Shadows of Moth (23 page)

The claws lashed
again, each like a katana. One claw nicked Torin's shoulder. His
blood splattered the icy floor. The crowd roared with a sound like a
thunderstorm, and the arena shook.

"Eat his
flesh!" Ashmog cried above. "Eat, Gashdov!"

The bear roared
above Torin, mouth stretched wide. All Torin saw was the great
gullet, the massive teeth, the swinging uvula.

Thrust
your dagger!
whispered a voice inside him.
Fight
it! Stab it!

Ignoring that
voice, he tossed his dagger aside.

He forced himself
to go limp.

I
did not win the last war with violence,
he thought.
I
won by fixing the Cabera Clock. By healing something broken.

"If you must
feed," Torin whispered to the bear, "feed and enjoy your
meal. But if you will suffer your hunger, I will provide you with
more than a meal. I will offer you friendship." He stared at the
roaring beast, and he recognized something in Gashdov's
eyes—something lonely, something lost. "What is the greatest
pain they caused you, friend? Hunger or loneliness?"

The great bear
bellowed and Torin winced, waiting to be eaten. Surely Gashdov could
not understand. It was a mindless animal, a vicious killer. But as
the roar went on, those teeth did not rip into him, and Torin heard
the loneliness in that cry, the pain. He stared up at the howling
bear.

This
is not merely an enraged animal,
he thought.
Gashdov
is an ancient deity of the forest, one who is no less a prisoner than
I am.

"I
understand," Torin whispered. He reached up a hesitant hand and
stroked the animal's brown fur. "I understand what they did to
you. You're meant to roam the forests, to protect this ancient land,
your domain, to watch over your people." Torin's eyes stung.
"But they imprisoned you here, forced you to kill men for food.
To entertain them."

The bear's roar now
sounded like a plaintive cry of pain. His paws thumped down onto the
soil, and Torin stroked the animal. The bear's head nuzzled him, as
large as Torin's entire body.

"It's all
right," Torin whispered. "I understand. I'm your friend."

The bear emitted
soft, deep gurgles, sounds of old kindness almost crushed under
hunger and imprisonment.

Across the arena,
the roars of the crowd—like the roars of the bear—faded.

One hand upon the
bear's head, Torin pointed up at King Ashmog.

"You
imprisoned this animal!" he said. Blood dripped down Torin's arm
but he barely noticed the pain. "You turned against your own
protector, your own god. Even in Arden, we tell stories of the
ancient Gashdov, a guardian of the forest, a noble deity of the
northern hinterlands. And you turned him into this." Torin shook
his head sadly. "Into a starving animal for a bear-baiting
spectacle."

He stood in the
arena, chest heaving, waiting for King Ashmog to call for archers,
perhaps to call for a bow and shoot Torin himself. If he had to die,
at least he'd die speaking truth. Truth is what he had always fought
for, had always been willing to die for. Snow glided down, coating
the arena, turning the bear white. Silence. No movement but for the
falling snow.

Finally Ashmog
spoke, and his voice was soft, awed, and in the silence it carried
down from the bleachers, as clear as if shouted.

"He tamed
Gashdov." Tears streamed down the beefy man's cheeks. "He
tamed the beast!" The king rose to his feet, unslung his war
hammer from across his back, and raised the weapon above his head.
"He spoke to the bear, and the bear heard his words. Kava Or has
risen!"

Torin blinked. Who
had risen?

The bearded king
trundled down the bleachers, shoving men aside, and entered the
arena. He rushed toward Torin and the tamed bear. Torin half-expected
the man to swing his hammer, and he winced. But King Ashmog knelt
before Torin, holding out his hammer as an offering. Tears streamed
down the king's ruddy cheeks, and his bottom lip trembled.

"Forgive me,
Kava Or, He Who Talks to Bears." Ashmog's chest shook. "Forgive
me, Old One, Spirit of the Forest. I did not know." He was
weeping now. "You tamed Gashdov, Guardian of Verilon. You spoke
to him. You are Kava Or, prophesied to rise in Verilon's greatest
hour of peril, to return our god to sanity, to help us fight evil."

Along with relief
for his spared life, anger rose in Torin. He stared at the kneeling,
weeping king. "Saved him from sanity? Maybe if you hadn't
imprisoned him, hadn't forced him to slay men for food, he would not
have gone mad."

Ashmog prostrated
himself. "Forgive us, Kava Or! The great god Gashdov went mad
many generations ago, and we could not tame him, could not speak with
him. But you spoke. And he listened." The king rose to his feet,
eyes solemn. "I understand now. The prophesies spoke truth. An
evil has arisen, and it storms forth from the south—the evil of the
Radian Empire. Gashdov is restored to sanity. Kava Or has joined us."
He turned toward the crowd. "Kava Or has risen!"

The crowd cheered
and their voices soon rose in song, a prayer of the forest. In the
arena, Gashdov moved closer to Torin, nuzzling him with his wet
snout.

Stroking the
animal, Torin looked at King Ashmog who stood beside him.

"Will you let
the forces of Arden into your walls, Ashmog? Will you fight with us
against the Radians?"

Ashmog tightened
his lips and clutched Torin's shoulder. His eyes burned, and his lips
peeled back in a sneer. "Kava Or, we will not just fight. We
will crush the Radians as a hammer crushes stone."

 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
A MEMORY OF MUSIC

Emperor
Tirus Serin sat on his horse, staring down at the smoldering
sinkhole, and clenched his fists.

"Gone,"
he whispered, voice choked. "You're gone, Pahmey. As I had vowed
to you."

Around
him, the hosts of his empire cheered. Men beat drums, blew trumpets,
and sang the songs of Radianism. A hundred thousand troops roared for
victory. In the river, men cheered atop ships, and cannons blasted
out in triumph. Even Lari, sitting at Serin's side upon her horse,
raised her fist and howled with joy.

But
Serin watched silently, his jaw tight, the memories pounding through
him. Most of the others were too young to remember. But he, Tirus
Serin, had been to Pahmey before. The memory gripped him like a fist
of magic.

He
had been a young man, not yet thirty, when the last war had flared
across the night. Sir Tirus Serin—handsome, the firstborn of a proud
lord, heir to Sunmotte, a favorite son of sunlight. He was a man of
Mageria, but that war he fought alongside Arden, the kingdom of his
betrothed. His bride—a fair but weak-willed woman named Ora—waited
back in Kingswall, and Serin had come here to kill, to shed as much
blood as he could before settling down with a wife.

"Slay
them all!" Serin shouted, marching through the city gates. "Slay
the nightcrawlers!"

They
stepped over the corpses of Elorians and through the shattered gates,
entering the city of Pahmey.

And
there Serin saw her.

His
sword bloody, his blood pumping, he lost his breath.

An
Elorian woman stood ahead on the boulevard. She was not a soldier;
she wore no armor, only a black silk dress. Blood and cuts covered
her, and she held a katana. Her oversized purple eyes met his gaze,
then moved to stare at the dozens of soldiers around him.

"I
am Koyee of Eloria!" she called out to the advancing
Timandrians. "I am a warrior of the night. I am a huntress of
the moonlit plains. This is my city. This is my land. You cannot
enter. Return to the day! This city is forbidden to you. You cannot
enter. We are the night!"

Serin had always thought the
Elorians weak, sniveling creatures, nefarious and pathetic.

Here he saw strength. Here he
saw beauty.

At that moment, Serin loved his
enemy.

His comrades jeered around him,
mocking Koyee. His king—the proud Ceranor—led men forth to slay the
girl. But Serin could not fight, barely move.

She's
beautiful,
he thought. She intoxicated him, more alluring than wine, than
killing an enemy. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

Then the battle flowed over the
city. Swords rang. Arrows flew. Blood splattered the glass buildings
of Pahmey. And she vanished.

And he killed.

Serin marched through the
streets, slaying all in his path. He cut down Elorian soldiers. He
cut down women, children, leaving a path of dead, slaying all those
weak worms, seeking her—the only one who had stood up, had
challenged him, had faced him with defiance. The single strong,
noble, beautiful Elorian he had seen. Koyee.

"Where are you, Koyee?"
he whispered, slicing through the fleeing enemy.

The city fell that turn. The
banners of sunlight rose. The blood of Eloria washed the streets.

"Return to me," his
betrothed pleaded in her letters. "Return to me, my sweet Tirus,
so we may wed in the bright gardens of Kingswall or the proud halls
of Markfir."

Ora sealed all her letters with
a kiss, and Serin—a soldier in Occupied Pahmey—tossed the scrolls
into the fire.

For months he lived in the Night
Castle, a pagoda claimed from the defenders of Pahmey. For months he
patrolled the streets of that city, keeping the Elorians in line,
hunting down any who dared resist the conquerors of sunlight.

For months he sought her.

"Koyee," he whispered
whenever he lay down to sleep in the Night Castle. "The Girl in
the Black Dress."

He was not alone in seeking her,
of course. The Sailith monks, led by the squat and cruel Ferius,
searched every warren for Koyee—the girl who had wounded Ferius
himself in the battle. None found her.

She
must be dead,
Serin
thought as he lay in bed, as he patrolled the streets, as he dreamed
of her.
Or
perhaps she fled the city. She is gone.
His throat tightened.
And
I must return to my betrothed in the sunlight, to a lesser woman.

The
desperation clawed at him. Serin was not a drinker, not a smoker, but
that turn he needed to forget, to drown his worries in ale and the
hintan
spice the Elorians puffed in their dens. Clad in his armor, he walked
along the cobbled streets. Houses of opaque glass bricks rose at his
sides, their tiled roofs curling up at the edges. Many lanterns
shone, their tin shaped as laughing faces, and eyes glowed inside bat
houses of iron and silver. The towers of the city's crest rose above,
glass beacons of light. Public fireplaces, their grills shaped as
dragons, roared at every street corner. Few Elorians walked the
streets these turns—a few men and women, clad in silken robes and
embroidered sashes, hurried between houses on slippered feet, quickly
vanishing into shadows. Most shops were closed. Most taverns had
boarded up their doors, refusing to serve the enemy. All but one
place.

"The Green Geode,"
Serin said, staring at the place. His soldiers had spoken of it in
hushed tones. From the outside, it seemed a simple building, not even
constructed of glass but simple dark stone. The Green Geode was a
rock in a field of flowers. This neighborhood sprawled near the
city's crest, a place for the wealthy, and the other buildings here
were grand, their columns soaring, their lanterns bright, places of
welcoming light and song. Through their wide glass windows, Serin
could see Elorian dancers and actors entertaining the Timandrian
troops. But Serin cared little for dances or plays; he sought only
forgetfulness. He would find forgetfulness in what the Elorians
called "pleasure dens"—places for lost souls.

He
entered the Green Geode, this little nook in the shadows. Once
inside, he understood the den's name. While the outside was crude
rock, green light washed the inner chamber. Crystals hung from the
ceiling. Lanterns blazed upon the walls. Several Timandrian soldiers
sat at tables, drinking ale and wine, and some even smoked
hintan
from hookahs—the Elorian spice that softened the mind, that erased
memories. The purple spice bubbled in glass vials, and green smoke
wafted through the air.

Upon
stages stood the yezyani—Elorian women trained in the arts of dance,
song, music, and seduction. They wore scanty silks that revealed more
than they hid, and jewels shone upon them, little glass vials that
trapped the light of angler fish. Two of the yezyani swayed upon one
stage, dancing seductively. Another performed with marionettes. The
third, clad in an indigo
qipao
dress and a clay mask, played a flute.

Serin's eyes narrowed. He stared
at the flutist.

His heart burst into a gallop.

Her mask hid her face, but Serin
knew that proud stance, that flowing white hair, those lavender eyes
that gleamed within her mask's eye holes.

"Koyee," he whispered.

She met his gaze, then looked
away, playing on. Serin sat at a table, but he no longer craved to
forget. He ordered no wine, no spice, merely sat and watched and
listened.

Beautiful,
he thought, mesmerized.
A
beautiful song. A beautiful woman.

"You are the only one who
resisted me," he whispered, thinking back to his first turn in
Pahmey, to marching through the gates and seeing her defiance, her
sword, her flashing eyes.

He knew that he loved
her—hopelessly, eternally.

When her song ended and she
stepped off the stage, he approached her. She tried to leave the
common room, to climb upstairs to her chamber, but he blocked her
way. His bulky, armored form was twice the size of her slim,
silk-clad body.

She stared up at him. Through
the mask holes, her eyes narrowed.

"Move," she said,
speaking in Ardish, her accent heavy.