Phoenix in Shadow - eARC (38 page)

Chapter 55

“Don’t go in there
now!
” Tobimar protested.

“I
have
to!” Miri said. “There’s no telling when the rest of the Palace will collapse, and there’s one thing I absolutely
have
to get out of there before that happens.”

“Something that won’t survive the collapse?”

“Maybe. But you know what such a collapse will do. It could take weeks or months to find it, and we’ll have to concentrate most of our work on reaching Wieran’s lab before
it
finishes collapsing on the Unity Guard.”

Miri sprinted through the slightly-sagging doorway of the Valatar Palace before anyone could raise more objections.
My past has to be finished, and I have one more deception to play—this one on the
other
side.

She couldn’t risk anyone else finding that scroll; even she wasn’t sure of its full capabilities...or what it might do to someone not allowed to use it. Besides, if she could recover it, it might have some of the exact answers that Kyri was seeking.

And rescuing the Unity Guard was essential, too; a few were dead or nearly so, but apparently the chamber had not yet completely collapsed. But as soon as the immediate emergency ended and anyone started examining the bodies
closely
, there would be horrified questions, and they
had
to have the right answers for those questions.

Even as she ran up the broken stairs, skipping over gaps in the stonework and trying to ignore the faint groans of the structure and sifting hiss of breaking rock, she made herself relax inwardly.
Maybe they won’t forgive me when they find out. But that’s all right; I probably don’t
deserve
forgiveness. Kyri’s accepted me, and I think that’s more than I could ever have asked for.

Her room had half-collapsed; her bed was crushed under a massive slab. But the large vanity desk was still intact, and on it, the scroll rested, face-down. She snatched it up—

And froze as she saw the cheerful, smiling human face looking out of it, the form used by Viedraverion.

“Why, Ermirinovas, how fortuitous!” he said in his usual calm, friendly tones. “I had almost given up on being able to contact you this day. How
are
things there?”

Father’s Hells!
This was almost the worst possible situation. She wasn’t prepared, she hadn’t even
begun
to try to figure out how to tell her story. Now she’d have to
improvise
, and improvised stories were always dangerous.

Remember the cardinal rule of lies: tell as much of the truth as you can.
“Not terribly well, to be honest. Your little miracle-worker, the one you found for us? Wieran? He backstabbed us
all
.”

“You mean he had his own agenda and betrayed you for the power of the Sun of Terian? How shocking.” The lack of surprise in his tones was matched by the lazy smile. “Your outrage would be more justified, I think, had you not been planning to betray
him
.”

“
He
wasn’t the major problem. But the resulting conflict unleashed the Dragon, and so I now have a much...larger problem.”

“Yet you are speaking with me, so obviously
he
was dealt with. Which is very impressive.”

“Well, we did not lose
all
of the power to Wieran. It proved...barely sufficient.”

“So, you and Wieran completed your ritual, he betrayed you
just
before you could do so yourself, and had to use up what you had gained to deal with the Elderwyrm you had yourself led there and imprisoned. Something of the completion of a circle there, I see.”

He is absolutely—and deliberately—infuriating
. She didn’t rise to the bait. “Yes, I suppose so. I did have one question: we did not see that assistant, Tashriel, around when Wieran completed his work. Do you know—”

“Oh, yes. He completed his assistance with Wieran and I recalled him immediately. I was a bit concerned with the alchemist’s ultimate intentions, which—I see—were more than adequately founded.”

She nodded. One minor question answered, and so far no problems. “Well, I have other things to work on. What did you want, Viedra?”

“Tsk, tsk, so hasty. But yes, you have your own business to attend. I wanted to let you know that henceforth I may be rather less available. Father’s getting a bit testy, the plan’s looking a bit shabby at the seams, and so on.” The cheerful and casual way in which he said this gave her a crawling sensation up her spine.
No one should be so relaxed about failing Father.

“Well, given how things have fallen out, we probably have little need to speak at the moment. I wish you...good luck.”

“Oh, wait, one more thing,” Viedra said, holding up his hand.

“As always with you. What?”

The smile widened. “Where is Kalshae? I need to speak with her.”

“Dead.” She didn’t have to work to put anger and loss into the single word. “Wieran’s betrayal cost her everything.”

The smile did not fade. “Oh, I rather think it was something else...don’t you, Miri?”

She stiffened. “What?”

The hand suddenly shot out
through
the scroll and grasped her arm. “I think I’d like the truth now,” he said.

Miri collapsed to the floor, feeling her strength and power drain out of her as though through a broken cup.
What...how is he doing this? Viedraverion’s stronger than I am, but I should be able to fight it; instead, I’m barely slowing it!

The smile widened, and she thought she saw the teeth glitter unnaturally. “Ahhhh, so very
not
demonic, my dear. Stunningly human, or more, I think. So
that
is how it actually played out. Wonderful, wonderful. Exactly as I had hoped.”

She had thought she had faced horror before, but those last words dropped her into a pit of terror such as she had never imagined. “Wh-what? You hoped—”

“I
planned
on your becoming purified, yes. I expected that it would be you, and not Kalshae, though it could have worked with her too. The entire sequence worked
precisely
as I had hoped.”

“You’re...not...Viedraverion...” she said slowly, feeling the coldness that was not just from the loss of her powers.

A smile so wide it was now clearly inhuman. “A revelation too late, my dear. No, I am not the prodigal son of the Lord of All Hells. Yet there is a certain...kinship between us.”

It dropped its disguise and for one instant Miri
saw
the truth, knew what implacable and ancient evil grasped her arm now with a hand the size of her forearm, shaggy with fur and armed with talons that could sever her in a gesture, and she tried to scream, but found herself unable to even so much as gasp.

“Oh, do not be so afraid,” he said, and she suddenly wasn’t, feeling confusion rising in her. “I have no intention of killing you, none at all. There mustn’t be the slightest suspicion of anything wrong
now
. They’ve solved all the problems here, you’re all such good friends, and there’s just a small adjustment I have to make.”

“C-condor...”

“Oh, my, yes, you’re quick, even when I’m working on your mind, sorting out the memories and eating the ones you really shouldn’t keep. Condor mustn’t catch up with them
yet
, and under
no
circumstances should they even know he exists until he does catch up with them. Everything depends on timing, you know. Proper timing.”

She felt her memories slipping away, fought desperately to hold onto them, but her fading awareness told her that it was hopeless, that she was fighting...
“L...Lightslayer...”

“Oh, now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time,” he said, with a trace of some accent she didn’t recognize. “But yes, that is indeed one of mine. A shame you can’t remember
that
either, because if you could simply tell
her
who I was, she might just escape the trap.”

The glittering smile was now the entirety of the world. “But you won’t remember enough to tell her
anything
except what I want you to.”

The world faded away.

Miri started up from the floor.
Tripped as I turned. Don’t rush, not in a collapsing building!

She gripped the communication scroll tightly.
I got away with it. He doesn’t suspect anything!

Now I can warn them!

Her heart lighter once more, Miri ran as swiftly as she could, towards her new friends.

Chapter 56

“Push...push...” Light Tanvol directed as Kyri, Tobimar, and Miri levered up a huge brace-beam. Tanvol and several Hues and Shades were holding the temporary supports for the building steady. Kyri felt the strain in her arms, her legs, her back.
We finished...no,
Poplock
finished, with an incredible summons—that hideous battle, and we’ve been on cleanup for...how long? Fourteen hours, at least; look at how high the sun’s risen. But this is the last!

In a way, it had been incredibly fortunate that the vast majority of the Unity Guard had been called in; most of them were still up and working (
which means the laboratory hasn’t completely collapsed...yet
), and their power, speed, and tireless willingness to work meant that they managed to accomplish in hours what might have taken many days, even weeks. Poplock, too, had been invaluable; without the tiny Toad to wriggle down narrow cracks, sensing and hunting, there would be many people still buried under rubble. Now, the only people left trapped...would be under the Castle.

“Steady....Almost there...”

With a sudden
thunk
, the beam seated itself in the notch cut for it.
“Done!”

A weary cheer went up all around, and the three of them sagged to the ground. “Oh, thank the
Light,
” Miri said. “Now maybe we can rest...just a little.”

Tobimar nodded his agreement. Despite the hard stone of the street beneath and the pervasive stench of bottom-mud and fire, it was still a taste of the heavens to simply sit and breathe without having to expend any other effort.

“I wish we could allow that, Light Miri,” Tanvol said, and Tobimar looked up to see that the entirety of the Unity Guard was making its way to them—some limping, some with the dragging footsteps of the utterly exhausted, but all of them coming, and their expressions were not comforting. “But before we rest—and then attempt the most dangerous and difficult work of excavating Valatar Castle—there are things that must be explained, serious things.”

Tobimar saw Miri swallow hard, even as she stood and looked with superficial calm at the broad, black-bearded Light. Tobimar stepped up to stand at her side, as did Kyri; Poplock hopped to her shoulder, still favoring his one foreleg despite Kyri’s quick healing of the bone shattered by the explosion of the Wanderer’s crystal. Hiriista stood behind, close enough for support, far enough to give her room.

“Then ask, Tanvol, and I will answer. But I hope the questions will be short and the answers needed not overlong, for we are all bone-weary—as are you.”

Tanvol inclined his head, but his expression was hooded, suspicious. “You have always been one of our most trusted and loved comrades. Yet this..." he trailed off, obviously unable to find words for the moment; Tobimar couldn’t blame him.

“...This...cataclysmic battle, and the events before it, have left me and the others wondering what exactly happened, how all of this
could
have happened. We remember being gathered to Valatar for a celebration. We remember entering the city...but the memories fade from clarity near to sunset. When next we are clear on who we are, we are running up steps from the depths of the Valatar Castle, steps that none of us recall ever having seen. Light Anora is nowhere to be found. And you appear, with a story of Master Wieran having betrayed us somehow, and then that...that
monster
appears from the lake and you send us away...to transform into something beyond anything we imagined.”

He studied her. “Who
are
you, Lady Miri?
What
are you? What did Wieran do? Whence came that monster—for it seemed to many of us that you knew exactly what it was,
knew
what terrible thing was causing the earth to quake as it shook off the bonds of earth and stone. What are the answers to these questions, Light Miri?”

Miri hesitated, an agonized expression on her face, and Tobimar’s heart twinged in sympathy.
She doesn’t know where to begin.

Kyri stepped forward. “Lady Miri—”

“No!” Tanvol said, and his deep, powerful voice was absolute. “I mean you no offense, Phoenix; I have seen your power, your courage, your willingness to risk all for our city, and for that I honor you. But we wish our answers to come from
her.
”

Kyri looked for a moment as though she would argue, try to shield Miri anyway, but Tobimar caught her eye and she closed her eyes, then opened them and bowed to Tanvol.

“It’s all right, Phoenix,” Miri said softly. “They’re right. I do need to explain.”

“But—”

“I’ll tell them the truth.” The blue-green eyes were suddenly terrified—and not of death, because Tobimar knew she could face
that
as courageously as any.

She’s terrified because she might lose everything she was fighting for, just...what, hours? after she realized that it
was
what she was fighting for.

Then she straightened and her voice firmed. “You were told that Master Wieran had betrayed us—and that was true. A monstrous betrayal indeed, seeking the power of the Great Light for a purpose none of us suspected.” She gave a bitter smile. “But in a sense, you had all been betrayed since before you were born. I...Lady Shae and I...had been manipulating this country’s development for longer than you can imagine, wearing different guises, changing your histories, your legends, your
world
, all so that we could, ourselves, steal the power of the Lights.”

The Unity Guard were staring at her with incomprehension that was slowly shading into horror. “You...?”

She drew herself up, taller now than she had been, and those beautiful wings appeared, shimmering with gemlike sparkles, yet dangerous and terrible as well. “I am Ermirinovas Leshkivinahlmba, Daughter of the Second to Kerlamion himself, and I had planned long since this theft and destruction of all things good, the debasement of the Light into a weapon of the demons and a source of power for myself and my most trusted ally and aide, Kalshae Vunalivieria, daughter of Erherveria the Accursed, whom you knew as Lady Shae.”

Just as abruptly she shrank back to the tiny, innocent Miri they had first met, but with an expression of abject sorrow on her face. “I
had
planned that. But in the end...I did not
want
that. I wanted Kaizatenzei to
live
. I wanted to see you all live, and build Valatar and all the cities higher and brighter, and for that I fought as you saw.

“But you can lay many crimes against my name, and I am guilty of them all, including most of the wrongs done to you by others such as Wieran. Kalshae and I lured Sanamaveridion here, used him to destroy the Lords of the Sky who dwelt here, then betrayed and imprisoned him so that we could take the power of the Seven Stars and the Sun—for so they were truly named—for ourselves. We encouraged Wieran to perform his experiments, which are responsible for your lost time and for those of you who have collapsed without explanation or understanding.”

There was a quaver in her voice, and Tobimar stepped forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. She did not look towards him, but her own hand came up and gripped his fingers so tightly it hurt...but he did not pull away. “I...I knew what he was doing, and I didn’t care. I’ve...I’m a monster, I know. I just...woke up, I suppose, a few weeks ago, started to think I wasn’t sure I wanted this thing I’d worked towards for so long, and then I
knew
I didn’t.”

Tanvol finally found his voice. “You are a
Demon
?”

She nodded.

Shocked, unbelieving murmurs ran through the assembled Guard...and then the murmurs began to take on a darker tone.

“But she has changed,” Kyri said. “And she was willing to die, if necessary, to protect you. I think that’s worth giving her a chance, at least, if not the respect she had before.”

“But how do we
know
that?” Danrall demanded, pushing through the crowd, and shouts of assent went up. “We saw you fighting that monster, but it surely would have killed you anyway!”

“You’re right about that part,” Tobimar said, feeling he’d better at least remind them he was there. “But if you
watched
the battle—with the training all you Guards have had—you know that all
three
of us put ourselves in a lot of
extra
danger trying to protect this city. There were a lot of blows we could have avoided if we weren’t trying to keep the Elderwyrm from wiping you all out.”

“Still, he has a point,” said a middle-aged woman, heavily built, leaning on her lance. “If she’s as old and devious as she says, the whole thing could be a trick. How do we know it
isn’t
?”

“Because
I
tell you she speaks the truth,” came a weary, pained voice behind them.

The Unity Guard whirled, but Tobimar had already seen enough to make his jaw drop.

“Every word is true, even though she could easily have placed the blame squarely on
my
shoulders,” Lady Shae said, and her voice held a touch of wonder. “She could have blamed Wieran alone, or the two of us. Yet she did not.”

“Shae?” Miri’s eyes seemed to have doubled in size; Tobimar thought that Poplock’s had too, though not with such a joyous smile. “
KALSHAE!
”

Miri’s leap cleared the entire assembled mass of Unity Guard. She landed just before Lady Shae, who was barely dressed in the ragged remains of what Tobimar assumed had been the underarmor for her battle gear.

Shae looked at her, and the two stood, swaying the tiniest bit from injury or exhaustion.

Then Shae’s gaze dropped, and Miri lunged forward, embracing her and crying uncontrollably. Slowly, uncertainly, Shae’s arms came up and returned the embrace.

“So, I hate to interrupt the reunion, but last I saw of you, you weren’t exactly on our side,” Poplock said.

Lady Shae’s laugh was more a snort. “No, indeed. Though I was rather less effective than I had expected. A trick worthy of a demon, little Toad.”

“Fear me,” he agreed. “Am I going to have to do that to you again? It might stick, the second time.”

This
laugh was the great, loud, cheerful one Tobimar remembered. “I would say that you couldn’t manage it a second time, but I think I have learned my lesson. No.” The wonder had returned to her voice. “No, you won’t. When that...attack of yours dispersed me, I was caught in Wieran’s trap. I was
enveloped
by the power of the Sun of Terian, and I felt my anger and hatred dissolving as though they had been the morning dew before the sun. By the time I managed to drag myself free and try to bring myself back to some semblance of solidity, well...” She smiled down at Miri, still with her face buried against Shae’s side. “...well, I wasn’t who I’d been, but instead the person I’d been making myself.” She met Tobimar’s gaze. “As you knew, and tried to make me accept. I thank you for trying; it helped, when I was realizing what I was becoming.”

“You...are
both
Demons?” Tanvol asked, with the tone of a man still trying to grasp the impossible.

Miri pulled herself free and wiped her face roughly with one arm. “Yes. Well, no, not
now
.”

“Say, rather, that they
were
demons, but are no longer,” Kyri said.

“I will vouch for them both,” Hiriista said, finally speaking. “You all know me. You have worked with me for many years and know that I have ever and always been a resource you could trust, though I am not one of you—and therefore not subject to any influence they or Wieran may have used.”

Tobimar could
sense
the relief slowly working its way through the crowd.
That could have become
very
ugly.

Light Tanvol sighed and suddenly sank down to sit on a nearby piece of fallen bridge. “
Light
, I don’t even know what to think. But by the Cities we need your help, Lady Shae, Miri. If we can trust you...”

“Trust
me
,” Poplock said. “They’re all right now.”

Shae shook her head. “But can they ever trust us?”

Danrall looked around at the other Unity Guards, then laughed. “Well, Lady Shae, the fact is we’ve never
seen
you do anything wrong. Or Light Miri. Maybe...maybe this will mean we won’t ever
completely
trust you again, but for now? We’re the
Unity Guard
. Our job’s to protect Kaizatenzei, and you’re the ones who can tell us how we can do that best, at least for now. So...I guess what I’m saying is, we
have
to trust you.”

“At least for now,” Tanvol said. “So...let us lay these issues aside, Lady Shae, Light Miri. We all require rest...and then we must enter the Castle, brace it, and seek the survivors within!”

Kyri smiled, and went to embrace the other two women. After a moment, Tobimar went and added his own, at which point even Shae began to cry a little, and Tobimar didn’t mind that his eyes stung a bit with empathy.

Miri thought she might lose
everything
; Shae must have thought she
was
going to die. And now, just maybe...they’ve
won
everything instead.