The Crimson Vault (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (52 page)

For all that, his voice seemed relatively calm when he answered: “Where is your sword, son?”

“Tell me!” Talos demanded.

“You don’t deserve to know,” the King noted. “You’re weak, selfish, and impatient. I have no use for you.” He kept his eyes on Talos, but smashed his spear into Marakos’ nose and knocked Grandmaster Naraka over with the back of his spear, interrupting her summoning.

Talos laughed harshly. “I had only one more use for you,” he said. “I thought at least one good thing would come of losing my eye, but no. Now you’re not even good for that. How ironic.”

Alin wondered what, if anything, Talos was contributing to this battle besides being a constant distraction for his father.

The King slammed the edge of his shield down on the forehead of the Asphodel Traveler, who crumped in a heap of gray robes. Her mist dissipated almost immediately. Then Zakareth turned, engaging Marakos in a heated battle, spear against quarterstaff.

His voice barely sounded strained.

“That’s not irony,” he said. “This is irony: I’m
so
proud of what you’ve become, son. Truly, you will be a credit to your sister’s service.”

For the first time, something seemed to shock Talos speechless. He stood there, his mouth hanging open, as Zakareth battled the wolf-man from Elysia.

Alin decided it was time for him to get involved; he hurled a ball of destructive golden light at the King.

Without so much as turning around, Zakareth smacked the ball of light from the air with the head of his spinning spear, whirling the weapon around for another strike at Marakos.

His voice bored on, relentless. “You will serve Leah as your Queen, or you will join your sister in exile. Or of course, you can let me kill you here.”

Alin threw another ball of golden power, but it met the same fate as the first. Zakareth finally seemed to tire of fighting Marakos, disengaging and taking two steps back before hurling his spear like a javelin.

It blasted through the wolf-man’s chest, tearing a ragged hole through him, and struck the tile before flipping back into Zakareth’s waiting hand.

He snagged it out of the air, barely giving the wolf-man’s corpse a second glance, and ignoring Alin entirely.

Alin wasn’t prepared for the surge of anger and regret that passed through him as Marakos died. He had never known Marakos particularly well—they just fought occasionally—but he had summoned the wolf here. Marakos risked his life gladly, even eagerly, for a chance at a good battle, but dying so suddenly, so casually…

Talos spat at his father’s feet even as he backpedaled furiously, trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

“It doesn’t matter who you named Successor! Not when I walk out of here with your crown and your spear.”

King Zakareth caught another of Alin’s attacks on his shield. “I have every intention of making the announcement myself.”

Alin had never been in such an infuriating fight. He had been outmatched before, but he had never been so thoroughly ignored. He walked over to Grandmaster Naraka, offering her a hand up.

“Can you summon something that can kill him?”

Grandmaster Naraka wheezed as she let herself be pulled to her feet. “I can give us some time while we escape,” she answered. “We never should have challenged him here. But when we saw him alone, we thought…well, never mind. I can do
something,
child. Just give me some time.”

“Right,” Alin said, and summoned his sword.

Before he let himself think about what he was doing, he ran at King Zakareth’s back, sword first.

The King may have had only one eye, but it apparently didn’t impede his vision much. He spun around and turned Alin’s sword of golden light on the head of his spear, smashing his shield into Alin’s chest.

Thanks to the armor, the blow didn’t hurt much, but it pressed on him like a giant’s fist.

Behind the King, Talos raised his staff, squinting his eyes in focus. A crimson fireball flew from its tip, crashing into King Zakareth’s armored back.

Alin had a close-up view of the King’s expression, and he simply flinched. Slightly. It looked as though he had felt a mosquito bite his hand, and he was just bothered enough to waste time crushing it.

Zakareth shoved Alin backwards and turned toward his son.

The Damascan Heir caught one look at his father’s face, turned on his heel, and ran.

King Zakareth pulled his spear back as if to throw it, but hesitated, thinking better of it. He swung it back to Alin instead, who caught it on a half-dome of translucent green light.

“Elysia,” the King said. “I’ve never fought one of you.”

Alin raised his off hand and fired a blast of golden light at Zakareth’s chest from inches away, but he still managed to somehow catch the blast on his shield. “That’s a coincidence. I’ve never fought a madman before.”

Come to think of it, he had actually fought a madman before, but thinking up clever retorts in the heat of combat was harder than the stories made it sound.

“Tell me something,” Zakareth responded. “Out of academic curiosity, I’ve always wondered why one would choose to ally themselves with Enosh. They are nothing more than a cult of the Incarnations, a suicide pact preparing to burn the world.”

Alin brought his golden sword down at the King’s head, though he was blocked by an almost casual shift of Zakareth’s shield. “They don’t sacrifice innocents,” Alin said. “They don’t spill blood of their citizens in the name of security and stability.”

King Zakareth thrust his spear at Alin’s midsection, his expression never changing. “Don’t they? How many do you think will be ‘sacrificed’ if the Incarnations are released?”

Alin had no answer for that, so he put up a green wall between them to give himself time to recover. In fact, he had wasn’t sure he had enough breath left to speak; the strain of his repeated summonings was threatening to lose this fight for him. He had to end it soon.

The King paced on his side of the green wall, apparently content to wait it out. “My ancestors planted the first nine Hanging Trees for a good reason. I planted a tenth myself. They are the only things standing between this land and total, deadly anarchy.”

Zakareth raised his spear, slamming it against the green wall. Luminescent cracks began to spider across its surface, and Alin pressed his hands against the wall, willing it to hold.

“Don’t join their misguided, suicidal club,” the King went on. “You weren’t born in Enosh. You can think outside of their madness. Let the Trees stand.”

Alin thought of the Incarnations, and couldn’t help but agree that releasing them must be a horrible decision. But, in the end, he just couldn’t do it.

“Not if you have to kill your own people to do it,” Alin said, firmly and finally.

The King looked at him with his one remaining eye. “You’re innocent,” he said at last. He shook his head and let out a sigh. “I can respect that. But you’ll learn, if you live long enough.”

With that, he took two steps back and hurled his spear through Alin’s green wall.

The light shattered underneath the assault, sending red-hot shards of glass shooting into Alin’s brain. He screamed, clutching his head, as his world was swallowed in white.

When he could see again, Grandmaster Naraka was standing—somehow unharmed—opposite King Zakareth, who had his spear back in one hand.

Between them stood a red-skinned old man who was obviously not human. His gray beard reached down almost to his toes, and his scarlet skin was as tough and gnarled as an old oak’s wood. He held a long gray noose in his hand that seemed formed out of ash, and his fingers kept sliding down the rope, caressing it, as if his hands had taken on a mind of their own.

“Guilty,” the old man whispered, in a voice like dust and paper. He spun the noose around his head and threw it like a lasso.

The King sidestepped, catching the noose on the edge of his shield and readying his spear to throw.

But a second later he stiffened, almost dropping his spear to the ground.

Impossibly, the noose had somehow
still
ended up around King Zakareth’s neck. And now the red-skinned old man pulled it tighter and tighter.

Grandmaster Naraka cackled, her red spectacles flashing in the bloody light. “Your Majesty, meet Haresh, Arbiter of Betrayal. I’ve wanted to introduce him to you for a long, long time.”

“For crimes against those who trusted you,” Haresh said, “I pronounce you guilty. The sentence is death.”

King Zakareth’s voice grated as he pulled at the noose, trying to speak. “Haresh…” he choked out. “Grandmaster Naraka…you are not welcome here.”

The ruby on the front of his crown flared. A wave of crimson light blasted out from the King, just like the power Leah had used against the Incarnation earlier.

Only this time, instead of being chained in one place, the Grandmaster and her Arbiter were swept down the hall like dust before a broom. They physically tumbled out, so quickly and so violently that for a moment Alin wondered about the Grandmaster’s safety.

When they reached the end of the Vault, the silver doors slammed shut.

King Zakareth pulled the ash-gray noose from over his head and turned to regard Alin.

“Now, Elysia,” the King said. “How will this end?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
HREE
:

S
EEDS

Though her bones ached and her head felt as though it would split open, Grandmaster Naraka finally managed to climb to her feet. The agony threatened to paralyze her, but she was used to mere pain. Any Naraka Traveler was.

After groping around on the floor for another moment, she managed to find her spectacles and press them against her face. They improved her vision, just a little, and they painted everything in a comforting shade of red.

Of course, considering the torches just outside the Crimson Vault, she didn’t need any help seeing the world in red.

The Arbiter, Haresh, made a sound like a hiss. He ran his ash-gray rope through his hands, tightening it in a series of furious knots. Then, without warning, he ran up and pounded on the silver doors of the Vault.

The doors rang like a gong, but they didn’t give. Not an inch. Even the torches to either side of the door seemed undisturbed, burning merrily along.

“Let me in,” the Arbiter hissed. Legend told that his voice had been burned away long ago. She was never sure if that was true, or just a ghost story.

The Arbiters were among the most powerful beings any Naraka Traveler could summon. Bringing one into being here, on the material plane, meant certain victory in battle.

Certain victory unless you tried to face down a Ragnarus Traveler at the heart of the Crimson Vault, apparently. The Grandmaster doubted anyone had managed to test that before.

“Well, you got your chance,” Talos said bitterly. “How did you like your taste of my father’s spear?” The Heir stood with his back to the doors of the Vault, his hands in the air. A swirling red Gate formed before him.

“No better than you, I expect,” Grandmaster Naraka responded calmly. It had been sixty years since anyone his age could get a rise out of her.

He didn’t look much like the dignified royal Heir anymore. His curled, golden hair was matted down with blood, and his empty eye socket was bleeding through the bandage that wrapped his face. His skin was soaked in sweat, and his breathing sounded ragged. If he didn’t find a healer, he wouldn’t last the night.

Well,
she thought,
at least he won’t have to worry about that.

Talos finally finished his Gate. It opened onto a room of blue stone.

She had no doubt that the Hanging Tree would be nearby. If this was the only place where Ragnarus Gates came out, then the Ragnarus Incarnation would surely be buried nearby. The presence of the Territory would help keep the Incarnation in check.

Talos stepped through the portal, and Grandmaster Naraka followed on his heels.

Immediately, two men in blue uniforms stepped forward.

“Highness,” one said immediately. “What happened?”

“This woman behind me is a traitor from Enosh,” Talos said casually. “Kill her.”

Maybe if she were fifteen years old and also a fool, such an action would have caught Grandmaster Naraka off guard.

One of the blue-uniformed guards whipped his wrist forward, a silver key appearing as if by magic. Tartarus. He was a good choice for guarding a location such as this. Tartarus Travelers summoned quickly, and they tended to accept orders well. He would cut down most hostile Travelers in an instant.

Grandmaster Naraka was not most Travelers.

With her left hand—she still had to get used to using her left hand, and not her right—she finished the complex movement that she had begun before she even stepped through the Ragnarus Gate.
 

She called for fire, and the Furnace of Judgment answered.

A bright, unnaturally orange fireball streaked forward from her hand, wailing as it flew through the air. It wrapped around the Traveler in a tightening, burning ring, its screams rising to match the voice of the man trapped inside.

Fire from the Furnace wouldn’t kill this Traveler.

No matter how much he might wish for it.

The second guard was also a Tartarus, but slower of hand than his counterpart. He was only halfway through summoning a flying blade before an ash-gray rope tightened around his throat.

His eyes bulged. Then the rope tightened, and he was pulled back through the still-open Ragnarus Gate.

Talos didn’t wait to see the fate of his guardian. He staggered away, clutching his side, trying his hardest to run.

Grandmaster Naraka didn’t bother to follow. He wouldn’t escape.

A loud crunching noise rang out from inside the Crimson Vault, like a horse being crushed between two boulders.