Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (86 page)

A chorus of dismay rose from his throat, and again came the hints of other faces. He flinched from her and his voice fragmented as different facets cried simulatenously:

‘
HOW CAN YOU BE HERE
—
?
’

‘
YOU SLEW ME
—
!
’

‘
BUT I LIVED
—
!
’

‘
SUBMIT TO ME!
’

She didn’t immediately understand, wanting so badly to see only him, but there were so many others—

Then she remembered and finally understood: Corineus had risen a Souldrinker, and when he died, he’d entered the aether, as all spirits did – but he was a drinker of souls, so he must have become a predator in the aether too. The more spirits he consumed, the more he
needed:
he had become
more than
a daemon: he was a web of souls, the sum of every part that formed him. No wonder his Ablizians were able to use every form of the gnosis: everyone whose soul he swallowed became another tool in his massive armoury.

How the dead souls must have flocked to him – he’d scarcely have needed to hunt
, she thought
. ‘Be as one with your Saviour!’ – that would have been all the lure he needed. If gods existed, they would be like this. Like
him
 . . .

‘Oh my love,’ she breathed, because she had never forgotten their great love; she wanted only to save him.

He saw that, and his face changed. ‘
Corinea?
’ he said, the special name he’d given her long before it became a curse, and he smiled
that
smile, the special one, the wild, intoxicating look that had stolen her heart when he’d been a young man aflame with mad ideas and determined to change the world. That was the face he’d worn as he seduced her, won her body, her heart and her soul.

He reached down to her, his voice changing, becoming his alone. ‘My darling,’ he breathed. ‘You’ve come back to me.’

His face appeared, and then Lillea Sorades was that young woman again, the one who’d been enraptured, in love and loved by the most wonderful, most charismatic man she’d ever dreamed of, travelling Yuros, free and enlightened – in love with ideas; in love with love, and about to change the world . . .

*

Tipping points can be tiny things, little details that nudge giant forces a fraction from their path and cause consequences that might never have been to suddenly appear inevitable. If the spear-head hadn’t landed next to Ramita’s thigh, she would never have picked it up; she would never have been holding it as disaster loomed.

But she was.

She had spent months under Master Puravai’s training, learning with Alaron and Corinea, and she could now wield at least a fragment of every aspect of the gnosis. She held onto the spear-head, intending only to keep it from Malevorn, anything to give her lover a chance of victory, but it pulled her psyche from her body with terrifying ease and she found herself
whooshing
along a path of light, flying through the minds of bewildered and terrified Ablizians, seeing ghostly shadows of the Zains and the Ablizians still fighting, visible to her through their auras. She’d barely begun to take that in, when she fell through a blaze of fire, into another place . . .

. . . to see Corinea had got there before her. She was young again, a dreamy, blissful look on her face as a glorious blond man, the most handsome man Ramita had ever seen, bent over her, one hand tilting her head to his, their lips straining towards a kiss . . . while the hand behind his back became a giant claw with razor-tipped nails . . .

She screamed a warning . . .

*

. . . and Lillea recoiled, the scales falling from her eyes.

The last time she’d seen Johan, they’d been locked in a shared dream, her newly formed gnostic aura entwining their minds – until he pulled out a dagger and tried to kill her.

That same dagger she held in her hand.

She stabbed him again . . .

*

. . . and Malevorn’s senses were overwhelmed by the most horrendous of screams, from a man’s voice that echoed through the link that joined him to the spear-head, and to every one of the Ablizians, to the thing in the aether that was Bahil-Abliz, that was Corineus.

He fell to his knees, and as his god howled inside his skull, he sensed his Ablizians collapsing all around him.

Somehow, even through Corineus’ agony, he was dimly aware that Mercer had rolled away from him and was using healing-gnosis to seal the slash to his belly.

His chance to administer the fatal blow had slipped away, but he just couldn’t move, couldn’t
think
.

Then the whole tapestry of gnosis he’d wrought was torn apart with a whirling rush, leaving him alone inside his skull. They staggered to their feet at the same time, but Mercer was healed and moving freely, while Malevorn was trying to cope with the realisation that Corineus was gone from inside him: his personal gnosis was all he had left again, and that was in tatters. He rebuilt his shields, pale shadows of what he’d had, and sought a way to run.

For a few seconds Mercer didn’t appear to realise anything had changed; he still fought defensively with that
stupid stick
– then he coupled that with an Illusion which left Malevorn flailing, and the stick slammed into his chest and knocked him backwards ten yards or more, his shields stressed, his ribs cracked and his breath wheezing. He rose, panting, as Mercer closed in and blows came raining in.

I’m going to die . . .

He shouted with his mind,

But there was only silence.

‘
YOU HAVE SLAIN OUR GOD!
’ he cried. Rage turned the world scarlet, and he went at Mercer in a berserk rage.

*

Something’s happened to Malevorn
. That was all Alaron registered; that somehow his foe had lost something, his shielding was now weak, his aura paler and earthen again, no longer multi-hued. So he attacked before his enemy could regain what he’d lost, throwing everything he had into it. He was using all facets of the gnosis, every trick he’d learned, and it was working; he was driving Malevorn backwards into the rubble surrounding the plaza, then he blasted him over backwards, took a breath and glanced left and right.

What the Hel?

The monks were surrounding them, blocking wherever Malevorn might have wanted to run, their faces blood-spattered and grim as executioners. All of the Ablizians were either down, or standing motionless with vacant expressions on their faces.

‘
YOU HAVE SLAIN OUR GOD!
’ Malevorn shouted, and launched himself at Alaron like a madman, blasting away with no vestige of control, all restraint gone – and all that much-vaunted technique lost as well.

Alaron felt like he was at the eye of a storm, calm and aware, able to deal with whatever was coming: deflecting, parrying, even preparing his counter-attack. He started with Necromancy, a Study he’d never been able to grasp at the Arcanum, and a withering blast of death-energy crackled through Malevorn’s shields.

The Inquisitor staggered and his face, always older than his years, visibly aged and his temples turned to silver.

‘Surrender,’ Alaron said, though he knew yielding wasn’t in Malevorn’s nature.

The Inquisitor roared like a rabid beast, gripped his sword in two hands and hurled himself at Alaron, not even bothering to defend himself.

Alaron darted sideways and slammed down his kon-staff, breaking Malevorn’s grip on his sword, then he infused it with raw energy and rammed it through Malevorn’s guard. The metal heel broke the frayed shields and plunged into Malevorn’s chest like a spear-thrust. The concussion of force smashed his ribs and flayed the vital organs, and his old nemesis pitched onto his back.

Malevorn sighed heavily, as if this was all just too tiring. One word fell from his lips: ‘Corineus . . .’

Then he died.

Alaron had thought he would feel pity, or triumph, but he felt neither. He closed his burning eyes and just stood there, afraid of what he might do if he allowed the anger in his heart free rein. He’d been beaten, bullied and tormented by Malevorn Andevarion for too many years to be able to take his death with total equanimity – but in the end his vision and his brain cleared.

Then he sprinted to Ramita’s side and rolled her over. Her clothes were burned away at the front, her hair too, and the skin of her face and chest was blackened, cracked and weeping. But she was alive, and for a mage with healing-gnosis, those were not serious wounds.

At the first touch of his gnosis, Ramita convulsed, and her eyes flew open.

He was scared to pull her to him in case it hurt her, but she held up a hand and stared at it, and the skin reformed perfectly, new skin flowing over the wounded flesh like water; the most sudden and incredible healing-gnosis he’d ever seen.
I wonder if there are any limits to her strength?

Not that he cared. He threw his arms around her and pushed the rest of the world away.

A moment –
a lifetime
– later, he kissed her, drank in her face, then disentangled, dreading to think who might be dead from among his friends.

A spear-head encrusted with diamonds caught his eye first, lying in the dust at Ramita’s side. But the diamonds were blackened and fading into lifelessness even as he went to pick it up. As his fingers touched the spear, he glimpsed something so massive and chilling that his brain couldn’t take it in:
immensity
, like a sea of stars or a flood of eyeballs the size of worlds, but they were all flying in different directions, silently shrieking.

Then Corinea was inside his skull: looking young and beautiful and wild, a knife as bright as suns in her hand. She turned to look at him, her eyes wet with helpless grief and wonder.

I killed him again
, she whispered.
I had to kill him again
.

Like a starburst, the ocean of eyes burst apart and there was only her.

He dropped the artefact and his vision cleared in time to hear the last of the remaining Ablizians scream as one. The inside of their skulls blazed with light exploding from eye sockets and open mouths, and then they all collapsed.

The battlefield fell utterly silent.

*

Alaron felt hollowed out, empty. He wanted to be alone, to process all he’d seen and done, to curl up in a bundle under a blanket with Ramita’s head resting on his chest, to sleep for a week, a month, a year . . .

But there were tasks to be done, first and foremost of which was the burning of their dead. He joined the surviving Merozains, only seven still on their feet, and together they used Fire-gnosis to immolate their fallen.

Yash said the words of farewell: for Meero, and Urfin, and brave Kedak who’d been cut down and Alaron never knew until afterwards, and five other young men he’d trained with and seen wake from the ambrosia eager to embrace a new life.

I led them to this end
, he reflected, angry and sad and proud at once. It was easy for others to say, ‘Blame our enemies’, but Malevorn and his creatures hadn’t been the enemy of these young men until Alaron drew them into the struggle.

There were tears on the survivors’ faces, but thankfully – because he didn’t think he could have borne it – no reproach. He couldn’t have blamed them if there had been. But after the prayers had been spoken, each brother went down the line, hugging each survivor tightly, and they all thanked him for the skills he’d imparted.

‘You kept me alive, Pahali,’ they said.

It was daunting, to have so many lives depending on him, but it didn’t fill him with fear as once it might. It made him feel brave.

Afterwards, Alaron went looking for Ramita. He found his wife huddled on a stone bench overlooking a blasted courtyard that was still strewn with Ablizian bodies. He sank to his knees as she turned to him, and they hugged fiercely, each clasping the other as if they were the only solid things left in a shifting, untrustworthy world.

‘Nasatya isn’t here,’ Ramita whispered, tears streaming down her face. ‘I can’t find him
anywhere
.’

He just held her, unable to find any words that might help.

Finally, when she’d cried herself out, she stroked his face. ‘Are you all right, husband?’

Alaron thought about that. ‘I’m fine, I suppose. We’ve lost . . . Kedak, Meero, Jharaad . . . eight dead in all, and four badly wounded. But we won,’ he added proudly. ‘All the training, all the work . . . It was enough. Just.’

‘My father would say that hard work brings rewards.’

‘So would mine.’ Alaron smiled fondly, wondering where his father was. ‘Malevorn and those creatures – they stole their powers from somewhere. They never learned all that we did, so when whatever it was that was fuelling them disappeared, they didn’t have the skills to cope . . .’

‘Huriya was like that. I worked to make things; she charmed others into giving them to her.’ Ramita’s eyes were bright with tears and vindication. ‘Al’Rhon, why isn’t Nasatya here?’

‘I don’t know. But we won’t stop looking, I promise.’

She squeezed this hands. ‘So your enemy is dead?’

‘He is. You know, at the Arcanum, Malevorn Andevarion was considered the epitome of the perfect pure-blood mage. The tutors all held him up as a role-model. And truly, he wasn’t lazy – he worked harder than anyone – but he was vindictive and cruel, a bully,
and they didn’t care
. He lorded it over us all in the name of his precious
honour
. He hurt people for pleasure and broke things for fun. He didn’t even believe in the church he claimed to serve. So I’m glad he’s gone and I never want to speak of him again.’

‘Then let us forget him,’ Ramita replied. ‘Did you find the Scytale?’

Alaron looked down at the bundles beside his feet. ‘He had it on him. And that spear-head . . . I don’t understand what it does, but it’s too dangerous to touch.’

Ramita looked at the wrapped artefacts. ‘I honestly don’t know how I survived when he used it against me – but the Goddess upheld me: she warned me, and fed me strength, enough to survive and reach him.’