Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) (24 page)

Astlin’s eyes pierced the dark, looking down at Xander with fear; not malice. His cries emerged as muffled groans.

“I won’t betray you to him,” she said, her voice trembling.

Denied air and light, Xander’s mind turned inward. He seemed to strive against a raging sea determined to drown him. The pyramid was still there, brooding over the march of ages. Two bright lines streaked from the monolith—one gleaming like silver and one a seething orange-red. The red cord wrapped around the white, forming a luminous braid.

Frantic effort restored Xander’s awareness of Astlin. She still wore his cloak, and he tugged desperately on its fabric.

“You saw when I was taken.” Astlin’s free hand shook as she pressed it to his racing heart. “I wish you could’ve done this for me.”

She wants to kill me!

“I want to save you.” Her words still wavered.

This
is
betrayal. Not salvation.

“They take everyone. But not you.”

It took all of Xander’s courage to stop struggling; all his hope to reach up and caress her face.
I will not abandon you.

Astlin tore herself away, twisting aside to writhe on the padded floor. The hitching sounds she made may have been weeping or laughter.

Xander lay inert for several moments, his tortured lungs heaving till his strength returned.

Led by the scent of dried roses and warm leather, he cautiously approached Astlin. “Despair is a subtle vice,” he said between wheezing breaths. “It tempts us gently but sows no less evil than wrath.”

Astlin rose and crossed the darkened room. The resounding impact that followed told Xander that she’d punched the door. The first attempt must have failed, for a second blow shook the room. Unable to breach her crystal prison the souldancer raged, screaming for release.

Xander’s mouth felt dry. The normally cool room grew hotter till sweat beaded on his face. “Peace, Serieigna! Let the Fire go hungry.”

The temperature dropped, returning to comfortable levels before plunging to an icy chill. Xander felt the sweat on his skin freeze.

This is not her doing.

The door slid open, revealing two dour men in hooded grey cloaks. Both wore curved swords at their sides.

“Who are you?” Xander asked through chattering teeth. “Where’s Thurif?”

The cloaked man on the right, sullen-eyed with a week’s worth of stubble, spoke first. “I am Bhakta Jadem, and this is Bhakta Var. We are priests of Shaiel, the bringers of his law.”

“Shaiel?” Astlin repeated.

“It means
Divine Gift
,” said Var—the younger, blond-haired greycloak.

Xander snorted. “If you consider God’s wrath a gift. In my tongue,
Shaiel
is that day when Zadok shall arise and judge all things.”

“Shaiel offers reprieve from judgment,” Jadem said. “Those who keep his law shall live even when the Void consumes all.”

“Those are not God’s gifts,” Xander scoffed. “They’re Thera’s lies.”

Var shook his head. “You doubt the Lord Shaiel, whose priests hold authority to manifest the power of the Void?”

The elder priest made a discreet motion of his hand and muttered something under his breath. A sickly golden glow surrounded him. The room’s chill became an arctic night, and Xander’s shivering verged on convulsions.

“Stop!” Astlin cried. Her plea unheard, she went to Xander and embraced him. He felt warmth returning, but less than he’d hoped.

“Your fire burns bright.” said Var, “But the Well is brighter, which yields at last to the Void.”

Smoldering wrath hardened Astlin’s voice. “If he dies, you’ll know what burning is.”

“The boy’s presence agitates you,” said Var, who looked not much older than Xander. “We shall remove him.” He touched the lining of his hood and spoke soundlessly into it.

Xander almost mistook the hum for his own shivering breath. He only realized what was happening when white radiance filled the room.

“No!” he and Astlin shouted at the same time.

The light rent him from her arms.

Enthroned in a chamber dug from the
Irminsul’s
trunk upon a dais raised by Shaiel’s priests, Hazeroth idly picked at the arm of his chair. Though he disdained his exile’s throne—a full share of his boundless hate belonged to Zebel’s upstart bastard—the demon prince preferred it to the barren cells of the
Serapis
. Better to nest in a goddess’ flesh than suffer human conceits.

The creaking of the double doors heralded light’s trespass into the sunless room. The slender beam fell upon jagged protrusions from floor and ceiling that evoked a loathsome predator’s maw.

“Do I disturb you?” a reedy voice called through the cracked door.

“Yes,” Hazeroth said. “The quicker you speak, the less you try my patience.”

One door opened fully, revealing a frail man with waxy marbled skin. His grey hood failed to hide his deformity. The sight was almost amusing.

“I will be brief,” the pale mendicant said as he approached.

“You wear a Lawbringer’s garb,” Hazeroth said. “Do you hold Shaiel’s faith?”

The beggar stopped before the dais and looked up at the throne. He had entirely the wrong number and placement of eyes. “Do
you
?” he asked.

Hazeroth’s nails dug long furrows into the wood of his chair. “I am Shaiel’s Blade, which cuts out offending tongues.”

“You are a cunning hunter. Such skill is wasted on hapless Nesshin.”

“I am known to you,” Hazeroth said, “yet your face is unknown to me. I wish it had remained so.”

The freak’s pale lips curled upward. “I am called Thurif, though there are some who call me traitor.”

“Ill names for one who comes bargaining.”

“I promised to be brief,” Thurif said. “Honesty serves brevity. You seek the Souldancer’s hosts. Why?”

Rising, descending the steps, and tearing through the supplicant’s mouth cost Hazeroth little effort, but he still begrudged it. The hand erupting from the back of Thurif’s head opened, and the fool’s pale tongue dropped to the floor.

Hazeroth left the twitching corpse and ascended the dais. Warm liquid too thin for blood soaked the sleeve of his sheer black mantle.

“The warning was a courtesy you should have heeded.”

“I shall take the lesson to heart,” a familiar, reedy voice said from behind him.

Hazeroth turned. A pale figure in black robes stood over its own corpse like an apparition of death.

“Apologies for the loss of a greycloak,” Thurif said. “I doubt you’ll have trouble replacing him.”

“You think yourself clever?” Hazeroth mocked. “You feign to show me something new? I wager you’ll die as easily as your dupe.”

“Perhaps,” Thurif said, “but you’d never be sure it
was
me.”

Hazeroth snorted and sat heavily in his chair. “Where then is your promised haste?”

“You interrupted me.”

“The next interruption will be the last. Speak.”

“My words depend on yours,” Thurif said. “One death for one answer.”

Hazeroth scowled but said, “My lord was trapped shortly after his apotheosis. The door to his prison is a host of the Souldancer.”

“Implying that you don’t know which one.”

“Shaiel’s Will guides us.” Hazeroth invested the name with only a touch of the contempt he felt. “But his eyes are blinded.”

Thurif chuckled. “Now my bargain. Only a souldancer can match a souldancer’s worth.”

Hazeroth barely kept his mouth from going slack. “I will not kill you. I shall hand you over to Shaiel’s Voice. Tzaraat could use a diversion from devising vain liturgies.”

“Be assured,” the mad grotesquerie said. “The one I seek is not your god’s escape.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I made him.” Pride embellished Thurif’s words. “I made them all, after a fashion.”

“Some would say you should die for it.”

“A judgment I cannot gainsay. But your lord’s plight would be worse if not for me.”

Hazeroth steeped his fingers. “Presuming I accept your outrageous terms, you have naught to bargain with. The souldancer and the ship you stole are both in my keeping.”

“Consider her a good faith offering.” Thurif’s raised finger resembled the stalk of a baneful fungus. “One other lies hidden on this sphere in a place known only to me.”

The demon tapped his nail against the scarred armrest and brooded. At last he said, “I have found three. Which would you have—stone, water, or air?”

“I will earn my price before taking it,” said Thurif.

The two greycloaks preached Shaiel’s law to Astlin through the invisible ward. Her curses and threats must have tired them, because they finally shut the door. Alone in her cell again, the souldancer paced like a caged beast, her wrath fed by the Fire’s constant urgings.

Let me out,
demanded the wordless voice.
Let me feast on their vaporized flesh.

She’d never been so sorely tempted, but Astlin held back. The greycloaks made no secret of the fact that they held Xander; that his safety relied on her good behavior.

Still, imagining how her jailors’ skin would fry in their own melting fat gave her some small comfort.

Wrestling with the Fire must have exhausted her, because Astlin was next aware of lying on the spongy floor looking up at a strange man. He resembled Damus and Szodrin, but his hair and skin were bone pale. A dark coat covered most of his body, and his left hand seemed gauntleted in silver.

Astlin sat up. She backed away until the wall blocked her retreat. “Who are you?”

The pale man turned slowly, cocking his head as though puzzled by the question. At length he said, “Zan.”

Astlin delved into Zan’s mind—and found nothing.

“You’re not there,” she gasped.

Zan’s pearlescent eyes never seemed to look directly at her. “I’m here for you.”

“What do you want?”

He paused again. “The Blade wants you with him.”

Panic drove Astlin to her feet. She tore off one glove and extended a brass hand in warning. Wonder replaced fear when the tips of Zan’s fingers touched hers. The electrical currents flowing through his silver hand coruscated before her heat-sensitive eyes.

“You’re like me,” she marveled.

The pale man nodded. “We’re all alike, but no two are the same.”

A wave of dizziness sent Astlin lurching backward, but Zan’s hand clasped hers and restored her balance.

He smiled shyly. “My friends want to meet you.”

The bright, molded ceramic cell made Xander miss his dark but comfortable cage on the
Kerioth
.

I keep trading one prison for another.
He laughed despite himself. The last two traps had at least made him better acquainted with Astlin.

Xander didn’t even know where he was, having arrived by direct translation. It was certainly some kind of prison since the cell door—a transparent sheet too strong for glass—looked out on a hallway lined with identical pens. Though the materials were strange, there was no mistaking the smell of recent construction.

Harsh white light filled the hall. Xander closed his eyes. He opened them and saw Damus Greystone in the cell across from his. The Gen rubbed his eyes with one hand while bracing himself against the wall with the other. He still hadn’t noticed his observer when a pair of greycloaks arrived.

Xander watched one of the greycloaks press a crystal plaque into a slot beside Damus’ cell. The clear door split in half down an invisible seam and retracted into the wall. The priests searched their charge, relieving him of all but his clothing despite his vocal protests. Having discharged their duty, the greycloaks locked the door again and exited the cell block.

Damus circled his small cage twice before noticing Xander. The Gen frowned, averted his eyes, and retired to the molded slab that served as his bed.

At least our conditions are equal,
Xander thought with some satisfaction. His task now was improving his position.

Unlike the
Kerioth
, this prison had no apparent means of nexic containment. Xander thought of bashing down his cell door but realized that unleashing such pressures in a confined space would likely crush him first.

Xander brooded over his dilemma, ignoring Damus while trying—and failing—to avoid thoughts of Astlin.
She is dangerous, just as Szodrin said.
Yet her attempt on his life was the product of fear and twisted compassion; not malice.