Realm of Light (54 page)

Fear struck deep
within Caelan. This was not the emperor. This was no man who stood before them.
He saw no threads of life, but instead a terrible dark aura surrounding
Kostimon’s form, an aura that flashed and crawled with miniature streaks of
lightning. At his side, Kostimon held a sword with a blade of black metal. Evil
swirled across the blade in a constantly shifting pattern of death and destruction.
Horror spread through Caelan, and he did not want to believe his own eyes.

“Kostimon!” he
shouted with all his might.

The figure did not
react. Kostimon’s terrible eyes swept the crowd again, and a slow smile spread
across his face. He lifted one hand to the crowd, and fresh cheering broke out.

Caelan could no
longer doubt the truth. This creature might wear Kostimon’s exterior form, but
the emperor did not live behind those dreadful eyes. What had Kostimon done, in
his last moments of life? Had he tried to bargain yet again with the shadow
god? Had he given his body to Beloth, thinking he could yet achieve
immortality? Instead, Kostimon had only provided Beloth with the final means of
stepping into the world from the realm of shadow. The last chains had been
broken, and Beloth stood free while these poor fools cheered.

“Beloth!” Caelan
shouted, and this time the creature heard his voice among the others.

Turning his head,
Beloth looked right at Caelan. His red eyes glowed, and the false smile faded
from his face. Beloth started walking across the square, coming straight toward
Caelan.

The people
surrounding Caelan cried out. Some of them surged forward with outstretched
hands. Others drew back, trying to flee.

“No!” Tirhin
shouted. Unexpectedly he came rushing out from the pavilion. His face was
contorted with rage. “You are dead, Kostimon!” he shouted at the thing that
resembled his father. “You are dead! Foul thing, go back to the grave where you
belong!”

Beloth’s attention
swung back to the prince, and he laughed. The sound boomed loudly enough to
drown out the cheering, which faltered and died.

But when he spoke
it was with Kostimon’s familiar voice, sounding both amused and contemptuous.
“My son, am I spoiling your day of triumph?”

“Damn you!”
Limping now as he crossed the square, Tirhin struggled to draw his sword. But
something seemed to be wrong with the scabbard, and he was unable to draw the
weapon. “You are dead. You cannot live forever. You will
not
return. I
forbid it.”

“But I have returned.”

“No! I’ll see you
driven back to hell where you belong!”

Kostimon/Beloth
raised his black sword, but Tirhin still could not draw his sword.

Movement from the
corner of his eye caught Caelan’s attention. He saw Elandra emerging from the
pavilion with a sleeve knife in her hand.

Alarm filled
Caelan. He knocked people flying, clearing a path for himself, and shoved past
the soldiers into the cleared space. “Elandra, stay back!” he called in
warning. “It’s not Kostimon.”

Her eyes flashed
to him, and she stopped in her tracks. She stared at him, her face disbelieving
at first, then filling with fierce joy. “Caelan!” she cried out. “You’re
alive.”

Tirhin whirled
around so fast he almost lost his balance. He stared at Caelan with bulging
eyes. “Impossible,” he breathed.

“You’re dead. My
father is dead.” Flinging his hands to the dark heavens, he shouted, “I deny
this! Both of you, go back to your graves!”

Ignoring him,
Elandra came running in Caelan’s direction, her face aglow.

Beloth looked at her
and shouted. His words were incomprehensible, but fire burst in the air and
fell in a shower of sparks. People screamed and shoved backward. Even Tirhin
cried out and cringed from the flying sparks.

“Agel!” he
shouted. “Send the Vindicants over here. They must work a spell and stop this—”

Beloth strode past
Tirhin, brushing him aside as though he did not exist. The god aimed straight
for Elandra.

“Elandra!” he
shouted. “Empress of mortals, bow to me in acclaim.”

Caelan reached her
first and stepped between her and the god. Elandra clutched Caelan’s cloak,
breathing hard, her eyes full of emotion. “Is it true?” she asked, drinking him
in. “You live? You are not spirit?”

His hand closed
over hers, and he brushed her lips swiftly with his. “I live,” he said. “Tirhin
lied to you.”

Her eyes grew
steely, and she glanced at Tirhin as though she meant to hurl her knife at his
chest. But Beloth was almost upon them, and neither of them could afford to
ignore him.

“Elandra!” he
bellowed. “Bow to me now!”

Elandra’s face
turned white with fear. “The vision,” she said fearfully. “It knows my name. I
cannot resist—”

Caelan gripped her
arm hard. “Don’t bow to it. Don’t bow!”

She twisted,
arching back as though struck, and screamed. The knife dropped from her
fingers.

“Leave her alone!”
Tirhin shouted. He whirled and came running at Beloth’s back, an upraised
dagger in his hand, his useless sword swinging at his side.

Just as Tirhin
reached him, Beloth turned and swung the black sword. It hit Tirhin at the base
of his neck and cleaved him from shoulder to hip. Blood spurted in the air, and
both halves of the prince crumpled to the ground.

People in the
crowd screamed. On the other side of the square, Albain roared terrible curses
and drew his sword, as did the Gialtan warlords. The Lord Commander snapped out
orders, but the soldiers were in disorder, breaking ranks, refusing to listen.

Beloth roared and
blew flames in a circle around the square. Men and women turned into sudden
blazing torches, spinning in their death agony as they screamed and fell.

Others tried to
run for their lives. Many of the soldiers threw down their weapons and fled,
knocking down men and thrusting women and children aside.

Twisting, Caelan
grabbed Elandra and pulled her to the ground, rolling frantically as the flames
roared over them. Regaining his feet, Caelan ripped off his cloak and ran
straight at Beloth.

“Caelan, no!”
Elandra screamed behind him.

He paid her no
heed. There was one chance to strike Beloth from behind, while his back was
turned and he was busy roasting people alive. Grimly Caelan raised his sword,
sharing with the weapon, feeling the death poised in the steel, feeling the
lingering touch of Orlo who had owned this blade since it was first forged. It
was a worthy weapon, well made, well kept in its long years of service.

Caelan swung it
with all his might, but at the last second Beloth whirled to face him and
parried with the black sword. Steel clashed against steel, and Caelan’s weapon
shattered into a thousand pieces that came raining down.

Beloth bellowed a
word, and Caelan was knocked sprawling by the force of it. He landed with
bruising force across part of Tirhin’s corpse and lay there, winded and
stunned. Pain from his back broke through
severance,
and he felt his
wound reopen. His courage faltered. The Penestricans had not healed him
completely; perhaps they had not had sufficient time, or perhaps they had not
understood the all-or-nothing roughness of combat.

“Mortal fool!”
Beloth shouted at him, and raised the black sword to finish him.

Caelan had no time
to think. He rolled over, trying to scramble to his feet, and saw the hilt
jewel of Tirhin’s sword flashing above the edge of the scabbard. It was a
large, square-cut emerald.

Everything froze
for the space of a heartbeat as Caelan recognized Exoner. Tirhin had taken it
from him, yet Exoner had been forged for one hand alone. It would not let
Tirhin draw it against darkness, and Tirhin had died.

Now, Caelan could
hear the song of the sword, calling to him, and his own spirit sang in answer.

But Beloth was
swinging at him. Caelan rolled directly under the path of the black sword, and
heard it whistling down as he gripped Exoner’s hilt.

Strength flowed
into him like a jolt, and light seemed to flash around him as the sword slid from
its scabbard.

Caelan had no time
to parry, but Exoner seemed to turn in his hand of its own volition. Its
shining blade met the black one, and lightning flashed around them.

The air popped and
shimmered; then Beloth went staggering back and Caelan had time to gain his
feet.

They faced each
other in the square, no longer aware of the people or the confusion. Exoner was
dancing in Caelan’s hand, humming with energy, its blade radiant with white
light.

Caelan thought of
Moah’s teaching on the glacier, thought of the lectures of his father, thought
of the mastery of
severance
that had brought him to this point and that
sustained him now. He thought of the waters closing over his head, and how he
had learned surrender and trust.

The Magria had
told him to have faith. Clinging to that, he surrendered now, releasing
severance
completely. The pain in his side engulfed him. But he flowed into
sevaisin,
merging fully with the spell-forged creation that was Exoner. The
white light within the sword flowed up his arms and down the length of his
body, until he shone with the light, was filled with the light, became the
light.

Beloth frowned and
lifted his arm to shield his eyes. “What spell do you summon, mortal?”

“I am Caelan M’an
i Luciel,” he said, and his voice boomed over the square with as much volume as
Beloth’s. “I am the Light Bringer. I have come to destroy you, Beloth, and the
darkness you bring.”

Eyes afire with
fury, Beloth circled him. Flames belched from his nostrils, but Caelan used
Exoner to deflect the fire back at Beloth. The god howled, and the air grew
rank with the stench of singed flesh.

“Feel what it’s
like to wear a man’s body,” Caelan taunted him.

As he spoke, he
sprang. White sword met black in a furious scrape and clang, back and forth too
fast for the eye to follow. Caelan could feel Beloth’s tremendous strength
pressing against him as their hilt guards locked. Not daring to meet Beloth’s
eyes, Caelan gritted his teeth as intense heat singed him. He felt as though he
were being roasted alive. Through the roaring in his ears he could hear Beloth
saying words of power, terrible words that burned in Caelan’s mind, but Caelan
hung on, refusing to give way.

The light flowing
through him drew on Beloth’s power, imbuing Caelan with barely enough of his
own to withstand the dark god.

Then Beloth broke
apart, heaving for breath. As he backed away, it seemed that he drew strength
out of Caelan. Staggering, Caelan dropped to one knee. His head was spinning.
He wanted to retch.

Beloth laughed,
and the sound was like fire in Caelan’s head. “You don’t know how to be a god,
mortal! You fail to use what you have been given.”

Flames burst from
his fingertips, engulfing Caelan. His clothes were on fire. He could feel his
flesh melting, burning on his bones. His hair was on fire. He screamed, and the
fire was sucked into his lungs. Writhing, aware of nothing but the agony,
Caelan screamed and struggled.

Deep in the
recesses of his mind, he heard a voice calling to him, a voice like the crystal
waters of the Cascade River—pure, clear, and cold. It was Lea’s voice, calling
to him.

Desperately he
reached out to her. “Lea! Help me!”

“Don’t fight it,”
she said. “Accept the flames.”

“I’m dying. Lea!”

“Accept the fire.
Accept the death. Take it into yourself. The more you fight, the more you will
lose.”

The flames were
horrible. He could barely hear her. He didn’t understand. He could see his own
skin melted off his fingers now, could see his charred bones gripping the hilt
of his sword.

Then the sword
began to sing to him. It sang in the language of fire and cold metal. It sang
in the language of ice and water. It sang in the language of trees and wind and
the earth itself. It sang of purity and courage, of the strength of mountains
and the strength of life. It sang of light, and as it sang Caelan ceased to
fear and struggle.

He let the flames
become a part of him, as the light was, as once he had absorbed the fire of the
warding keys so long ago. He absorbed all that Beloth hurled against him, and
felt himself grow stronger. Radiance shone from him, burning back the gloom and
darkness that veiled the air. The mist upon the ground melted back from him.
Light—dim and feeble at first—began to spread across the square, becoming
brighter with every passing moment.

Beloth staggered
back, and the flames ceased. The god no longer wore Kostimon’s features.
Instead his face was a blank visage, lacking any features except his glowing
eyes. And they were growing dull and dim.

“You cannot defeat
me!” he roared. “I am the destroyer!”

“Then destroy
yourself,” Caelan replied, and lifted his arms. He swung Exoner with all his
might.

Beloth’s sword met
it, but this time the black sword shattered. Beloth went down, screaming
hateful curses, and Caelan plunged Exoner deep.

There was a great
explosion, and the sound of stone breaking. The earth cracked open, yawning
wide in a gulf that spanned the square and sent people scrambling for safety.
Beloth clawed at the edge of the chasm, clutching at Caelan’s ankles as though
to pull him over too. Caelan called upon everything he had left and drove the
blade deeper, knocking Beloth over the edge.

As Beloth fell
into the chasm, Caelan pulled Exoner free with a shout of triumph.

Not yet able to
believe it, his blood still thrumming hard, Caelan glanced down at himself and
saw that his skin was whole. Not even his clothes were charred. So this was
victory, sweeter and more glorious than anything ever met in the arena.