Yagaal’s sword flashed as it fell. At the same moment, a skein of ebon filaments, snapping with unimaginable energy, flew from Varis’s skin, waving threads finer than a spider’s weaving. Those deadly strings carved through the air and fell first on Yagaal, then Ellonlef, then Azuri and Hazad. Some few sought Kian, but the powers of creation raging within his own veins held them at bay. And still, Kian could not move.
Ellonlef’s eyes widened as those filaments fell upon her and sank in, wasting her, devouring her from the inside out, despoiling once smooth skin, aging her beauty as with a terrible disease. Hazad, Azuri, and Yagaal fared no better.
Kian began to move, but now all else was shifting and changing faster than thought. He seemed caught in a nightmare in which he was struggling through jelled air.
As Ellonlef’s gaze flared wider, the whites of her eyes filled with black webs. She began to scream, a hoarse wail, as did Kian’s friends and Yagaal. Kian cried with them, his voice lost to his ears. He willed his limbs to move toward some action, no matter how futile. Ellonlef’s shrieks destroyed him where Varis’s atrocious powers could not, filled his soul with a mind-bending guilt that scoured away all thoughts of vengeance. The torture of his companions became his own, ravaging him.
They fell, one by one. Yagaal reeled, gagging on a stream of boiling blood. When his hip struck the edge of the map-bearing table, he simply burst apart in a shower of disarticulated limbs and steaming liquid that splashed with a hiss over the floor. Hazad dropped to his knees, his huge size made small and insignificant by his terrible wasting. His hair and beard fell out in smoldering clumps, his thick bones shoved through yellowed parchment skin, covered all over in splitting lesions. His once great strength failed him and he toppled, a desiccated husk barely recognizable as a man. Azuri and Ellonlef both burst into flame, the chaotic fires of their burning the hue of a madman’s vision of a rainbow. Both fell dead and stiff as stone, thumping against the marble tiles like so much charred wood.
Only then did Varis rein in his power, drawing back his appalling destruction into himself. He laughed, a deafening rumble that battered Kian to his knees. Seeing only what remained of Ellonlef, tears streaming from his eyes, Kian knelt there, hands reaching. A high keening noise filled his ears, resonating to the depths of his marrow. The sound came from him, the despairing cry of a small animal caught in a strangling snare, unable to escape the approaching hunter. He would perish. He saw no reason to resist, had no desire to stand against his enemy, not when he was dead in sprit already.
Chapter 51
From every door, soldiers burst into the Golden Hall, weapons poised for battle. Whatever they had expected, it was not what they saw. As one, they halted, mouths open, confusion written on their faces. Kian sensed their presence and dismissed them. Dismay and loss were at the center of his being, burrowing deeper into him as he knelt before the smirking hunter, the gleeful destroyer.
But Kian paid no more heed to Varis than he did to the staring soldiers. In his mind’s eye he saw only an image of Ellonlef, as she had been. What she was now, a charred heap, did not exist. A voice raved in his head, telling him her death was a lie, a delusion. She was not dead, and neither were Hazad and Azuri. Kian’s mind rebelled, conjuring separate visions from his memories, creating something new and wonderful, a fiction he clung to and built up. Amid that created reality there came a peace.
But that peace was born of a lie, a wishful illusion, and he knew it, deep down he knew it as he knew his own name. Varis had not just destroyed all that he loved, but had defiled it. As I draw breath, so I will remember them as they were, Kian thought, rousing himself. Self-deception had never been a refuge for him, and he could not afford to let it be now.
His eyes rose and he found the stares of the gathered soldiers upon him. He gazed back, unflinching, searing tears coursing over his stubbled cheeks. A rising fury swarmed over his sorrow. Swiftly, all that was left of compassion in him froze solid, became like a lump of fire-blackened iron.
“Kill him!” Varis ordered, glowing eyes narrowed with what could only be apprehension.
Kian now focused on Varis, wondering at this change. Just moments before, Varis had seemed intent on crushing Kian himself, confident that he could destroy him, but now something was different. He senses the same powers in me that I sense in him, Kian understood, the building rage sweeping remorse from his mind, allowing a deadly clarity. Unlike Varis, Kian no longer feared for his life, because his existence was now without meaning. To perish was a blessing, to live without his companions, without Ellonlef, was a curse.
“Kill me yourself, god king,” Kian said, his voice taunting. He stood up, his fist gripped the hilt of his sword, tightened until the knuckles turned white. He offered Varis a ruthless smile and strode toward him at a determined, deadly pace.”Destroy me with your own steel, usurper, kingslayer,” he invited.
“Stop him!” Varis shrieked, inching away, his former confidence having fled.
“Men of Aradan, you know this impostor is not your rightful king,” Kian said to the motionless soldiers. “Your sovereign is King Sharaal, who even now stands at the city gates, drawing those loyal to him … and destroying all traitors. Choose well where you place your loyalties. Choose fittingly and live, or side with this accursed, hell-spawned demon, and perish.”
The soldiers looked uncertainly among themselves, weighing Kian’s words. In short order, one man moved to leave, then the others quickly followed. One by one, they backed away from defending Varis, moved beyond the Golden Hall.
“Where are you going?” Varis howled, even as the doors boomed shut.
Kian looked on Varis with open contempt. “You cannot best me with the powers of creation, so fill your hand with steel, that I might at least gain some honor in executing an armed man. Or not,” he added with a dismissive shrug. “But know that I intend to cut you down. Fighting or cowering, I will carve out whatever abominable life exists in you.”
Varis, yet a godly figure shining as though the sun were alight within his flesh, considered this only a moment, then hastily took up Yagaal’s sword. With deadly steel in his hands, he seemed more confident.
“You cannot win this, Izutarian,” Varis grated, even as he lunged.
Kian caught Varis’s blade against his own, the steel ringing loudly. With an almost casual air, he slid his dagger into Varis’s ribs, twisted, and kicked him loose.
Varis staggered back, looking with momentary shock at the black blood seeping from the wound. A heartbeat later, the wound began to knit itself together, and his astonishment gave way to an arrogant smirk. “And you thought this would be easy?” Varis laughed.
The sight of such a dark miracle slid across Kian’s consciousness, but left him unruffled. If need be, he would hack Varis apart, piece by piece, and then take off his head. In the face of this consideration, Kian felt a strange stirring over his skin, as if invisible feathers made from frost were brushing over him. Beyond the Golden Hall, men began to cry out. Those wails grew weaker and more pained by the heartbeat, while others quickly receded, as if the crier had taken flight. While he knew not the how of it, Kian reasoned that Varis’s strength lay in the stealing of another’s life. There was something of great importance to that, but all at once Varis attacked, stronger and more skilled than Kian would have believed.
In three heartbeats, the battle degenerated into a wild flurry of slashing blades and ringing steel. The youth was not unskilled, but more than that, in his limbs he carried the unflagging strength of other men. Every advantage of size and skill and ruthlessness Kian possessed was easily matched by Varis, and more.