Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2) (35 page)

“Perhaps they were right,” Keel-Tath whispered, mentally reeling from what Anuir-Ruhal’te, or her ghost, was telling her. “If one such as the Dark Queen held such terrible power, how long could it be before the light from the very stars went out?”

“She will never have it,” Anuir-Ruhal’te assured her. “This is a power only you may wield. It is part of you, in your very blood. The crystals will recognize you, and no other, for what you are.”

“But why? What need was there to do such a thing?”

“I did it because our race was dying, child. Fewer children were born with each generation, and after all our achievements we were falling into ruin, into chaos. Some did not believe the final ending was upon us. Others did, and were content, or even joyful, that it was so. While lust for battle is in our very blood and bone, battle without honor is for the feral creatures of the land and sea, not our kind. Yet that is what they would have had. But some, like me, sought salvation for our kind.” She lowered her head. “While we had hopes for the distant future, that you would someday be born, we had failed the people of our own time, and the weapons of those who opposed us rained fire down upon the worlds.”

“You and the others like you were the old gods,” Keel-Tath whispered. “Those who fell, who were claimed false in the eyes of the people.”

Looking up, the marks of mourning running down her face, Anuir-Ruhal’te nodded. “We took upon ourselves the power of gods that we might save our people. We succeeded in part, for our species lived on, after a fashion. But we failed to take our people higher, to a greater state of being in the Universe. That, child, will be your task. You know us through the Books of Time as the old gods, the fallen, yes. You shall be the new god, the one god who will see our people through to their ultimate redemption.”

“And how am I to do this?” Keel-Tath was afraid she knew what the answer must be.

“Those few of us who survived the fires of that last great war formed the priesthoods to safeguard the crystals. Alas, the message of their true purpose was lost over the ages, for they have long since forgotten that they were to preserve them for you. The priesthoods took a path that was not foreseen, and the only way you can accomplish what you must will be with fire, by force.” She looked at Keel-Tath, her eyes wells of sorrow. “Each of the other six crystals must you touch, and then…then you will have power such as even we Ancient Ones could never have conceived.”

“But mistress, there are only five other crystals. The one for the Ka’i-Nur no longer exists.”

At that, Anuir-Ruhal’te smiled. “It exists, my child. But it was hidden, for among all the Crystals of Souls, it is in some ways the most powerful, the most terrible, for it will reopen the gateway between the spirits of the living and the dead. When it is time, you will find it, I have no doubt.” She stepped closer, taking Keel-Tath’s hand. “There is an afterlife, child. There is a paradise, and there is endless darkness. Once you have the power of all seven crystals within you, you will not be bound by life or death, just as you will not be bound by space and time. And when you are ready, you will be able to take our people where we could not.”

With one last squeeze of Keel-Tath’s hand, Anuir-Ruhal’te turned and began to walk away, and the light in the ancient crypt began to dim. “I must go to them now,” she said. “It is time.”

“Wait!” Keel-Tath called after her distant ancestor, and began to follow after her. She had so many questions that needed to be answered. “Mistress, please wait!”

But the oracle, her distant mother, was fading quickly as darkness claimed the crypt. Looking at her hand, Keel-Tath saw that she was holding the shard of the crystal heart that she had taken from the crypt before she had destroyed it. The blue glow was fading. With a final bright pulse, the light went out, and the world was cast into darkness.

***

She awoke upon the cold stone of the dais in the coliseum. Blinking her eyes clear, she turned her head and saw Ayan-Dar laying beside her. Biting back a cry of grief, she reached over to touch him and found his body still warm. He was gone from this life, but she remembered Anuir-Ruhal’te’s words about the Crystal of Souls held by the Ka’i-Nur: it will reopen the gateway between the spirits of the living and the dead. Perhaps she would see her mentor again one day, along with her mother and father, and all the others whom she had lost.

It was a heartening thought until she realized that it must have been nothing more than a dream. It must have been.

Propping herself up on her elbows, her body still tingling and sluggish, something fell from her hand to clatter onto the stone. 

It was the crystal shard. 

She had no recollection of removing it from her pouch, but then she realized that her pouch and everything else she wore that was not metal had been turned to powdery ash, and even the metal plate of her armor was charred and melted along the edges. The only things that had been left untouched were her weapons. 

Carefully picking up the crystal, she looked at it, hoping to see some trace of the blue glow, but there was none. 

With it still held in her hand, she knelt beside Ayan-Dar, wishing she could speak to him again, wishing that he could give her words of wisdom to help illuminate the path she must follow. She glanced at the door through which they had come, one of seven that ringed the great arena, terrified of what lay beyond. She was not afraid of the war among the priesthood, or even the Dark Queen. She was terrified of what she herself must become, and even what she might be now.

She did not feel any different, except that the pain she had felt from the inquisition was gone. Her body seemed the same, so far as she could tell. 

The only difference she could sense with any certainty was the song of her kin in her blood. It was there, to be sure, but was not the chaotic maelstrom it had been when she entered the coliseum with Ayan-Dar. It was steady and measured, a harmony of millions of voices at peace. She did not know if that was some strange effect of this place, or if what had transpired here had wrought some greater change upon the world outside.

She also wondered where Ria-Ka’luhr had disappeared to. He had been with her when they passed through the doorway, but only Ayan-Dar had appeared on the other side. 

Steeling herself for what must be done, she kissed Ayan-Dar’s forehead, then picked up her father’s sword and stood. Brushing the ash from her body, she strode toward the doorway, forcing herself to be strong. Whatever powers the Crystal of Souls might have given her, courage was not among them. For that, she had to look to herself.

Pausing just a moment at the door, she wondered if it would even open, for it could only do so for one of the priesthood. But if what Anuir-Ruhal’te had said to her in the dream were true…

Reaching out with her hand, she touched the door, and it swung open wide. Beyond lay nothing but darkness.

Taking a deep breath, her father’s sword in hand, she stepped through into the unknown.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Darkness Falls

The temple lay in smoldering ruin. Save for the massive domed coliseum, the buildings of the temple had been razed by fire or blasted into rubble by the massive energies unleashed by the priests and priestesses as they fought. Even the great
Kal’ai-Il
had been damaged, two of the massive pillars shorn off. Bodies and parts of bodies were strewn everywhere, although for some of the fallen, all that remained was a sword or a piece of burned and twisted armor. Billowing clouds of smoke drifted away from the plateau to smother the sunset. What the great ships that sailed between the stars had been unable to do in the final battle of the last great war, the priests and priestesses had managed to do themselves.

Keel-Tath, gazing with unbelieving eyes at what had once been her home, was sickened by the slaughter. The song of her kin in her blood, so peaceful and placid within the confines of the coliseum, was filled with anger and rage, bloodlust and pain. And so many were silent, the echoes of their melodies gone forever unto death.

She stood there, trying to come to grips with what had happened in the time she had been in the coliseum, as the door behind her slid silently closed. One thing was painfully clear, however: the battle was over, and there was no question who emerged victorious.

“Yield, Keel-Tath, in the name of the conclave of the priesthoods.” It was T’ier-Kunai’s First, Alena-Khan. Her armor was charred and still smoking in several places, and her left arm hung limp at her side, dripping blood. In a wide semicircle around the doorway stood what was left of the Desh-Ka, swords still drawn.
So few
, Keel-Tath thought, her heart aching. Those who had stood with Ayan-Dar were gone, dead. “There need be no more bloodshed. Enough have died on your account.”

Kneeling before them were Dara-Kol and Drakh-Nur, beaten and bloodied. Tara-Khan lay on the ground, bleeding badly from a sword wound in his chest below his heart. Ka’i-Lohr sat next to him, dazed, a deep gash across his forehead. 

“I yielded to them, mistress,” Dara-Kol said in a rasping voice as Keel-Tath rushed to kneel beside Tara-Khan. “We could not hold against them, and I did not want to die without knowing you would return to us.”

Drakh-Nur looked up at her with tortured eyes, and bobbed his head. “As did I.” He glanced at the young warrior beside him who lay dying. “Tara-Khan would not,” he rumbled. “I am shamed, mistress.”

“The only shame is what the Dark Queen has wrought upon us all,” Keel-Tath told him bitterly. “Tara-Khan,” she whispered, putting a hand to his face. His eyes flickered open. He managed to raise a hand, and she took it. His grip was so weak, and she could feel his life slipping away as he bled out upon the ground. Looking up at Alena-Khan, she said, “Summon a healer!”

“He raised his sword to defend you,” the priestess said. “Let him die with honor.”

“No,” Keel-Tath whispered, turning back to Tara-Khan. “I have seen enough death this day.” Letting go his hand, she tore at the fastenings of his armor to reveal the wound, which was as long as the width of her hand, the blood foaming from air seeping from the ruptured lung. From the blood seeping out beneath him, she knew the sword had thrust all the way through his body. “Please,” she whispered desperately, putting her hands over the bleeding flesh. “Please let this work.” She had no healing gel, no skills in the healing art, nothing but desperate hope that the powers the Crystal of Souls had given her could be used for something other than destruction. Squeezing her eyes shut, she concentrated on his body, the flutter of his heart, the shallow gasping of his lungs, the warmth of the blood that covered her hands. 

Then his heart stopped beating. She could feel it stop, could feel the flow of blood over her hands cease. But she would not give up. “Tara-Khan,” she whispered again, willing his spirit to not take flight, to stay.

“Mistress.” She felt Dara-Kol’s hand on her shoulder. “Mistress, let him go.”

“Help me,” Keel-Tath whispered, not daring to open her eyes. “Believe in me. Believe that he will live.”

She felt another hand touch her back. From the huge size she knew it was Drakh-Nur. And then Ka’i-Lohr put his hands over hers.

Time passed, how much, she could not tell. Gradually her sense of the world around her faded, everything but the hands of her companions where they touched her and the warmth of Tara-Khan’s blood faded to darkness. 

Then, just as when she had first seen the faint glow of the shattered crystal heart in the dark cavern beyond Anuir-Ruhal’te’s crypt, the darkness of her mind was cast aside by a brightening glow that suffused her body with a tingling warmth. The glow continued to brighten and the warmth became a heat so intense that she felt as if she was kneeling upon the surface of a star. She opened herself to it, was overcome by it. She was no longer a being of flesh and blood, bone and sinew, but of light and energy, boundless, limitless. It was an ecstasy she had never known, could never have conceived, as if the power of the entire Universe was hers to command.

The energy flowed through her across the bridge made by her hands to Tara-Khan’s body, and as it did she could see him in her mind, a dark emptiness that began to glow with tiny stars. At first there were only a few, right where she touched him. But they quickly began to spread, and in only moments his body glittered with them, millions of stars, more than in the sky from all the nights of a thousand years. 

She gasped as his heart gave a stuttering beat, then another. And another, before it made a steady, comforting rhythm. The torn flesh and bone mended, and blood begat blood, refilling his arteries and veins. With a gasp, his lungs took a deep breath, and after a few more she heard a sound that brought her great joy.

“Keel-Tath,” he whispered, putting a hand to her cheek.

With a deep sigh of release, the light and heat dissipated as quickly as it had come. She opened her eyes, feeling at once spent and invigorated, elation filling her heart. A day that had brought so much death had, for this once, also brought life.

“You shall live to fight another day,” she told him, squeezing his hand tight and smiling at Ka’i-Lohr, who stared at her with utter disbelief. 

Letting go of Tara-Khan, she picked up her father’s sword and got to her feet, swaying for a moment at a sensation of light headedness that quickly passed. Dara-Kol and Drakh-Nur, still on their knees, helped to steady her, then bowed their heads low as she turned to face Alena-Khan. She took a step toward the priestess, tightening her grip on her father’s sword, still sheathed. The fear she had felt when she had first seen the priesthood arrayed against her was gone. Death held no fear for her after what she had just done. “I do not answer to the conclave or to you, priestess of the Desh-Ka,” she said. “I am the daughter of Anuir-Ruhal’te, by her design if not by her womb, and in her name and my own do I demand your honor.”

Alena-Khan and the others of the priesthood stared at her as if she had gone mad. A few made sounds of utter disgust in the back of their throats.