The Dark Remains (73 page)

“I can’t hold them!” the bard shouted.

Beltan and Vani both started to reach toward the next column in an effort to reach Aryn and Falken, but Grace
knew they would never make it in time. There was only one chance.

Grace pressed her eyes shut.
Aryn
.

A pause, then a wavering voice sounded in her mind.
Grace?

Aryn, listen to me
. It was hard to use the Touch; the force of the demon pulled at the threads of the Weirding.

Grace, I don’t want to fall!

You’re not going to fall. Weave a spell around him. Weave it now—a spell of pain
.

I can’t … I can’t hold the threads
.…

I’ll help you
.

But
—

Do it, Aryn
.

In her mind, Grace reached out invisible hands, clutched the undulating threads, held them in place for the young woman.

Now!

Grace sensed hesitation—then a hardness of will so strong and deep it shocked her. The threads came together in a shining cloth.

“My eyes!” the sorcerer shrieked. “
Deh’ru
, my eyes!”

He let go of Aryn’s leg and clutched his face, blood gushing through his fingers. He tumbled through the air, then reached the edge of the spiral. At once he began to drift along with the other matter, body motionless, staring upward with crimson sockets.

Falken reeled Aryn in. Grace felt the shadow—
her
shadow—pulsing on the edge of her vision. It had loomed when she helped Aryn with the spell, and it had not retreated. She felt the past weigh dark and heavy upon her.

She gazed into the shadow at the center of the Etherion, and in that instant came understanding. She thought of the pictographs on the altar, of the dot surrounded by circles of power. Yes, it all fit. It was a thing with endless gravity contained in a stone no larger than
her hand—a thing that bent and twisted both time and perception, that drew matter into it with insatiable voracity.

It’s like a black hole, Grace. The demon. Everything is spiraling toward it, falling into its gravity well, with no way to escape. Even time itself. That’s why past and present have been getting so muddled here in Tarras
.

She opened her mouth to explain to the others what she now knew, but she had no idea how to explain theoretical physics to a group of medieval people; she wasn’t sure she really understood herself. Nor, she supposed, did it matter. The shadow of her past bubbled upward, reaching for her. Soon it would consume her—if the demon didn’t first. Or maybe they were the same thing.

“We cannot let it escape,” Melia said. “I have to try to stop it.”

The amber-eyed lady pulled herself to her feet beside the column, her face hard, her kirtle streaming in the gale.

Falken reached for her. “No, Melia, you can’t. It will take you!”

“I must try, dear.”

Melia started to let go of the column—

—then halted as a figure drifted down from the heights of the Etherion. The figure’s black robe fluttered on the wild air. Instead of a face, a gold mask gazed from the cowl of the robe with serene, dead eyes. Without sound, the figure’s feet touched upon the stone of the balcony.

“A sorcerer!” Beltan cried.

The figure in black stepped toward them easily, unaffected by the pull of the demon. A gloved hand rose to the mask, then drew it aside. Although made of flesh, the face beneath seemed every bit as golden as the mask.

“Xemeth!” Vani said in wonder.

Xemeth smiled, his face whole and perfect. Vani shook her head, her expression one of disbelief. “Xemeth, can it really be you?”

“Indeed, Vani. It is I.”

Tears rolled down Vani’s cheeks before the wind snatched them away. “But Sareth said … he said you were dead.”

“Sareth lied to you. As you can see, I am quite well. Better than well.” He moved closer.

“You’re glowing, Xemeth. What has happened to you?”

“Let us leave this place, and I will explain everything.” He held out a shining hand. “Come with me,
beshala
 …”

Vani’s sharp eyes seemed suddenly dull, her expression slack. She started to reach a hand toward Xemeth’s.

“Vani, no,” Grace said, making her voice into a scalpel. “Xemeth is the one who freed the demon. He’s drunk the blood of the scarab.”

Vani blinked, then snatched her hand back. Xemeth’s smile turned into a leer.

“Oh, dear,” he said in a mocking voice. “My deeds have been found out. Whatever am I going to do?” Shrill laughter fell from his lips. “Wait, that’s right—I’m the greatest sorcerer in the world. I’ll do whatever I want.”

Xemeth thrust his hands above his head. Gold sparks shot upward, striking the dome of the Etherion. There was a clap of thunder, and dark lines snaked across the dome. There was a deep, roaring sound, and chunks of stone rained down from above.

Grace ducked her head, but she should have known what would happen. The stones plunged downward—then were caught by the demon’s pull, joining the spiral of matter around it.

She looked up. Now she could see real sky through a jagged hole in the dome of the Etherion. Cracks still spread outward from it. She wondered if the whole building was going to collapse. But it wouldn’t matter to the demon; the thing would eat the rubble. Xemeth had said it was still weak after its imprisonment, but with every object it consumed it would only grow stronger. And faster.

Xemeth lowered his hands, gazing at them with an expression of amazement. Then he laughed again. “This is most amusing.” He turned his molten eyes on Grace. “But what do we have here? It looks like a little mouse sneaked through the gate with me. I shall have to squash it.”

There was no time to react. Xemeth flicked a finger, and gold sparks blazed forth. Grace braced herself, waiting to be annihilated.

It was the column next to her that exploded instead. It burst apart into a spray of dust and stone shards—all of which flew toward the spinning disk of debris. Xemeth stumbled, then let out another burst of shrill laughter.

He’s intoxicated, Grace. All the signs are there—the dizziness, the poor coordination. The blood of the scarab has made him drunk, and he can’t control his new power
.

“It seems I missed. But don’t worry, little mouse. I won’t miss this time.” He pointed a finger directly at her chest.

“Xemeth!” Vani said, struggling to her feet, still holding on to a column. “Why have you come for me?”

Xemeth lurched around, then took several wavering steps toward Vani. “But surely you must know,
beshala
. I
have come to make you mine at last. As you should have been long ago.”

Vani pressed her cheek to the marble column. “So you … love me, then?”

“Love you? I worship you, Vani. Ever since we were children, I knew there was nothing in the world I wanted so much as you. And then …” A grimace twisted his face.

“I’m sorry, Xemeth,” she said.

He drew closer. “No, do not be sorry,
beshala
. You will never have to abase yourself before me, not like these dogs. I was not worthy of you before, I know that now. But that is not true anymore. I can be anything you want me to be,
beshala.
”

Xemeth passed his hands before himself, and suddenly his robe was gone. Now he was clad in loose black trousers and a crimson vest. His bare arms and chest were gleaming and muscled, and his face chiseled and handsome. A short black beard adorned his chin.

Vani winced, and Grace understood.

He’s made himself look like Sareth. Sareth, who he always felt was better at everything when they were children
.

Xemeth must have noticed Vani’s reaction, for his lips turned down, casting a shadow on the beautiful visage that was a mask as surely as the face of gold he had worn before.

“What is wrong,
beshala
? Does my new countenance not please you?”

Vani’s eyes were solemn. “I am fated for another, Xemeth.”

He brushed these words aside with a sloppy gesture. “What is fate to one such as I? I am the greatest sorcerer since the god-king Orú. I can make fate as I will—or I can break it. Tell me what I must do to win you, and it shall be done.”

Again Xemeth stumbled and caught himself. Grace traded a look with Beltan, and the knight nodded. He had reached the same conclusion Grace had.

“Very well,” Vani said, her voice rising above the sound of the wind. “There is one way you can win me, Xemeth.”

Grace saw the hard light in the assassin’s eyes. Vani was buying them time.

“What is it,
beshala?
Tell me what I must do to make your heart mine.”

“Bind the demon, Xemeth. You have the power—I can see it in you.” Vani reached out a hand and brushed his radiant cheek. “I know you can do it … 
beshala.
”

Xemeth’s eyes went wide. For a moment Grace could see him—the small, sad boy who could never get what he wanted. Pity started to blossom in her heart. With a thought as cold as a knife, she excised it.

“Very well,
beshala
. I need the demon no longer. The Scirathi have been disposed of, and no one else can possibly stop me now. It will be done as you wish, and then we will be away from here. Together.”

“Yes, Xemeth. Together.”

He turned from her and approached the edge of the balcony. The wind tugged at his clothes, but that was all; the demon had no effect upon him.

The air of the Etherion was clearing. The spiraling flotsam was nearly gone. Grace could see it hovering there in the center of the Etherion: a spot of perfect blackness. Her eyes could not seem to hold on to it, and a sickness welled up in her stomach. Every few seconds there was another burst of light as something reached the center of the spiral. Grace thought she saw a figure in a black robe draw close.

Flash
. It was gone.

She forced her gaze to Xemeth. He tottered on the edge of the balcony, then steadied himself.

“Behold the power of Orú!” Xemeth called out.

He stretched his arms toward the demon, and a corona sprang into being around his body, like that around the sun. Golden rays shot from his hands, speeding toward the center of the spiral, striking the demon.

Grace did not hear it cry out so much as felt it. Like a shock wave it spread outward, rippling through air, stone, and flesh.

What is he doing to it?
Aryn said in her mind.

Grace tried to answer her, but the threads of the Weirding twisted and snapped, and she could not grab hold of them. The walls of the Etherion seemed to pulse. The very fabric of being was unraveling.

Xemeth threw back his head, exultant.

“This is for you, Vani!”

The gold rays extending from his hands grew brighter yet, striking the dark blot of the demon. Grace watched, her fear forgotten in awe. Xemeth was going to do it. He was going to bind the—

Xemeth shuddered and skittered an inch closer to the edge. He shook his head, gazing down at his hands. Gold light still streamed from them toward the demon.

Again a spasm passed through his body. His flesh seemed to ripple like the stone walls of the Etherion.

“I don’t—” he said, but the rest of his words were pulled away from his lips.

Grace blinked. Xemeth’s arms seemed to be growing longer, stretching away from his body and toward the demon. He tried to pull them back.

He did not succeed. The gold rays still reached from his hands to the demon. His fingers elongated to impossible proportions, stretching thinner as they did.

Xemeth screamed. “I cannot let go!”

His words were weirdly distorted, the tones shifted downward like the whistle of a receding train. Xemeth’s arms were a dozen feet long by then, and his fingers were so thin they merged with the rays of light plunging into the demon.

“What’s happening to him?” Vani said, her expression one of horror.

Even as she spoke, Grace understood. The cry of the demon—it hadn’t been agony. It had been delight. Sareth had said the
morndari
craved blood. The demon had starved in its prison for more than two thousand years. And now it had tasted blood of unfathomable power.

“It’s pulling him in,” Grace said. “And Xemeth doesn’t have enough control over his power to stop it.”

Xemeth’s arms stretched to spindly strands twenty feet long, as if the gold rays were lines the demon was using to reel them in. His screams wavered strangely. Now his head was being drawn toward the demon with the rest of him, his neck and shoulders elongating like his arms to grotesque lengths. Twenty feet. Thirty. Fifty. His scream still rang out, but he couldn’t possibly be alive anymore. Such distortion would kill a man in a second.

And what does a second mean when you’re being pulled into a black hole, Grace? Time stops, and a second is forever
.

Gagging, Aryn averted her gaze. Falken pressed her head to his chest. Melia’s visage was solemn, and both Beltan and Vani stared with a mixture of revulsion and fascination.

The liquid sound of Xemeth’s scream seemed to freeze as the moment of his agony extended into infinity. Only his legs remained on the balcony. His body above the waist had become a slender rope, snaking its way along with the golden rays of magic toward the demon.

In the blink of an eye it happened. Like a taut wire suddenly freed at one end, Xemeth’s form snapped away from the balcony, whipped through the Etherion, and was reeled into the shapeless shadow.

Flash
.

He was gone.

“Xemeth …” Vani murmured, her face hard, yet touched by sorrow all the same.

“Did you …?” Beltan licked his lips. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

Vani shook her head. The assassin had only been trying to gain them some time; she couldn’t have known that Xemeth’s newfound magic—the power he had always craved—would be his undoing.

There wasn’t much debris left in the Etherion. Only a few pebbles, and in bright flashes even those were consumed. All at once the far wall of the Etherion bulged and burst outward in a spray of white stone that swept quickly into a spiraling course toward the demon. The blood of Orú had strengthened it; the demon was going to rip the Etherion apart.