The Chaos Crystal (6 page)

'I did invite them, you know. But they didn't want to join the party.'

'They might have,' she suggested, 'if Cayal hadn't told them he needed their help to die. What was he thinking, telling them that?'

'He wasn't supposed to say anything of the kind,' Lukys replied. 'We had a very plausible story prepared about me wanting to conduct experiments on the Tide. Apparently, some mortal woman Cayal got involved with back in Glaeba let the cat out of the bag.'

Maralyce was silent for a moment. 'What are we going to do?'

Declan leaned against the icy, glowing wall, settling in to listen to what should prove a very enlightening conversation. 'We need another Tide Lord.'

'Then you're really expecting it to work this time?'

'I was thinking of recruiting Elyssa to our cause,' Lukys replied, without actually answering Maralyce's question. 'Particularly given the news you bring. Or rather, getting Cayal to ask her. She'd not lift a finger to aid you or I, but she'd walk through hell barefoot if she thought it might finally get Cayal into her bed.'

'Why not Brynden?'

'Because he's a pompous, self-righteous, pain in the arse,' Lukys's disembodied voice replied. 'I'm not going to spend eternity listening to him go on and on about what we're doing wrong with our immortality.'

'But surely, one of the others —'

'Who? Tryan? Jaxyn?' Lukys cut it. 'Tryan's a sadistic narcissist and Jaxyn's a lazy, amoral bastard. Elyssa's a selfish cow, I'll grant you, but she's probably the best of a bad bunch for our purposes.'

'I've always considered Elyssa little more than a self-centred child at heart,' Maralyce said.

'We're all self-centred children at heart,' Lukys said dismissively. 'Aren't we, Declan?'

Declan sighed. He should have realised Lukys would know he was there. Pushing off the wall, he continued down the stairs, surprised to find a light ahead of him that seemed much too bright to come from a mere underground storeroom. He took the last few steps two at a time and emerged into a small ante- chamber that opened up into a vista that took his breath away.

'Tides
..

It wasn't a room. It was a cavern. Carved from the permafrost beneath the castle, the vast chamber stretched away into the distance, so far Declan was

hard-pressed to figure out how far away the opposite wall might be. The massive hall was almost perfectly circular, the curved and ribbed walls nearly fifty feet high, lit by a ring of fire that seemed to be burning the very ice itself as fuel. At the very centre of the room there was a raised circular platform made of solid ice. Other than that, the immense chamber was empty.

Declan stopped and stared, his jaw slack.

After a moment, he turned from the remarkable sight before him and glanced to his right where Lukys and Maralyce were standing, just inside the entrance to the cavern. 'What is this place?'

'My cellar,' his father said, looking a little smug. 'Impressive, don't you think?'

'What's fuelling the fires?'

'Methane trapped under the permafrost,' Lukys said. 'We hit a pocket when we were digging out the chamber.' His father smiled. 'Taryx blew his arm off when we stumbled over it, in fact. Put him out of action for days. It's contained now, of course, but there's probably enough gas trapped under the ice here to blow the arse out of Jelidia, if it escaped.'

'So you set fire to it, naturally.' Declan frowned. This is what being immortal did to you, he supposed. You spoke of catastrophic danger to every life on Amyrantha in vague, general terms, with no thought or care for the consequences to mortal existence. He was learning, however, that there was little use in pointing that out. 'Where's the light on the stairs coming from?'

'It's a naturally luminescent moss,' Maralyce explained. 'It normally grows in some very dark and watery places. Lukys
...
encouraged it to grow here on the ice.'

'Using magic?'

'No, Declan,' Lukys said, a little impatiently. 'I sat down and held a meaningful dialogue with it, and won over the entire species with the strength of my charming personality.'

Declan turned to stare in awe at the chamber once more. 'What's it for?'

Neither Maralyce nor Lukys answered him. He glanced over his shoulder at them. 'Oh, come on, you know I overheard enough to realise you're up to
something.''

They glanced at each other before Maralyce answered his question. 'When we activate the Chaos Crystal, it will open a portal to another world.' He stepped forward, opening his arms wide. 'This is where we'll do it.'

Declan studied his father and great-grandmother for a moment, as something dawned on him that he probably should have questioned sooner. 'Just exactly how old are you two?'

'Older than you can imagine,' Lukys conceded.

'So you didn't become immortal when that meteor hit the ship near Jelidia, did you?'

Lukys shook his head. 'No. Engarhod did, though. That part of the story is true enough. As is the story about the fire that destroyed the brothel in Cuttlefish Bay where Syrolee worked.'

'And how did Engarhod become immortal? Is he another one of your random offspring?'

His father smiled. 'Tides, I hope not.'

'What makes
you
unique, Declan,' Maralyce said, in a somewhat more conciliatory tone, 'is that we can trace your ancestry back to the immortals who spawned you. But you're the exception, rather than the rule. There have been immortals out among the mortal population spreading their seed for thousands of years. The circumstances that give rise to a potential immortal are unlikely, but by no means improbable.'

Declan frowned as another thought occurred to him. 'That means there's a fair chance we're all related in some way,' he said.

Lukys smiled widely. 'Imagine that — Cayal might be your brother.'

Declan had no desire to contemplate such an unsettling notion. He wanted answers to other questions. Answers he'd come to Jelidia to find. 'So you find this crystal of yours, wait until the Tide peaks, step through to another world, killing Cayal in the process. Why? What's wrong with this world?'

'It's getting a little crowded,' Lukys said.

'What's the real reason?'

Lukys smiled, but it was Maralyce who answered him. 'There's quite a few more immortals on this world than is comfortable to co-exist with,' she said. 'And this lot in particular are somewhat
...
difficult.'

'You mean Cataclysms
aren't
the norm among your kind?'

Lukys looked at Maralyce. 'He gets the sarcasm from your side of the family, I think.'

'And the brains,' Maralyce shot back without even cracking a smile. 'The stubbornness, however, is all yours.'

Declan ignored their asides, determined not to be distracted from his purpose. Time was ticking on, the Tide was peaking, and he still had no real idea until now — when he'd stepped into this hidden fiery chamber beneath the palace — how Lukys intended to kill an immortal, other than his vague assurances that he could. 'I don't believe the "too many immortals here for comfort" excuse.'

Lukys looked at him for a moment, as if debating something, and then shrugged. 'It's time, Declan, that's why. We get one Tide in a hundred thousand years strong enough to power the Chaos Crystal. That Tide is on the way and if we don't leave, that's another thousand millennia on Amyrantha, with the likes of Syrolee reducing civilisation to rubble every time the Tide peaks.'

'And what happens to the people of Amyrantha?' 'They get to be rid of at least half of us. Isn't that what the Cabal's been working toward all these years?

Isn't it why
you're
here, pretending you care, when we all know you'd love nothing more than to see the end of every immortal you've ever encountered?'

Declan frowned. It was a little disturbing to think Lukys could read him so easily. 'Suppose I don't want to go to this new world of yours?'

'Then stay here,' Lukys said, unconcerned, the firelight on his face giving it a demonic cast that Declan thought quite appropriate. 'Remain here and live happily ever after, for all I care. This is a one-way trip, son; we're taking the crystal with us. It'll be the only chance you'll ever have to leave here. As for what happens on Amyrantha, well
...
it won't be our concern once we're gone.'

'Why are you so certain opening the portal will kill Cayal?'

'Because,' Maralyce said, 'he'll be holding the crystal when we focus the Tide.'

CHAPTER 5

'You know, Chikita, this just might work.'

'Yes, Lord Jaxyn. It's a brilliant strategy.'

Jaxyn Aranville glanced behind him at the small ginger feline Crasii standing guard, something she was managing to do while standing close to the roaring fire, rather than near the lord for whose safety she was responsible. He didn't begrudge her the warmth. The council chamber was a cavernous room, almost impossible to heat effectively, and he didn't want her reactions dulled by the cold.

He didn't care much about her opinion. And, being Crasii, she didn't have any choice but to agree with
him,
anyway. Jaxyn still liked to hear her say it, though.

'Tell me how clever I am, kitten.'

'You are the most brilliant military strategist who ever lived, my lord,' the Crasii dutifully assured him, although she sounded less than convincing. Perhaps it was because she was following instructions. Or maybe her Crasii brain didn't really appreciate what he'd devised. Perhaps she lacked the intelligence to understand his genius.

And his plan
was
pure genius. For the first time in living memory the Great Lakes were frozen and any day now the invasion of Caelum could begin. Jaxyn leaned back in the king's throne he'd commandeered and studied the battle plans laid out on the council chamber's long polished table, well pleased with his efforts.

He'd solved the problem of what to do with the tender feet of the feline Crasii who made up the bulk of his attack force. He'd gathered enough troops at the various staging points he'd selected without raising the alarm in Caelum. By choosing major ports that were currently idle because of the ice, he'd managed to keep the Caelish believing his invasion force was stranded by the big freeze. The only thing holding up his conquest of the neighbouring kingdom was the last shipment of sheepskin boots he'd ordered from Tenacia. He'd had word the freighter carrying the boots had already docked at Solmain. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the cargo to arrive overland from the coast. It would take a good two weeks for the boots to get here, which meant for the first time in weeks Jaxyn had time to deal with a few other pressing issues he'd had to delay attending to until now.

'Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren't you, darling?'

Jaxyn glanced up to find Lyna standing by the chamber door. Rugged up in furs against the bitter cold, the tall, dark-haired immortal was posing as his fiancee and distant cousin, Lady Aleena Aranville. But there was little love lost between Jaxyn and his future bride. Theirs was an alliance of convenience that had nothing to do with trust and everything to do with avarice.

'What are you talking about?'

'You're sitting on the king's throne. Have you finally got rid of the irritating boy, or are you just trying it on for size?'

Jaxyn rose to his feet, in no mood to play Lyna's games. He eyed her fur cloak and raised a questioning brow. 'What's with the bearskin? Surely you're not feeling the cold?'

'Of course not,' she said, shrugging off the thick white cloak and draping it over one of the chairs at the

other end of the table. 'It's just everyone else is wandering around Herino like their balls are frozen solid. It looks a bit odd if we're dressed for a summery turn along the lakeshore.' She walked the length of the long table in the centre of the hall, studying the diagrams and plans laid out on its surface as she walked. 'Is it your doing?' 'Is what my doing?'

'This weather?' she asked. 'Have you had a hand in this astonishing cold snap, or is it just coincidence that the day you decide to invade Caelum by marching across the ice, the Great Lakes conveniently freeze for the first time in living memory?'

Jaxyn smiled. 'Don't you just love serendipity?'

'It's a risk, isn't it?'

'Not particularly,' he said. 'I haven't altered the weather. Just
...
encouraged it a bit. And it didn't need much. I've never felt the Tide rushing in like this before.'

'I
meant
what if the others had felt you working the Tide?' she said, glancing up from the table. 'Won't Tryan or Elyssa have felt what you were doing?'

He shook his head. 'It was done in the smallest increments I could manage over a period of several weeks. I was very careful. They wouldn't have noticed a thing.'

She smiled humourlessly. 'Well, aren't you the clever one?'

'I'm glad you're starting to appreciate that.' 'Will you win?' 'Of course.'

'And what will you do with the others when victory is yours? Once you've taken the Caelish throne and murdered your old boyfriend. I mean, I assume that's what this
...'
she waved a hand to encompass the plans laid out on the council chamber table,
'...
is all about. You, getting back at your old boyfriend for making you look a fool.'