100. THREE RITUALS

Kihrin’s story

Raenora Valley

When Kihrin confronts Relos Var

[I know where he is,] I told Valathea, reaching across the distance between us and touching her mind directly. [It’s time.]

[Leave a marker,] she said. [Janel, Terindel, and I will follow you.]

Bless that woman, I thought. At least someone was keeping her eye on the goal. The same certainly couldn’t be said of me. I’d have to take a great many things on faith in the next few minutes, but most important of all would be that even though I couldn’t see them, those three were doing their jobs. In Janel’s case, to modify the demon-banishing ritual. In Valathea’s case, to use illusions to hide Janel so Relos Var wouldn’t stop her.

In Doc’s case, to wait.

I turned invisible and followed Urthaenriel’s voice, letting it grow louder in my ears until I traced the thread of her song to its source.

Then I teleported.1

I appeared inside the mountain, in a tunnel that I only knew from Relos Var’s memories by way of Xaltorath. The room was well lit with mage-lights that highlighted glyphs—dragons carved in bas-relief on the walls and the sigils that had inspired Relos Var to create the Guardians in the first place. The Guardians, and later the dragons. I didn’t have a chance to more than glance at them, but it was enough to make me wonder.

Drehemia, dreth daughter that she was, had originally found this cave. She’d shown it to her teacher, trusting Rev’arric to do the right thing.² With my new understanding and access to Xaltorath’s knowledge, I identified it as a ritual chamber, created by a race long absent for a purpose that Relos Var had fooled himself into thinking he understood.

My brother waited for me.

He wielded Urthaenriel, which looked like a black silhouette in his grip. And he didn’t, in fact, look like Relos Var. He’d returned to his original (if no longer native) form, Rev’arric.

He didn’t glance in my direction as I entered but instead continued concentrating on the ritual circles in the room. I knew enough advanced magical theory by that point to understand that rituals were capable of incredible feats but not without taxing both body and soul. Most people would be lucky to be able to perform a single ritual and, depending on their personal tenyé reserves, might not survive it,³ but Relos Var didn’t seem hampered by that limitation.

He was controlling three different rituals simultaneously.

None of them was the ritual to strip the Eight of their powers. The first one in progress was the one designed to banish demons back to their original universe. To my horror, that one was indeed ongoing, although I couldn’t tell how far along. The second circle was filled with a tall column of energy, which appeared empty. The third was an incomplete portal circle, with an unclear destination. Relos Var stood between them, alone.

I left the marker for Valathea to follow toward the back of the room, where the shadows gathered, away from Relos Var’s line of vision. I expected he had wards and other defensive alarms set up to cover every inch of this cave, however.

I was going to be disappointed in him if he didn’t.

Relos Var glanced up from his work, recognized some change in lighting that gave away the game, and grinned. “Ah, I’m so glad you accepted my invitation.”

It was funny how with just a single glance I knew that Relos Var thought he held all the cards in our little game. Rev’arric used to get that same damn look on his face when he’d just figured out a brilliant way to worm out of doing his chores. That smug, barely concealed look of satisfaction when he thought he was pulling one over on someone but this time layered around a core of poisonous hatred.

“You can’t complete this ritual,” I told him. “You don’t know what it’ll do.”

Relos Var shrugged. “I know exactly what it will do. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand the nuances.”

His tone suggested I was doing everything he wanted, that he was in control. Demon-borne doubt was quick to plague my thoughts, nagging that he was right. That I was still ten steps behind and would never catch my brother unaware.

I ignored those voices. Mostly.

He pointed Urthaenriel at me. “Step toward that portal circle. Now.”

I felt the tug. The pull that just a brief time earlier would absolutely have forced Vol Karoth to do whatever Urthaenriel’s wielder wanted. It was validating to know that I’d been right about why Relos Var had wanted Urthaenriel, that he’d known possessing the sword would mean having a way to control the tool he’d gone through so much trouble to make.

I glanced at the smaller circle, the one I hadn’t been able to identify. Ah. I had wondered how Relos Var planned to transport me to the Nythrawl Wound to plug up that leak, as it were. That solution was more elegant than what Thurvishar and I had devised. Still, I took some reassurance that the fundamental theories behind our ideas were sound.

“No,” I told him. “I don’t feel like it.”

He blinked at me. His flicker of confusion gratified me as his gaze lowered to the sword. Perhaps he wondered how he’d been fooled. If somehow he wasn’t holding Godslayer when his every sense told him that he was.

But there were ways to fool the senses. He knew that too. He hadn’t been able to recover Chainbreaker, after all.

Relos Var’s jaw tightened.

“I don’t want to fight you,” I told him. “If we work together, there’s nothing that we couldn’t accomplish. If you finish that ritual to banish the demons, do you understand how many people will die?”

I knew, the moment I spoke the words, that I’d said the wrong thing. I’d implied he’d made a mistake, that he was too stupid to piece together the truth. Unacceptable.

“Far better than you,” Relos Var said, unclenching his jaw for long enough to speak. “But out of curiosity, what do you think it’s going to do?”

“Wipe out half of all humanity. What you’re doing isn’t just going to affect the demons but all the people who used to be demons in past lives. That’s a lot of people who don’t deserve to die.”

“Pfft.” Relos Var gestured dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It really will—”

“Who told you it would only be half? It’s going to be everyone who wasn’t part of the original settlement, S’arric. Easily ninety-nine percent.”

I stared. Turned out that asshole could still surprise me. Relos Var’s placid, unconcerned expression left me with no doubt that he wasn’t joking.

Fuck.

“Ninety-nine percent. You … you know that, and you’re going through with it, anyway.” My voice was perfectly flat and emotionless.

But of course he‘d go through with it. Janel had told me that he wouldn’t care. I felt a moment of sympathy with Qown. The realization that someone I cared about was that thoroughly horrible, wasn’t misunderstood, had no interest in changing. That in the end, the only thing I could do was accept that they were a lost cause. Let them go.

The part of S’arric that wasn’t on permanent sabbatical because of anger issues had known, cared for, and loved his brother for close to ten thousand years. Knowing that Rev’arric had viewed our relationship so differently was gutting. He’d never understood why I’d done the things I had. Just as I clearly had never understood Rev’arric at all. He hadn’t been my brother—not in the sense that mattered—for a long time.

Relos Var had always known what the death toll would be. And he’d nodded, having decided those terms were acceptable.

“I’m sorry, did you expect me to allow the demons to wipe all humanity out when I can save one percent? That’s still enough souls to repopulate. Without demonic souls in the Font, it will produce new ones, these untainted. We will recover.”

“And if you’re wrong?” The pure arrogance of Relos Var thinking that he could willfully destroy most of humanity without serious repercussions was dizzying in its hubris.

“I’m not.”

“For fuck’s sake, Revas, there has to be another way!”

“There isn’t.” His face might as well have been carved from stone.

“No,” I said. “You stopped looking when you decided that the cost was acceptable. That’s not the same thing.” I stepped forward. “Please, I am begging you. Stop this now. You and I can come up with something else. We can come up with something better!” I gestured to the room at large, to the ritual circles.

“You expect me to put aside a plan that I know will work for the faint, dim hope that my dear ‘heroic’ brother will come through and save the day? So you can be the hero? So you can turn this into your triumph?” Relos Var scoffed. “I’m not a fool, S’arric. And this is too important to pin on your idiotic optimism or your hilarious efforts to trick me.”

“Don’t pretend everything’s going according to plan,” I snapped. “We both know better.”

“Do we really?” Relos Var smiled.

He moved to attack then. But not to attack me.

Relos Var vanished before reappearing on the other side of the cavern. I’d have assumed that he’d teleported except for the fact that he was still carrying Urthaenriel. Which meant that either there was someone else was in the room creating phantasms (hilarious if true) or he’d created a series of spells and illusions that could be triggered remotely. Or the worst possibility of all, that even while carrying Godslayer, Relos Var could still use magic.

I suspected it was that last one.

A grid of light appeared, swirling around me as it marked my location. Swirling too around something that looked like empty space. Relos Var moved so fast it was just a blur of quick, dark motion as he stabbed forward against an invisible enemy.

A scream rang out. The light in the room flickered.

Valathea turned visible, clutching the spreading red bloom at her breast. She fell to her knees, Chainbreaker glittering green around her neck.

“Valathea!” I stepped in her direction, only remembering at the last minute that my proximity would be less than helpful.

“There you are,” Relos Var said.

Valathea ground her teeth against the pain. I moved to attack Relos Var.

“Stop,” he called out to me and put the edge of Urthaenriel to her neck.

I stopped.

“As I said, your hilarious tricks aren’t going to work on me. Did you honestly think I had forgotten about Chainbreaker?” Relos Var’s lip lifted in a cold sneer.

“Let her go,” I said.

“Or what?” Relos Var said. “You weren’t already going to kill me?”

“I don’t have to make it a kind death,” I growled and stepped toward him.

He pressed the edge of the sword against her skin, parting a thin red line of blood. She hissed in pain, but I was glad he couldn’t see her expression. Couldn’t see the way her eyes glinted hard and sharp.

I eyed the sword. It really was annoying to fight someone holding that damn thing. I could understand why Gadrith had been so upset.

But Urthaenriel didn’t make its wearer immune to everything. There were some magical effects that the sword supposedly immune to all magic couldn’t block.

For example, the Cornerstones.

So too, the world was full of non-magical ways to die, which was why a poison-tipped arrowhead or well-aimed dagger was what so often brought down a Quuros emperor.

Swords were a valid option. So I made one.

Relos Var’s mouth quirked to the side at he glanced the weapon now in my hand. “Is this the part where I’m supposed to throw aside my leverage and have a duel with you? Honorable combat to decide the fate of the world? I’ll pass.”

“I didn’t expect you to accept. You know I’m better than you with a sword.”

He rolled his eyes that time. “If you think that I’m going to feel ashamed of an honest assessment of my skills, think again.” Relos pressed the sword harder against Valathea’s throat, so more blood spilled down. He hadn’t yet pressed so hard that he slit a vein, but he’d get there.

I shook my head. “Then I think we’re at an impasse, don’t you? Because you can’t kill me any other way. Not while you’re holding Godslayer.” And I won’t move against you while you have a sword to Valathea’s throat. I didn’t say that last part out loud, but he understood.

Then the column of light brightened. Eight swirling streaks of energy settled into the magical container, circling each other. Which would have just been mysterious and vaguely menacing if I hadn’t known what it meant.

Wherever the real dis-imbuement ritual had been performed, no one had stopped it. The powers of the Eight Guardians were once again up for grabs to the first person who could claim them.

And given that those links shouldn’t have ended up swirling in a ritual circle underneath a mountain, Relos Var already had.

Relos Var also regarded the streaks. “Yes, I think everything is very much going to plan.” He turned back to me. “My condolences on losing Teraeth. I know how close you were. And my condolences on Valathea as well.”

“No!” I screamed.

But it was too late. I might as well have been shouting at the sun myself. He’d already pulled the razor-sharp edge of Urthaenriel across Valathea’s throat and pushed her away from him. Her blood splashed garish and red against the stone floor, while she twitched once and then lay still.

He stepped to the side and raised his arm, and even before I could close with him, he blocked what would have been a lethal blow—from Janel. I’m not sure how he did it. How he’d even realized Janel was there. Possibly more of those wards. Possibly millennia’s worth of experience dodging ambushes. Her sword came down across Urthaenriel and rebounded, although not without notching the edge.

“You’re here too, C’indrol?” Relos Var laughed. “Very well. I suppose that’s appropriate. You weren’t there to see the beginning, but at least you’ll see the end.”⁴

Janel took a step back, circling to stay between Var and myself. “You son of a bitch,” she spat. “I won’t let you kill him.”

“Oh, my dear,” Relos Var said. “I have no plans to kill him. I never did.”

She moved to strike him, and he parried again. He fought defensively, seeming in no rush to make a strong attack of his own.

I took the opportunity to begin closing with him from his other side, although the fight had just become more complicated. Now I had to stay away from Janel, which he knew.

“You realize that you’ll have to put down the sword in order to claim the power of the Guardians, right?” I gestured toward the eight swirling lights.

Relos Var glanced back at me. “You’re making the fallacious assumption that I ever intended to keep that power for myself. I have a much better use for it.” He gestured meaningfully.

The wall of energy came smashing down. Eight streaks of power swirled out like spinning blades, before wrapping and slamming into the intended recipient of eight separate godheads. Except that recipient wasn’t Relos Var.

All that power flew straight into me.