Spellbreaker (49 page)

Leandra understood and her stomach lurched. Holokai's worshipers prayed for the birth of his son. Holokai could no more resist the one who controlled his son than a broken wave could resist falling back down the beach.

Leandra understood now the conflict that had raged, was raging, behind his all-black eyes. The pain left Leandra's heart. She wasn't going to cry. There remained only a detached clarity about what needed to be done. She said a prayer of thanks to Thaddeus's departed soul for his loveless spell.

Holokai continued to glare. “I have to go to Francesca. If I don't, she'll kill my boy.”

“She made you choose between him and me? You chose him. Was it difficult?”

“Painful. It was very painful. But difficult? How could I abandon my boy?”

How could he, indeed? What was she to him: a commander, a friend, a sometimes lover? How could that tilt the scales against his creation?

“Let me go?” Holokai asked, his eyes human again and pleading. “I can lie to Francesca. You know I'll stay loyal to you. I can be your spy in her court.”

“What do you think will happen when my mother discovers you've lied?”

“I can handle myself.”

“I'm not worried about you, fish brain.”

“My son?”

“Remarkable skills of deduction you have, Kai.”

“There has to be a way.”

Leandra's sadness became heavier. Strategy had never been Holokai's strength. So she stayed silent, gave him a chance to think it out.

But he only stared at her.

Irritated, she asked, “Do you think my mother will ever give your son to you?”

“Why wouldn't she?”

“Why would she? So long as she keeps him as a ward, she can bend you in any direction she likes. As the boy's warden, she would become the virtual ruler of your island and your people.”

“But no, Lea … she said…”

“Why would she ever surrender such a valuable ward?”

“I … don't…”

“You can't go to her. She'd use you to drag me back into the league.”

“But there has to be a way.”

“There is one way.”

Holokai's wide-eyed fear relaxed before his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What way?”

“Abandon this son. You can always try ag—”

Holokai turned to flee. The kukui candle winked out and the cabin became as black as the seafloor. She heard three heavy footsteps and then the cabin door slide back. She reached out with the godspell that redirected divine attention. She focused all of Holokai's attention on herself. There were no more footsteps.

She redoubled her efforts, made it impossible for Holokai to perceive anything but her body. The door rattled, as if the limb touching it were trembling.

It was more than he could resist. She knew. She made him focus on her beating heart, the heat of her flesh. Blood in the water. Then the footsteps sounded again, coming at her.

Unseen teeth closed around Leandra's shoulder, punched through her robes, into her skin.

But contact transformed Holokai from a monster in the dark to glorious text, a billowing sea storm of rubicund prose. She bored into him like a parasite, consuming those passages that could fit into her body and snapping those that barred her way.

Her hands closed around the luminous red prose of his mind, and she saw into his memory: sunlight streaming down through forests of coral; the torch-lit jungle of his home island; a taste of blood growing stronger in the water; his admiration for her; his all-encompassing desire for his son. Holokai would be a slave to his son's safety. Her mother would never release the boyish god. There was only one possible future.

With a thought, she scattered his mind and for an instant she became a two-ton shark, thrashing as spears and harpoons punctured her side. She was vomiting blood into the water. So much blood she thought she would turn all the oceans red and herald the world's end as the Sea priests had foreseen.

In the next instant, she was just a woman standing on a ship. Boards creaked, water splashed. There was no blood, no shark. She had gutted him and then absorbed all of his prose. The only thing left of Holokai was his lungi, lying slack on the floor next to his leimako.

Leandra bent down and picked up the weapon. When she stood, she found that her head nearly bumped against the cabin's ceiling. She had grown taller. Her arms and legs coursed with vitality and strength. She felt no pain or blood running down her back. The leimako wounds had closed.

It was a nauseating, cannibalistic feeling to know what had changed her, whom she had consumed. The sadness grew worse in her heart. But after a long breath, she put her sadness aside. There had been no other way. An image of her paralyzed father falling back in his chair flashed before her and she prayed that her mother had found a way to save him.

Then she wondered again who she was that she could do such things as paralyze her father and take apart gods. She wondered again at the dimly perceived destiny she could sense drawing closer. When she focused on that, the pain went away. The world seemed crystalline in its clarity.

She stepped out of her cabin and went on deck. Dhrun waited for her. His expression darkened as he pressed his palms together, both pairs over his heart. When he straightened, she handed him the leimako. “Give this to Peleki and tell him that I saw Holokai off. We are to go to Keyway with all haste. After you speak to Peleki, join me.”

Afterward Leandra walked to her usual spot on the forward deck and stared down at the bay water, which was presently reflecting the growing blue of a dawn sky. She knew then that if she dove overboard and into the water, she would take a long and pale shape, teeth and scales and fins. There she would experience Holokai's deep ocean memories, the glory of the hunt, the intoxication of blood in the water.

“Lea?”

She turned and saw Dhrun.

“Peleki says we're almost to Keyway.”

Nodding, she leaned on the railing. “These are strange days. Strange and bloody.”

Dhrun stepped beside her and placed all four of his hands on the railing. “Captain Holokai?”

“My mother got hold of his son.”

“He had a son?”

“Born a few days ago, apparently. Poor Kai, it compromised him. He couldn't do otherwise.”

“I see. How soon until his reincarnation?”

“I retained a majority of his prose.” She stood taller to emphasize her new height. “Most of the prayers meant for him will come to me. But with enough prayer, there will be another version of Kai swimming around his island. Maybe he'll remember that he's supposed to be serving me, but little more than that.”

They stood in silence for a while. “How do you feel?”

“Heavyhearted. But the loveless helps me understand clearly.”

“How clearly.”

“Crystalline.”

He did not reply, so they watched the standing islands. A brisk wind was blowing. Peleki brought the ship around a wide limestone formation and through the maze they saw Keyway Island.

The tide was low enough that they should be able to sail into the island as soon as they reached it. Though Leandra was not physically tired, her heart would welcome the familiar quarters of her hidden sea village. Most particularly she looked forward to seeing Master Alo and hearing his sour but somehow endearing complaints.

Well, maybe she wasn't entirely excited about seeing the old man. She would have to explain their many new hardships and dangers … not to mention that she had failed to secure any new funds. But never mind that for now.

As they sailed, Leandra discovered that she found Dhrun's proximity comforting. Suddenly, and to her own surprise, she asked, “Dhru, would you do me a favor?”

“Gladly.”

“Tell me why you converted yourself into the Ixonian pantheon. Why break into my bedroom and reveal yourself as a neodemon?”

“Ah, but one of the conditions of my conversion is that we would not talk about what came before it. I was promised amnesty.”

“Of course,” Leandra said. “I was only curious.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I'm not sure. Something about what happened with Kai.”

“Then I'll make you a trade.”

“What kind of trade?”

“I will tell you why I converted myself, if you take the loveless off.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To humor a friend,” he said.

“I don't have any humorous friends.”

“But you have at least one humorless friend who should be humored. Do it for pity's sake.”

“Pity?” She looked at him. His brown eyes met hers. She couldn't say what it was she saw in them, but she found herself saying, “All right, if we can find a way to take the loveless off so that it can be preserved until we put it back on, I'll do so.”

“For a whole day,” Dhrun added. “At the least.”

“Are you a god of wrestling or bargaining?”

“In some ways they're not all that different.”

Leandra frowned at him but said nothing.

“Do you want me to take my Nika incarnation?” he asked. “Would you rather talk to a woman?”

“No no,” she said faintly and looked back at Keyway Island. “I don't mind you staying like this.” She paused. “All right, a whole day if, and only if, it's possible to put it back on. So, tell me how you ended up in my bedroom.”

Dhrun took a deep breath. “Where to start … well … Nika was always the one who had the ideas. Likely you guessed that. She was the only one of us with any legitimacy. Her cult is ancient, coming from a Cloud Culture religion that predates the union of Ixos. The cults of the Cloud People are always small, and because of her origin she always had trouble recruiting followers from the Sea and Lotus Peoples. But somehow she managed to scrape by in a tiny Upper Banyan temple. But for the past century, her cult has become less fashionable even among the Cloud People. Then one day, she realized that her only remaining devotees were three old priestesses.”

Dhrun stood up straighter. “So Nika went looking for possible allies to form a divinity complex. Someone who could make her cult more relevant and powerful, but no one in the pantheon wanted to fuse their soul with a dusty old goddess. So, eventually, she started searching for … alternatives.”

“And by alternatives, you mean neodemons?” Leandra suggested.

“I mean neodemons.”

“Go on.”

“This was maybe five years ago, just when wrestling was becoming so popular. They built the arena right after that rainy season. Before that we'd wrestle in the yards of winehouses, in rings at festivals, that sort of thing. But after the arena was built, we'd wrestle before thousands. All those men and women, praying for their favorite to win.”

“And those prayers incarnated the god Dhrun.”

“Incarnated him with some … dark requisites.”

Leandra had been watching Keyway Island as they drew closer. Now she looked with interest at her companion. “Dark requisites?”

“People in an arena pray for some horrible things; the mildest of which would be for their less favorite wrestlers to be injured. The darkest prayers—especially after a favorite loses a match and all the money bet on him—were for blood.”

“Before you formed the divinity complex, Dhrun would sacrifice his own wrestlers?” Leandra asked in surprise.

“Neodemons don't choose their prerequisites.”

“Of course,” Leandra said weakly.

“And there were worse things than sacrifice, at least I've come to see it that way. Dhrun's cult arranged death matches. The blood sport produced the strongest prayers.”

“But there were no rumors of such a cult. We were completely unaware.”

“The cult was well organized, very secretive. And that is where the third member of our trinity comes in, the one you know as Dhrunarman.”

“The young wrestler who won the tournament last year?”

“He was that too. But before he was renamed as a championship wrestler, he was named Tonoki.”

Leandra had to remind herself that her Dhrun was the product of these three different people—Nika, Dhrun, and Dhrunarman. And though her Dhrun had inherited the experiences of all three of these souls, the resulting divinity complex was entirely unique from his predecessors. Or her predecessors, depending on the moment.

Dhrun continued. “Nika discovered the blood sport and the sacrifices. She saw that the cult was on the cusp of discovery. She knew that you would have deconstructed Dhrun rather than try to convert him. So through a long negotiation, she convinced Dhrun and his young devotee that we three needed to form a complex. Dhrun brought raw strength and his powerful cult. Nika brought her mandates for honor, which helped negate the mandates for blood.” He paused, his expression troubled.

Leandra frowned. “And Dhrunarman?”

“He was chosen to become a popular champion, someone the citizens saw as one of their own. His celebrity was meant to popularize the sport and win a larger number of prayers to compensate for the lost blood sport prayers.”

“But how did you know he would become a celebrity?”

Dhrun sighed. “We decided that he would become the champion of an especially exciting and popular tournament.”

“Especially exciting and popular because it was rigged?”

“So … how would you feel if you learned that your deity is not only a murderer but also a fraud?”

“Nobody's perfect.”

“You're too kind.”

“No, no, I am anything but kind.” She flexed her hands and felt the powerful prose that had once been Holokai's moving through her. “Anything but kind.”

Dhrun didn't reply. They watched the water. Then Dhrun said, “I wonder if you remember … During that tournament, you and Holokai brought down a neodemon of theft.”

Leandra frowned at her companion as she searched her memory. Then at last it came to her. “Yes, that young air goddess who came in from the Outer Island chain. She picked pockets at the arena and gave the coins to the beggars in exchange for prayers.” Leandra laughed. “I had nearly forgotten.”