“Sera.”
He would crawl through a vein of magma to get to her.
“I’ll find you. I love you!”
“That’s it! Come back to her! Faster!”
Byn struggled upward. The weight pressing down upon him made him feel as if the whole of the earth pushed against his shoulders. The rocks around him stabbed hard.
“Demon blood,” Old Voice said. “Push it out.”
Byn slowed. It was growing more difficult to focus on pleasant memories.
“It hurts.”
“Davenger blood always does. It’ll get worse. Fight it.”
Byn struggled, fought, pleaded, and cried, but it did not seem to be enough. Would it be so bad to return to sleep?
Sera’s face flashed in his mind, but he had not put it there. This image had come from someone else. Somewhere else.
“So you’ll abandon her, boy?”
“No.”
Byn struggled to climb.
“I want to live.”
“You care nothing for her?”
“I’m trying!”
“Just as well. She’s a comely lass. If you’ll not claim her, I’ll give her the comfort you can’t provide.”
“No.”
The earth stabbed Byn every time he moved.
“Why not? You’re a dying boy clinging to a ruined old body. I think she needs a man with some real strength—”
“No!”
Byn tore through the earth as each spike of pain stoked his anger. “
You stay away from her. You stay—”
“Does she like sweets? Jewelry? If you knew how easily a grieving woman falls into another’s arms—”
“Don’t you touch her!”
“Back in your hole, boy!”
“No!” The poison seared Byn’s skin as the dark soil burst open, as points glittered above. “I’ll kill you!”
Death knelt over him, cloaked and hooded as before. Byn forced one arm up until his fingers touched the cowl. Death was laughing at him. Laughing at his pain.
“You look like a babe crying for his mother’s teat.” Death touched his fingers and Byn’s hand dropped like an anchor. So heavy. His limbs had never felt so heavy.
Death stood and crossed his arms. He was a frighteningly tall figure, far more human than Byn expected. More real.
“Quit gawking at me and relax. We have all the poison out of you, at last. Took some damn fine scribing and every trick I know, but you’ll live.”
“Don’t touch her. Don’t you dare.”
“It’s over, boy, done. Calm your murderous thoughts. As the Five bind me, I have no designs on your lady Sera. If you weren’t so jealous, you’d already be dead.”
Byn’s skin felt raw, dry, like he had been burned and pierced in a thousand places. “You tricked me.”
“Aye.” The man chuckled. “No easy feat.”
Byn pushed aside his anger. This man's loud and earnest chuckle resembled his father's after a good practical joke, and he couldn’t dismiss that. It conjured happy memories of Boon.
“I’d have crossed if not for your trickery,” Byn said. That was a hard thing to admit. “I owe you my life. Thank you.”
“We do what we can. You’re Byn, correct? I’m Xander.”
Byn didn’t like the fact that the man refused to give his last name, but it wasn’t a sinister act. Xander had saved his life. Was he a traveling elder? Or was he in the employ of King Haven?
“Now,” Xander said. “Tell me what you’re doing here.”
Byn dared not think about that too long. “I’m traveling.”
“I figured that much out. Yet Boon is a long way away. Is that where your Sera waits for you? Does she know you’re out here tangling with davengers?”
“It wasn’t like I had a choice.” Byn didn’t like these questions. He didn’t like where they might lead. He did not know this man.
“Yes, well.” Xander knelt beside him. “Demon or no, you bested it. It’s a rare man who can say he faced a davenger and lived. How exactly did you drop that monster onto Torn’s Teeth?”
Byn sucked in his breath. What if Xander was working with Jyllith? What if he was Jyllith’s elder, and he was only pretending to be a friend so he could find out where Kara was?
What if Xander planned to send him to the Underside?
“Quiet, eh?” Xander straightened. “Well, I’d not expect you to give up all your tricks to so odd a host. I can’t let you die, not after all my hard work, but I’ve errands in this pass. So what are we to do?”
Byn tested his arms. Still heavy. “Errands?”
“I don’t brook davengers so far into my mountains. Scares off all the good game. The one you faced isn’t all that prowls Highridge Pass. I’d prefer to be stalking them, not nursing you, so where do we send you?”
“Tarna.” If this was the mage who sought Kara, he already knew that much. “Though I’ve made a fine mess of that trip.”
“Aye, there is that. Tarna is at least three day’s ride. You’ve a constitution that’ll kick poison quicker than most, but I doubt you’ve got it in you to even mount a horse. Not that we have one.”
“I’ll do fine,” Byn said. “I’ve beasts of my own to call on.”
Byn knew even then he was lying to himself. Every muscle in his body felt shredded. His world swam about him as if an ocean tossed him, yet he felt nothing of its comforting cool.
“I’m sure.” Xander grabbed Byn’s limp hand and shook it. “You don’t need me at all. You’ll stand up and walk right out of this pass.”
“Show me your face.” Byn knew he had to take this risk. “If you’re going to insult me, you could at least look me in the eye.”
“I thought you fancied women, boy.”
“Shove off. What kind of a man hides his face in a cowl? I want to see the man who saved my life.”
“Smitten, are you? Well, take a good look.”
Xander pulled back his cowl to reveal the hard, tanned face of a man who had seen many years outside. Dark eyes peered out around a nose that was almost too big for his face. A thick salt-and-pepper beard was trimmed neatly around his lips. His hair was brown, pulled back from his forehead, and streaked with gray.
He was unremarkable in every way. He was a man Byn could encounter on any road anywhere in Mynt, and he did not look dangerous, but then again ... no good killer ever did.
“Satisfied?”
Byn nodded.
“Good.” Xander pulled his hood back up, and Byn wondered why. “It’s late, and seeing as you’re not moving tonight, I suppose I’ll simply have to see you don’t end up some wolf’s snack.”
Xander raised his hands and slit one finger. Byn felt great power behind the blood glyphs Xander scribed, power like that he felt before a storm rolled across the sea. How many glyphs did this man know? Did he know demon glyphs?
“You’ll be safe now. Just sleep.” Xander ignited his glyphs and Byn felt a tingle wash over his body. “To all passing eyes you’re just a big dumb rock. Seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”
Byn was too exhausted to complain. He needed sleep and if Xander was his enemy, nothing Byn could do would stop him. He quested for Sera, for his dyn disc, and found nothing. He had slipped off, and that worried him. Did they think him dead? Did Sera think him dead?
“Sera!”
Byn thought.
“I’m here, honey! I’m alive! Think to me!”
Nothing. Nothing but cold, fast growing colder.
Xander layered a thick blanket over Byn’s still form. Where had he gotten that? His strange savior was full of surprises, and that was the part that worried Byn the most.
“Rest,” Xander said. “That poison’s still left plenty of muck in your blood. I’ll be back for you at first light.”
“Where are you going?”
“Far too many demon glyphs were scribed tonight. I’d like to have a talk with the people behind that. I’d like to set them straight.”
Byn almost warned this man about Jyllith and her davengers. He held his tongue. Xander seemed capable, and talking was hard.
“Sera, please.”
The thought of how he would feel, certain she was dead, made him colder than the wind.
“Wait for me. Live for me.”
He waited for her response as long as he could. Then he fell asleep.
“KARA.”
It was her name. Someone had said it. Kara shifted on rock that was cold and hard. Her eyelids felt weighted.
“Kara. It’s Trell. Please open your eyes.”
Kara tried. Channeling as much blood as she had channeled was the worst mages could do to themselves. How was she still alive?
She remembered Jyllith’s bones cracking open. She remembered blood, so much blood, and it made her want to curl up and wretch. She and Sera had tortured a woman to death.
“Kara, please.” Trell’s voice broke. “If you don’t open your eyes, he’s going to kill Sera.”
That got Kara’s eyes open. She gasped, throat dry. Sera hung upside down paces away, suspended in a Hand of Breath. Her gray-streaked hair just brushed the rocky ground. Jair stood behind Sera, his eyes white and empty, one bloody finger raised.
“Very good, Trell,” another voice said.
A man in red robes strode from a vanguard of soldiers whose plated, spiked armor was the same color as dried blood. Those soldiers were massive, all muscle, but they were not natural or alive. They were formed of armored plate and the mashed, reanimated bodies of the dead. They were revenants.
Jair turned Sera over. He eased her to the ground, careful not to drop her. Sera drew her knees up to her chest and glared.
Kara looked at Jair and felt her stomach roil. His eyes were white still, milky and empty. Someone had wiped him away, possessed him so utterly nothing remained. He was gone now, like Aryn.
Distant mountain peaks surrounded them, topped by snow that glittered in the moonlight. They were in a small camp with three plain red tents and a single campfire, in the middle of a dead bowl of earth. A few leafless trees eked out a meager existence at the edge of the bowl, skeletal fingers reaching for light.
Kara’s wrists were bound to her feet behind her back, bending her into a crescent moon like that which glittered in the sky above. The bitter taste of orange peels filled her mouth. Carrow root. She would not be igniting any glyphs any time soon.
“Melyssa chose a strong man as Life’s Champion.” The red robed man stepped closer, cowl turned on Trell. “I only wish she’d chosen one I’d be more eager to kill.”
This man’s robes were elder robes, Solyr robes, and Kara wondered if he had stolen them. It was the only thing that made sense. The only question was ... who had he killed for them?
Kara couldn’t think about that now. She had to save those who remained. Trell. Sera. They were still in Highridge Pass. She was days from Tarna, but the Martial Steppes were less than a day away. She could find help there, local militia or even Mynt legionnaires.
Kara craned her neck, searched with her eyes, and found Trell nearby, on his back. Thick metal manacles locked his wrists and ankles inside a circle of power seared into the earth.
Jyllith’s broken corpse was beside him, manacled inside an identical circle. The circles were formed of powerful demon glyphs that were anathema to the Five. Life could not help them here.
“You’re a monster, whoever you are.” Trell pushed his head up and stared. “I’m going to kill you the moment I’m free.”
The elder uncrossed his robed arms. “You have lost all memory of who you were. Would you like to know how?”
“Did you take us just to gloat?”
“She did it.” The elder pointed. Kara followed the line of his arm and found a pale woman in white robes hanging in the darkness. Shadows held her. Swirling blobs of black.
Kara held back a scream. They were defilers — servants of the Mavoureen. Tendrils of swirling smoke stretched from their centers, dark as oil and just as thick. Those tendrils had merged into a chokehold around the unconscious woman’s neck and waist.
Defilers could paralyze anyone, including a mage. They could hold a person indefinitely, keep them unthinking and unseeing. Trapped in their own minds. It seemed their world had turned further to the Underside than even Elder Halde had known.
“Her name is Melyssa Honuron,” the robed man said. “She fought me the same day you and Kara first met, and she fought well. Her meddling prevented me from taking you both.”
Kara recognized the woman now, remembered a very dark night in Highridge Pass. This was the woman who had come to warn her of Malkavet’s attack, the specter with the blue eyes who had pointed above her. Melyssa had found some way to move outside her body, and if their captor didn’t know she could do that...
“What are those?” Trell asked. “What are you doing to her?”
“No worse than she has done to you. She took your memories, Trell. This woman erased your family, all you’d ever known. She burned your memories to ash so you would serve her and Life.”
“And what memories did she burn?”
“Your childhood. Your parents. Your village. It was called Carn. You lived there in the Tellvan desert with your wife. Her name was Marabella. She cried your name as Mynt soldiers cut her throat.”
“You’re lying,” Trell whispered.
“They burned Carn to the ground. They killed everyone you’d ever loved, including your parents. That’s why you volunteered for the assault on Layn Garrison. That’s why you fought Prince Beren.”
“No Mynt burned my village.” Trell pulled at his restraints. “It was you. Your revenants. Just like in Taven’s Hamlet.”
The elder crossed his arms.
“We know all about your attempt to start a war. We’ve already ensured it will never happen.” Trell yanked at his restraints. “You’re the one who murdered my wife, and I’m going to murder you.”
Kara believed this elder. Melyssa had taken Trell’s memories to ensure he would serve them, and the ruthlessness in that disturbed her. Yet what would Kara have done, facing a champion of Life who wanted to slaughter every Mynt he found?
“That’s not your only path,” the robed man said. “There is more at stake here than one soul, one village. I fight for the survival of our entire world. I fight for Torn. Follow me ... follow us ... and you will find the redemption you crave.”
“You think what you’re doing will redeem you? Killing children?”
“I’ve done nothing that was not necessary.”
“Sacking villages seems rather unnecessary.”
“Melyssa robbed you. She stole a brave Tellvan swordking and erased everything he was. You will never remember your wife or your family. The life you knew is as dead as they are, now.”
Trell settled his head on the rock. “Your fault.”
“A reality of war.” The robed man sighed. “I cannot let you stop me. Some day soon, I hope you’ll understand why.”
It was the man’s heavy sigh that finally clicked inside Kara’s mind. This man had spoken at morning assembly. He had taught her of the dream world. Someone was going to need to correct the monolith in Solyr’s memorial garden.
“Excuse me,” Kara rasped. “But why in the Six Seas aren’t you dead?”
“Hello, Kara.” Cantrall pulled back his hood. “It is good to see you again.”
Cantrall’s features were so similar to Elder Halde’s that it chilled Kara’s blood. He even trimmed his small beard the same way. Trell stared at him with wide eyes.
“It’s not him,” Kara assured her friends. “It’s Cantrall, Halde’s twin brother.”
Cantrall frowned at her. “The man you remember is long dead. I am a shadow, but a shadow serves the light. I am a servant of Torn, and I will ensure his mistake does not doom us all.”
Kara only then noticed that several davengers had come upon them as they spoke. They crouched just beyond the torchlight, more innocents sacrificed to Davazet. It made her sick.
“The High Protector died a long time ago, Cantrall, and he certainly has nothing to do with you.”
“This would have been easier had we captured you in the Lorilan Forest. I could have explained everything. No one needed to die.”
“Explain now.” Kara pulled at the rope. She had to stall him until she got free. Then she would grab him and snap his neck.
“Almost seventy years ago, Torn sealed the gate to the Underside because he was convinced the Mavoureen would devour our world. Only then did he discover his mistake.”
“Sera,”
Kara thought as Cantrall droned on.
“Are you there?”
They both had carrow root inside them, and Kara couldn’t glyph it out of her own body — but she could glyph it out of Sera’s. Sera could save them. She could kill Cantrall.
“I’m here,”
Sera thought.
“What do we do?”
“Have they treated you with carrow root?”
“Yes. But you’re stronger than me. I’ll pull the root from your body and then you’ll kill him.”
“Doing that might kill you!”
“That will solve this Demonkin mess, won’t it?”
There was no time for grief, no luxury for sorrow. Cantrall was going to destroy everything.
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Sera scribed one last glyph.
“Mindspeak!” Jair’s Hand of Breath knocked Sera to the side, mussing her glyph. He traced a sleep glyph on empty air and then Sera stopped moving. Her breathing remained even and calm.
Kara strained at the rope so hard it bloodied her wrists. She huffed and grunted and snarled. Nothing worked.
Cantrall gripped Jair’s shoulder. “I tried to convince them, as I promised you I would. You must see now it is not possible. You must stand with me, no matter what.”
Jair’s empty eyes did not blink. “I’m with you, respected elder. We will save this world. I gave you my word.”
Cantrall walked over to where Kara was bound. He knelt beside her and touched her arm with his cold fingers. Cold as a corpse. “I need your help to do something very important.”
“Never.” She shrank from his dead hand.
“I know I can’t convince you with words alone.” Cantrall rose. “Now I will show you what will happen to those you love if you refuse to help me save our world.”
He planned to torture Trell and Sera. “Don’t you touch them!”
“I could hurt many to gain your cooperation, but I hate inflicting pain when none is warranted. Don’t make me.” He rose and turned to one of the closed red tents behind him. “Bring her here!”
One of the massive, armored revenants guarding the camp stomped into the tent. A weak cry arose before it emerged with a slim woman in both arms. She had short gray hair and wore a bloodstained woolen dress. She screamed curses that rivaled the dockmen of Boon.
Their eyes locked. She stopped cursing. Kara’s heart stopped.
“Mom? Mom!”
“Will you save her?” Cantrall asked. “Or will you watch her die?”
“Let her go!” Kara pushed forward, wriggling like a worm. How could Cantrall have captured Ona? Where was Elder Halde?
“Kara!” Ona shouted. “Give him nothing.”
“Lift her with air,” Cantrall ordered Jair. “Hang her upside down. We’ll start with her feet.”
Jair scribed several bloody glyphs. Ona gasped as air took her. She flailed as she rose but soon hung upside down, pushing at the earth with her fingertips.
Jair stared at Kara’s mother with his white, unblinking eyes. “What do you want me to do next?”
“Hold her. Wait.” Cantrall pinched the bridge of his nose and then opened his eyes. Halde’s gesture. “Kara, you know I’ve tried to abduct you many times. What you don’t yet know is why.”
A single revenant clanked forward and gripped Ona’s raised calf in one armored hand. It suspended its massive blade above her foot with the other. Kara stared at it. She willed it to step away.
“You are the first of Torn’s line to be born with the same blood that he had,” Cantrall said. “Your blood is equal to his in every way.”
Kara’s eyes snapped to Cantrall’s. However mad he had become, he could not think she was descended from Torn. She was just a fishwife’s daughter from Boon. Could she use his delusions?
“Torn waits, even now, in the Underside. Trapped there. If you work with your great-grandfather, you can scribe the glyphs that will open the Terras gates. You can correct his mistake.”
“You’re stark raving mad.”
“You will help me do this, Kara. Or my soldiers will skin your mother alive.” Cantrall raised one hand. “Begin!”
“Mom!” Kara almost bit through her own tongue as her chin slammed into rock. She watched the revenant slice into Ona’s tender heel and writhed. “Stop! Stop that!”
Ona’s lips pressed together as blood flowed like water from the revenant’s sword. It stained Ona’s dress, rolled across her face, dripped to the earth. A strip of flesh peeled off Ona’s foot and tears burst from her eyes. Yet still, fighting, Ona did not scream.
“Jair! Stop!” Trell thrashed against his restraints, metal slamming rock. “Think about what you’re doing!”
“That’s good,” Cantrall said. “After her foot, her calf.”
Then the revenant cut another strip. Then Ona did scream, screaming like the ants were eating her, and Kara saw red. Cantrall’s foot was so close. She could bite right through it and stop this.
“All you must do is help me.” Cantrall looked to his revenant. “After her heel, peel her calf. One strip at a time.”