City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (29 page)

Then, to Lycus' shock, the edge of the Dragon's Fang actually pushed
through
the giant's polished armor. Kai's gold-and-silver blade tore through the breastplate and into the clockwork beneath, the edge of the wound dribbling melted steel.

Groaning, the Incarnation dropped to one knee. “You...” it groaned out. “Why...how...”

In one final motion, Kai sliced his blade all the way through the creature's chest. The sword emerged trailing drops of molten steel, and the Incarnation crashed to the ground in two pieces.

“Welcome to Valinhall,” Kai said lightly. Then he flicked his blade as if to clear it of blood, and placed the Dragon's Fang on the bar.

Lycus passionately wished that he could be
half
that strong when he grew up.

The swordsman's head cocked again, but he didn't turn back to look at Lycus. “You were kept by urgent business, I trust?” he said.

In a rustle of cloth, the Eldest Nye drifted past Lycus. His robes were stormcloud gray, where most of the Nye wore black, and his sleeves drooped down almost the length of Lycus' legs. Andra and Erastes seemed as surprised to see him as Lycus was; Erastes took one careful step back, and Andra hurriedly lowered her sword so that the Nye could glide into the gallery.

He spoke to Kai, in his rasping voice. “You were here, as was the other one. I have more than a single matter to occupy my time.”

“You're dealing with something more interesting than the invasion of Valinhall?” Kai asked. His voice sounded humorous, as though he found the whole situation funny, but Lycus wondered if he might actually be furious.

The Eldest chuckled unpleasantly. “This? I would hardly call this an invasion.” His hood turned to the shadows at the corners of the room, and instantly a pair of Nye materialized, seemingly out of nowhere. Lycus had nothing to prove this, but he was sure they were the same two who had used their chains to try and slow the Incarnation down.

No one gave any orders, but the Nye bowed to the Eldest, then swept over to the Incarnation's body. It was still, though some of the gears still clicked and whirred. They began pulling plates off, removing gears, carrying them away.

“That will be valuable for study, I think,” the Eldest said. “Someone has given us a present. I can only wonder why.”

Kai nodded to the red-and-black blade that Lycus was sure came from Ragnarus. “What about that?” he asked.

The Eldest held one sleeve over the sword, just as Lycus might have held his hands up to a fire to keep himself warm. “Did he use its powers?”

With a shrug, Kai said, “He almost poked me with it once or twice.”

The Nye's head swept from side to side. “We can be certain that was not its only purpose. Why, then, is it here?”

Kai walked away, leaving his sword sitting on the bar. As he passed, he glanced up at the four masks, hanging on the wall by their racks. “There is only one thing I can think of that has changed in this House,” Kai said. “And the Incarnation headed straight for it.”

“I did not ask you for speculation,” the Eldest replied. “We will study the creature's body, and I will tell you what we find. In the meantime, be on your guard.”

Scooping up his doll with one hand, Kai laughed. “On guard? What
would
I do without your sage advice?”

He walked away without a word for any of the other humans, whispering under his breath to his doll. Caius was holding on to a table with both hands, trying to catch his breath.

Erastes and Andra looked at one another.

“I'm going to go challenge another room,” Andra said at last. “I've got a long way to go.”

The soldier nodded, and almost smiled. Andra hurried out of the room, clearly upset with herself. Lycus knew his sister well enough to leave her alone for the moment, until she stopped blaming herself for not being able to help.

And what about me?
Lycus thought.
I added nothing.

The thought made him ache even more for the powers and privileges of Valinhall, but he couldn't shake something else.

Why did it come here?

He couldn't think of an answer.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN
:

P
RICES
P
AID

Zakareth faced the gates of Cana with the Incarnations of Helgard and Lirial behind him. His ancestors had constructed this wall, including the massive metal doors set into the stone. He couldn’t begin to guess how many thousands of wagons and hundreds of thousands of people had passed through those doors over the generations.

He had always been proud of his family for bringing something like this into being, but since his…change…he had gained a new appreciation for these projects.

How much time had Queen Cynara the Second spent raising the walls of this city? How many workers? How many of them had died building defenses for their city, watering the stones with their blood? How many homes had gone untended, how many fields untilled, while these gates were formed and assembled?

It was all part of the price. If you wanted strong walls, you had to pay for them: in money, in time, in sacrificed opportunities. That was the way of the world.

Ragnarus simply made matters more…direct.

“Can you see them?” Zakareth asked.

“Of course I can,” Lirial chimed, amused. “I can see everything.” Her milky eyes stared through the walls of Cana, watching a battle in a Territory far away. “The time inconsistencies distort things, you realize, but Tartarus has been defeated. They are dragging his pieces away.”

Lirial’s crystal body shone a reflected red in the setting sun, the silver wire wrapping around her body burning with fiery sunlight. Helgard stood beside her, running a hand over the curling horns behind her ears. She stood in a small snow flurry that extended only a pace away from her; frost melted and ran in tiny rivulets at her feet. Zakareth wondered if she even noticed.

“And Elysia?” the King asked.

The melodic voice of the Lirial Incarnation grew distant. “It is remarkable. He has none of the control of his predecessors, but all of their power. He keeps banishing my probes. By accident, I’m sure, but it’s irritating nonetheless. And yet…the battle seems to have drawn to a standstill. Your Valinhall Overlord is badly injured, but still alive.”

“The time has come, then,” he said. With a thought, he summoned his crown onto his head. His shadow gained three tall spikes.

Lirial stepped into a sunbeam, her body becoming the crystal key to her Territory. In front of her, a Gate opened, swirling gray and silver at the edges.

“My constructions will guide you,” she murmured. “Travel quickly, before the moons shift.”

Zakareth stepped into the Crystal Fields without another word. He could tear his way free of any Territory, now, and the Lirial Incarnation would not be able to resist him once he escaped her Territory. She was afraid, and therefore she could be trusted. She would not lead him astray.

Helgard stood at his side, idly stroking the head of a furry, white, three-headed dog that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “So this is Lirial…it’s a bleak place, isn’t it? I wonder where the Daniri kept their tombs.”

She couldn’t hide the greed in her eyes, and she didn’t bother. It was in her nature, and they both knew it.

“This way,” Zakareth said, tracing the lines of power in Lirial to a tiny, floating crystal. It bobbed in their presence and sped off, not waiting for them to follow.

One step in Lirial took them beyond Cana’s walls, and a hundred paces closer to Leah’s camp outside.
 

In the ancient days, before the Territories had come fully under humanity’s control, walls had been an effective defense. High walls on a city meant that traditional attack was all but impossible, and only the best Travelers could bypass your protection to attack you directly. That age was long past.

In the end, his ancestors had paid their price for nothing.

***

The whole world had been washed in shades of purple and violet. He could dimly remember a moment before, when his surroundings had been made of gold, but the violet was so much more pleasant. His thoughts were clear now, even straightforward. Honest, that was the word.

Alin pulled the Avernus Traveler toward him, his Violet Light wrapped around her ankle like a lasso. As he dragged her across the stones, she scrabbled for purchase on the stone, her fingernails scraping against the stairs.

He didn’t know this woman. She wore an armored black outfit, and her expression stayed rigid even as she struggled to escape.

I don’t care about her,
he thought.
I should kill her. That will keep her out of my way while I rescue Ilana, and take care of Simon and Leah.

That brought another issue to his attention: did he have to kill Simon and Leah? Before, he had resolved not to hurt them any more than necessary, but he seemed to recall doing his best to destroy them both.

No, I don’t need to kill them. Not unless it’s too much hassle to keep them alive. I want them to live so that they can see how great I am.

Alin would never have admitted that before, even to himself; he marveled at the simplicity and freedom that honesty brought.

A sharp cry, like that of a hunting hawk, shattered Alin’s ear. To his right, a blur of brown-and-white rushed toward him, feathers ruffled, beak sharp. One of this Traveler’s Avernus bird-men, no doubt.

He didn’t have to do anything. Fuzzy violet creatures—the Thrulls of the Violet District—leaped out of cover and landed on the bird-man. The bird should have been larger than all the Thrulls combined, but when their thin feet met the Avernus creature, the bird-man popped in an explosion of purple light and vanished.

The Thrulls raised their thin arms and grinned. “We don’t like doing this, but we’re obligated to serve you!” one of them cried.

Alin raised a fist in salute. “I shouldn’t need to thank you! You have done nothing more than your jobs!”

The fuzzy, purple Thrulls bowed at the waist, and then scurried away.

He felt a strange lack of resistance on the end of his Violet binding, and looked over. The Avernus woman had escaped, somehow, and started limping her way back up the steps toward a black shape in the waystation.

No, wait, that’s the Valinhall Traveler.
The shadows that had concealed him before seemed weaker now. They flickered fitfully, like a guttering fire, and Alin wondered if the Traveler had run out of whatever power kept him hidden.

Idly, Alin twirled a strip of Violet Light around his finger as he walked up to the Naraka waystation. Simon lay in a heap behind him on the street. He was taken care of; Alin would have a long talk with him whenever Simon managed to wake up.

He didn’t see Leah or Ilana, though. That was interesting. Perhaps these two had agreed to buy time for them until they got away. He should use Silver Light to search the city, he knew that, but somehow the Silver had never felt so distant.

I’ve given myself entirely over to Violet,
he thought.
It was likely a defensive reaction to keep me from dying.

That made sense, but he couldn’t help feeling a little irritated that he couldn’t call on his other powers. Not to mention the fact that he never should have been pushed that far to the brink to begin with.

The Avernus Traveler had made it behind the man from Valinhall. She rummaged through her pockets, pulling out an empty leather bag and what looked like a handful of herbs and feathers.

Alin didn’t care. He was in no hurry. Red gnomes circled the crumbling building, and the roof was covered by blue floating jellies. Come to think of it, he never had learned what those jellies were called. He should find out.

With trembling hands, the Avernus Traveler poured the handful of herbs into the bag. She started to say something, but Alin didn’t wait to see what it was. He flicked his long, violet bandage like a whip, cracking it into her hand.

The bag and its contents vanished. Finally, the Avernus started to show fear. Her skin paled, and she swallowed visibly, but she ground her jaw and forced herself to meet his eyes.

In front of her, the Valinhall Traveler had finally lost his concealment. He stood, looking years older than he had earlier, the black chain-marks peeking through the top of his shirt as they showed on his collar. He swayed as he stood, and he held his cracked sword in both hands as though he didn’t have the strength to hold it one-handed any longer.

Somehow, the man smiled reassuringly, despite his obvious fatigue. “This is unnecessary. Nobody has to die today.”

Alin heard the words, he weighed them, and he found them less than honest. “You’ve killed many of the citizens of Elysia.” He gestured to the steps and to the street, where corpses of all colors bled a rainbow of blood. “A dozen dead, maybe two, I’ll need to get someone in here to check. Do they not matter to you?” He was honestly curious. “Is it because they’re not human?”

“I’m sorry about that,” the Traveler said easily. “Nobody
else
has to die today.”

Unlike his previous statement,
that
one was true. “You’re right,” Alin said. “Surrender yourselves, and I’ll take you alive.”

Alin waited.

The Traveler waited.

His eyes flicked toward Simon’s body, and his shoulders seemed to slump. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. It’s gone too far.”

The man’s shoulders firmed. His bright smile grew steadier. The point of his sword stopped wavering in midair, and stayed pointed at Alin’s chest.

The woman behind him let out a bleak laugh. “You always have to be the hero, don’t you?” Her eyes drifted to Alin. “I’m not going to surrender either, but I won’t be so dramatic about it.”

Alin wanted to answer. He tried to make his voice work, but something had stuck in his chest, as though he had swallowed a bone.

You always have to be the hero, don’t you?

Through the ruthless honesty of the Violet Light, he took a look at himself. And he finally saw.
 

He was the powerful, all-but-immortal Incarnation standing tall after a harsh battle. He was the menace, looming over a weary swordsman who kept his blade raised in futile defiance. He was the uncaring master, carelessly discarding minions by the score, their bodies strewn all over the street. He was the traitor who had beaten Simon bloody for trying to protect Alin’s own sister.