City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (50 page)

Endross never stood still, pacing up and down the line of other Incarnations. His wings were formed of black stormclouds flashing with heat lightning, his eyes blazing like lightning bolts themselves. Even his hands and feet glowed with lightning, the rest of his body shrouded in what looked like snakeskin. Creatures of Endross burst into existence around him in a cloud of sparks, hissing and crawling through the sand, growling and spitting at the other Incarnations. No one seemed to care, least of all Endross himself, who stared without ceasing at the walls of Enosh.

Finally, King Zakareth the Sixth stood at the end of the line.

Alin recognized him, even at a distance, even with the significant physical changes that the King had undergone during Incarnation. Alin had been the one to kill the man, after all, though it looked like transformation had saved him. His skin swirled with designs of gold-and-ruby, his stone eye replaced by a rolling fireball of crimson. He wore the same black armor as last time, set with rubies and trimmed in gold, and even his gold hair was speckled with the occasional hair of red or gold. In his left hand he held a ruby-topped staff, and in his right a spear. The same spear that Alin had seen him use to fight off half a dozen Grandmasters and highly trained Enosh Travelers.

The King was speaking, giving orders to his fellow Incarnations, but his eyes were fixed on Alin.

You will likely die today,
the Violet Light pointed out.

Alin considered that and found it true. The fact didn’t bother him much.

Then I will die defending my city and my Territory,
he thought.
At the very least, I will die a hero.

The Gold Light approved.

Then an explosion from behind him caught his attention. He didn’t stop and stare; he hurled a cloud of Silver Light behind him, sensing the location, and his body flared with Red and Orange Light as he hurled himself backwards off the wall. He was in the air and flying toward the source of the noise before the explosion even finished.

It was in the Blue District. The ruins of the Naraka waystation, naturally, because it seemed that he couldn’t have a disturbance anywhere else in his city. He hadn’t seen a Naraka Incarnation under Zakareth’s control, but it had been long enough since Alin had destroyed the last one. It was certainly possible that King Zakareth could have kept Naraka in reserve, to send saboteurs through to weaken Alin’s defenses.

A familiar presence glowed in his mind with Silver Light.

No…
he thought.
No, I couldn’t possibly be that lucky.

Grandmaster Naraka stood outside the ruined Naraka waystation, her red spectacles turned up to watch him.

He landed in front of her, hands trembling, all the old emotions surfacing at once.
She
was the one who had destroyed his hometown.
She
was responsible for the deaths of two of his sisters, and the escape of the third.
She
was the one who had caused him to give up his humanity in the first place. She was even the one who had taught him to Travel.

No matter how he turned the situation over in his mind, she had brought him here.

His palms filled with Gold Light, almost on reflex, but he banished the force before it could fully form. He didn’t need to blast her down in cold blood; he wanted to do this
right.

Naraka’s mouth twisted into a smile, and she spoke in her usual, creaking voice. “I come for justice, Eliadel.”

“And justice you shall receive,” he said. That was a line from a story, but whether she understood the reference or not, he didn’t care.

She shook her head slowly. “It’s difficult to become a Naraka Incarnation. Far more difficult than it is for Elysia, it seems. It’s not only a matter of drawing too much power, you see. You have to flee justice, and yet hunger for it at the same time.”

Grandmaster Naraka raised her right arm, which no longer ended in a smooth stump. Her right hand was a shriveled black claw, crawling with orange flame. “I escaped the Queen of Damasca and my well-earned punishment for betraying her. I come here, now, to a place where the law says I could be executed.”

She smiled widely, and as Alin watched, her canines elongated into fangs. “I come because I have only one desire: to bring you to justice. You, who killed my fellow Grandmasters. Who ruined everything good in this city. You, Alin, deserve justice.”

Her other hand burst into flames, and Grandmaster Naraka cackled loudly enough to shake the streets of Enosh. The Silver Light warned him that a handful of other people were scrambling out of the Naraka Gate behind her, but he didn’t care that she’d brought backup. The Incarnation would be the real threat, and his eyes were stuck to her transformation.

The glasses slipped from her nose, red lenses shattering on the ground. Her pale white eyes turned orange, like live coals, her body twisting and stretching into a hunched, serpentine form. She spat out a tongue of flame.

Then Leah’s voice echoed through the street, supernaturally loud. “We allowed her to come to you, Alin,” she said. “A peace offering. Do with her what you will, and none of us will interfere.”

For an instant, the hideously transformed Grandmaster Naraka looked as surprised as Alin felt. But then she turned back to him, unable to look away for very long. A red, pebbled tail shot out from under her robes, spikes on the end scratching the stones.

Fury pounded in his heart, the Gold Light crying out for victory.

But he had regained control of himself. Did he dare give in to his desire for vengeance now? What would that do to him?

Then again, there was an Incarnation here on his streets. Surely the
right
thing to do would be to destroy her before she ran rampant and killed his citizens. Yes, he was sure that in this, what was right and what he wanted were one and the same.

In her Gate beside him, Rhalia was whispering advice, but he didn’t listen. He called Gold Light.

Then there was a streak of shadow and steel, and Simon slammed a giant hammer down on Grandmaster Naraka’s head. She crumpled with a noisy crunch, though ash sprayed out instead of blood.

Simon looked up, meeting Alin’s gaze. His hood was down, and his eyes were angry.

“I’m sorry about that,” Simon said. “She didn’t tell me what she was going to do.”

Bones popped and slid as the Naraka Incarnation pulled herself together, flesh sliding back into one piece, her head rising out of the pile of her body. Fire gathered in one of her hands.

Then Simon slammed the hammer down again.

He ground the head of the weapon into her body, leaning casually on the handle. “We heard the King was going to attack you, and we wanted to come help. He already tried to destroy Valinhall, now he’s moving against Elysia.”

Elysia? The King was trying to destroy not just Enosh, but Elysia? Alin glanced over at Rhalia who was looking thoughtfully at Simon. “You know, I like his approach,” she said. “It’s efficient.”

“Are they really going to attack the City?” Alin asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said, her voice grim. “It’s been tried before, and it was futile, but we had many Travelers then. Now, you can’t even set foot in the Territory, and I can’t leave unless I’m summoned…on our own, against six Incarnations—”

“Five,” Simon interrupted, slamming his hammer down on Grandmaster Naraka again.

Rhalia laughed. “Five, right. Five Incarnations, on our own…they could do it. Bring down the walls of Elysia.”

Simon had tossed his hammer aside, and had started driving a sword into the pile of flesh, bone, and ash that had once been Grandmaster Naraka. This was a different sword, Alin noticed: roughly the same length and shape, but with a line of gold running down the middle. The gold sang to him, shining brighter than the ordinary metal should have. It couldn’t be from Elysia, could it?

“See?” Simon said. “You need our help. The enemy of your enemy is…us.” He frowned down at his own cloak. “Stop laughing, he knows what I meant.”

An old man in chain mail and a gray uniform had stepped up beside Simon, stabbing his infantry sword into Grandmaster Naraka. A blond girl of maybe thirteen or fourteen joined him, cutting off limbs and pieces of bone with her own short, slightly curving blade.

Everything was happening so fast, Alin couldn’t get a grip on himself. But one thing was clear: he couldn’t attack them, now that they’d named themselves his allies. None of the Elysian virtues would allow that, no matter how much the Gold Light grumbled that he needed to finish the fight.

There was one thing, though, that Alin himself wanted. He pointed to Naraka.

“Step away from her,” he said. “She deserves justice.”

None of the Valinhall Travelers listened. Simon looked up at him with evident surprise. “And you don’t think she got it?”

When Alin didn’t budge, Simon finally ordered the other two back. That was interesting: Alin would have expected the old man was in charge, but he and the girl both stepped back when Simon said so.

Grandmaster Naraka…didn’t look like much anymore.

She was little more than a man-sized pile of ash, with bones and pebbly bits of lizard skin sticking up at odd angles. Without the shattered spectacles lying in front of her, Alin would have never known who these remnants had been.

His impotent fury rose up again. How
dare
they take her from him? He had spent six months searching for her, and now Simon killed her before he got a chance? Simon had circumvented justice! He deserved to be punished!

That’s not justice,
the Blue Light pointed out.

All you wanted was vengeance,
the Silver Light said.

It was true, and the Violet Light confirmed it. What he
wanted
to do was challenge Simon to another fight out of sheer frustration, defeat him, and use that to proclaim his superiority. But the
right
thing to do was let it all go and accept the help.

He raised his voice to include Leah as well. “You are welcome here,” he said. “We can always use more allies.” Leah, he noticed, had replaced her left eye with a glowing red substitute. He wondered if that should bother him more, but his own eyes were anything but human.

With a deep breath, he drew on the Green Light and banished all thoughts of vengeance. They were beneath him, now.

“Maybe you can learn after all,” Rhalia said thoughtfully.

***

“I don’t know what he’s waiting for,” Leah said. “But we need to take advantage of this time and come up with a plan.”

That’s why Simon had suggested meeting in Valinhall: whatever time they had would be doubled, here.

Alin’s eyes flashed silver. “He’s bringing his forces through various Territories, so they won’t all reach at the same time. He will be waiting until his side is in position, both in this world and in each Territory. We should have at least an hour.”

That sounded reasonable. He spoke with such confidence that Simon had to believe him, even though for all Simon knew, Alin could have been making it all up.

For the first time since Myria, Simon stood in a room with Alin and Leah. They each stood around a table in the House of Blades: the only neutral location where they could be sure they wouldn’t be observed.

In each of them, the changes couldn’t have been more apparent.

Alin, of course, was no longer human. He was clad head-to-toe in gleaming golden armor, and his hair matched. His skin was a shade paler than it had ever been, and his eyes shimmered with slices of every color in the rainbow. More than that, he carried himself differently. His face was all but expressionless, and he had the tendency to stare at something for long minutes without blinking. He had always laughed and told stories for anyone who would listen, radiating warmth and confidence like a bonfire. Now the fire was cold and distant, like a star.

In some ways, the changes in Leah were more dramatic. She had taken command of any situation, even before Simon had known who she was, but now she wore a long, expensive dress of pure red, with a silver circlet on her head. The pale crystal on a chain around her wrist seemed like a lady’s ornament, now, rather than simple jewelry worn by a villager. And she only had one blue eye left. Her red eye shone bright, seeming to stare right through him. The raven on her left shoulder let out a
caw,
and then began preening its wing. The whole of Leah, with the raven and the eye and the crown, left her looking like the powerful Queen out of some Territory, not the ordinary ruler of an earthly kingdom.

And then there was Simon.

The cloak makes you look like a bad actor in some cheap play,
Caela commented.
You don’t even have the sword right now, but if you did, it’s way too long to take seriously. You look like a child playing with your father’s weapon. The mask looks like it was hammered by an amateur with a pile of scrap metal, which is almost the truth, and—lest we forget—you’re carrying around a doll.

I always did feel ridiculous carrying you around,
Simon admitted.

What? No, I make you look much better. ‘I don’t know who that idiot is, running around in that cloak like he thinks he’s an assassin, but where did he get that beautifully crafted doll?’ That’s what people are going to say about you.

Simon considered and discarded half a dozen possible responses before realizing that, no matter what he said, Caela would win in the end.
I’m…sure you’re right, Caela,
he sent at last.
That’s exactly what they’ll say.

“We need to lure them over the wall,” Alin was saying, when Simon turned his attention back to the discussion. “Fight them on our terms.”

“
Can
we fight them, even on our terms?” Leah asked. “We only have, at most, three Valinhall Travelers.”

Alin frowned. “Of course we can. I am Elysia, and I will destroy them all.”

Leah raised one eyebrow. “Honestly, Alin?”

After a moment, Alin’s irises flared violet. “Honestly, no. I can account for two Incarnations, as long as one of them isn’t Ragnarus. The King is too dangerous on his own.”

It was disturbing, listening to Alin change his mind so fast. It was almost like they were having a conversation with more than one person in the same body.