Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (44 page)

"There is only one release for your pain," Gavriel told her.

Maeve stared up. A point of light burned above her, a single star in the midst of the terrible night. She moaned and blood filled her mouth.

"Only death will stop this, Maeve," the star intoned. "The pain will cease. No more pain, no more guilt."

The sky –
No, I am inside a room! There is no sky here!
– was not simply dark. There was something else out there. Something reaching for her… Smoke? No, black clouds of dust and ash, just like the Devourers' deadly, ethereal forms.

Squeezing her eyes shut would not banish the visions of deadly red and black. The star was still singing. "When it's done, Maeve, you will have peace. You will sleep without nightmares of the Devourers. I can save you."

"No," crooned the darkness, full of deep, cold sadness. "I will not let you go. You took everything from us."

"I was forgiven," Maeve whispered. Blood poured down her throat, drowning her.

"Destroyer. Killer!" moaned the shadows. "You will never be forgiven! You will never forget. Remember, Maeve. Remember what you have done!"

The devouring darkness was right. As the blood closed over Maeve's head, she knew it was right. She was not forgiven. She remembered.

Maeve stood atop the great ziggurat. The gentle glow of the Waygate reflected in her glass armor.

It was early in the morning and the sun, Aes, still lay heavy and golden on the horizon. The city of Tamlin shone like a great jeweled crown all around the Waygate. Glass towers climbed up into rose-colored dawn. White-winged Arcadians flew between the delicate spires on the morning breeze. A knight at the Waygate was no strange sight and they paid Maeve no mind.

Gavriel sang. His voice pressed painfully into Maeve's memory. The invasion of his magic pierced any lingering vestige of Vanora White languor. Maeve wailed in grief. She tried to stop, to tear her thoughts back from Tamlin, from the Waygate and the Devourers, but Gavriel's smooth voice and Xartasia's grasp on her arm pinned her there. The charm echoed in the close room.

Maeve took a deep breath, remembering the spells she had heard Caith sing a thousand times. This week, the gate was supposed to be open to Emassu, a city on Jinthalin. Maeve cradled her spear loosely in one glass-gauntleted hand and raised the other toward the Waygate. The sheen of light paused, swirled and pulsed as though in recognition. Maeve smiled. This would be easy.

Better to die than let Gavriel succeed. Maeve slammed her head back as hard as she could, intent on cracking her own skull against the metal post. Could she do it? It had worked for the Lyran Emberguard on the Blue Phoenix… But she was weak, slow. She managed to slam her head once into the support, but dashing one's own brains out was much harder than the Lyran had made it look all those months ago. Her ears rang and then Xartasia's hand was there, cradling the back of her head. The princess kissed Maeve's salt-sweaty temple and held her fast.

"You will die," Xartasia promised. "But not yet."

Gavriel rose to his feet, hands outstretched like one of the Union saints, singing as Maeve's memories haunted her.

"Alluna s'aelim wain'ii mae shassa eth am'avain," Maeve sang in a clear voice. "Kennu varii lae ellu'da eira sessar. Qu'ii laess lai jaisha dii aes'ii soshin kae!"

No, that did not sound right. Maeve hesitated.

"Laennan…" she faltered. "Laennal emanuu shodav ain'no latam. Aetrix sumanni eleo ma'an… ana va'an… Tii'dai! Alluna s'aelim Emassu!"

That could not have been how the spell was supposed to end. It was too short… For a moment, nothing happened. And then the Waygate blazed. The great ring swam with a warning light, strobing red and orange. Maeve stared. Something was horribly wrong.

The whole smooth white pyramid under her feet began to ring like a huge bell. A voice boomed out from the Waygate, resonating with authority, but Maeve could not understand the words. She clapped her hands over her ears and leapt back from the bellowing Waygate.

The interior of the gate flashed. Through the portal, Maeve saw only blackness. The Waygate rang again. Something shifted in the black void on the other side of the ring of light. Maeve spread her wings. She had to find help!

And then darkness poured through the Tamlin Waygate.

Gavriel's voice finally faded and his cold presence was gone from her thoughts. Maeve sagged against her bonds, beyond exhausted. Even her heart beat slow and weak, too tired to sustain her. Xartasia gently released Maeve and let the younger fairy collapse bonelessly, held only by her bound limbs.

"You have claimed the memories?" Xartasia asked in a shaking voice. "Can you now open the Tamlin Waygate as she did?"

"Yes." Gavriel drew a deep breath, and then another. "Yes, the memories are mine. I can feel the weight of the armor, feel Aes' warmth on my face. The horror at what I have done, what I unleashed on my home! I can do it again!"

________

Kemmer Andus sat on the top step of the Waygate. He finished his lunch in a few large, hurried bites as he reviewed the newest scans by Xen and his team. They should have been the same, identical to those taken just after Ava and Darius finished their work removing eons of debris, but the Waygate seemed to be in a perpetual state of flux: minor variation in the surface temperature, refraction and density.

Kemmer sighed and rubbed his eyes. There was no way the scholarly community was going to believe any of this. The arrogant bastards would simply accuse Kemmer of more shoddy Prian work.

He could always lie, Kemmer realized. The pretty Arcadian girl, Panna, had done it. It would be much easier to rid himself of the low-brow Prian accent than it must have been for Panna to cut off her wings.

But he did not want to, not really. Kemmer looked up at the Waygate, pulsing softly like a great, glowing heartbeat. Even he could not escape that ridiculous, stiff-necked Prian pride. The Pylos Waygate was a
Prian
treasure, and if the Tynerion scholars could not accept that, then they could fly the hells off.

In the camp below, Xen and the rest of his team read and argued over the same results as Kemmer. Gruth was quite sure that the problem was mechanical and checked over the sensors for the third time that morning. Tall, quiet Enu-Io was not so sure. He and Xen were working on a theory, something involving extra dimensions in the Waygate's construction, subject to forces that did not register on their instruments. Phillip was a geologist and had very little to contribute except to tell Xen that if the Waygate was drawing on a power source, there was no sign of it in the mountain.

Ava and Darius took no part in the ponderings of the Tynerion team. They sat under one of the tarpaulin strung between the tents, playing cards. The rest were gone, including the bounty hunter who stubbornly refused to sign one of Kemmer's nondisclosure agreements.

The archeologist could not help being annoyed. Maeve's abduction was undermining everything, stealing away personnel and resources that were supposed to be dedicated to the study and protection of the Pylos Waygate. Kemmer was not totally insensitive to the problem, but it did not change the importance of his discovery. This was so much bigger than one woman.

If Kemmer could just present this amazing find to the right people, in the right light, the Waygate could change the world. Prianus would finally become a real force in Alliance politics. It was an elevation in status that Kemmer himself would appreciate from his comfortable new office on Tynerion. Maybe somewhere on Axis. Someplace warm…

An angry shout interrupted his daydreams. Tiberius Myles – the sole remaining member of their security force – stood sentry at the edge of the camp and held a battered com to his ear. Phillip and Enu-Io rushed to Tiberius.

"Has something happened?" the big Dailon asked gravely.

Tiberius lowered the radio and drew a deep breath. "Yes. That was Duaal. He's got the memories from Maeve. He doesn't need her anymore. We're running out of time."

________

When Maeve could see again, she found unshed tears in Xartasia's wide violet eyes.

"You have all you need now, old friend," her cousin told Gavriel. "Now, it remains only to go to the Tamlin Waygate and see this done. A long journey, but only a moment when held beside the effort of years already–"

"Quiet," Gavriel snapped. He was staring at Maeve, his thoughts still intertwined with hers.

"No," Maeve said.

The old Nihilist sang a low, thrumming word that filled the small apartment. "There's something else in her thoughts."

The Waygate. The Tamlin Waygate, the Pylos Waygate…

Do not tell them!
Maeve tried to push Gavriel's thoughts away, but could no more expel him than she could grasp a dream.
No!

Clasped in ice, deep in a graveyard embrace. Ice and stone, a wound into the very mountain that seethed with violet shadows. A white ziggurat rose from the heart of secrets and the great ring glowed with slumbering power. A Waygate, here on Prianus! Even after these weeks of work, it still seemed so impossible.

No, it is a secret! I swore to keep it…!

Blood sang in Gavriel's ears. His heart beat like a drum in his brittle old ribs as he sang. A song of triumph. A grin spread across his face.

"What is it?" Xartasia asked. Her wings rustled restlessly, whispering without words.

"There's a Waygate on Prianus!" he said, laughing. "Here, in the mountains. That's why she was in Pylos."

Xartasia's violet eyes gleamed with fervor. "The All-Singer himself watches over us."

"We don't need to fly all the way out to Arcadia. We can summon the Devourers right here, right into the core!" Gavriel shouted exultantly. He raised his arms as though to embrace the unseen Pylos Waygate. "Prianus will be the first to fall! I will summon the Devourers onto my enemies' very doorstep and deliver them unto death. The Prians are suffering. I will end that today!"

Xartasia looked down at Maeve. "She has given you so much. Will you finally release her?"

"She will die," Gavriel said. His hands fell to his sides, fists tightly clenched. "But for her insolence, she will die slowly. Hallax, break her wings and throw her into the pit. Come, Xartasia. We have plans to make."

"Titania, do not do this," Maeve pleaded. There was blood cooling on her lips. It was sticky and tasted like the sea. "Please, cousin! You cannot truly wish to bring back the Devourers!"

"It must be done." Xartasia laid one soft final kiss on Maeve's cheek as Gavriel strode purposefully from the room. She followed, gliding behind him like a sad, silent ghost.

When they were gone, Hallax turned back to Maeve. The Emberguard rested a striped hand on the hilt of his nanosword. "To think that you held the key to so much death and that you kept it to yourself," he said. "You're a selfish woman."

"I would have killed myself before giving up the memories had I only been allowed!" Maeve replied in heavy, weary anger. "Your lord is a coward, Emberguard! He torments a bound and drugged woman. He would not face me!"

Hallax answered with a deep, grating laugh. He walked around behind her and Maeve heard the distinctively hard hiss of a blade sliding free.

"You want to question Lord Gavriel's honor?" asked the Emberguard. "Honor is an illusion, little bird-back. Just like all the rest."

Hallax tugged sharply on her arms and then began sawing through the ropes binding her aching wings. When the last one fell free, Maeve sagged. Every nerve along her back screamed in agony as the tortured muscle and bone suddenly had to support their weight again.

"Release me," Maeve said through clenched teeth. "Soon your master will unleash the Devourers upon us all. I will be dead before long. Let me go from here. Let me die under open sky!"

She thought it sounded reasonable, at least enough to give the brain-diseased Nihilist pause, but Hallax laughed unpleasantly again and did not answer. He unlocked the handcuffs and they clattered to the floor.

"Get up," he instructed.

Every inch of her hurt. Maeve's head seemed to float over her shoulders like a bubble and felt just as fragile. But she had to do something… Gavriel knew about the Pylos Waygate and how to use it to summon the Devourers!

Maeve tried to stand. Her legs were weak and wobbled beneath her. Swollen joints and weakened muscles crumpled beneath her, dumping the fairy unceremoniously back to the floor. Maeve struggled to her hands and knees. The handcuffs had worn away most of the skin around her wrists and they were braceleted in wet blood, black as ink in the dim lamplight. Hallax prodded at her with one foot.

"Get up, little bird-back," he ordered. "I don't want to carry you. Maybe you'll have a last chance to face death with dignity. Walk."

"You know nothing of Arcadians," Maeve rasped as she climbed slowly, agonizingly upright. "There is no dignity in walking. Let me fly."

"There's nowhere to fly. We're going down."

Her bruised ankle held. Maeve leaned against the steel girder that had been her prison for the last two days. What now? She was weak, far too weak to fight the lanky Mirran Emberguard. Did Hallax have a gun, some kind of weapon she could steal before he noticed? Only the nanosword, still gleaming in his hand. Maeve could barely control her mistreated body enough to remain standing. There was no way she could wrest the blade away from Hallax.