Oathkeeper (45 page)

“That's good.” Nomi narrowed her gaze. “But it sounds like you're leaving a few things out. Want to talk about it?”

“With Aldo listening?” Kholster shook his head. “No. I think I will take action instead.”

“Action?” Nomi turned at the first shout of “Kholster” that went up among the combatants. “You just became visible to the mortals.”

“Did I?” Kholster asked. “Should I do something meaningless for them to ponder?” He pointed at the warehouse hosting Glinfolgo's junpowder with one finger and at Nomi's flaming hair with the other. Eyes fixed upon the five elemancers, Kholster caught Hollis's eye first. “See how they react?”

“Did you just make me visible?” Nomi raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“You touched me,” Kholster answered. “Until you leave my proximity, if I'm visible, then you are as well.”

“I didn't know that,” Nomi said.

“Most don't seem to know it,” Kholster said as casually as he could.

*

In a semi-dark square of stone, Aldo took out his Aernese eyes and dropped them into the box. When he reached for the next pair of eyes he wanted, the box was gone.

*

Are you going to tell her how it works?
Harvester asked.

No.

Or how you made such a discovery?

No.
Kholster let amusement color his response.
Why? Do you think I should?

You do seem fond of her, sir.

Don't get too attached
, Kholster sent.
I've killed a lot of people I liked.

Kholster pointed overhead at the spot in the air over the warehouse upon which he and Nomi stood. Kholster grinned when Dienox became visible, trying to shift the Hydromancer's attention (Kholster assumed) only to become briefly visible as one of Kholster appeared in the air between them, watching. Nomi traced his gaze and gasped to see one of Kholster standing next to each living being, walking with them, keeping guard.

“Can they see all of you?” Nomi asked.

“No.” Kholster's answer was softly spoken, his eyes on Hollis signaling to Zerris and Klerris. “Only one of me at a time is subject to the visibility phase-matching.”

The twin Aeromancer and Pyromancer diverged, Klerris breaking off after Hollis, and Zerris heading straight for the warehouse. Lady Air and the Sea Lord flew over the open bay, a column of water rising up to meet them. Zaur and Sri'Zaur swam into the column, trying to disrupt its magic, but the Sea Lord ignored the implied threat, ice forming in a thin layer at the top, pushing down and out to establish a stable platform from which to cast. Sri'Zaur swam up the stream, attempting to break through the layer of ice.

Working together with Klerris, the two began to funnel a mass of water into a skyward funnel. While Hasimak hung in the air, maintaining his mystical blockade, Zerris swept down at the warehouse, unleashing a cone of fire.

“You told her to do that.” Nomi nudged Kholster. “That's cheating.”

“Demand that I be penalized.” Flames engulfed the gods but did not touch them. “Though I believe you'd be surprised by what is and is not considered breaking the rules of your game.”

“Why don't we ask him at least,” Nomi said.

“Go ahead.” Kholster nodded.

“Aldo?” Nomi asked.

When the god did not appear at once, Nomi chewed her bottom lip.

*

“Did you truly believe that would blind me?” Aldo chuckled, golden light pouring from his empty eye sockets. Kholster stood across from him, a slight smile on his lips, baring one set of doubled canines.

“No,” Kholster told him.

“Then why did you do it?” Aldo asked.

*

Kholster dropped through the ceiling of the warehouse intangibly, leaving Nomi blinking on the roof. Inside, several Zaur grabbed armloads of rifles and shot, and two sets of two carried junpowder barrels between them. At the entrance two more Sri'Zaur stood, holding the doors closed until the time was right to dash out with their haul.

Crossing the scuffed and well-used floorboards, Kholster passed directly through the bed Glinfolgo had set up for himself. Leaning against the doors, Kholster waited for Nomi to join him.

“What do you mean by that?” Nomi dropped to the floor. “There are rules, Kholster. They lost Kilke one of his heads, they—”

Flames licked their way through the ceiling.

*

<> one of the Sri'Zaur pounded with its tail. <>

When they ran to the door, the black-scaled Sri'Zaur on either side tried to throw it open, but the door did not move.

*

“If you aren't going to answer me,” Aldo chided, “then perhaps there is some way in which I can be of service. Did you want to watch the assault on Port Ammond? It has been ages since Hasimak was off the leash. Coal headed that way, so perhaps we will have a rematch?”

Aldo had grown slightly taller in response to Kholster's tomfoolery, but subsided to his more gnomish proportions as he regained self-control.

“We may, but I am not here to watch your scrying mirrors.”

Around them, Aldo's study reappeared in its former state of impressive size and contents. Wherever Kholster turned his attention, the spot he'd just been watching filled with the necessary details.

*

“Kholster,” Nomi asked. “What are you doing?”

“Do you know why beheading Kilke's center head failed to kill him?” Kholster asked.

“Because they didn't specifically state that he would have to give up his life,” Nomi said. “So Aldo ruled that—”

“Torgrimm did not reap him,” Kholster interjected. “I would argue the agreement between the gods, not some binding set of universal rules, was what worked. Kilke submitted to the punishment, but only out of an (ironic) sense of honoring the game. Good sportsmanship.”

“Kholster, what are you doing?” Torgrimm appeared out of thin air, bringing with him the scent of fresh rained-upon grass and the warm scent of the planting season. His ears, even after such a short span after the separation of Sower and Reaper, had already begun to shift to a more human shape. His garb was that of a Hulsite farmer: simple but well made and often mended. There was even dirt under his fingernails.

“Testing an idea I have.” Kholster unslung his warpick. “I did not break the rules by appearing to a crowd because gods do that sometimes.” He hefted Reaper in his hands and watched as, toward the center of the warehouse, the roof collapsed, one of the falling timbers killing one half of a two-person barrel-carrying team. Torgrimm flinched as the Zaur's soul was reaped and sent to Minapsis all without the Kholster to whom he was speaking missing a syllable.

“But all gods are bound by oaths that—” Torgrimm began.

“I died,” Kholster answered. He swung his warpick into the soul of a Sri'Zaur trying to force open the warehouse door. “And in death—” Kholster seized the Sri'Zaur soul one-handed, slinging Reaper onto his back without breaking eye contact. “—all oaths are redeemed. I wondered, at first, if, perhaps, it hadn't counted as death, but if it hadn't, then the Aern would still be bound by my oaths.

“But I can feel the oaths by which I am bound, and I feel nothing.”

“What is this?” hissed the Sri'Zaur. “Why are you here? Where is Kilke?”

“You have my apologies.” Kholster shifted his grip to the spirit's throat, choking it into silence, its claws raising sparks as it scraped at Harvester's armor. “. . . but I am making a point.” His fist growing tighter around the Sri'Zaur's neck, the spirit deformed, head distending.

*

Around them, Aldo's array of scrying surfaces, the twirling mercury-like liquid mirrors, prisms, reflective surfaces in all shapes, sizes, and construction swarmed around the god of knowledge. Multiple images of Port Ammond, Fort Sunder, a chamber in Hearth, where the Twin Trees hosted their first Sri'Zaur general. Even images of Coal, the great black dragon, could be found.

“Are you watching Port Ammond?” Kholster set the box of eyes back down on Aldo's desk.

“Of course,” Aldo said. “Why?”

“Because one of me appears to have gone rogue.”

*

“No!” Torgrimm leapt toward Kholster, clutching at his arm.

“If I hated the Sri'Zaur in my grasp,” Kholster spoke softly, “I suspect you could stop me from harming it, but I am death. I am the reaper. When Reaper and Sower were united, it would have been unthinkable, but in allowing this to happen, you have altered one of the few fundamental lynchpins of reality. Death need not be a cycle. Death can be an end.” Closing his fist, Kholster felt the Sri'Zaur's spirit burst beneath his gauntleted hands. “Death may nullify life.”

Taking two steps back, Nomi summoned a sword and shield of flame, but Kholster remained where he was.

“I thought you would have mercy,” Torgrimm wept.

“I do.” Kholster felt the warmth of tears on his own cheeks and was glad the Sower could not see them. It made the next step easier for the other gods to believe. “But there is less of it than there was. Bloodmane, as you may recall, was a part of me. While joined, even though we were physically separate, we shared a soul in a way I did not fully comprehend. In a sense, my warsuit forgave the Eldrennai because part of me wanted to forgive them. The trouble we had connecting was a sign of that conflict: one part ready, trying to move on, and the other part, the Oathbound portion, unwilling and unable to release its grip on the past.”

Kholster's gauntlet opened, and the shattered spirit of the Sri'Zaur scattered into ether.

*

“What are you—?” Aldo gasped. “No. What is he thinking, this rogue self of yours?”

“Don't you know?” Kholster shrugged.

Grabbing a pair of eyes worked in obsidian, amber, and jade, Aldo popped them into his eye sockets. He blinked, brows furrowed. “I can't see.”

*

“Aldo,” Torgrimm shouted, “I demand an amercement!”

*

Now?
a familiar presence thought at Kholster.

Now
, Kholster sent. It was so good to hear his thoughts again.

The warpick's point sank deep into the gnome-like god's skull. Star trails burst forth in semi-liquid streams, flowing through the air like colored oil through water. Eyes blinking blindly, mouth agape, Aldo hurled bolts of light at Kholster, one burning a hole through his shoulder and another through his thigh, but the death god stood still, waiting for Aldo's death throes to subside, before taking two balls of obsidian, jade, and amber from his pocket and placing them back in the box.

Kholster left the nonmagical eyes, perfect replicas Irka had made, in Aldo's eye sockets, not wanting to interrupt the power exchange that was underway. By the time the bald-headed Aern who'd wielded Reaper knelt over the helpless body of the god of knowledge, doubled canines breaking the skin as he began to eat, Kholster had already pulled Aldo's soul free. No need to prolong his pain.

“What are you going to do with me?” Aldo's spirit asked.

Kholster, one of him, took Aldo with him without answering, leaving the new god of knowledge to his gruesome meal.

*

“Aldo?” In answer to Torgrimm's cry, Kholster concentrated on the fragments of the burst soul, eyes narrowing, amber pupils glowing as the spirit flowed back together. He handed the confused creature to Torgrimm. “I don't think he handles that sort of thing anymore. But if you'd like to speak to his successor, I'll call him.”

Vander, the new god of knowledge, formerly Second of One Hundred, stepped into the light.

At that moment, the warehouse exploded.

CHAPTER 32

OVERWATCH

Gazing back at the shield of force blocking off the harbor as she ran, Rae'en couldn't help but jump at the sound of the explosion that came from beyond its quasi-visible arc. Around her, Oathbreakers screamed, covering their ears. A human child fell onto the cobbles, abrading his hands and knees. Rae'en scooped him up from the path of a carriage carrying people important or rich enough to afford one and tossed the squawking, bleeding thing to the human female who looked the most concerned by his fate.

Such a strange sensation to realize even though she'd been startled and slow to react, Bloodmane hadn't, so to a non-Aern observer, Rae'en suspected she seemed an unfazed creature, more bone-steel than flesh, of the sort others had come to fear when they pictured the Armored. The grooved bone-steel boots of Bloodmane wreaked havoc on the street, but no one was complaining to her.

A second explosion shook the ground and rattled the air, but Rae'en scarcely paid it any heed. Things were too busy. Working with Rivvek's forces, the Aern, Eldrennai, Aiannai, and humans were evacuating Port Ammond, the parts of it they could reach, as quickly as they could. It helped that the guards had already been gathering the citizenry into small groups for the multiple audiences with the king—the deadly game of live, serve, or die with which King Rivvek had been presenting them.

There was fighting beyond the city gates, too. A large force of Zaur and Sri'Zaur crossbowmen as well as a sizable infantry was in place, but they hadn't been prepared for the Aern not to try to hold the city, so the warsuits had pushed through and waged a fluid war of unknowable formations, breaking into splinters to re-form or break off again as needed.

I ought to be out there
, she thought.

The tokens in the corner of her mind map flashed black for disagreement, but Amber spoke up from where she and a small force were preparing Vander for transport.

It's up to you, kholster
, Amber thought,
but the warsuits are fighting so hard because they've already lost some Makers and they are terrified of losing you. None of us will tell you not to do it, but this isn't a charge. If it were, you would lead it. This is a strategic withdrawal . . .