The third time Kyra tried the door to Kunlun Shan, it worked like an ordinary door in an ordinary Hub. Perhaps the fact that Rustan was with her made a difference. Or perhaps, having shown her the past and the future, it was content to lead her into the present.
They stepped out of a door embedded in the trunk of an enormous tree into a dense, wild forest of oak and pine. Kyra inhaled the sharp, fresh scent with gratitude. It was good to be outdoors again. Birds chittered, and the undergrowth rustled. A shaft of late-afternoon sunlight caught Rustan’s face, his expression trapped between astonishment and some other emotion she could not identify. Anger? Regret?
No, that was not possible. Why would he be angry? And what was there to regret? Not the moments of tenderness they had shared in the Hub, surely. She was imagining things. Although now that they were out of the Hub, everything that had occurred inside it seemed distant and dreamlike, as if it had happened to someone else. Rustan stood so close to her, yet she could not have reached out and touched him. This thought cut her to the quick, but she hardened herself. He had distanced himself from her for some reason; she wouldn’t make herself vulnerable again.
“The forest at the base of Kunlun Shan.” Rustan traced the edge of the door with the palm of one hand. Now that it had closed, the door was hard to distinguish from the bark of the tree. All that was left was a faint rectangular outline and a tiny slot.
“Told you,” said Kyra, trying to sound confident, as if this was exactly what she had expected. She had explained to him Felda’s pyramid of codes and shown him the one to override this particular door. What she hadn’t mentioned was her growing suspicion that the codes were not a one-way device to unlock the doors of recalcitrant Hubs, but more like a conversation—a conversation with an entity that was no longer quite sane. And how was it even possible to stay sane if you could look into both the past and the future? If you were doomed to survive until the last days of the Earth before it was swallowed up by the sun?
“Yes, you did tell me,” said Rustan. “You were right about the door. You are right about the stash of kalishium too. But I pray you do not find it.” He stepped toward her and grasped her arm. “Trust me. Turn back now before it is too late.”
“What?” Kyra was flabbergasted. “Why would I turn back? Why should I not find the kalishium?”
“You think this is an ordinary forest?” His pressure on her arm increased, and his eyes trapped her, blue and intense. Shirin Mam’s eyes. Shirin Mam’s son, who had taught her, and held her, and kissed her, and whom she still did not understand.
“It doesn’t matter what kind of forest it is,” said Kyra, keeping her voice calm. “I have been called here, and I will stay until I find what I seek.”
“It is your own death you seek,” said Rustan. “The forest is guarded by a beast you cannot kill, for it is born of your deepest fears. I am the first to have escaped it unscathed in many decades.”
“Unscathed?” Kyra shook his hand off, anger growing inside her. “Are you sure of that? Perhaps the beast has damaged you in ways you cannot see.”
“Would you rather it had ripped my arms off? Because that too can happen.” A note of frustration entered his voice. “Believe me, Kyra. This is not something you can fight.”
“And yet I must, if I am to pass through the forest and climb the mountain,” said Kyra.
He stepped back, and his face shuttered. “And if you were to vanquish the beast, and climb the mountain, and find the place where the kalishium is hidden—if you were to do all that, you would then have me to reckon with.”
“What?” Kyra stared at him in dismay. “Why?”
“The kalishium is not ours to do with as we wish,” said Rustan. “It is a legacy of the Ones, and it might contain their memories. This particular stash you are seeking is made in the images of the kings and queens of Asiana and their gods. They are too powerful and dangerous. Touch them, and you could lose yourself.”
Kyra’s skin prickled; she wrapped her robe more closely around herself. “How do you know all this? And is it my safety you fear for, or the kalishium you wish to protect?”
“Both,” he said. “Each image tells a story; destroy it, and the story is gone from us forever. I know this because I have been there and seen it with my own eyes.”
Kyra shivered. She was cold, within and without.
Rustan was not going to help her. He was going to try to stop her. And his reasoning was not without merit. After all, she hadn’t wanted to use the kataris of the long-dead Markswomen of Kali precisely because their memories were too important for the Order to lose.
But she didn’t have the luxury of worrying about the ancient history of Asiana, not with war threatening the stability of her world and the safety of her people right now.
“Kai Tau is killing innocent people in the Thar,” she said. “We will have to move against him soon. I must do whatever I can to gain the slightest advantage.”
“There has to be another way to defeat him,” said Rustan. “Come back with me to Khur; let us show Barkav these weapon designs and ask Astinsai’s counsel. We will fight him together.”
“Nothing can stand against the bullets of the dark weapons except kalishium,” argued Kyra. “And I don’t plan to take all of it—just one or two of the images you’re so concerned about.”
“You will not take even one,” said Rustan, his voice like granite. “Not while I’m around to prevent it.” He folded his arms and regarded her, challenge in every line of his taut body.
Kyra’s heart sank. He had made up his mind to stop her; she could see it. Nothing she said would make any difference.
She had three choices now. She could give in. She could fight him. Or she could run.
She ran. If she had stopped to think more about it, she could not have done it, could not have left Rustan, his face slack with disbelief, her own heartbreak reflected in his eyes. Don’t leave me. Don’t go.
Branches slashed her face. Kyra hacked her way through the undergrowth, breathing hard, her eyes stinging. Behind her, Rustan gave chase. “Kyra!” he shouted. But his voice faded, and the forest closed around her, thick and watchful. As if it had been waiting for a chance to separate the two of them all along.
She pushed aside her growing sense of dread and fought through the forest. It was what Rustan had done; he had battled with the beast and earned his way through. She would do no less. Had he not taught her, after all? And was she not the Mahimata of Kali, with the fate of Asiana resting on her shoulders?
But the forest did not yield to her. She had to fight every step of the way. When darkness fell, she came to a halt, scratched and filthy, bleeding from a hundred tiny wounds.
Now the beast will come.
But it didn’t, not right away. Kyra spent the night leaning against the roots of a massive tree, trying not to succumb to sleep. The canopy closed above her, blotting out the night sky. No light but the light of her blade, no voice but her own. It had been stupid to run away from Rustan. Stupid to throw away the chance to be with him, fight with him. And for what? To walk circles in the labyrinth of this endless forest? Perhaps it would all be for nothing, and she would die, just as Rustan had warned.
Something sparked a warning, and Kyra started. Not her own blade. Her katari lay unsheathed on her palm, giving her its light and comfort, small in the immensity of darkness that surrounded her.
It was Tamsyn’s katari. Kyra withdrew it from the scabbard around her neck, and it blazed, red and triumphant, sending a thin current of courage and power into her veins. Kyra drew a deep breath and stilled herself. Her erstwhile enemy’s weapon was now her ally. Tamsyn would have appreciated the irony of this, perhaps even applauded it.
A great roar split the night, and Kyra leaped to her feet, her pulse racing. Something huge crashed through the undergrowth, and a smell of carrion assaulted her senses, making her gag.
Goddess protect me. Kyra fell into the stance of Twin Blades at Dawn, her arms crossed in front of her face, a blade in each hand. A deep growling shook the ground, setting her teeth on edge.
“Come on, then,” she shouted. “I am here. I am ready for you.”
Something moved to her right, but when she twisted her neck, she saw nothing. And then it was behind her. No, to her left. Kyra spun, holding her stance, keeping it in front of her. It prowled always at the periphery of her vision, but she sensed enough to know that it was huge, clawed, and fanged.
Then it stood directly before her, and her eyes skittered over it, because it was impossible—such things did not exist. Should not exist. Like an unholy cross between a wyr-wolf and a tiger, only much, much bigger. The head alone was wider than the span of her arms. The eyes glowed crimson, and the fangs curved like tusks. And she thought she could kill it?
“Attack, why don’t you?” she screamed, and it sprang.
Kyra closed her eyes and opened herself to the first-level meditative trance. To fight in the trance was terribly risky—Chintil had warned against it—but she had no choice. She needed to slow down time if she didn’t want her bones crushed in those massive jaws.
Time elongated, and the beast flew at her in slow motion. Kyra’s own body moved much faster, her right hand already reaching back to throw the katari in a killing strike. But as the beast sprang, it metamorphosed. It dissolved, lengthened, shifted, until it resembled nothing so much as a man. And not just any man.
Rustan. Kyra had no time to stop the flow of her own body in response to the threat. Perhaps, if it were just her own katari that she had been wielding, she could have controlled it. But as the figure solidified, Tamsyn’s blade flew from her hand into his heart, and shattered into a million pieces.
Kyra fell out of the trance, screaming Rustan’s name. Her hand—the one that had held Tamsyn’s katari—burned as if it had been set on fire. Her own blade had gone cold and quiet in her other hand.
After a while, she made herself stop screaming. The forest was still, silent but for her own heavy breathing. No beast, no Rustan corpse stained the ground before her. A dream, but for the fact that Tamsyn’s katari was gone. She felt its absence like a pit in her stomach. It had been with her so long, she had taken its power for granted. Without it, she felt smaller, diminished.
No, not diminished. Just plain Kyra with her own katari, the way it was meant to be.
She kissed her blade and coaxed a tiny, answering spark from it. Goodbye, Tamsyn, she thought, and swallowed a lump in her throat. Odd that she should feel grief. Tamsyn had been a killer and had met a much-deserved end. While she’d held Tamsyn’s blade, though, it was as if a part of Tamsyn was still with her. Not the murderous, apprentice-torturing part, but the part that hungered, that felt pain, that knew the darkness she had fallen into. Kyra thought back to what she had seen of Tamsyn’s past—the harsh life on the streets, the murder of her brother—and felt regret. What might Tamsyn have been under different circumstances?
But there was no changing the past. And holding on to it only embittered you and made you undeserving of the present. Kyra had fantasized enough about her own dead family to know that.
She took a few swallows from her waterskin. Dawn’s light filtered through the trees, and the forest awoke around her. Birdsong filled the air.
It was time to move on.
* * *
Kyra continued to climb all that day, and as she walked, she replayed the encounter in her mind. Why had the beast taken on Rustan’s face and form when she went into the first-level meditative trance? Had she actually hurt him in some way? She prayed not; she hoped he had given up on her, gone back through the door to the Deccan Hub, and returned to Kashgar.
Her mind chased itself in circles, and her body ached as the climb grew steeper. Exhaustion began to wrap itself around her, until it was sheer force of will that made her carry on.
Her thoughts went to Nineth. Her friend was tired too. Kyra didn’t know how she knew this, or where Nineth was—just that the ache in her limbs mirrored Nineth’s. Stay safe, she thought, as if Nineth could hear her. Come back home.
Finally, just when she was ready to drop, the trees thinned, and she emerged above the tree line. The peaks of Kunlun Shan towered above her, majestic in the setting sun.
The wind sharpened, and the path grew icy. She slipped and stumbled on the sharp stones, but she never once thought of stopping. Time was her enemy now; it circled like a hungry wolf. Every hour that she spent resting was an hour that Kai Tau gained power.
When she saw the stone edifice clinging to the rock face, her heart sang, even though she was numb with cold and it was a near-vertical climb. This was the monastery she sought; she was sure of it. The place Rustan had tried to prevent her from reaching.
As night fell, she continued on her hands and knees, the going cruelly slow and hard. Her black robe was ripped; her palms bled. But the moon rose in the sky and shone on the path leading up to the monastery, lighting the way for her. She crawled forward, shivering, determined not to give in to the cold, the pain, and the fatigue.
Just a little more. You can do it. Her teacher’s voice—or her own?
And then she was at the massive doors, and they swung open, and a figure stepped out. Rustan. Another illusion.
But he bent down and picked her up and rubbed his face against her cold cheek, melting away the horror of what she had been through. “I thought I’d lost you again,” he said, and his face was wet with tears.