Chapter 26
He remembered a face. One made of countless stars and nebula. He felt a warmth—caring from a complete stranger that would never harm him or put demands on a pure love he hadn’t felt since his mother had cared for him after a nightmare.
The face faded into nothing, and cold came over Jayce. He gasped and kicked out. He lay on a smooth marble floor, a pulsing hum in his ears.
“Maru?” He coughed and felt something against his shoulder.
The Paragon lay on his side, deep purple blood dribbling from his mouth.
“Maru!” Jayce rolled him onto his back. Long gashes ran down one side of his face; a finger bone from a skeleton jutted out of his chest.
“Ah . . . I don’t recommend that,” Maru croaked. He looked down at the impalement, then at Jayce. “Pull it. Pull it so my other lungs . . . can . . .”
“OK.” Jayce stood over Maru and pulled at the bone. He lifted Maru a few inches off the ground and the alien groaned in pain. It was embedded too deep to come out easily.
“Hurr . . . eee.” Maru’s skin took on shades of alabaster.
“Forgive me.” Jayce planted a boot on Maru’s chest and pulled the bone out in wet spurts. It broke free and blood splattered against Jayce’s face. He spat out something that tasted like oversalted spice broth.
“Better.” Maru pressed a hand over the wound. “A little better.”
“That was so gross.” He blew a raspberry. “Are you . . . going to live? I don’t know first aid for fish people.” Jayce tossed the bone behind him. It skittered across the ground and bumped against the base of a pillar that twisted into a dark haze overhead. A glow shone through like a bright moon behind clouds.
“My kind is quite hardy”—Maru held a hand up to Jayce for help up—“but we are not invincible. My gills can take up the slack until that lung stops collapsing when I try to breathe.”
“Drop your anchor, get back to the Iron Soul and—”
Maru looked past Jayce, his eyes full of wonder.
Behind Jayce, a dais rose atop layers of cylindrical steps. Two Veil stones circled each other at the summit, one obsidian black with thin lines of gold, the other ivory white cracked through with silver.
“Oh . . . they’re beautiful,” Maru said. “I never thought I’d see them with my own eyes. Master Zeist’s hypothesis was correct. I need to tell him.”
“This is the end? This is the Pinnacle?” Jayce asked.
“Indeed. Jayce . . . claim one. Hurry.” Maru’s knees buckled for a moment and Jayce had to keep him on his feet.
“Which one?” Jayce asked.
“You . . . you know.” Maru used his glaive as a staff to keep himself steady. “Go! Go before it’s too late for any of us.”
Jayce let him go and stepped onto the bottom step.
“Jayce?” a soft voice asked. It wasn’t his mother this time, but he recognized it instantly.
“Leeta?” He looked to his right and the young woman stepped out from behind a pillar. She looked worn out, with dried cuts down one side of her jaw.
She laughed with relief and raised her arms to him.
“Maru! It’s her!” Jayce stepped off and went toward her.
Maru’s glaive struck the ground blade first between them. Jayce stopped, and Leeta flinched back. The Paragon wrenched the glaive out and leveled it at her.
“Stay away,” Maru said. “This thing is not what you think it is.”
“Jayce . . . Jayce, you said he’d help me,” Leeta pleaded.
“What are you do—?”
Maru shoved Jayce back.
“You can change your face, but I can smell the Tyrant’s stench on your soul.” Maru twisted his hands against the haft of his glaive. “This thing isn’t what you think it is, Jayce.”
“Please! I just need your help,” Leeta sobbed. “Jayce promised me you’d—”
Light flashed from Maru’s blade and Leeta raised her hands to shield her eyes. For the briefest of moments, her skin became the color of an approaching storm and fangs showed from her mouth.
The light died back, and Leeta’s countenance changed from fear to disgust. Her hand slipped into her blouse and she flipped a dark metal hilt into her hands with a flourish. He’d seen the blade before, back on the docks where Kay had died.
“Leeta?” Jayce’s jaw dropped.
“Thank you for bringing him over the threshold,” she sneered at Maru as her skin darkened and her eyes filled with a red glow. “You proved most useful to Count Nabren . . . and to me.” Her arms and shoulders filled with muscle.
Maru thrust his glaive at her face. A segmented blade cast from her hilt and parried the blow high. She twisted her grip and the ridges crimped around the glaive. A forked tongue licked at the edge. Maru tugged at his weapon, but the hold from Leeta’s weapon was absolute.
“Jayce, go! I’ll hold her off,” Maru said.
“Yes, go on.” Leeta winked at Jayce. “I’ll be right here waiting for you.” She flung the glaive to one side and bent backward. Maru’s quick swing sailed over her exposed midriff and she planted her hands on her sword against the ground and flipped back to her feet with an acrobat’s grace.
Jayce hesitated at the stairs. Leeta and Maru traded blows, their blades sliding against each other with the sound of cracking glass. Maru deflected a strike meant to decapitate him over his head and slammed the end cap of his glaive haft against Leeta’s foot. She snarled in pain and raked long nails down Maru’s cheek. Jayce ached to help, but the two flowed around each other so fast he knew he’d only get in Maru’s way.
Leeta shook her head quickly and her features transformed into a more masculine countenance. He finally realized who she was. Leeta was the Tyrant’s enforcer who nearly captured him on the dock back on Hemenway. She was Lahash.
Jayce turned and ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. The pillar of light between the stones was blinding, and every step higher felt like he was moving through clay.
“I have to help him!” Jayce got to the top and the light from the pillar stung his eyes but didn’t impart any heat. The ivory and obsidian stones swept past him, orbiting the pillar faster and faster as he hesitated.
“Jayce!” Maru cried out.
Jayce reached for the dark stone and missed. He moved his palm to intercept the white Veil stone and it smacked into his palm.
Power shot down his arm and every cell of his body felt like it was on fire. He held the stone with a death grip as color drained from his hand. He remembered the horror of the mystic who had died at the shrine but held on. A vibration began in his hilt and a warm sensation beat down his forearm with every beat of his heart.
Jayce wrenched the stone away and thrust it into the air. A ray of light struck down from the sky and hit the stone.
Light washed over him and the only sound he could hear was the clash of blades.
“Maru?” He shook his head to clear the disorientation and found the Paragon and Lahash still dueling. Maru was bleeding from deep cuts on his arms and legs, but the Wottan was still fighting. Lahash’s body had morphed into male proportions with wide shoulders and a thick neck and an ugly, battered face.
Maru parried a high strike and used the long heft as a fulcrum to parry his sword to one side. Lahash set a foot against the base of a pillar and a look of actual concern crossed his face.
The Paragon thrust his glaive at a downward angle at her midsection. He jumped off the base of the pillar and the thrust missed beneath him and glanced off it.
Lahash braced one foot against the pillar and used it to propel himself forward. Maru was too slow with his parry and his opponent’s blade sank into his chest up to the hilt.
Lahash twisted it hard, face-to-face with Maru. His lips pulled back to flash bloodstained lips as Maru faltered.
“He lives,” Lahash growled. “And I will tell him how you died.”
Maru spat blood into Lahash’s face and spun his body off the impaling blade. The motion ripped the weapon out of his flank but he used the momentum to slice Lahash across his sword arm and upper chest. The Tyrant’s agent screamed in pain. He struck out at Maru and the edge caught Maru’s anchor band. The device fell to the ground as Maru fumbled for it, dropping his glaive in the process. Lahash cracked the anchor with a flick of his sword and retreated into the surrounding gloom, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Maru stared at the broken anchor and fell to one knee as his life’s essence poured from a deep cut in his flank. He tried to rise, then collapsed to the floor.
Jayce bounded down the stairs, the stone in his hand pulsing with power. He pressed down on Maru’s wound to try and stem the bleeding, but his hand nearly slipped into the alien’s chest.
“Maru? Maru, no!” Jayce put the Paragon’s hand around his with the stone. “What can I do? Can this help you?”
“He’s still close.” Maru hacked up blood. “I-I’m sorry . . . Proud of you.”
“I’ll get you out.” Jayce pulled off his own anchor. He wiped some blood off the talisman and stopped. There was a deep crack through it. It was either useless or would badly malfunction if used.
The wound in Maru’s chest turned white and the fossilization spread slowly through his body as death overtook him.
“This is as far as I go. Farther than I ever thought possible. This is the Cycle. A life lost to save another is never wasted. This Sarai . . . she needs you. She’s the other half, Jayce. You have to save her.” Maru’s eyes lost focus. “Go to the Sodality . . . they’ll know what to do . . . with the stone. Tell Jessina I’m sorry. Sarai should . . . shh . . . it’s cold, but least it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
The calcification spread up Maru’s neck and his body went to an ashen gray. Maru slid off Jayce’s knee. His shoulder struck the ground with a slight crunch; the stone broke into chalky clumps as it slowly degraded into dust.
Jayce stood, the stone in one hand and his lit blade in the other. Grief welled up inside him, but the threat of Lahash was still there. He heard something rustle behind him and spun around, guard high.
“No!”
Sarai stood in front of the glowing doorway, the shriek of banshees behind her and her jacket in tatters. She saw him standing over the dead Paragon, blade in hand.
“What have you done?” Sarai readied her weapon. The light pulsing off the blade bathed her face red.
“Sarai, wait!” Jayce kept his hilt at the ready while he backed toward a pillar to keep from being attacked from behind. Sarai advanced toward him, her anger rising. “There’s someone else in here, she—he—works for the Tyrant and—”
“You expect me to believe anything you say? After you’ve killed him!” Sarai’s gaze hung on Maru’s crumbling body for a moment, then she turned and ran for the dais and ascended with determined speed. She didn’t hesitate at the top and pried the obsidian stone out with a cry. The pillar of light juttered, the energy becoming more and more unstable.
Sarai pressed the stone to her chest and a column of dark light erupted from her mouth and eyes up and into the air. Her hand dropped and she stared at Jayce with pure hatred.
“You . . . you have taken everything from me!” she shouted. Her saber changed as dark motes ran from the hilt and formed a fresh edge.
“That’s not what—Look out!”
Sarai raised her saber. She didn’t see Lahash come up from behind her and jab a nail into the base of her neck. Sarai froze, then gagged like a fish with a hook down its throat as Lahash wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from falling.
Jayce started up the stairs, but Lahash bared his fangs and drew them across Sarai’s neck, leaving two thin lines of blood. Jayce halted.
“I can only claim one of you.” Lahash flicked the flower bracelet off his wrist, then plucked a talisman off the mesh of charms from the Docent divining rods. He flicked the case off an anchor and pressed it to Sarai’s chest.
“She is far far more valuable than you. Thank you for leading me here. I’ll tell my lord what a help you were.” He snapped the anchor against Sarai and she vanished from the contact point out to the edges of her body, like she’d never even been there.
Lahash winked at Jayce, then cracked his own anchor with the same delicate gesture he used when they had first met.
The pillar of light grew wider and the dais cracked. The light expanded with each pulse, stinging his eyes and flashing heat across his skin. Jayce realized he had nowhere to run. He looked at the damaged anchor in his hand and ran a thumb over it.
“At least I have a chance.” He broke the anchor and a pulse of cold passed through his body, and then everything was the same blinding light as the pillar.