City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (42 page)

As usual, turning into smoke felt like having his body pulled apart. It was oddly painless, but he had the disturbing sense of falling, of drifting apart, of becoming nothing.

And then, in a black cloud, he puffed back into existence on the distant circle of earth. The giant chain circled the island he had left like a confused snake whose prey had disappeared.

He could see, now, why Valin had never liked to call smoke. He couldn’t see or hear anything in transit, and there was no changing his route mid-way. Once he called smoke, he wouldn’t reassemble until his pieces reached their destination. It was risky, and prone to manipulation by a clever opponent.

Besides, he felt like he was going to drift away and ceased to exist every time he used it. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that.

“You have inherited this responsibility,” the Eldest hissed, right in his ear. “You must defend the House.”

Kai almost groaned. He had dared to hope that the Eldest had been killed when the chain attacked the last island. The Nye could manipulate and communicate with the intelligent guardians, but some of the creatures this deep in the House had no minds to speak of. This chain was likely incapable of processing any thought other than ‘destroy all intruders,’ so the Eldest would not be able to exercise any authority over it.

That was a very comforting thought. If Kai weren’t completely sure he would die the instant his steel ran out, he would live here permanently.

“Lead the way through the dark, O shifting shadow,” Kai said, with a bow. Without another word, not even a taunt, the Eldest took off. He leaped from island to island, heading for the door floating in space.

Kai followed, his steel waning. He still had a few minutes left, enough to get him through the House, but he tried to keep his steel called as often as he could, now. The cool power rushing through his veins was the only thing that calmed the throbbing burn in his back. Perhaps it was time for another healing bath, to push back the fire behind his kidney.

After he dealt with whoever was attacking Valinhall.

***

When the Tartarus Incarnation reached the seventh bedroom, he reached two ginger fingers out and turned the doorknob. Nothing happened. Indirial had ordered him to avoid damage to the bedroom doors if possible, because he wanted to limit Valinhall’s destruction as much as possible. He would need the Territory intact.

A face full of clockwork gears turned toward Indirial, awaiting new instructions.

The bedroom doors were a part of Indirial now; he could sense them in his mind, feel them refusing to give in to the strength of Tartarus. He twisted his thoughts, granting the Incarnation permission to enter the room.

Tartarus tried again, but nothing had changed.

Indirial crossed his arms, thinking. Maybe the bedrooms were bound to the Dragon’s Fangs in a rule of Valinhall so deep that even he couldn’t change it. Or maybe he could, if he was in the Territory itself, and not standing on the brink of a Gate. For a moment the temptation to enter the House was almost overwhelming; he belonged inside, it was a part of him, just as he was a part of it. He belonged in Valinhall like water belonged in the ocean, and he
knew
that if he stepped inside, everything would be all right…

He moved back a pace or two. As tempting as it would be to set foot in the House, the King had earned his loyalty. Who would he be if he denied proper rewards to the warriors that earned them?

Besides, there was one law respected in Valinhall above all others: force.

“Break it down,” he ordered. The Tartarus Incarnation stared at him with eyes of blank metal gears—he didn’t know Indirial, and clearly didn’t fully understand why he had to follow the Valinhall Incarnation’s orders. Indirial stared back, calm and unmoving. “I represent the Incarnation of Ragnarus in this matter,” he said, in cold tones appropriate to the Overlord of Cana. “If you disobey me in this, you will answer to him. Now, when I command you to destroy, you
destroy.”

The Incarnation snarled, a sound like a quick avalanche, but he drew back a fist to do as commanded. His blow shattered the door, and his shoulders broke the frame as he forced his way inside. From the cracks and bangs issuing from within the bedroom, Indirial assumed that Tartarus was stretching his command to destroy as far as it would go. It was the action of a petty child, breaking whatever he could reach, but anything in that room could be replaced.

Then Indirial heard the screams.

***

Kai flew through room after room, passing at last into the familiar parts of the House. “Where are the others, may I ask?”

“I locked the family in their gallery,” the Eldest responded. He didn’t seem to be moving any faster than a walk, but somehow he was matching Kai in speed. “Simon is away, and Denner has had his Dragon’s Fang removed. I doubt he is aware, or he would have banished it and re-summoned it already. I fear that Ragnarus will soon prevent that course of action entirely.”

“I’m surprised you spared the girl and the old man,” Kai said idly, dodging around the yellow-lit columns of the courtyard.

“They face two Incarnations,” the Eldest said. “That would not be a test, it would be murder. I am no murderer.”

Kai chuckled at that as he leaped over the healing pool, landing on the rough stone of the other side without slowing. “Of course not,” he said. “Just a killer.”

“There is a difference.”

The Eldest pulled open the bathroom door and Kai sped out, into the room beyond.

Then he stopped.

He could see the hallway from there, and the bedrooms on either side. One of the rooms was shattered, the door broken off its hinges. Distant, whispered screams, threats, and horrified gasps drifted from inside.

Kai didn’t remember calling smoke, but the next he knew, he had re-formed inside the seventh bedroom.

The shelf holding his precious little ones, the shelf he had carved, polished, and installed himself, had been destroyed. His dolls were scattered all over the floor.

And they were hurting. He could feel their pain like it was his—no, this was worse because it
wasn’t
his.

Rebekkah’s left arm had been half torn off at the shoulder. She clutched it with her right, glaring murder at the Tartarus Incarnation and threatening death in her mind. Lilia crawled away from the metal giant’s stomping boots, her white dress torn and both her feet crushed. Gloria wept into her hands, her hair and dress torn, her chest cracked. Still others had cracks, or fractures, or were simply frightened.

But Otoku lay on the floor under Tartarus’ feet, motionless, staring up at the ceiling with one eye. The other side of her face had been crushed, torn away, ripped casually from her head.

Kai knelt beside her, ignoring the ten-foot metal giant standing behind him. He laid Mithra down on the ground, and gently took Otoku up in both hands. He smoothed her dress. He straightened her hair.

Well,
she sent, her whispered voice weak.
At least I’ll look good while I die.

And so she did.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO
:

G
RIEF

The Endross Incarnation hovered over the Damascan camp on stormcloud wings, occasionally throwing a bolt or a ball of lightning. He was making some speech about how the world would burn, all its citizens his fearful subjects, and Simon had finally stopped listening. It didn’t make any sense.

He stood inside the same tent that sheltered Leah, peeking out the tent-flap to watch the Incarnation. He kept his hood up in case he was spotted, calling as little Nye essence as he could. At this rate, he should remain shrouded from the Incarnation’s sight for…five, maybe ten more minutes.

Simon drove Azura into the ground at an angle, trying to figure out what Endross was up to. It looked like he was trying to avoid killing anyone, against all reason. Simon had fought the last Incarnation of Endross, and even been present when this Traveler had snapped and Incarnated. More than any other of their kind, the Endross Incarnations acted like natural disasters, tearing the land and the people around them apart.

The Endross Incarnation should be anything
but
restrained. So what was going on?

Leah had spun out three or four floating Lirial crystals, which zipped out of the tent to collect the reports of various Travelers around the camp. None of them had seen any actual casualties that could be directly attributed to the Incarnation. The Endross Travelers were baffled. Some of the monsters they saw running free were more than capable of tearing through crowds of soldiers like a fox through a henhouse. But they were acting like leashed hounds.

“Maybe he really is in control of himself,” Leah suggested, after reviewing the latest report in one of her crystals.

Simon didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t believe it. In his experience, assuming that the enemy was
less
dangerous than he looked would lead straight to gruesome injury or horrible death.

“Surely it’s possible,” she said defensively, as though he’d spoken his doubts aloud. “The Helgard and Avernus Incarnations could carry on perfectly intelligible conversations. So could Alin, and so can this Endross, it seems. A measure of intelligence suggests some free will, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think they’re stupid,” he said. “Not most of them. And it’s not like I think they’re out of control. I think that whatever they’re doing…it makes sense to them. It’s the only logical thing for them to do.”

Leah’s blue eyes were distant, considering. Her raven let out a
caw
that seemed approving.

“It’s like when I fought Valin,” Simon went on. “He didn’t think he was going crazy, killing everybody he ran into. He was attacking people to see if they were strong enough to handle it. He thought he was
helping
them.”

“So what does this Endross think he’s doing?” Leah asked. Simon had no response to that.

But something else had started to bother him.

A sense of dread had begun creeping over him, raising goosebumps, filling his heart with a feeling of sickening tragedy. It was the strangest thing: they didn’t feel like
his
emotions, as though someone were pressing their feelings on him from the outside. He could think about it intellectually and realize that there was no reason to feel this way, but that didn’t shake the nauseous dread.

“I think…I think something bad happened,” he said. He knew it sounded stupid, and Leah raised one eyebrow at him, but he couldn’t think of a better way to say it. Somehow, he knew something terrible had happened to someone. Or maybe…was about to happen.

Above the camp, behind the Endross Incarnation—who was still giving a speech that made him sound like a newly installed tyrant—a dark figure rose slowly into the air. It looked like a man in armor, wearing a helmet covered in dark spires and holding a staff. His armor was black, edged in gold, and set with rubies. Another ruby capped his staff, and nestled in his crown above his forehead.

His skin glistened in the sunlight, as though he wore whirling metallic tattoos of red and gold, and one of his eyes blazed red.

“Leah,” Simon said, his voice dry. “You need to come see this.”

She hurried over to the tent flap without a word, pushing him aside so she could see out. “Oh, no,” Leah whispered. “Oh, Maker, please no.”

She seemed to realize something, and she jerked her head around, searching for something along the ground in the tent. When she saw the Lightning Spear lying nearby, she snapped out a hand to summon it into her palm.

It vanished.

***

All the dolls were absolutely silent.

“Mithra,” the Tartarus Incarnation rumbled. He bent at the waist to pick up the Wanderer’s silver-and-gold sword.

Kai started to laugh.

It started in his chest, an involuntarily convulsion that shook him, tearing out of him until he couldn’t help but cackle, chortle, positively
choke
in spasms of mirth. This was too much. He’d finally left them alone, tried to stay away like they wanted, respected Azura’s choice. And this was what happened.
This was what happened.

He laughed until tears streamed down his face as the Tartarus Incarnation scooped up the sword and started to walk away.

Abruptly quiet, Kai held out a hand to the crowd of dolls.

“Caela, if you would,” he said smoothly. Caela rose to her feet and hopped up onto his arm without a word. Reaching up with her wooden hands, she tightened her bonnet.

Go,
she said.

Kai exploded into action. His steel had been running out, but he did not accept that. As he’d done once before, he reached deeper into Benson’s basement until the steel skeleton’s burning blue eyes loomed in his mind.

Kai, my friend,
Benson began,
you look—

Kai
ripped
the power from him, and steel flowed through his muscles in a torrent. His leap took him over the Tartarus Incarnation’s shoulder, until he almost hit the ceiling, but as he passed over the Incarnation, he seized its breastplate in both hands.

When he landed in the hallway, he pulled the Incarnation down with him.

The giant flopped over onto its stomach, blindly waving Mithra. The edge of the Dragon’s Fang scraped at the walls and doorframes of the hallway, leaving shallow gouges. With its free hand, Tartarus pulled a steel spike out of midair and drove it at Kai’s neck.

Behind,
Caela snapped.

Kai leaned his head to the right, and the spike drove through empty air. He grabbed it with his own free hand, jerking the weapon out of the Incarnation’s grip and tossing it to the ground.

He kept walking forward, dragging the ten-foot titan behind him like a struggling child.

He didn’t walk back to the entry hall, though he was vaguely aware of a stone giant and a shadowy figure back there, as well as a swirling Gate. Now, he had a new plan. Someone had sent this Incarnation into his Territory, into his home, to kill his dolls.