Skull Gate (36 page)

Ashur's four legs pawed the air, and he trumpeted fearfully, impotently. Tras Sur'tian bounced about like a child's ball. Kimon's and Gel's bodies were tossed about like broken driftwood. Even the serpent thrashed helplessly, its sinuous bulk no advantage as great waves of earth buffeted the monster.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the arena. On the crater rim a blinding prominence of flame leaped up from the ring of fire. It arced high across the sky and licked the earth, turning the giant snake to charred and smoking meat.

Another tremor shook the ground, evoking a sharp cry from the arena wall. Ouijah lost her footing and fell, spilling her quiver. As each shaft touched the ground it transformed into a wriggling, angry snake.

Another explosion and a second prominence. Ouijah and serpents vanished in a shimmer of flame and smoke.

Dogon flapped around the arena like a trapped insect; leathery pinions frantically beat the air. He wailed his weird, shrill cry, a sound of purest terror. A third blast, and a scarlet tongue of flame ended his fear. He plummeted earthward, a sparkling cinder.

An ominous quiet settled over the arena. Frost felt the heart pounding in her chest, felt the ground tensing, gathering itself for something more.

An immense fissure suddenly opened in the arena floor, sending a column of dust racing upward. A deep rumbling drowned all other sound. New cracks split open, speeding every direction, turning the floor into an unpredictable lacework.

She had forgotten Kiowye. She glanced over her shoulder, searching for the demon. He stood not far away, as he had when she'd used the ruby talisman against him. She wondered if he had ever lost his balance during all the turmoil. He stood, a frozen sculpture, while the world fragmented, making no effort to save himself. The earth parted beneath his feet; with a surreal complacency that was all the more horrifying for its silence, he tumbled in.

Kimon's body was not far away. She feared that he might also be swallowed by the unnatural crevices that fractured the landscape. Choking on the dust that filled the air, she crawled toward him. If this was death, then she would go at his side, and Orchos be damned. She reached him, cradled his head in the crook of her arm, pressed her face to his, and waited for it to happen.

Thunder rippled the sky. Great racking bolts streaked the night with crackling fury. Strange colors swam in the air, whirled in dizzying vortices, birthing winds that wailed and made stinging darts of the finest particles.

An intense azure glow suffused the arena, and Frost looked up to seek its source. Her voice was a small, weak thing in the whistling gale as she called out in disbelief.

“Onokratos!"

Framed in Yahwei's mouth, the great Skull Gate, saffire-colored energy coruscated madly around and through him. Writhing lines of magical force whipped in all directions, warping weather, splitting the earth, bringing the arena's ancient walls crumbling down. On the crater's rim the ring of hellfire swelled and raged, launching impossible blazing streamers heavenward.

“Onokratos!” she shouted again, uselessly. “Stop! It's over!"

But he could not stop. She saw through the scintillant aura that surrounded him, watched him convulse in the arcane flow. His face was a mask of terror and pain; his mouth gaped in a noiseless scream.

He had told her.

Before Gel's enslavement made him a wizard, he had dabbled in sorcery, learned to tap into the natural magic of words and objects. He had never been very skilled, he said. Yet to save their lives he had tapped into the raw, wild power of Skodulac, magic so potent that she, too, stripped of her witch-powers, could feel it like an unrelenting itch.

A movement caught her eye. Tras Sur'tian fought to keep his balance as he worked his way through the rubble that had been the wall. Winds blasted him, the heaving earth tried to topple him. Sword in hand, he fought to reach Onokratos.

“Don't hurt him!” she cried, swallowing dust. “He can't control it!"

She knew the Korkyran couldn't hear. He leaped a fissure that opened in his path, tripped, recovered. His gaze fixed on the wizard with determined intensity.

Too late, she shouted a warning. Another section of the wall collapsed. Tras Sur'tian threw himself aside, but battle and fatigue had taken a toll, and he moved too slowly. Bone and mortar engulfed him, and he went down in a cloud of obscuring dust.

She waited hopefully for something to stir in the ruins. The dust quickly dissipated. She spied an arm. It didn't move.

She cursed bitterly, and fresh, angry tears scalded her cheeks. They had challenged hell and won. The dark contest was finished. Orchos and his servants were beaten.

But her comrades were dead. And the last of their fellowship would soon join them, slain by the very same power that gave them victory.

She wiped at the tears, rose uncertainly to her knees only to be blown over by the screaming winds. She got up again, crawled on all fours toward Onokratos. Particles of dust and bone and mortar stung her eyes; a chunk of wind-driven rubble ripped a bloody gash along her right shoulder. Lightning and thunder shivered the night as she made her way over and around jagged rents and cracks.

Onokratos saw her. He reached out, imploring. The pitiful look on his face spurred her on. The wizard begged for help, for release. She struggled to her feet, leaning against the rising maelstrom. She took a cautious step; another. Onokratos moved his mouth in an eerie, soundless plea.

A familiar sound rose over the wind's howling. Ashur trumpeted in fearful confusion. Someone called her name, she thought. But who lived? She dared not look behind her but focused all her will on reaching Onokratos before the power he had summoned consumed them all.

A blinding radiance surrounded him, grew brighter with each beat of her heart. He had tapped into the island's magic and could not break the link. She had to do that for him.

She was nearly there. The energy that poured through him sieved through her, now. She tingled all over; her muscles twitched and spasmed. She could not hesitate, she knew. In moments she would be as convulsive as he.

She sought forgiveness in the old man's eyes, and found there a blessing. Calling up the last of her strength, she smashed her fist into his jaw.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

All manifestations ceased. The earth stilled its rumbling. A final blast of thunder rolled away, and the sky turned clear and solemn. On the crater's rim, Orchos's ring of fire flickered and died, leaving only pale stars to light the arena.

Frost blinked in the sudden darkness. The crumpled form of Onokratos lay at her feet. He moaned as she ran a hand over his face, and his eyelids peeled slowly back. He looked up at her, too weak to do more than nod.

She heard her name again and turned, searching the gloom. “Where?” she answered, recognizing the voice.

“I'm pinned,” Tras Sur'tian called back.

She made her way carefully. With the ring of fire extinguished she could no longer see the fissures that latticed the arena floor. “I can't see you in the dark!” she shouted. “Keep talking."

A string of Korkyran curses guided her.

She had thought him buried in the rubble, but smoke and dust had deceived her. The arm she saw had been real enough; it was trapped at a peculiar angle beneath a pile of bone and mortar. His legs were also buried.

“I think it's broken,” he told her as she set to work to free his arm. “I can't feel my fingers.” She didn't answer but strained to move a particularly large, wedge-shaped segment that rested against his elbow. He groaned and cursed as she shifted it. “Sorry,” she said sincerely. He shook his head, biting his lip against the pain.

“Let me help."

She whirled, seizing up a chunk of mortar to throw.

“Thee are victorious."

She knew that voice. A cold hand closed over her heart. “Gel?” He emerged from the darkness. She stepped away from him, and he bent to lift the piece of wall she had been unable to move. “I thought you were dead,” she told him. Then, running a hand over her stomach, feeling the life that grew within, life he had planted there, she added hatefully, “I prayed you were dead."

Nearby, Ashur paced back and forth. At first, only his eye-flames were visible in the night. But as Gel moved closer to his mistress, the unicorn came closer. He stamped and kicked up dust. He shook his horn threateningly. Frost called to him. He came toward her, then stopped, backed off a little, ran, and jumped a wide fissure. He trotted to her side and nuzzled her shoulder.

She stroked his mane, feeling safer with him near. “We have to free Tras,” she whispered in the unicorn's ear as she rumpled his forelock.

With Gel's help it didn't take long. A knee was badly twisted, swollen and painful. But Tras was lucky. Bone and mortar weighed far less than stone and mortar, or even brick, might have. He could stand with help.

“We should get him over to the gate,” she said to Gel. “Will you carry him?"

Tras Sur'tian shunned the once-demon. “I don't need your help. I saw the blow that knocked you down. It wasn't so great. You feigned unconsciousness, hoping Dogon would ignore you. You let me fight him alone.” He looked to Frost, then at Ashur. “Don't think I can walk,” he said. “Would you let me ride?"

She pursed her lips. To her knowledge, no one else had ever ridden the unicorn. She didn't know how Ashur would react if Tras tried to mount him, and the old warrior was in no shape for any rough action. “Maybe, you'd better ask him,” she advised doubtfully.

But to her surprise, the unicorn went to Tras Sur'tian without another word exchanged. Tras looked questioningly at Frost. She could only shrug. “I've never figured him out,” she said truthfully. She turned to Gel. “At least help me get him up."

“No.” Tras Sur'tian was adamant. “I don't want his help for anything. He has shown me his mettle.” Before she could argue, the stubborn Korkyran tensed his good leg and jumped, clapping his good left arm around Ashur's neck. Frost moved quickly and boosted him with a hand on his rump.

“Should have been my foot,” she grumbled.

Tras lay across the unicorn's back in dead-man fashion. “No, this will do,” he said, grimacing when she tried to swing his leg across. “Please, let's go."

Onokratos was sitting up by the gate. When he saw them coming, he scrambled to his feet and helped Tras Sur'tian dismount. Together, he and Frost eased the Korkyran down and propped him against a solid portion of the wall. Frost found the ruptured water-skins where her old friend had discarded them earlier. She squeezed out a few precious drops to wet his dry lips. Then she rolled them into a bundle to cushion his head.

“You seem to have recovered quickly,” she said to Onokratos when Tras was comfortable.

“I feel fantastic!” the wizard answered, clipping his words. “Perhaps some residual effect of the energies that channeled through my body."

“It won't last,” she warned him.

Gel thrust a finger at the sky. “Look."

The stars no longer held their fixed places but tumbled randomly around the heavens. Familiar constellations broke up and re-formed in other parts of the sky. Here and there, a star winked momentarily brighter, icy blue or smoldering red, before it vanished. New stars formed.

“What's happening?” Tras Sur'tian whispered.

Onokratos answered, awed. “Chaos."

“And death,” Gel added, unmoved.

Frost could only nod. “Orchos is keeping his pact. He challenges Gath for the souls of our children."

They watched the silent spectacle overhead. Frost thought that she should hear explosions, thunder, crashes, and crackles, but there was only a supernatural quiet. Even their breathing seemed muted.

“What can we do?” Onokratos said when he could stand the silence no longer.

“Wait,” Gel told him dispassionately.

“We should get to Aki and Kalynda,” Frost said, slapping her forehead. “Make sure they're still all right."

“They're fine,” Tras Sur'tian reassured her. “The earth did not rise, nor fissure open where they lay. As if a barrier prevented any harm from reaching them."

“What about Kimon?” said Onokratos.

She stopped short, bit her lip, and looked out over the dark field toward the place where she had left him. “I don't think we can help him,” she answered, and blinked back tears. She had shed too many already; there would be no more. “I held him, but his flesh was so cold."

“Bring him anyway,” Tras Sur'tian said. “Bring everyone here, together. We are...” He hesitated, shook his head, seeming at a loss for words. “I don't know. More than a family, now.” He turned a scornful gaze on Gel. “Most of us, anyway. We have to care for our dead."

Frost bent down beside him. She could read the pain in his expression, in the thickness of his speech. She ran a hand along his face. His skin was very warm. “You're not well,” she said.

He caught her hand, squeezed it. “Hang on, woman,” he urged, returning her concern. “It's almost over."

She glanced up at the tumultuous sky and the insanely swirling stars. “Yes,” she agreed. “One way or the other."

“Bring them,” he whispered, patting the ground at his side. “Bring them all."

She promised him.

 

There was no way to measure the time that passed, but it crept by with agonizing slowness.

The stars stopped moving.

A while after that, Orchos appeared to them, man-sized. There was a different look to him. His shoulders slumped. The light in his eyes seemed weaker, almost bearable. Deep lines creased his brow.
Worn
, she decided. The god looked tired. She did not bother to rise from where she sat between the still forms of Aki and Kimon. She, too, was tired.

“I cannot win.” The lord of hell spoke with a human voice, not trading thoughts.

“And you cannot lose,” she responded with a shrug. She knew that for truth. There had been time to think about it while the gods battled. “Death and chaos are too closely matched."