City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (2 page)

“If I sit here until Cana is restored, I will rule but one city amid a smoking wasteland.” Zakareth met Cynara's burning eyes with his own new set. His glowing red stone, once set into the socket of his left eye, had been replaced by a rolling crimson flame. The vision wasn't at all the same—he couldn't see the connections between Territories, the influence of each Territory imprinted on this world—but in some ways it was better. He could see rivers of crimson flowing in the objects around him, pooling in some things, trickling straight through others.

Without asking, he knew what it was. Power. Potential power, energy, and ability that Ragnarus could harvest and use to fuel its armory of thirsty weapons.

Cynara, lounging on her chair with her legs crossed, kicked one bare foot. “The Incarnations will not destroy everything. Not unless encouraged to do so. When unbound, the Incarnations will act according to their nature. Naraka will judge and punish, Endross will fight, Asphodel will spread and grow and seek the wild energy of emotion. Some of this will result in destruction, but Ornheim, for instance, should simply find the mountains and wait. Lirial will likely find a library and start reading. You see? It's not all wanton death.”

Zakareth doubted that his dying citizens would appreciate the distinction. “Many of them will kill, though. You know that better even than I. The death toll will be unspeakable.”

“Indeed. Imagine the kind of power that will follow when you pay such a high price.”

Zakareth saw nothing wrong with her logic. The higher the price you were willing to pay, the more power you could call. That was how Ragnarus worked.

“Be that as it may,” he went on, “you said a first step. What is your plan?”

“What is
yours,
King of Damasca?”

 
His plan was simple enough, as these things went. He had no reason to complicate matters. “I had intended to reveal myself and take back the throne, then turn my intentions to crushing Enosh.”

Cynara nodded along as he spoke. “And how do you think your Overlords will react to an Incarnation on the throne?”

“They will react as I order them to,” King Zakareth said. “Or they will be replaced.” He spoke with simple honesty. Their job was to govern in his name, not to question his motives.

“What about this new Territory? Valinhall, is it called?”

Zakareth considered that. He wanted Indirial on his side, but if the Overlord of Cana decided that he needed to oppose the Incarnations at all cost...well, Zakareth had little doubt that a team of Valinhall Travelers would be able to bring down an Incarnation. Even the Incarnation of Ragnarus.

“How do you know of Valinhall?” Zakareth asked, struck by a sudden thought. “You were imprisoned during its creation.”

Queen Cynara examined her appearance in a mirror she must have called from deeper in the Vault. Reflected red light shone from its surface. “In a prison of my own creation,” she reminded him. “The other Incarnations should have experienced something like a restless, painful sleep. Not me. I was awake, I was aware, and I was connected. I can assure you, it is not an experience you wish for yourself.”

He believed her.

“Very well,” he said. “I will secure the city for now, and then I will rebuild my country.”

Cynara laughed, and the Vault rang like a bell along with her. “Do not let the loss of one eye limit your vision. I told you what the Incarnations would do of their own volition.

“Now, imagine what they could do if they were directed.”

Zakareth imagined Lirial crystals hanging in the air above every city, giving him access to an unparalleled network of instant information. An army made up of burning Naraka creatures and ferocious flying wyrms from Endross, blasting apart any force in their way. A host of golems tearing down the walls of Enosh.

“I admit, the idea appeals to me,” he said. “Enosh would not oppose me long.”

Cynara laughed again, more cruelly. “Enosh? Enosh is nothing. You could wipe it from the memory of mortal man with only the power you now possess. Let us focus our attentions on the real threat.”

Zakareth stroked his short beard, thinking back on the only Travelers who could match him in combat. “Valinhall,” he said.

Queen Cynara waved one red hand airily. “Valinhall is a resource. You can bend it to your own purposes. There is only one opponent that can stand against us now.” Her face crumpled like foil into a look of loathing. “Elysia.”

The King thought back to his lone encounter with the one remaining Elysian Traveler. The boy did not seem like much of a threat. He would stack Indirial against four of Alin, son of Torin.

Then he remembered what he had done, back in his previous life. The weapon he had given to Alin.

The Seed of the Hanging Tree.

How could I be so foolish?
he thought, but he knew the answer. His thoughts had been clouded, uncertain, back when he was no more than a man. Now, for the first time, they were clear.

“Yes,” Zakareth said slowly. “We should begin with Elysia.”

Cynara rose from her seat, and the black wooden chair vanished into the shadows at the corner of the Vault. “If there is any justice in the universe, let me be there when we tear down the walls of the City of Light.”

Intense personal hatred for Elysia,
Zakareth noted. He understood her feelings, given Cynara’s history—she had lived during a time when the whole continent had almost been destroyed by the last of the Elysian Travelers, and according to legend had given her life fighting an Elysian Incarnation—but he filed the fact away. If the Queen was going to act irrationally based on personal bias, he would have to carefully filter her plans.
 

Once Alin was dead and the Seed was destroyed, all of Ragnarus’ power would be back under his control. He would have no need to destroy the City of Light then. He knew of no other Elysian Travelers, and if it took three hundred years for the next one to show up, so much the better.

How best to defeat the boy, though? Alin would only have to retreat back into his Territory and hide behind his City’s walls, and he would be protected. Zakareth did not like his chances of fighting an Elysian Traveler within the City of Light itself.

He would need Travelers who specialized in killing other Travelers. Those whose powers did not fade in foreign Territories, and who could follow the Elysian no matter where he went.

The solution was clear. He needed the House of Blades, whole and behind him. No more could they be allowed to stand fragmented and unsupervised. They had to stand for him, and him alone.

“We have many plans to make,” King Zakareth said, and he felt his red eye flare with heat.

“Then let us get started,” Queen Cynara responded. She gave him a slow smile. “But first, why don’t you try out your new powers? We need to remake Cana in our image, and we wouldn’t want to be…interrupted.”

She was clearly implying something, but Zakareth didn’t understand what. Not at first. Then he cast his mind back, into the part of him that was the Incarnation of Ragnarus, and knowledge flooded his mind like a sunrise. He knew every weapon in the Vault, knew its name and history, knew its price, felt its hunger like his own.

He held one hand out over the dungeon beneath the palace, where Cana’s Hanging Tree once stood, and he called upon his Territory.

The Pillar of Sunset rose from the ground, a column of smoldering red and black stone. It rose steadily, foot by foot, rising past the King’s hand. He let his fingers trail along the smooth stone as the pillar slid by, its black stone marbled with veins of shining red. Finally it cracked the ceiling, emerging out of the royal palace and towering above the entire city.

From the top of the pillar, a curtain of red light spread like a pool of blood over a glass dome, trickling down until the entire city of Cana was sealed in an inverted bowl of crimson light. No one would be able to walk past the light, not in this world or in any other.

Zakareth had never been taught that this artifact existed. He’d never even heard of it. But now he knew exactly how to activate it, knew precisely what price it would exact from the city’s citizens over the coming weeks and months.

But some prices must be paid.

***

Alin landed on the walls of Enosh in a flare of orange light.

He stood with his back to the sun, golden armor gleaming, and the city buzzed beneath him. Guards on the walls pointed and murmured to one another, some running off to spread the word. The people below, going about their everyday business, pointed to him and dropped what they were doing. Laundry baskets fell unnoticed to the ground, street vendors boarded up their carts, and mothers dragged their children over to stand beneath him at the foot of the wall. They called up to him:

“Welcome back, Eliadel!”

“Where have you been?”

“Give us a speech!”

Alin smiled down on them, welling up with compassion.

These are innocent people,
whispered the Rose Light of Elysia. The light was a part of him now, and he could feel its thoughts as easily as his own.

You can teach them,
the Silver said.
They had never known what their leaders were planning. Their only crime was to trust in the words of those in authority.

But he did not speak to them. He was waiting for someone, and patience was a part of him now. The Green Light approved.

A few in the crowd seemed to notice his eyes. They whispered to one another, hiding their gossip behind cupped hands, and pointing at him as subtly as they could. He knew what they were seeing, but he offered no explanation. His eyes shone with the light of Elysia now, with all its rainbow of colors. The lights would shift, angry red one moment and soft blue-green the next.

He remained silent, waiting. And soon the people grew silent with him.

Patience,
the Green Light whispered.
You only need to wait.

It did not take as long as he had imagined for the Grandmasters to come investigate. Grandmaster Helgard, by reputation and title the most skilled Helgard Traveler in the city, hurried across the courtyard. He was a shaggy bear of a man, with broad shoulders and a brown beard down almost to his chest. As a representative of his Territory, he wore a blue cloak lined with white fur: the standard Helgard uniform.

He marched toward the nearest guard tower as though he meant to walk through it, his shoulders set like he was heading into battle. It would take him a few minutes to climb the stairs of the guard tower all the way up to the top of the walls, where he would want a word with Alin in person.

Alin didn't mind the wait. He silently studied his people, searching their expressions.

In the eyes of many, he saw worship. They thought of him as an idol, as a messenger descended from the heavens. He would have to dissuade them of that. He was not an idol, but an ideal.
 

However, this group was still the closest to perfection. They would obey him, following his orders without question, and as a result their training would be the lightest and easiest. They had the shortest distance to travel.

On the faces of many others, he saw confusion. They looked upon him while trying to decide what they thought, wondering what he represented, asking themselves what he wanted. This group could be persuaded. He would have to prove himself to them, but he knew that they would see it, given time. He would show them that he was worthy, and that they could be too.

Their road would be hard, but not long. They, too, could find the way.

Then there was the third group: those who wore the uniforms of different Territories. There, an Avernus Traveler in a buckskin dress with feathers adorning her head. And over there, another man in the blue-and-white coat of Helgard. The Travelers had the longest and most difficult path to perfection.

They had been aware of their leaders' goals. They knew what the Grandmasters meant to do. These lesser Travelers were not beyond redemption, but their transformation would be filled with pain.

He turned his smile on them. The Travelers didn't know it now, but they would be better off for the pain.

It will be a long, hard job,
the Red Light said.
But it will be worth doing.

Grandmaster Helgard clapped a hand on Alin's armored shoulder, and Alin realized that he had been watching the crowd for several minutes.

Helgard frowned through his beard. “What is this, Eliadel? What have you done to the wall?”

That was not the first question Alin had expected.

To the wall?
He looked at his feet.

Where he stood, the bricks that made up the wall had turned to gold. He was standing in a perfect golden circle, about two feet across, that had once been made of stone.

Your presence as an Incarnation,
the Violet Light told him.
You’re not human anymore.

“And where have you been?” Helgard continued, anger creeping into his voice. “There's much work to be done. We can't have you running off at a time like this. No one has seen you or Naraka all day, and some of us are getting worried.”

That name acted like a spark on the dry timber of Alin's spirit. His patience evaporated in a cloud of smoke, and he found that one of his gauntleted hands was holding Grandmaster Helgard around the throat.
 

Fascinating. Did anger still have that much of a hold over him? He would have to work on that.

The man struggled, and yesterday he would have been able to overpower Alin in a purely physical contest. Today, Alin called Red Light from Elysia. Shining ropes of red twisted up his limbs, feeding him strength, and Helgard might as well have tried to wrestle a statue.

The crowd below noticed, and their murmuring swelled to a worried roar.

Alin reached out to his Territory, summoning a creature that he sensed deep within the Silver District. It appeared in midair almost instantly, like a single steel eye hovering on fluttering insect wings. It buzzed around his head, bobbing up and down in excitement.

“My people,” Alin began, and the fluttering eye repeated his words at a much louder volume. Alin's voice boomed throughout the streets of Enosh. He would have been surprised if anyone in the city failed to hear him.