as an agony beyond mere fire spread through him, searing every nerve and filling his thoughts with reeking clouds of raw hurt. His vision blackened and screams rang through his ears—thousands of them roaring and howling ceaselessly.

An agony of sorrow roared through him as he endured the tortures of flayed flesh and burning bones. John fell to his knees, gasping and choking against sobs. He burned and bled and suffered, alone and endlessly, as every broken, tortured soul filled him—engulfed him. So many wronged souls, so much hurt. He couldn’t bear to hold them all in.

Rage flared against the pain and John’s mind filled with the fury of hurricanes and the release of magma tearing free of the earth.

And then he felt Kyle, calm and sure and shining through the bond that linked them. Despite the chaos of rage and torment, John felt Kyle’s faith in him. It shone as brilliant and cool as a morning star piercing the night’s darkness.