In the Claws of the Tiger (38 page)

Auftane was a mess. His forehead and nose were scraped from his encounter with the floor, and a trickle of drying blood ran from his mouth into his beard. His once-shining breastplate was caved in on one side, and Janik set to work on getting it off so the dwarf could breathe. As he did so, Auftane’s eyes fluttered open briefly and one corner of his mouth twisted into a half smile.

“Janik,” he whispered. “Did we win?”

Janik returned Auftane’s smile, but found that he didn’t know how to answer. “Are you going to make it, Auftane?” he asked instead.

“Dolurrh can’t have me yet,” the dwarf said. “Too much to get done.”

“Glad to hear it.” Janik took off his coat, rolled it into a bundle, and tucked it under Auftane’s head. “Rest a bit. I need to check on Mathas.”

The old elf lay so still and looked so frail that Janik could hardly believe he was still alive.

“Oh, Mathas,” Janik muttered as he started tending to his friend, “I’m sorry for this. Please, pull through for me, and I swear I’ll never drag you along to Xen’drik with me again.”

Mathas’s eyes did not open, but his mouth moved. His words were a hoarse murmur Janik couldn’t understand.

“What did you say, Mathas?”

“Then I’ll have to go without you,” the elf repeated, only slightly louder.

Janik laughed long and loud as a fresh wave of tears spilled from his eyes.

Auftane worked himself upright, sitting on the floor and looking for the wand he had lost when he fell. Janik spotted it and handed it to the dwarf, who coaxed enough power from it to heal even the scrapes on his face. Looking worlds better, Auftane stood and walked over to crouch beside Mathas.

Mathas’s eyes flickered open at last as the first wave of magic from the wand poured into him.

“That’s better,” he said, and he smiled as the dwarf continued to tend to him. “Janik, what happened? Where’s Dania? And what happened to Maija?”

Janik didn’t answer, but turned around to face the two bodies on the floor—Dania lifeless, Maija still lost in sleep. I wonder what she’s dreaming, he thought as he watched Maija’s face twitch, her brow crinkling slightly. Let her sleep, he reminded himself.

He heard Mathas draw in a sharp breath behind him, and looked over his shoulder. The elf’s eyes were wide, a look of horror on his face.

“Are they both … ?” Mathas said, his voice trailing off.

“I think Maija will be all right,” Janik said quietly. “She doesn’t seem badly wounded—I think she’s just asleep.”

“And the fiend has left her?”

“Yes. Dania cast it out.”

“What happened to Dania?” Auftane said, following Mathas’s gaze.

Janik walked over and dropped to his knees beside Dania’s body. He had been dreading it, but he had to do it—to look at her face once more. He had to say goodbye.

Slowly and gently, he rolled her onto her back. The front of her armor was tacky with drying blood. Her helmet was
twisted around to cover part of her face, so he took it off, then brushed her red hair from her face. He was only dimly aware of Auftane and Mathas coming to stand behind him. Mathas’s whispered prayers to the Sovereign Host were a comforting drone in the back of Janik’s mind.

Her eyes were still open, staring blankly past him. He reached out and closed them. Auftane handed him Dania’s sword and he took it, feeling the holy power within it but loathing it at the same time. He turned it over in his hands and noticed for the first time an inscription in the blade, carved in small, flowing script:
By my life, my honor, and whatever is holy
.

“Your oath is fulfilled, Dania,” he said quietly. “Rest easy.” He laid the sword on top of her body, folding her hands over its hilt on her chest.

“Janik, what happened?” Mathas asked quietly, putting his hand on Janik’s shoulder.

Kneeling beside Dania, he told them. “Do you remember, Mathas, on the boat on our way here, when Dania punched me? She was talking about sacrifice, making sacrifices in order to fight the evil in the world?”

“I remember,” Mathas said.

“I think she knew, even then, that something like this was going to happen. Do you remember the last thing she said that night? ‘You will understand, before this is over.’ She knew.”

He sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“In the pinnacle, when Dania was surrounded by the fire, she allowed a couatl, like the one we saw flying—maybe the same one, I don’t know, or maybe the ancient one that binds Dhavibashta here—anyway, I think she let a couatl possess her, just like Maija was possessed.” His eyes fell on the torc around her neck. “Except that she was still mostly in control. But the
couatl gave her power, and she used that power to force the Fleshrender out of Maija’s body.”

His eyes were glued to the silver torc, but he no longer saw it. The scene replayed itself in his memory, every detail etched there like a scar. The shadow emerging from Maija and entering Dania. …

“The Fleshrender left Maija just like that”—he gestured vaguely toward Maija’s body—“and entered Dania’s body instead. I don’t know, maybe Dania forced the fiend into her body, but I think she just used herself as bait. Once it possessed her, she was able—or, I guess, the couatl in her was able to bind it to her just like the couatl binds Dhavibashta in the earth beneath our feet. Just as our own spirits are bound to our bodies. The Fleshrender’s life was bound to Dania’s life.”

Janik fell silent for several moments.

“I couldn’t do it, Mathas,” he said at last. “I couldn’t fulfill her oath for her, I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t kill her.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” Mathas said. “Of course you couldn’t.”

Janik took a steadying breath and went on. “Krael reappeared,” he said, “and picked up Dania’s sword. He did it. Krael killed her and destroyed the Fleshrender.”

Janik fell again into silence, and his friends were lost in their own reflections on what had happened. Suddenly, Maija gasped loudly and sat upright, a look of terror on her face as she stared wildly around the room.

Janik was beside her in an instant. “I’m here, my love,” he murmured. He put one hand on her shoulder and fumbled with the other, trying to grasp her hand. But she pulled her hands up to her chest, turned her shoulder away from him, and winced as though his touch hurt her.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Maija, it’s me. Janik.”

She began to curl in on herself, turning away from him. “I’m so dirty—don’t touch me,” she whimpered.

Janik reached out again and gently stroked her brown hair. It was tightly braided and coiled close to her head, though she used to wear it long and free. She flinched at his touch but did not pull away.

“Dirty?” he said. “Oh, Mai, no.” Tears sprang to his eyes, joy and relief and sorrow all mingling together.

“I did so many terrible things!” She looked at him for the first time, and he saw the tears streaming down her face.

“You didn’t do anything,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “The fiend did them, not you. You don’t need to feel any guilt or shame about what happened. You didn’t do anything wrong. The fiend was using you, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Her voice grew louder. “Do you have any idea what it felt like to be the tool in her hand? Like—like the shovel used to lift manure?”

“Shh, I didn’t mean that.” Janik kept his voice low and continued gently stroking her hair. “It must have been terrible for you.”

“Oh, Janik,” she sobbed. “I felt so helpless. I couldn’t do anything to stop—” She choked on her words and turned away from Janik again.

“It’s not your fault,” Janik said. He lay his hand between her shoulder blades and felt her take a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

“But I saw it all, I remember it all as if I had done it. My hands and my voice cast those vile spells, said those terrible things to you. I let Havoc kill Mudren Fain and turn Krael into a vampire. My hands killed … I killed so many people. So many innocent people.”

Janik drew her into his arms. She pushed away at first, but soon melted and curled up against him, sobbing into his shoulder.

“That’s it,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “Mourn for them, for all those people.” His eyes fell again on Dania’s body. “But their deaths are not meaningless, not in vain.”

“How can you say that?”

Tears sprang to Janik’s eyes again. “Because Dania gave them meaning.”

Maija pulled her head away from his chest and looked up at him, then followed his gaze to Dania’s body.

“Oh, Dania, no!” she cried. She broke out of Janik’s arms and crawled over beside her fallen friend, wailing her grief.

Janik followed her on his knees. “She gave her life to destroy the Fleshrender, Maija. And somehow I think she took the death of everyone the Fleshrender killed and—and made it part of her own death, her sacrifice. She … she sanctified them, Maija.”

Maija’s crying did not abate, but she nodded as she wept, understanding what Janik could barely put into words. He wrapped his arms around her again and they mourned and celebrated Dania together.

Janik stood and helped Maija to her feet. She began fumbling with her hair, picking at the braids to let it flow freely over her shoulders again. It was wavy and wild after being tightly bound for so long, but Maija reveled in it, shaking her head to make it fall in a tangle down her shoulders and over her face. Then she looked up at Janik, the first hint of a smile barely visible on her face under the cascade of hair. Janik laughed, and Mathas came to join them.

“I am very glad to see you again, Maija,” Mathas said, smiling broadly.

Maija threw her arms around Mathas, clutching the old elf to her chest. “Oh, Mathas. I’m so sorry for everything.”

Mathas returned her embrace and clasped her arms as she pulled away. “Dear friend, you have nothing to be sorry about. You were a victim, a prisoner. You carry no responsibility for the evil that spirit did through you.”

Tears sprang again to Maija’s eyes and she pulled Mathas to her again.

“Thank you, Mathas,” she murmured. When she finally released him, her cheeks were streaked with tears, and she wiped awkwardly at them. “Now where is the dwarf?” she said. “I’d like to meet him and thank him as well.”

Mathas gestured vaguely. “He’s—” He looked around the chamber. “I don’t know where he is. I’m afraid my attention has been elsewhere.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Janik said with a small laugh. “And what was so demanding of your attention?”

“Well, I’ve been studying the floor in here—I know, it sounds fascinating. As near as I can tell, the bonds that hold the rakshasa rajah below this place remain intact. But I believe I understand the erection of the towers around the city.”

“Oh, yes,” Maija said. “She hoped to use them to break the couatl’s grip on the rajah.”

“Well, I’m pleased with myself for deducing it before you told me,” Mathas said. “We should probably take steps to topple them again.”

“Yes, we should,” Maija said.

“And one other thing concerns me,” Mathas said. “Janik, I assume that Krael has not been decisively destroyed. Should we be worrying about completing that task?”

“No,” Janik said. Mathas arched an eyebrow. “I let Krael go.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mathas said carefully, “but was that wise?”

“I believe so.” Janik sighed. “I realized something important here, something I’m not sure I can explain. I realized that Dania was wrong. Back on the ship, as we crossed the Phoenix Basin, she said that vampires were the scourge of the earth, that Krael had to be purged from the world. But she was wrong, and I think she realized that before she died.”

He took another deep breath before continuing. “When Dania was struggling with the spirit, forcing it out of you, Maija, I was watching, feeling helpless. And that was really the first time I became aware that there’s more going on in the world than the struggles among nations. Dania had been trying to tell me that, but I think it’s bigger than even she realized. It’s almost as though the ancient war between the dragons and the fiends was still going on—a war between, well, between good and evil, for lack of better words.

“I didn’t believe in good and evil. I mean, I clung to my way of doing things, trying to keep to the moral high ground—thanks mostly to you two and Dania steering me that way, keeping me from stooping to Krael’s level.

“But everything that’s happened here has pointed to a much larger struggle. The conflict between the couatl and the rajah it binds isn’t just a legacy of some ancient war between nations. It’s fundamentally a conflict between life and destruction, between an affirmation of beauty and goodness and life and the denial of all that.”

“But Janik,” Mathas interjected, “I think I’m echoing Dania when I remind you that Krael is a vampire.”

“I haven’t forgotten that, Mathas. But he’s still human as
well. And like any of us, he can choose sides between good and evil. And today he made a heroic choice. He chose differently than I did, but I still think he chose for the good. He destroyed the Fleshrender when I couldn’t. And in that moment, I didn’t want to fight any more.”

Janik fell silent. Maija was staring at the ground, her brow furrowed, and Janik put his arm around her shoulder. He looked at Mathas, whose expression suggested that he was a little perturbed.