Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) (49 page)

His words barely penetrated Xander’s contemplation of the silver cord that crossed the rosy mist to a vortex in space over Keth. On the edge of Kairos and the ether, Xander ran the white blade across Zan’s life cord, unharmed by the lightning that danced along its silver span. For a moment, the vibrations running through the blade sounded like screams.

“I should leave you like this,” Xander said in reply.

“It would serve him right,” agreed Tefler, “and save us some time.”

Altor Sykes had been entrusted with his clan’s survival in harsh times. All of his lessons on justice flashed through Xander’s mind before he brought the scimitar down on Zan’s life cord.

More screams—louder this time—reverberated through the blade, but Xander persisted; cutting twice more until the cord was severed. The screaming stopped, but the vortex remained.

“Those souldancer cords are tough,” Tefler said. “I doubt any other blade would’ve scratched it. Are you alright?”

Xander didn’t know he was shaking until he saw the sword wavering in his hand. He stared transfixed at his own lavender reflection before finding the strength to face the second gate that must also have screamed silently in the endless night.

The orange-red cord joining the fire gate to the Nexus—the same that had joined Astlin to him—blazed against the rose-tinted stars.

Moving himself within striking distance of Astlin’s final tie to life required only an act of will. Xander raised the sword; placed his other hand on the hilt to guide the blow.

And let the blade fall harmlessly to his side.

“You have to do this,” Tefler said. “She helped us.”

Xander wheeled on the priest. “This is not help. It’s betrayal.”

“She’s suffering.”

“And for that crime she deserves death?”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Tefler. “You know why we came here. Don’t leave the job half done.”

“I have done justice to Zan. Why should I give his victim the same reward as her killer?”

Tefler rolled his strange eyes. “Th’ix already evened that score. Leaving her like this means she’s worse off than Zan.”

“I felt her on the Fire Stratum,” Xander said. “She is alive.”

“That’s the problem.” Tefler held out his hand. “No shame admitting you’re too squeamish to solve it. Leave this one to me.”

Xander slowly extended the scimitar, hilt-first. Tefler grasped the white metal for only an instant before tearing his hand away with a curse and the stench of seared skin.

“The damn thing burned me!”

Xander tucked the sword back into his belt. “There is another solution.”

“Oh yeah?” said Tefler, fanning his injured hand. “What?”

“Zadok is waking in Kairos. We’ll petition him for Astlin’s life.”

What was a cacophony of turning gears is now a few scattered ticks as Xander and Tefler emerge from the terminus. They stand upon the platform and look out over the eerily still clockwork realm.

“Kairos has almost stopped,” says Xander.

Tefler points out a lone figure guarding the bridge below. “Who’s that?”

Xander’s eye widens. Szodrin’s face is unmistakable though his black hair has gone shock white. His uniform is reduced to a ragged pair of tan pants and a torn black shirt.

“I’d thought you dead,” says Xander as he approaches the Night Gen with Tefler in tow.

Szodrin’s eyes are more yellow than green now, and cold. “I escaped death. I did not cheat it, unlike you.”

Xander stops several paces from Szodrin. “You speak as if I cheated
you
.”

“You name your own crime, Xander Sykes. He whom the Nexus reclaims is not meant to walk the world again, unless by chance the Well spins his silver cord again in a far age. But now the fullness of ages is come.”

Awe and dread fill Xander’s heart. “Who are you?”

“You do not err to call me Szodrin of the Night Gen, for Kairos decrees him my instrument. Throughout time men have called me many names, invoking what they knew only vaguely through myth—Nexus, Faerda, Teth, Zadok.”

An impulse more primal than hunger drives Xander to his knees. “The Righteous One.”

Xander knows that Nessh preached the fear of God, but just as often lauded the peace that flowed from his presence. Kneeling before Szodrin, Xander feels only terror.

Tefler walks past him to stand before God incarnate. “Go easy on him,” he says, nodding toward Xander. “It’s his first time.”

“Flippant words conceal much evil,” declares Szodrin. “I know your petition. Neither you nor this Nesshin can sway my will.”

Xander’s love for Astlin overcomes his fear of God long enough for him to raise his trembling voice. “If you will it, make my beloved whole. Save her from torment.”

“You do well to call me righteous,” says Szodrin, “but sentiment clouds your judgment. The penalty you meted out to Zan was just, yet his crimes paled before hers.”

Szodrin reaches into empty space and draws forth a thread that glows like wire in a forge. “Therefore, I take back the life her sins have rendered forfeit.”

The fiery thread dissolves. Its remnants fall from Szodrin’s hand like stardust.

An echo of fear and sorrow whispers to Xander’s soul and fades. He leaps to his feet. Though unsure of what he says, his voice is raw and his face tear-streaked before he finishes.

Tefler lightly elbows Xander. “No sense making him mad. Let’s leave while we can.”

Szodrin turns to watch as the last gears slow. “Stay or go as you will. Nothing can escape my judgment. Neither the least mote of ether nor Thera herself.”

“I know,” says a female voice. “So I didn’t come by myself.”

The Mother of Demons crosses the bridge from the clockwork canyons, her white skirts gathered in one pale hand. Xander’s wrath flares, but bereft of hope, his fear is stronger.

Szodrin’s withering glare passes from Tefler to Thera. “You think it clever to trespass through your priest? Do not hope to succeed where the mortals you sent have failed.”

“They’re not the only ones I brought,” Thera says, approaching to stand at Szodrin’s right. “If I’m here, so is my brother.”

She waves a hand at the dark sky overhead. A rosy haze descends, outlining three shapes vaster than worlds—a pyramid, a diamond, and now a cube. A distant light shines above them, and infinite darkness broods below.

A storm of golden light erupts from the cube. A pale, grey-robed figure descends to hover opposite Thera at Szodrin’s left. The newcomer’s theatrics reach an anticlimax when he lowers his cowl to reveal a gaunt face under drab brown hair.

The new arrival fixes dead eyes on Thera, and when he speaks, the absolute malice in his voice instills a cold horror to eclipse Xander’s dread of the others.

“You could not bind me forever, sister,” the gaunt man says. “Now the Void shall bathe the cosmos in sublime peace.”

“You mistake the meaning of Shaiel,” Szodrin says. “You claim to embody perfect law, but the Void is not immune to judgment.”

Shaiel glares at Szodrin. “By what right do you judge me?”

“By the craftsman’s right to appraise his work. Thera knew this, but she is divided between you both. I founded this order for good; not evil, reasoning that to give evil substance would allow men to destroy it. I set the Well above and the Void below and bade all choose between them. I was to rise and judge their works when the Well emptied, but my wayward children delayed the appointed time. Yet justice is not denied. The law which the Well forgot is inscribed on the heart of Kairos.”

Standing witness to a dispute among beings that fashioned the world, a question occurs to Xander. He does not know if utter despair or newfound courage compels him to ask, “What is your verdict?”

Szodrin turns. His face betrays no emotion as he stretches out his arms to Thera and Shaiel. “The light has failed. The Void goes astray. Behold your condemnation.”

“Behold yours,” says the Lord of the Void. The rosy sky turns sickly gold. Xander throws himself and Tefler down at Szodrin’s feet as the sallow sky falls on the terminus.

Szodrin bends under the Void’s icy weight. His upraised arms blacken. For an instant he seems about to collapse, but with a final effort he stands upright, and darkness returns.

“You served me in the beginning,” Szodrin tells the lesser gods. “Thera’s power shattered my harmony into warring fragments. She was to aid me again if the shards failed to purge her corruption. This order is fit only to be leveled brick by brick. This is your sentence—return now to your first purpose and carry out my will.”

“You shall not thwart my perfect order,” Shaiel swears.

“I’m not your slave,” says Thera. “You should have learned that by now.”

A look passes between the divine siblings.

Blazing white and hellish gold light divide Kairos in half. The mountainous gear blocks on Thera’s side glow red; then orange, while the clockwork towers behind Shaiel crack under a rime of frost. Standing between extremes, Zadok burns and freezes.

Xander huddles on the ground, awaiting death by fire or ice. Somehow neither prana nor Void touches him.

Tefler kneels beside him, white and gold light streaming from his hands to deflect their opposites. Unbearable strain etches his face.

Laughter splits the roar of colliding primal forces. The lights fade. Szodrin still stands, his scarred chest heaving.

Silver glints in the dark hazy sky. Countless threads stream from the Well to pierce the cube, diamond, and pyramid. Many pass through more than one, and some traverse all three.

Xander traces his own life cord through both pyramid and diamond. He senses the echo again. It is faint, as if receding into the sky, through the Nexus.

Like a rain cloud over the horizon.

Tefler pulls on Xander’s arm, diverting his train of thought. “Now!” Thera’s priest urges him in a harsh whisper. “The sword!”

Xander grips the scimitar’s warm metal hilt. Without hesitation he stands and plunges the blade into Szodrin’s chest, forcing the air from the Night Gen’s lungs in one startled gasp.

Szodrin stares with lightless eyes. He slides from the blade as the last gear grinds to a halt.

Silence reigns as it must have before the birth of the world. Xander looks up from Szodrin’s corpse to see the dead god’s children regarding his slayer coolly. Xander thrusts the sword before him, pointing it first at one god; then the other.

“I know that blade,” Shaiel says. There is anger in his voice.

And fear?

Thera looks upon her father’s body. “It’s alright, Xander. I won’t be avenging Zadok on anyone.” Her rose quartz eyes shift to Tefler. “Especially not my son.”

Xander turns his head so fast his neck nearly snaps.

Tefler stares at the goddess, his impassive façade shattered. “You’re my mother?”

“Elathan took you from me,” she says. “I grew the tree to catch you when you fell.”

“And yet he seeks your life,” Shaiel scoffs, “If you desired death, you had only to ask.”

Xander levels the white sword at Shaiel’s chest. His hands shake as he feels the Void’s eyes on him.

“Heed me, boy. My sister knows neither justice nor love. She twists all to her own ends.”

“At least she renounces murder,” Xander says. “You hunted my clan to their deaths.”

Shaiel’s face holds no expression. “Death comes to all. Torment is another matter. Consider how the souldancers suffered for Zadok’s design.”

“None have suffered, but I alone,” says Szodrin’s voice.

Xander wheels to see Szodrin standing. His Night Gen uniform hangs in tatters from his burned and frozen flesh. A clean straight wound mars the center of his chest.

“Szodrin?” Xander says, unbelieving. “But I killed you.”

The being that was a Night Gen presses a blackened hand to its chest. “Regaining the lost fragments of their souls made my children perfect. Should not reclaiming the soul that was my whole self exalt me above them?”

A skyward glance confirms that the black pyramid has descended from its place on high. Zadok no longer speaks through his creature. He and Szodrin are one.

“The gods stand guilty,” Zadok decrees. “Now you, Xander, have chosen for men.”

“You rendered your verdict,” says Xander. “I acted to save those you would destroy.”

Zadok shakes his head. “I alone made Thera, and I judged her successors alone. I made men with Thera’s aid, and I would not judge them without theirs.

“You did not heed Szodrin when he said he’d escaped death. His soul was the last obstacle to my awakening. By his death at your hands, I have arisen for judgment.”

Xander looks at the white sword. Its surface casts everything in shades of lavender—even the White Well. But now it reflects a single point of pure white light that Zadok’s Nexus had hidden. The light whispers ineffable words in a familiar voice, and hope kindles in Xander’s heart.

Searching above, Xander realizes that the new light is hidden from his eye, but a new thought enters his mind.

“The gods have had their say. Will you listen to one man’s plea on behalf of men?”

Zadok broods in silence before he answers. “Say your piece.”

Xander points to the black monoliths woven together with silver threads. “You made the world for good, and you judge its worth by all creatures’ choice for evil or good.”

“That is so,” says Zadok. “My fragments could have chosen light and thus destroyed the darkness, but they preferred evil.”

“Why should they not?” asks Xander.

Zadok’s brow creases. “Leave is given you to make but one plea. Do not waste it on foolish games.”

“Is it foolish to ask why one should prefer good to evil?”

Zadok eyes Xander sternly but says nothing.

“Goodness, light, and life are one and the same,” Xander continues. “So are evil, darkness, and death. You presume that the Well’s light is best, but Shaiel proposes a world founded on the Void that is no less sound.”

“Evil is opposed to right order,” Zadok says.

“But it is still an order. Shaiel’s darkness isn’t just a shadow cast by light. You gave it substance so it could be destroyed but gave us no reason to destroy it.”

“I intended that all beings pursue good.”

“Yet we chose evil. By giving evil substance, you allowed us to make it our good.”