The weapon had appeared as if it were carved from marble. It was too light for that, though it felt perfectly smooth in her palm, and lacked the grain of wood.
“Is this the thing you seek?” Ortok asked.
“It looks like stone.” Kyrkenall reached out to stroke it with a finger. “It feels like marble,” he added.
“It has that strange absence of magic inside, as you told us,” Ortok said.
“There’s order surrounding chaos magic.” Kalandra had been silent for so long her airy voice startled Elenai. “A tiny bit of the chaos is leaking out.”
“I see it.” Ortok tapped the far end with a blunt finger.
If chaos were dripping it didn’t do so in any obvious way. Elenai was about to open her sight to the inner world when she saw a flare of light from beside Kyrkenall. Kalandra’s finger glowed as she herself touched the staff.
Kalandra had suggested she had no way to interact with the physical world, and Elenai immediately wondered if the alten were endangering herself by the examination.
The older woman seemed to breathe in—though she made no sound—then closed her eyes and ran her hand all along the far end of the staff.
A moment later the glow about her finger subsided, and she stepped back, her eyes still closed.
“How did you do that?” Elenai asked.
“I tapped energy from my gem.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” Kyrkenall objected with anger. “That’s what’s keeping you alive.”
Elenai had the same sentiments.
Kalandra flashed an easy smile at them both. “Don’t worry.” She descended into the pit. The kobalin scrambled out of her way with an odd mix of fear and courtesy, for once they were beyond arm’s length they bowed their heads to her.
Though curious to see what Kalandra had discovered, Elenai examined the strange staff on her own. The tool proved free of blemish. It didn’t retain warmth from where anyone had held it. The end that had excited such interest didn’t reveal anything to visual inspection. In the inner world, however, that portion was faintly marred. Tiny threads of warped energy dripped free, slowly lengthening, reminding Elenai of a leaky old pump spigot on the training grounds near the stables. Here something far more interesting was taking place. Elenai was tempted to eye the staff’s end directly, but doing so seemed akin to examining an arrowhead point first while someone had the shaft nocked to a bow.
The thread didn’t radiate energy in the same way as a hearthstone, nor did it behave in the way even threads of force in the Shifting Lands did, for it twisted as it grew. Finally part of it broke free and dropped to the sand. Instantly the surface changed. Where before there had been a rounded pebble now there were smaller ones with rough sides, as if the original had shattered.
Alarmed, Elenai made sure to shift the end of the staff out of line with anyone nearby. “Keep away from that end of it,” she said. “Don’t even touch it.”
“Elenai’s absolutely right.” Kalandra’s voice emanated from below, less tinnily and remote than usual, and Elenai looked down to see the woman standing in the sand, her hands glowing with golden energy again. “If you look at the connective threads of this mesa I think you’ll see ragged ends everywhere. Chaos has been leaking into the environment here for millennia.”
“You’re using too much energy,” Kyrkenall told her.
Kalandra winked out of existence, then appeared beside Kyrkenall a heartbeat later. “I don’t suppose I really have to walk,” she said, her voice once more sounding as though it was delivered from a well. Her sudden appearance started three nearby kobalin and Elenai herself.
“If you pop around like that you’re going to frighten someone,” Kyrkenall told her.
Kalandra chuckled.
From somewhere off to their right came the rumble of moving earth. The ground shook. A distant kobalin shouted, but Elenai couldn’t make out his warning.
The trembling drew closer. She pivoted to discover its source. An immense glow lizard had scrambled from beneath a nearby dune and was now headed straight for the mesa, trailing a plume of sand.
Easily rivaling the size of one of the Naor dragons, the giant beast must have stretched on for more than hundred feet if its swaying tail was figured in. Its vertically hinged jaws, big around as a temple gate, opened in a roar like a cross between a sandstorm and a furious hawk. It charged on a multitude of clawed legs, now and then vanishing from view, for its colors shifted so that it blended with the sand around it.
Even as Ortok shouted to his followers not to use their weapons, it was upon them, and his warriors struck out defensively. Those who attacked collapsed in rebounded pain. Others fell because they were too slow to evade its clawed feet, and were snapped up by the great jaws. It barely paused, and soon it barreled on for the mesa’s slope.
Kyrkenall swore.
“Fall back!” Elenai shouted. “It just wants its eggs!” At least that was what she hoped.
Ortok shouted for his soldiers to retreat, and all of them reached the side of the mesa at about the same time the monster glow lizard climbed the slope to the far edge. It scurried toward its eggs, snuffling at them while a hideous tongue licked in and out of its strange mouth.
Below, Ortok’s soldiers regrouped, weapons ready. Ortok, Kyrkenall, and Elenai still watched upon the rim, along with the ghostly Kalandra.
“Maybe we’re fine,” Kyrkenall said softly.
Elenai didn’t think so, and looked down at the weapon in her hands. Probably she was going to have to use it against the monster, and probably the moment the weapon struck the beast the pain would pass to her. Her lips thinned in determination. She might get just one shot, then, before she herself was incapacitated.
Assuming she could figure out how to fire it.
The mother lizard swung toward them, opened its mouth, and flicked out its bumpy black tongue. Its tread shook the ground as it padded toward them.
“Make haste, friends,” Ortok called. He started down the mesa’s steep slope, and Elenai and Kyrkenall followed, sliding when not running. Kalandra flashed into existence ahead of them.
They stopped at the mesa’s foot, and looked back to find the monster standing where they’d just been, moving its head back and forth.
“It smells us,” Elenai said quietly.
“I think it’s after the weapon,” Kalandra said.
Elenai shot her a curious look.
“It must be attracted to it,” the other woman insisted. “It built its nest over it.”
“Ho,” Ortok said. “You may have truth there.”
The thing’s head cocked as though it were looking down, although it didn’t appear to have eyes.
They backed carefully away, Elenai considering the rod she held. Maybe the best way to work it would be to pull on the emerging threads and throw them toward the monster. Staff under her arm, she reached up to undo the sling, then shifted part of the staff’s meager weight to her bad hand. Light though it was, the pressure pained her.
The beast roared so loud Elenai’s ears rang. And then it raced down the slope at them.
Swearing silently, Elenai leveled the staff at its face, threw threads of intent, and pulled on the chaos at the weapon’s tip.
The energy flowed forth like water from a broken nozzle and struck the beast along the right side of its mouth. It shrieked.
Elenai’s own cry of pain erupted at the same moment. It felt as though her cheek, bone and muscle both, were being rearranged with a hot scrambling fork.
The beast halted. Elenai, in such agony she could barely focus, had somehow retained hold of the staff, though her grip was weak.
The weapon was yanked from her hands and she looked up in dismay to see Kalandra, hands glowing once more. The beast tore through the sloping sand for them, frighteningly fast and huge.
The creature’s snout was only twenty feet off when the energies struck its opening jaw. Either Kalandra was lucky, or she had a much better idea how to manage the weapon, for her first attack reduced half the thing’s right jaw to dark ash that wafted away, then shifted to one of its front legs and blew through a leg joint.
The beast tottered, keening. Ortok dragged Elenai back as Kalandra continued her remorseless assault. The rebounding pain link apparently had no effect upon someone without a physical presence.
The mother glow lizard screamed in agony. Its tongue reached almost to Kalandra, who sprayed the chaos energies across its face, transforming the thing’s features into dripping haze and flaking bits of bluish fluff, borne upward in the chill air.
The beast collapsed, although a back leg continued to twitch. Elenai felt certain it was dead, but Kalandra kept up the attack until nothing remained of the monster’s head but a bit of seared bone, and all the knee joints on its right side were destroyed. She then advanced up the mesa and wielded the weapon against the only egg Elenai could see. She moved out of sight.
Elenai’s own pain had faded to a searing throb by then, and she straightened, hands to her jaw. It astounded her that it could hurt so much even though she’d endured no physical damage.
A somber Kalandra returned. She passed off the staff to Elenai, and then her hands ceased their brighter glow. Beside her, Kyrkenall stared bleakly at the emerald that housed her real essence. Elenai opened herself to the inner world and saw Kalandra’s energies had faded by more than half. Always sensitive to magics, Kyrkenall had already known.
Only Ortok failed to register the gravity of the moment, and let out a war whoop. “What a glorious weapon!” he cried. “Kalandra, spirit warrior and slayer of monsters!” He turned to his soldiers. “See the friends we have! See what they can do with the god-killing weapon!”
A mighty if ragged cheer spread through the ranks.
Kyrkenall’s voice was almost lost in the sound. “You’ve drained a lot of the energy keeping you alive.” His eyes were only for Kalandra.
“I did what I had to do. And I’ve enough to keep me going for a while. Maybe that’s all any of us have, anyway.”
Elenai couldn’t think of anything else they might have done, and nodded once in profound gratitude to the stalwart veteran.
Kyrkenall started to object, then lowered the emerald and stood stock-still, his expression puzzled. Ortok, who’d turned again to his friends, stared at him, his ears stiffening. His fur bristled.
The black-eyed archer faced them and smiled; not in his usual sly way, or even in his contented, almost self-conscious manner, but with an air of open wonderment, as though their regard was the most astonishing thing he’d ever beheld.
“Something is with him,” Ortok warned.
Kyrkenall laughed.
Wearily, Elenai focused her view through the inner world and saw Ortok was absolutely right. Kyrkenall’s energies had gone completely awry. While his own structure remained, something shifted and fluctuated within him. It was almost a mirror to what had happened to N’lahr. Where ordered threads had overtaken the commander, chaotic fly-aways had sifted into his best friend.
Kyrkenall pointed at them with his left hand. “Who are you?” he asked. “Are you children of hers?”
“He-Who-Unmakes has him,” Kalandra said, voice low with dismay. “The God.”
Elenai doubted her hearing. “How? I thought he was dead.”
“It wasn’t a weapon,” Kalandra said, her voice sharpening as she reasoned it out. “It was a prison. She-Who-Makes didn’t kill him, she had him trapped in there so she could control his energies. Even our gods got that part of the story wrong.”
“Give me the answers, little ones,” Kyrkenall said petulantly. “Are you her children?”
“We are descended of your children,” Kalandra answered, voice surprisingly calm.
“What’s happening to him?” Ortok asked.
Kalandra explained. “A god’s energies were trapped in the staff. When we used it, some escaped, and now it’s in Kyrkenall.”
“How do we get it out of him?” Elenai asked.
Kalandra didn’t answer, and Kyrkenall continued beaming. He looked up at the stars and laughed. “I know this place, and yet it is new. It delights me.” He raised both hands and breathed in and out, then laughed joyously. “I know this man now, and he delights me.” He reached for his wineskin, popping its top and taking a long swig. He lowered it, smacking his lips. “Oh, the pleasure this brings him, and me!” He took another drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then his eyes fixed upon Kalandra. “How he longs for you! Come, kiss me, and then we shall mate!”
Kalandra remained calmly withdrawn. “I can’t do that without a physical form. And had I one, I still wouldn’t, because it’s him I love, not you, and we aren’t alone.”
Kyrkenall and the God expressed dejection like an actor playing to the back seats. “Don’t you love me?”
Once again Kalandra answered easily. “I don’t know you.”
The archer laughed, his mood springing from consternation to joy in a heartbeat. “But surely you do know me, one called Kalandra! Look how the wind blows, and the sand forms anew with every breath. Look at the beings here, all cast from a similar mold but different. I am that difference! I am the subtle things, and the large things and in the end I am all things. Now I have access to his thoughts and I know he holds you in high regard.” Kyrkenall pointed to Ortok and Elenai. “How strange it is to be mortal. Why didn’t I try this before? There is so much love! And there are fears, too, for others he loves who are not here. It is like the love one has for one’s children. Where are mine?”
“They’re long dead,” Kalandra answered.
The manic pace of Kyrkenall’s words subsided, and his expression fell. “I so enjoyed them, and the things they built, and the changes they made.”
Finally Elenai could take no more. “Kyrkenall, are you still there?”
“I am,” Kyrkenall answered. He sounded so much like himself Elenai stared. “And I’m fine, I think,” he added.
“Is that you, or him?” she asked.
“It’s both of us.” Kyrkenall spoke once more, and this time, Elenai sensed in his stance, and inflection that it was he, not his inhabitant. “His thoughts are scattered. They’re hard to hold in a channel. He wishes to communicate but is being torn apart by feelings about his children.” Kyrkenall’s voice grew flat, but strangely bright at the same time. “And I see, yes, I see what this one has learned. That my children stopped her because they thought I was dead, not knowing I was the thing they thought a weapon to use against her! And now they are gone. All of them.”
“And now we must stop her,” Kalandra said. “Or she will destroy all of us, and all the places we live. She told your children she wished to start again. That this had been an experiment but it was time to do things properly.”
“He’s not sure what he wants to do,” Kyrkenall said. “He wants the rest of his energy. Much of it’s trapped inside the weapon. But he can sense other pieces of it drifting out there. Some leaked out over the years, and of course some of it was used to blast her apart. Also, he loves her, even now. He thinks he can talk to her.”
“What do you think?” Kalandra asked.
“I’ve tried talking to a woman who’s done with my courting before. Oh, I see this surprises him. She’s not a woman, he says, but there’s some overlap.” Kyrkenall pointed at Elenai. “Release the rest of the energies, and I will be whole. Then I will speak to her.”
“I don’t think we should release any more energy,” Elenai said.
“It’s mine,” Kyrkenall asserted. “It’s me. Not yours. Or you.”
“We have no other way to stop the Goddess,” Elenai said.
Kyrkenall looked blankly at her.
“Why don’t you stay with Kyrkenall for a while?” Kalandra suggested to him. “You’ll find it diverting.”
Kalandra ignored Elenai’s stunned look.
“You have no right to keep me from myself,” the God declared through her friend, and Elenai thought he was actually quite right. She shook her head no anyway.
Kyrkenall staggered as white-gold mist sped from him and straight on for Elenai. She cried out in surprise. She didn’t have time to try anything magical. A force battered her consciousness, dizzying her, working to overcome her hold upon her body.
She fought it, thinking of herself, beside her father, watching her little sister jumping up and down on the stage while her mother laughed. She was still Elenai, with her family, in the place that she remembered all of them best.
Her mind flailed with the tumbling desires and fears and desperation of a being whose own mind was alight with a hundred ideas at once. It was more than an avalanche, it was like a wave that swept up to engulf her, each drop of water a world of ideas and possibilities.
She thought of her mother’s smile, her sister’s joy, her father’s laugh. The ideas billowed uselessly, then fell away, and streamed back to Kyrkenall.
Elenai sagged, gasping.
“I guess he can’t endure for long without structure right now,” Kyrkenall said. “He’s back, but he’s weak. Since he’s not all here, he’s not reasoning as well, and he can’t extend himself for very long without growing weak. I guess you’re not as good a fit for him as I am.”
“It figures he’d choose you,” Elenai said.
“Because I’m so charming?” Kyrkenall said with a smile.
“I can’t think of anyone standing here who’s more emblematic of chaos,” Kalandra said lightly.
“The important thing is that we have the weapon,” Kyrkenall said. “I think I can handle him until it’s time to let him go.”
“Are you sure?” Elenai asked. “Because it seemed like you were letting him control you.”
“He wasn’t doing anything bad,” Kyrkenall said. “I don’t think he’s bad. And I know he doesn’t want to stay in me. This is all just temporary.”
Ortok rumbled deep in his chest. Elenai had nearly forgotten he was there.
“You Altenerai are never dull, I say you that! We have the weapon. When do we take it to fight the Goddess?”