61: UNDER THE WATERS
Atrine, Jorat Dominion, Quuros Empire. Three days since Kihrin made his way to the Culling Fields invisibly
As soon as Kihrin smashed the crystal, he knew he’d fucked up.
For one thing, the crystal hadn’t been solid. Rather than being a single piece of rock, the way every other Cornerstone he’d ever seen had been, this crystal formed a thin, hollow shell surrounding gems, talismans, and objects whose purpose he couldn’t fathom. Under Urthaenriel’s touch61, the crystal had shattered like glass.
For a second thing, as soon as he broke the crystal, the ground began to shake. Violently. Water began to splash onto the three of them, as their cube of air buckled and twisted.
And finally, he felt like he had been stabbed. Not physically stabbed. Kihrin felt like someone had just shoved a sword through his soul.
“Thurvishar—” Kihrin grabbed the throne for support. “Something’s wrong.”
He glanced at Thurvishar just as the wizard’s eyes rolled up into his head and he fell to the ground.
“What just happened?” Brother Qown asked, running to Thurvishar’s side.
“I don’t know—” Kihrin didn’t finish the thought. He brandished Urthaenriel as she screamed a warning to him.
The water curtain parted.
And Relos Var walked into the throne room.
Morios had all but leveled the duke’s palace but had left Khored’s temple—nearly as tall—alone. As if destroying that would be rude.
Janel wasn’t the only person who’d noticed the dragon’s reluctance to demolish Khored’s cathedral either. As soon as Janel ran inside, she found Ninavis, along with Dorna, Star, and most of Ninavis’s people. Vidan looked like he’d taken some sort of head wound, while Kay Hará and Jem Nakijan both sported some ugly-looking injuries that Dorna was in the process of treating.
Talaras tossed his head back in greeting as Sir Baramon rose from where he’d been seated on the cold stone floor. “Count!”
Janel looked around. The inside of the temple was packed, but she shuddered to think that this might be the largest group of survivors.
“Oh, I’m so happy to see all of you,” she said, “but I can’t stay. Does anyone know if there are stairs to reach the upper levels?”
“Through those doors, foal,” Dorna said. “And it’s not quite as bad as it looks. We’ve stashed quite a few people down in the caves.”
Janel grinned as she ran. “Good!”
She climbed the stairs to the upper levels of the temple. When Janel had reached the highest point she could find, without scaling the outside of the building, she began shouting for Tyentso.
Morios was now exchanging blows with Khored, but Janel saw no sign of the Quuros emperor.
“Tyentso!”
A portal appeared next to Janel, and Tyentso stepped through. “Did you know, a week ago, I couldn’t open a gate at all? This crown is amazing.”
Janel laughed. The situation was horrible, the odds grim, and she was laughing.
“Tyentso, could you help me trick Morios into swallowing me whole?”
The emperor stared at her.
Janel tilted her head.
“You’re serious?”
“I think I’ve figured out how to kill him.” Janel grimaced. “At least, how to kill him temporarily. If I’m right, I will have bought two days for you and the Academy wizards to devise some solution, melt him down, transport his body out to sea … something.” Janel paused. “And if I’m wrong, the worst that happens is that I die.”
“Right. Because that’s the worst that could happen.” Tyentso shook her head. “It’s your funeral, kid, but sure, I think I can help you out.”
“Did Morios even hurt you?” Kihrin scowled at the wizard.
Relos Var laughed. “Morios doesn’t believe in ‘pretending’ to hurt someone. The injuries were real. Quite painful.”
“Good.”
“Don’t feel bad; I spent centuries setting up all the pieces to this con. Quite a few very smart people fell for it.”
With his free hand, Kihrin gestured over his shoulder, back toward the throne. “And I assume that wasn’t Morios’s Cornerstone?”
“Not in the least. You just destroyed an ancient device created a long time ago by a people now extinct. But if it makes you feel better, it would have cracked on its own in fifty years, give or take. I didn’t feel like waiting for nature to run her course.”
“You aren’t leaving here alive.” Kihrin descended the steps.
“You think I’ve never fought someone carrying Urthaenriel before?” Relos Var smiled as he circled the young man. “Please. You’re ill-equipped to deal with me.”
Kihrin suspected that was true. That trick Relos Var had pulled with the portal gates back in the tavern, for example. That could work far too well, even against someone holding Urthaenriel. But what choice did he have? Running wasn’t an option. “I think you talk a good game, Var, but you weren’t prepared for me to be the one who found Godslayer. And this time, I’m going to kill you, not the other way around.”
Relos Var stopped smiling. “Let’s find out.”
Which was when Brother Qown hit Kihrin in the head with a mud-soaked branch.
Kihrin collapsed.
“Oh sun.” Qown threw down the branch. “I think I’ve given him a concussion.” He bent down to check on Kihrin, kicking Urthaenriel away. Finally, he exhaled in relief.
Relos Var said nothing and watched.
The small open space under the lake fell into silence.
“Why?” Relos Var asked at last, tilting his head.
“You were going to kill him,” Brother Qown said.
“I was not,” Var protested. “I need him alive for my plans to succeed.”
Brother Qown nodded. “Good.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Because at least you have a plan. Because you’re the only one who has a plan. I don’t think the gods do.”
“Give them some credit. The Eight have a plan. Unfortunately for all of us, it’s a really bad plan,” Relos Var said. “They want a stopgap measure, something quick and certain to buy them, oh a few centuries at most. But we only have one immortal race left who could seal Vol Karoth back in his tomb. Even if the vané sacrifice their ageless existence to re-imprison Vol Karoth, what will we do then? When this inevitably fails, just as the last measures did?” Relos Var snorted. “The demons will be free. A broken god who wants nothing more than to devour the universe will be free. And do you know what the worst part is, Qown?”
Brother Qown wiped the tears from his face. “No?”
“The worst part is those things I just mentioned are not the worst part. Every living creature on either side of the Veil will be destroyed long before Vol Karoth sates his hunger. The worst thing isn’t Vol Karoth and it isn’t the demon hordes—it’s a flaw in the universe. And every minute and every second, that flaw grows a little larger. It won’t stop until our entire universe is ripped apart. And that is our real enemy.”
Qown shuddered. He looked down for a moment at Kihrin, at Thurvishar—both still unconscious. He tried not think about Janel and how the fight up above was unfolding. She’d never forgive him.
That is, if she survived.
Relos Var’s expression softened as he smiled at Qown. “Do you really want to help me? It won’t be easy. People will die. You will be forced to make difficult choices.”
“I’m making one right now.”
“True.” Relos Var looked down at Kihrin’s prone body. “Ah, little brother. You should have listened to your instincts. The mistake you and Janel made—even after you knew I controlled Aeyan’arric—was being unable to imagine why someone would unleash a dragon—and then show you how to kill him. You couldn’t imagine anyone using a dragon as bait.”
Var continued, “Morios only slept under Lake Jorat because I asked him to do this for me about, oh, three hundred years ago. He didn’t wake because of any prophecy. He woke and attacked Atrine because I ordered him to. Naturally, it was no coincidence that it only happened now, after you’d found Godslayer. Urthaenriel is the only weapon I know that could safely shatter a control beacon, and you performed your role perfectly. Truly, I have missed you.”
“Uh…” Qown fidgeted. “You know he can’t hear you, right?”
Var rubbed his chin. “I make it a point to never correct an enemy’s mistakes when they can hear me.”
“But wait,” Qown said. “If the prophecy wasn’t about Morios…”
A flicker of disappointment crossed Relos Var’s face as Qown failed to grasp what he thought should have been obvious. “In the twentieth year of the hawk and the lion, beneath the silver sword, the sleeping beast’s prison shatters. The dragon of swords devours demon falls as night takes the land.” He waved a hand. “I told Duke Kaen the entire quatrain centered on Morios, but I lied. That part about the dragon of swords refers to Morios, which is obvious. And easy enough to orchestrate. So what does the rest of the quatrain really mean?” His tone turned into something appropriate for the classroom.
Qown bit his lip. “I don’t know.”
Relos Var gestured for him to continue. “Do better.”
Qown shifted. “There are a few inconsistencies. I would interpret ‘as night takes the land’ to mean sunset, but this fight didn’t happen at sunset. It happened at dawn. Atrin means silver sword in Guarem. That’s why everyone thought the prophecy referred to Atrine.”
“Keep going. Work it out.”
Then Qown blinked as a new thought occurred to him. “But Morios wasn’t imprisoned, was he? Just sleeping. And not sleeping under Atrine, because there’s no place under the city big enough to fit a dragon his size. Those caves we saw under Khored’s temple are too small.” Qown concentrated as he worked through the problem, forgetting where they were. “So that phrase doesn’t even refer to Atrine. And if it’s not Atrine, then maybe silver sword means something else. Maybe it’s a description. If we rearranged verses, then ‘beneath the silver sword, the sleeping beast’s prison shatters’ becomes ‘the sleeping beast’s prison shatters—beneath the silver sword.’” His gaze settled on Urthaenriel, which had fallen into the mud, but it was still bright, vibrant, silver. It had indeed shattered something too. Crystal shards lay all over the throne. The light that had streamed off into the darkness was now absent.
“Then … that…” Qown started breathing fast. “Oh sun. That quatrain was about Vol Karoth, wasn’t it? The ‘sleeping beast’ is Vol Karoth?”
“Technically, every prophecy is about Vol Karoth. But yes.”
Qown felt his heartbeat drum in panic. “What have we done?”
“What did I just say about difficult decisions? And what we have done is bought humanity time,” Relos Var explained. “I know it doesn’t seem as if waking up Vol Karoth is helpful, but think about our circumstances. The last time the demons roamed free, before Grizzst the Mad gaeshed them all just to prove he could, god-kings ruled this whole continent from coast to coast. Say what you want about those little tyrants, but they kept their pocket kingdoms safe from demons. So what did the Eight Immortals do—through proxy Quuros emperors—once the demons had all been tamed? They slew every god-king they could. They only pardoned those who surrendered their old fiefdoms. The god-kings protect nothing in Quur now, while the Eight Immortals cannot be everywhere at once. We’re overrun.
“The Eight Immortals may be far more powerful than the god-kings, but they aren’t omnipotent. Each time some poor fool dies in a Hellmarch, the demons become stronger and more numerous. But what scares demons more than gods or god-kings? Vol Karoth, whose unending hunger is sated just as well by demons as by any other kind of soul. The demons will hide now. They’ll retreat. Hopefully for long enough so we may do what we must.”
“How can I help?” Qown asked, then paused. “Wait, can I help?”
“Of course you can. Never doubt yourself, Qown. I singled you out for special training when you first came to the Temple of Light. That’s because I saw the potential for greatness in you. As for how you can help, start by picking up that sword.” Relos Var pointed to Urthaenriel. “Trust me when I say it’s best for everyone if I don’t.”
“But as soon as I pick up Urthaenriel, any spells I’m maintaining will fail. The water will come rushing in—” Qown’s eyes widened as he glanced at Thurvishar and Kihrin.
“They’re perfectly safe. Both Thurvishar and Kihrin are glyphed for pressure and air. Those won’t run out. There are no predators interested in humans in these waters. Also, I’m expecting one of the Eight Immortals to check on what happened to their precious control crystal any second now.”
Qown gasped. “In that case, we have to leave. Right now!”
Relos Var smiled. “In a moment.” The wizard walked over to the throne and bent over, clearing away the muck and mud to reveal a small chunk of hematite. He chuckled as he picked it up. “Don’t want to forget this. Morios would be upset if it fell into the wrong hands.”
“That’s Morios’s Cornerstone? Warmonger really was down here the whole time?”
“Of course. One of you might have forced Senera to use the Name of All Things to confirm its location. And I’m sure Kihrin did use Urthaenriel to confirm the presence of a Cornerstone in the vicinity. The only way to satisfy both means of checking was to leave the Cornerstone here. Now why don’t we be on our way. We have a lot to do and not much time to do it.”
Qown picked up Urthaenriel as Relos Var opened a gate.
The water rushed in over the two unconscious men.
Qown and Var stepped through.
By the time Tyentso finished, Janel perched on top of the very highest pinnacle of the temple, had a voice that could be heard for miles, and glowed.
She was also—at least temporarily—extremely difficult to cut.
“Morios! Answer me this. How does one become a dragon? Did you have to make some sort of demon pact?”
The dragon turned toward her, snarling. “What?”
“Janel, what are you doing?” Khored said.
She ignored her god.
“It cannot be so easy to become a dragon,” Janel continued, “or they would litter the valleys. Is there a guild? A special password?”
With each word, Janel threw fire at Morios, spells she knew would never ever damage him.
Come on, she thought. Ignore your brother for just a little while longer. Swing at the gnat. Bite at that snake’s wriggling tail.
Morios breathed at her, but the swirling energy cloud Tyentso had placed around her deflected most of the blades. The few that penetrated beyond that point bounced against her own protections.
“Is that the best you have?” Janel taunted.
“Janel—” But Khored stopped. Perhaps he’d sensed she had a plan. Perhaps he just couldn’t imagine she’d be this stupid otherwise.
Then a look of horror crossed the god’s face. Khored vanished.1
Why…?
Morios flew right at her, opened his maw, and swallowed the top of the spire, her along with it.
Janel screamed as the dragon’s dark, suffocating throat constricted around her, an act that would have crushed her without Tyentso’s protections.
And she should have known; he had razors on the inside too.
She unsheathed a dagger and plunged it into one side, jamming the blade between two razor ridges to gain her a handhold. Morios might have even felt the act, the way one feels it when a rice grain lodges in one’s throat the wrong way, because he continued trying to swallow. Janel held on for dear life.
If she was wrong, she was about to find out what the Afterlife was like as a permanent citizen.
She took a deep breath and concentrated. Not on attacking Morios. Not on the dragon at all. She shoved all thoughts of Morios from her mind because she now dwelt in a playground where intentions mattered, where concepts mattered, where purposeful violence and accidental violence were not equivalent. Not so different in some ways from the Afterlife’s metaphors, where the realm of the spiritual and mental triumphed over the physical.
Instead of thinking about Morios, or her odds, Janel did something she’d always done by instinct and always done well.
Janel created fire.
In tremendous quantity.
The survivors were gathered at Lake Jorat’s shoreline, too numb to do much more than see to the injured and watch as one of the wonders of the world disintegrated.
Only a small few understood the philosophical underpinnings of the battle going on above the city. Destruction on this scale fed Khored’s power.
And yet, Khored seemed incapable of defeating the dragon who had destroyed his city, Atrine, quite possibly beyond all rebuilding.
But even as some watched in horror and others observed with massive academic interest, the spectators noticed the dragon pull back from the fighting, looking surprised.
He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. Then Morios began clawing at his neck, tearing giant rents in the metal there. He keened to shake the stones as he dug deeper.
The giant tears in Morios’s neck turned red. The color rapidly brightened to yellow and then to bright white. Metal melted, sizzling down to the lake water.
Abruptly, Morios’s neck and head separated from his body. Both pieces fell, the huge body landing across Atrine, and the head dropping past the city, over the falls. It tumbled all the way down the immense, failing dam’s enormous height.
Only a few noticed the small red dot, person-sized, that also fell into the water.
Those few were enough.