Dawn of Swords (74 page)

From the runes shone columns of light that swirled with every color imaginable, both named and not. The shafts of light rose to the ceiling, then slowly shifted, coming together in the center. There they mixed and eddied, creating a pulsing sphere so very much like the one Uther had brought forth in the ravine. The spinning colors expanded, the sphere growing larger, until a black circle formed at its center. The blackness grew, and within it Jacob could see luminous balls of gas, the stars from distant worlds. He stepped away from his podium, released Karak’s hand, and approached the churning sphere, continuing his chanting despite not having his journal to guide him. He felt the heat coming off the thing, felt the pull of divine gravity the closer he drew to it, until it seemed his every particle would be ripped apart, every piece of him disassembled.

The scream grew deep in his breast, a command infused with the power of a god that would not be denied.

“COME FORTH, VELIXAR, BEAST OF A THOUSAND FACES!”

From within the portal stepped a formless mass. It swelled and retracted, belching out a green-yellow mist. The mass was translucent, there but not quite, and it began to take shape. What emerged was the form of a man made of clay, with burning red
eyes. Tentacles writhed all around its body, as transparent as the rest of it, and Jacob saw that though the beast had a face, the rest of it was skeletal, as if it had been ravaged in a fire. Atop its head, a giant brain pulsed.

Jacob faced the thing that was there, but not. Its burning red eyes, the only aspect of it that had any substance, glared at him in hatred. Its face shifted with each passing second, becoming various nightmarish images of elves and humans and a hundred things Jacob had never once laid his eyes upon.

“We are the one and the many,” the beast said, sounding like a dozen voices speaking at once. “Who disturbs us?”

Jacob did not cower before its anger, did not wilt before its furious eyes.

“So long,” he whispered as mad winds swirled about the room and Clovis sobbed in terror. “I have waited so very long for this moment.”

Jacob stepped into the void of the beast’s incorporeal from. Its essence swirled about him, engulfed him.

“What is this?”
the beast cried, pulsing, constricting, trying to squeeze every bit of life from Jacob’s body.

Words of magic came forth from his mouth, and Jacob breathed in deep. He felt the core of the beast fill him, and though it struggled, the power he had received from his god was enough to overcome the ancient demon’s strength. The creature’s energy infused him, and long-forgotten spells flooded into his memory. In an instant he lived forever, witnessing the birthplace of the stars, the spawning of gods, the formation of the very fabric of existence itself.

And then he saw something else, something wonderful that made him laugh and laugh…and the beast shrieked, its sentience dangling by a thin umbilical thread. Jacob clenched it tightly in his otherworldly fist, severing the thread, and the Beast of a Thousand Faces drifted off into the blackness of space, its screams fading as it descended to join its long-deceased brother Sluggoth in the timeless void.

Jacob snapped back into his body and collapsed. The energy he had swallowed, the same energy that had opened up avenues to forgotten magics, impelled him to stand. The portal still throbbed before him, its blackened center opening all the wider as it awaited the coming of another traveler. In the background, the captive Moris screamed in protest.

Jacob turned, pointed at Clovis, and beckoned him over with one finger. Karak shoved the man, who was as pale as the snow atop a mountain, and the Highest landed hard at Jacob’s feet. He glanced up, and the look he gave Jacob was one of pure horror. Had he not just drank his fill, had the wonders of eternity not been filling him in that moment, Jacob might have wondered why.

Instead he reached down, grasped Clovis by the shoulders, and lifted him to his feet. He felt so strong, as though he could crush mountains in the palm of his hand. He thrust the screaming Highest toward the portal, just as another, much larger mass of billowing matter leaked out of the gateway. This being was just as transparent as the previous one, but it took shape much more quickly. It grew up, up, until it stood nearly thirty feet high. Huge, rounded shoulders formed, giving birth to scaly arms the size of the oldest trees in the Ghostwood, with paws that ended in curved, razor-sharp claws. Its body was massive, thick and wide on top with narrow hips, and short, stocky legs that were balanced out by a taloned tail. Its head was the last to appear, looking almost like that of a horse, only with a pair of giant tusks that ejected from the back corners of its jowls, curling forward around the front of its maw. The eyes were red and burning, just like those of the Beast of a Thousand Faces, and when it roared, making the air pulse with the pain of rebirth, a mad cackle filled Jacob’s throat.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

The image of the beast began to waver as its mass was pulled back toward the swirling vortex. Jacob chanted louder, clutching Clovis’s arm so that he could not escape. Then he thrust the man
front and center before the flickering beast, forcibly tilting his head back with one hand and prying his mouth open with the other.

“Accept this vessel!” he shouted. “Your physical form may be no more, but I offer another to you!”

He recited primeval verses he hadn’t known until moments before.

The monstrous, ghostly beast suddenly lost all structure, becoming a swirling tube of shadow that first crashed against the ceiling of the room, then careened downward. Lightning and gale-force winds rocked the interior of the room, making all inside hold on for dear life lest they be flung against the walls; only Jacob and Karak withstood its rage. The murky, twisting shaft plummeted into Clovis’s mouth, and his face throbbed as the force invaded his body in a revolting frenzy. Finally the last bit of shadow disappeared; the air grew still; the lightning ceased to flash; and the thunder rolled no more.

At long last, Jacob’s chants ceased. He collapsed to his hands and knees as the portal vanished, dissipating in a flash of white light that momentarily washed out all color. He remained as he had fallen, panting, still feeling the lingering effects of the power and acumen he had ripped from the demon before he crushed its conscience beneath his superior will.

“I am the child of two gods,” he gasped. “I am the oldest. I…am…victorious.”

Slowly, he once more became aware of the sights and sounds around him. The captives were screaming, struggling against the might of their lone jailor. Karak stood off to the side, leaning on a bronze statue of himself, looking mildly curious. Clovis lay motionless, half on and half off the raised platform, his head resting in the center of the triangle, the chalk lines burned into the floor as if drawn with molten rock.

Jacob swiveled his head and caught his reflection in a mirror the size of a divan that had been stowed against the far wall. He looked
just as he ever did—all but for his eyes. The blue of his irises had been charred away, replaced by a deep crimson that shone as if a fire burned in the recesses of his skull.

Clovis moaned, rolling over onto his back. He sat up slowly, clutching at his stomach. The skin on his face rippled—as did his body beneath the tight black leathers he wore. The silver hair atop his head began to fall out in clumps. He started to screech, his jaw protruding outward as if something inside him were trying to escape.

Jacob faced Captain Gregorian, who was gawking at the scene with his jaw hanging open.

“Captain!” he shouted. “Now! The feast!”

It took a moment, but finally Gregorian got the message. He reached down and grabbed Ulrich and Ibis, dragging them behind him as they kicked and protested. Jacob rushed over, gathering up a laughing Adeline and searching for Thessaly to assist him. He didn’t have to look far. Unexpectedly, Clovis’s third-born had rushed to her father’s side; she was kneeling before him, putting her hands on each spot of his body that swelled with bone and muscle. There were tears in her eyes and in her father’s.

“You have been chosen,” Jacob said to her. “It is an honor.”

She glanced over at him as he yanked Adeline by her hair, and Thessaly sadly shook her head. She was about to say something, but she never got the chance, for suddenly her father was upon her, his mouth opening wider than humanly possible. His teeth had become daggers, and they tore into Thessaly’s face, ripping the flesh from her skull. Her only form of protest was a bloody gurgle. Her father opened his maw wider, taking her head, her shoulders, her entire upper body into him. His neck bulged as his daughter was pulled down his throat, and the rhythmic cadence of a thousand snapping bones filled the air. Ibis and Ulric shrieked and struggled, while Adeline guffawed, until Jacob gave the order.
Captain Gregorian silenced all three with his sword, and their slit throats bled out onto the polished floor of the Tower Keep’s great hall.

Thessaly’s feet disappeared down her father’s gullet, and after a few more seconds of snapping bones and jaws, the thing that had been Clovis Crestwell pivoted around. His flesh still rippled, but it seemed more under control now, as if the beast within had been satiated.

“Who dares awaken the Darakken?” it hissed. A pair of eyes that burned the same shade of red as Jacob’s looked at each of the hall’s occupants, not stopping until they fell upon Karak. Those eyes opened wide then, and he fell to his knees, bowing before the deity.

“Master Kaurthulos,” said the beast in reverence. “I recognize you and will serve your will, so great is my gratitude for my freedom.”

“Not Kaurthulos,” the god responded. “Though I do remember you, as if from a dream. We are splintered now, Order and Justice, War and Love. I am Karak, and though you are right to serve, I am not the one you should thank. It is he, over there, who set you free.”

The beast lifted its head, gazing at Jacob from across the expanse.

“Fellow child of the mighty Kaurthulos, I thank you for releasing me,” Darakken said, bowing low. “Please, tell me your name, so I may call it out in reverence when I shear the flesh of our enemies.”

“His name is Jacob Eveningstar, First Man of Dezrel,” said Karak.

Jacob shook his head as the power of the beast he had devoured surged through him. He was no longer who he was. No, he was something greater. His mind exploded with knowledge that made his journal a pale mockery of wisdom. Everything he used to be was gone. He cast aside the last vestiges of his weakness, swearing to never again whisper the name Brienna. Standing to his full height, shadows and light playing off his fingers as if he could command the universe itself, he stared into the beast Darakken and let it know
he was its master. A child of two gods, commander of demons, the first man of a fledgling world. The pathetic human name no longer fit him…it would no longer suffice. So he took another.

“Jacob Eveningstar no longer exists,” he said through clenched teeth. “Let me bear a name far more worthy.”

And as Darakken fed on the corpses before him, Velixar laughed and laughed.

E
PILOGUE

A
ng was a quaint little fishing village, a rocky land filled with nothing but crude wooden huts and tents. It was unlike anything Aully had seen before, for even the homes built within the trees of Stonewood had been elaborate constructions, many with separate living areas, bedrooms, and even solariums. Living in a single, cramped space? That compared favorably only to the cells in the dungeon below Palace Thyne. She cursed at her own selfishness for the unworthy thought.

Beggars cannot be choosers
.

Kindren came up beside her. They were hiding out in a thatch of trees just outside what looked to be the village’s common area. There were people everywhere, humans whose flesh were differing shades of brown, chatting among themselves, wandering the narrow, dusty path that led through the center of the clearing. She recognized a few of them from her days at her father’s court, when there had been disputes over borders, as Ang was positioned very close to Stonewood’s southern boundary. She remembered Bessus Gorgoros and his wife, two of the loudest, most intense, and intimidating people she had ever met. Of course, that had been before she came to understand
true
intimidation,
so she guessed that it was possible she was building the pair up in her mind.

“I don’t see a palace,” said Kindren, whispering. “Or a fortress of any kind. Where do the leaders reside?”

Aully shrugged. “I don’t know.”

A sharp pain flared inside her knee, and she winced and flopped down on her rump. She rubbed the sore spot vigorously, gritting her teeth.
I should be used to this by now
, she thought, and shook her head. Cramps had become an unwelcomed friend over the last month, as she and the rest of her people who had escaped from Dezerea traipsed from place to place, first to the river, then south along its banks, until finally they reached the coast, which they followed to what Aully was convinced would be friendly territory. When they weren’t walking or trying to avoid hunting parties sent out by Neyvar Ruven, they were scavenging for food, trying to rest their weary bones and blistered feet, or hiding from those who traveled across the Gods’ Road. They never knew who might be friend or foe, and that weighed the most on Aullienna’s heart—even more than the constant worry over whether she should inform her mother of Brienna’s death.

It had been the most discouraging part of her short life, and Aully just wanted it to end.

The people of Ker had not been friends to her people. Bessus and Damaspia held a long-standing loathing for her father, and her mother and her advisors constantly brought up this fact as Aully insisted on the trip. She refused to listen. Instead, she was placing her entire hope on one man and one man alone, the giant named Bardiya.

She had met the son of Gorgoros only once in person, though she had spied on him often. He had been the sole human in all of Ker who talked sensibly with her people, who seemed to care about the sanctity of their forest as much as they did. When news had come of him needlessly butchering a flock of kobo, she’d refused to
believe it. Not long after that unfortunate event she’d run into him in the forest. He had been sitting there calmly with a pair of wolves, his tree trunk legs crossed and his eyes closed. When he spoke to her then, his voice had been soft and delicate. It was only because of her father’s warnings that she’d remained wary.