Phoenix Rising (13 page)

Anyone except those who could see the light of life itself.

In those seconds he had cut three of his captors down, and seen
something
else in the back, where the voice had come from, a something that vanished impossibly, no flicker of magic, no movement, a cold and eerie entity that was there one moment and gone the next.

But he had no time to think about that; he was running out the door, the three he’d killed leaving a gap wide enough to pass through.

Terian, please! Light unto darkness!

He burst out of another door, hearing the scratching rattle of taloned feet and whisper of trailing tails giving chase. Now he was into a lighted corridor, equalizing sight again.
There’s a lot of them after me. Where
am
I? Don’t know if they brought me up or down, how large this building is . . .

If it was the same building he’d been spying on, it was very large.
If I get out of this, I’m going to renegotiate my fee, justice or no!

A turn, an angle, through another door,
no! More of them—take the door ahead, no time to turn! Sand and storm, I need Wanderer’s luck now!

A long, long corridor now, lit by glowglobes at intervals and with no side doors, his echoing footsteps drowned out by the hissing, rattling pursuit.
No help for it. I have to make a stand. At the next doorway, if there isn’t a mob waiting behind it.

Tobimar bashed down on the door handle with the hilt of one sword as he reached it, hit the door hard with one shoulder, a jolt of dull pain echoing from the impact as the door flew open.

“
Shiderich!
” The Skysand curse meaning “die without water” was torn from him as he saw the long, triangular room before him, a room with two rows of ever-narrowing perches on either side of the central aisle—an aisle that ended at a double-fanged altar before a looming figure of a monstrous thing, part
mazakh
, part hideous insectoid. And rising from the perch-benches, a dozen of the snake-demons, furious at the interruption of a sacred moment.

Suddenly Tobimar could do nothing but laugh. It was a shaky laugh, filled with more fear and less clear bravado than he would have liked, but it was a laugh, not a scream, not a sob.
Snakes on all sides of me. Then all that remains is to see how many I can take with me.

Too bad, Master Khoros; I guess your vision wasn’t so clear this time. I’m never going to find out where pursuing justice and vengeance would have brought me . . . because this is as far as I go.

The worshippers were somewhat delayed; their weapons were placed in precise array at each side of the triangular temple, and the creatures scrambled to reach them. This gave Tobimar a minor inspiration; he spun around and brought both swords up and then down and across in a sweeping arc from front to back, sending a cold-iron will pulse through the blades that brought the seven
mazakh
chasing him up short—though, because he could not focus through their own wills, doing them no real harm—and scattered the weapons like straws in a dust-devil, breaking hilts, bending blades, and twisting gears and levers to uselessness.

As the
mazakh
recovered, he drew himself up straight and held the swords level and parallel as Khoros had taught him, and for a moment, looking into the eyes of the snake-things, he saw uncertainty. He forced a smile, the smile he had once seen on his mother’s face when the Lord of Waters had offered to duel a troll bandit who had challenged her courage and honor, the smile which had only sharpened when the duel was accepted and when the rock-strong creature had started to realize how terribly wrong its estimation of the Lord of Waters had been.

“The Seventh Prince of Skysand greets you, and offers his blades to still your fear; or keep your fear, and your lives, if you flee.” Into the words and level ice-blue gaze, he placed his living will, pressing back on their chill-hard minds with the blazing fire of his soul.

For a fleeting moment, he almost thought it would work. The three in the front wavered, hissing, and the other four stood still. But the twelve behind surged forward, and he had to focus some senses on them, and another figure—a larger
mazakh
, one of the
mazakhar
—appeared behind the first group, screeching orders in their own tongue.

And all dissolved into the chaos of combat. Tobimar spun aside as the seven charged—the advantage of the doorway now a terrible vulnerability, the open space of the temple his only chance—and parried two strikes with one sword, leapt up on a prayer-perch, cut down, impact on scales going through to bone, wrenching the blade free as he jumped again over a spear-thrust.
Parry!
screamed the inner sense, something streaking at him from the side, his sword already coming up, the
spangg!
sound of a
Zachass
disc ricocheting from his own blade almost instantly followed by the meaty
thunk
and a scream from the disc, ending its suddenly deflected course in the chest of one of the attackers. They were trying to herd him, he had to get out of the corner, leap up, on this one’s head, flip—

A line of fire scorched its way along his side, and Tobimar realized it wasn’t just a matter of sensation—that wasn’t a blade. One of the
mazakh
was a spellcaster—maybe a priest, even, and that would be
very
bad. He charged forward, channeling his will into his body, his legs, leapt over the warriors that tried to intercept him with a bound that almost cracked his head open on the wooden beams above, barely kept hold of his weapons and will as dark-blue lightning sparked around him and the scaly priest stumbled backwards, throwing up his arms; it was futile as the razor-sharp swords first took one arm and then half-severed his head.
Three so far, maybe four
.

Impact from the side, sensed too late to block, only roll with it a bit, come up, cut at the legs, back them up, block again, arms hurting, can’t stop, turn, disarming spin, jab, he’s down, another two on me, stab backwards, missed but they’ve moved away, jump
up
, by the Sand there’s the statue, hope it’s not Manifesting right now, land on the outstretched arm, that will make it harder on them . . . Oh
dust and drought
they’ve all got missiles, spears,
Zachass
, think some of the ones I scattered weren’t broken, got to get
down!

Even moving as fast as he could, Tobimar tried to block two bladed discs, only managed to get one, the other scoring a long cut down his right arm. It wasn’t all that serious, but instantly the arm began to simultaneously go numb—and to burn like icy fire.
Poison!

The Inner Will could disperse a poison, even heal wounds—but if he used that much focus, they’d have him in an instant. All he could do was try to slow it a bit. And keep fighting. Swinging. Cutting.

Finally he realized there was a pause, a gap. He stared around, seeing that he must have killed eight, nine of them already . . . but there were at least eighteen remaining.
Reinforcements.

The
mazakhar
stepped slightly forward, hissing. “A good fight, boy, and brave speech. But you slow, you tire, and we are many. Nearly all in this house have come. What, then, should we fear?”

And in that moment, when he searched for some words that would mean something, another voice spoke. A voice strange and hollow, echoing around the room, seeming to come from no clear source above or below.

“Fear
me
.”

And the huge
mazakhar
bellowed in agony, clutching futilely at its back as though something had impaled it there. The other
mazakh
whirled, seeking the source of that voice and that pain.

Tobimar didn’t know what was going on, but he knew a chance when he saw one. He lunged forward, both swords drawn back, and with all his strength made a double cut; a second, gurgling scream and the leader went down, hands scrabbling grotesquely at his own innards in a useless attempt to keep them where they belonged.

Now there
was
consternation on the reptilian faces, for as Tobimar forced all of his strength into a final whirlwind of cuts, it seemed as though some invisible force protected him, hindering every attempt to hem in the exiled Prince. A spear was levelled at his back, and the wielder suddenly pitched to the ground, clutching at an ankle that was fountaining blood. A blurred, tiny motion, impossible to follow in the shadows and deadly dance of combat, streaked away, and a moment later as Tobimar exchanged blows with a veteran warrior, scales thick and glossy with age, whose skill threatened to disarm the young man at any moment, something tiny dropped from above (or, perhaps, leaped from the floor?) and a silvery flicker of motion jabbed from one side to the other; the veteran’s sword clattered unheeded to the floor as the clawed hands were clapped to the throat, impotent to stem the tide of red and the half-seen something bounded away. A murmur of uncertainty began now, and the twin swords spun and danced in lethal rhythm, weariness held at bay with sheer will and rising hope, punctuated now by a pair of chiming
twang
s, and two
mazakh
fell with steam-whistle shrieks as something entered their eyes and began to
burn
with white-fire agony.

That was enough; the remaining creatures fled, unwilling to face the unyielding Tobimar and whatever unknown and terrible force had allied itself with him, even here within their own temple.

In the sudden silence, Tobimar could hear his own ragged breathing, and he glanced around, feeling the poison still trying to work its way through him, dizziness warring with fear and confusion. “Wh-what are you?
Where
are you?
Show yourself!
”

“No need to shout.” The voice from down near his feet was the same, but somehow less frightening, almost comical.

Nonetheless, he jumped back, startled, and looked down.

A small brown Toad—with, admittedly, a fair overlayer of red gore—looked up at him and waved. “Hello!”

And Tobimar Silverun, Seventh of Seven, Seeker of Skysand, found himself utterly without words.

12

Tobimar set down the crystal-carved draftglass and signaled for a refill, shaking his head in amazement. “That’s quite a story.”

The little Toad waved a hand dismissively. “A little luck goes a long way. I’m just a lucky Toad.” He lifted his own cup and poured a trickle of a black drink—nearly as thick as honey and with a taste Tobimar unfortunately could still recall—onto his tongue, making the Prince wince with the memory. Poplock had told him, just as he tasted it, that it was brewed from locusts and flame-ants. “Your story was much more interesting. But you didn’t really finish yours; you didn’t explain what you’re still
doing
here. I mean to say, you’re on a quest; shouldn’t you be doing the questing?”

Tobimar laughed, then thanked the server as he refilled Tobimar’s glass. “Well . . . you know, I thought about that a lot. I came here looking for clues to our lost heritage, and I found some. But not really enough to give me an idea of how this connected to what my teacher Khoros said in his parting message.” The Toad gave a nodding bob of his body, showing he was listening. “I realized that with dozens of my family, maybe hundreds, having gone on this journey before, they must have come here at some point.”

“And your family doesn’t really have many clues to the past.” Poplock nodded again. “You don’t even know how you came to Skysand, really.”

“Exactly. We fled there from somewhere, but even the direction isn’t clear, just that wherever it was there were many mountains.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.” The ironic tone of the little Toad’s voice brought a wry smile to Tobimar’s lips.

Mountains were not something in short supply. The entire continent was bisected by the Khalals—something like three to four thousand miles long and a few hundred miles wide, with the Archmage Idinus ruling his empire from the sixty-thousand-foot peak of Mount Scimitar. Then to the south of the Khalals, forming the main border and barricade between the Empire of the Mountain and the State of the Dragon King, were the Ice Peaks, themselves another two thousand miles of mountains, sometimes reaching six miles in height. To the far west and just south of the end of the Khalals, the ramparts of Hell’s Rim stood grim and impassible save through the pass at Hell’s Edge, while much farther south the Krellin Mountains formed a circle said to house the Father and King of Dragons himself. In the Southeast, the Wyrmscrest was a smaller but still notable range on the way to Elyvias, which was surrounded itself by the Cataclysm Ridge. North of the Khalals, Tobimar’s own Skysand was bracketed by the Flamewalls, the White Blade Mountains surrounded the similarly named country . . . there were, simply put, a lot of possibilities.

“Very helpful indeed,” he agreed. “But I’ve found a few reasonable possibilities. Still, what bothered me was that I might be retracing my forefathers’ steps; Master Khoros once said ‘whenever it seems clear to you what needs to be done to solve some ancient riddle, remember that many others may have thought it clear as well.’”

“Hmmmm. I see. I think. Your old teacher’s saying that if it really was that simple, why then, does it still need to be done?”

“Exactly. So I spent, oh, I don’t know,
weeks
trying to be clever and think of some new approach.” He took a drink of the deep-blue, slightly bubbly Artanian wine and tried one of the baked tineroot chips. “Plus I was trying to figure out what direction I needed to take to follow his awfully cryptic advice.”

Poplock’s tongue snapped out, snaring a fly that had started an ill-fated investigation of Tobimar’s plates. “Mmm. Crunchy. Yes, that did sound vague. Wizards are always like that, though. Follow lies and find truth, go south to reach the north, stand on your head to see things right-side up. I think working magic messes with their heads.”

“It’d be easier if I
believed
that, O Sage of Toads. Master Khoros was far too clear-headed, alas.” The tineroots were spicy, with an earthy undertone, and dusted with salt. “There’s a lot of gods that promise justice or vengeance and no few that promise both; hard to sort them out. Chromaias is one of the obvious ones, the Three Beards, Myrionar, Odin, the Triad . . . But we’re followers of Terian, always have been, so I went to the Hall of Light here.”