Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) (20 page)

Szodrin shook his head. “She was human, though her line saw more than one mingling of the blood.”

“Why was she on Mithgar?”

Szodrin’s wounds may have caused the pained look on his face. “I can say no more now. If we survive this ordeal, perhaps.”

“What about Astlin?”

The Night Gen paused. “A special case,” he said at last. “She may have had some small gift, unknown even to her, magnified beyond normal bounds when her soul was scarred.”

“Is that why you feared her?”

“I’d be a fool not to,” Szodrin said. “It’s no comfort she’s a telepath.”

“Why should that matter? I could crush a Guild house if my power matched hers.”

“You likely could, and it would pale before the horrors she can wreak. Telepathy can’t kill; not directly. But it can learn your every secret, turn your thoughts against you, and trap you in a living hell.”

Xander thought of the days he’d lived in a dream of Keth and shuddered.

“My people distrust telepathy much as yours fear necromancy,” Szodrin said. “Telepaths don’t choose their power, but the temptation to abuse it is—”

Xander wondered why Szodrin had trailed off until he followed the Night Gen’s line of sight to the crest of a rubble pile. A grey-skinned Gen stood above them. Metal glinted from his face and hair. Two huge wolves flanked him, one of which had only three paws.

Xander’s heart turned to ice. “Are these Nahel’s killers?”

Damus’ muscles tensed.

Leering at Szodrin, the
Isnashi
in Gen form spoke in half-growled words that twisted his metal-studded face.

Szodrin stepped forward, leaving Xander to bear Damus’ weight, and answered in a less debased version of the same tongue.

The
Isnashi
bared his teeth as his voice rose to an accusatory shout. Xander knew little of the Gen tongue—let alone the Night Gen dialect, but he clearly heard the names Shaiel and Thera, as well as the word for “fire”.

The icy shell around Xander’s hate cracked. At his whim, a thunderclap shattered the hill’s crest into a cloud of flying stone that enveloped the three
Isnashi
.

Szodrin turned to stare, his mouth agape.

Avenging Nahel gave Xander dark satisfaction—until bloodcurdling howls echoed from the canyons between the towers. Grey shadows charged from their mouths.

We are surrounded!

A hairy mass forced Xander to the ground and drove the air from his lungs. Gen eyes glared at him from a wolfish face that still bore shards of metal and now chips of stone. Its breath was moist and rank.

Xander reflexively willed the wolf gone. Red pain burst behind his eyes as the claws gripping his arms were torn away. A loud thud and a whimper sounded from across the street.

Xander gulped in air. He struggled to stand as fatigue battered his mind. Damus lay close by on his right. There was no sign of Szodrin.

The Night Gen reappeared several yards to the left in a blinding flash. Clawed hairy arms encircled his back, but the space that should have held his
Isnashi
foe was already occupied by a debris pile. A second explosion left Szodrin lying motionless under a wet heap of stone and meat.

A half dozen
Isnashi
circled in the rubble. Xander stood between Damus and Szodrin’s prone forms and turned to face any wolves that ventured closer than a stone’s throw. They retreated each time—only because they didn’t know how depleted his willpower was—but he couldn’t keep his eyes on them all.

The sound of arrhythmic galloping almost caught Xander’s attention too late. He spun, saw a three-legged wolf charging him; lobbed his last ounce of strength at the beast. Its gnashing maw stopped mere inches from his face.

Xander had no illusions. His flagging will couldn’t check the wolf’s rage for long.

Behind him, from the direction of the burning tower, came the crunching of gravel and the ringing of steel. Xander’s heart threatened to stop with each heavy footstep.

I saw her fall,
he thought, but the bewilderment in the
Isnashi’s
eyes confirmed his fear. He would be devoured. By wolves or by fire was the only question.

With a final push, the wolf broke free. Xander’s scream died in his throat as the
Isnashi
dashed around him, soon joined by its pack mates.

Xander turned, and barely kept himself from falling.

Smoke trailed behind a slight, black-clad figure with blue stars for eyes and hair like burning blood. Xander stared in awe and dread as the wolves converged on her.

Astlin halted. Her face betrayed no alarm when the pack fell upon her. Xander’s cry was resurrected as the beasts’ rage gave way to wanton frenzy. Their claws and teeth first sought her head, but the molten brass that bled from her wounds soon taught them to shun her only exposed flesh.

Something glinted amid the row. One wolf yelped and reared back. Astlin rose to her feet, pushing the
Isnashi
away with her right arm, which was bared to the shoulder. It gleamed with a deep amber sheen, and the air around it rippled.

The musky tang of charred meat assaulted Xander’s nose. The wolves fell back, except the one that Astlin held at arm’s length, and another that clung to her side. The first
Isnashi
flailed at her with a clawed hand and a stump, but its struggling turned to convulsions. Astlin’s hand broke through its head, covered in black blood that burned away leaving the articulated brass pristine.

The dead wolf slid from the metal hand, its fur smoldering. Its pack mate desperately mauled Astlin’s leather-sheathed body to no avail.

Showing no more emotion than a butcher dividing a calf, Astlin locked the beast’s head in her left arm and pressed her right hand to its muzzle. Xander recognized the
Isnashi’s
metal-studded face before it split into five cauterized strips.

The pack threw themselves at Astlin, howling their wrath. She dropped her second victim, and a perverse mixture of greed and fear twisted her brass-streaked face. The heat haze that wreathed her arm enveloped her whole body. Despite the intervening distance, Xander’s eyes and mouth went dry.

The air turned to fire with a roar that shook fresh rubble from the towers. The flames rose above their broken crowns in a swirling torrent.

Xander shielded his eyes against the blaze. Tremors jarred his teeth, and burning winds buffeted his face. All at once, shadows and silence returned.

“Are you hurt?” a frail voice called from behind him. Xander looked back, but a moment passed before he recognized the gore-caked figure of Szodrin. The Night Gen’s torn shirt revealed claw marks traversing his chest. He crouched beside Damus, who now sat upright.

Xander felt his bleeding scalp and arms. “Not as badly as you.”

“I doubt my pain compares to hers.”

Xander’s gaze darted to Astlin. She stood amid a charred circle suffused with glowing orange veins and the smell of burned stone. No trace of her wounds remained. Jets of flame slipped through her fingers as she pressed her hands to her heart. The fire subsided, and she fell to her knees.

I should run,
Xander thought. But Astlin’s presence captivated him as if he were a child staring into a bonfire. He only became aware of walking toward her when Szodrin gasped.

“Stop! You don’t know the fire you play with!”

Xander knew his peril. His exhausted will simply lacked the power to act on that knowledge. The same fascination that draws a moth to its end quelled his fear, and he strode across hot stones to stand before Astlin. There his fear returned.

Astlin’s glove hung empty from her gleaming shoulder. She pulled the thick leather on and fastened it back into place. With one deliberate motion, she stood.

The ground’s heat seeped through the soles of Xander’s shoes.
I am standing before a mountain that could fall on me at any second.

“You were right.” Astlin’s voice dripped with a predatory lust that made the wolves seem sober. “You should’ve run.”

Xander saw again the bright lines cutting through the black pyramid. Astlin’s orange-red cord twisted itself around his silver one. He heard the Fire’s voice; knew its invincible will. It would devour what he shared with the wounded part of itself. And, unsated, it would fill him till nothing but it remained.

In the terror of that moment, Xander understood.
She is no less enthralled than I.

Szodrin cried out from what seemed like a vast distance, but his voice grew closer.

“Stay back!” Xander said. Any who disturbed the Fire’s feeding would join him in its belly. Fighting was hopeless, but perhaps he could buy Szodrin and Damus time to escape.

Xander let blood from his wounded arm pool in his palm and offered it to Astlin. “I owe you my life. There is nothing to hold my blood, so I will pay the debt now.”

Astlin cocked her head. The fire in her eyes wavered; then blazed with even greater intensity. Her cord burned just as bright, infusing Xander’s silver thread with a faint orange glow. He felt himself emptying.

I hope my death will make you whole. I hope I will see my mother and father afterward.

The Fire’s gluttony became Xander’s own, compelling him to devour himself. His battered will could not resist. But a second, seraphic will poured through the knot where the fiery and silver cords met.

I can’t do this to you,
Astlin cried silently.
I
won’t
!

Her strength restored his, and together they drove the Fire back.

The dark monolith and its countless silver cords vanished into the smoke of the burning tower. Astlin stood outlined against the flames. Her eyes shone steady and clear. For the first time since Xander woke in Ostrith, he saw only the girl he’d met in dreams.

“Xander?” she asked.

His arm fell to his side, spilling blood upon the rubble. “Yes. I am myself.” He couldn’t suppress a grin. “I think you are, as well.”

“You…gave yourself to me.”

“I lent you the part they stole.”

“Back away,” Szodrin urged as he limped up to Xander. “The madness may seize her again.”

“The Fire bleeds through the wound in her soul,” Xander said. “We are holding it closed.”

A frustrated sigh passed Szodrin’s lips. “We must reach the Guild house. The
Isnashi
weren’t the last of Shaiel’s hunters.

“They are hunting you,” Xander said to Astlin.

She nodded somberly.

Xander laid a hand on Astlin’s shoulder. “Come with us.”

Szodrin shot a venomous glance at Astlin. “Leave her.” He hobbled back toward Damus.

“Come,” repeated Xander. “It is not good to be alone.”

“I didn’t risk my life so you could waste yours!” Szodrin shouted.

“I hoped to find my clan,” Xander told Astlin. “They are beyond my reach. But if I can help you, I won’t have hoped in vain.”

Astlin stared at the ground, saying nothing; not even breathing.

His heart heavy, Xander rejoined the Gen and helped Szodrin support Damus. Arm in arm, they struggled down the rubble-choked street.

The chiming of metal followed them.

It was still following them.

The pain radiating from Damus’ face to his neck kept him from looking back down the ruined street, but each time he and his friends took a collective step, the hateful chimes answered.

What’s it waiting for?

The going had been slow—as one might expect from two injured Gen and a thickset boy slogging through rubble. Yet the sounds of pursuit always came from the same middle distance, ominous as red clouds at dawn.

The grey-veiled sun had started its descent by the time they reached the square. Szodrin wouldn’t risk translating them in his weakened state. Instead they lost most of the day seeking a way across the chasm in their path.

Damus had hoped to lose the souldancer—an epithet reflecting his pursuer’s relationship to Thera—at the upthrust fault. But the creature gave him no respite.

An apt vessel for the goddess of death.

Damus’ scholarly scruples reminded him that the girl had only carried a
part
of Thera’s fragmented soul. The correction offered small comfort. Nakvin’s tales of the
Exodus
had taught him that souldancers walked hand in hand with woe.

The agony in Damus’ mouth; the hands that burned as if he gripped live coals, throbbed with the creature’s every ringing step.

And resentment toward Xander grew with his pain.

The Guild hall impressed Xander less than it should have. Mere days ago standing at its heart would have filled him with awe. But Thurif’s betrayal and Astlin’s dreams had reduced the colossal structure to the Guild’s cenotaph.

Xander felt like an ant in a huge white tent. He lowered his eyes from the towering square walls to the gate dais where he stood. Beside him, Szodrin worked at the console while leaning heavily upon it. Damus lay sprawled on the second tier below them.

Four long desks bent at right angles bracketed the platform. Astlin sat under the one nearest the entrance, holding her knees to her chest. She saw Xander watching and turned her eyes away.

Shame stung Xander’s heart, but he put Astlin’s response in perspective.

I have helped her find reason, and now she must confront what she’s done. Who knows what is going through her mind?

Afraid that she might show him, Xander looked to Szodrin, whose shredded shirt gave a clear view of the bloodied rags beneath. The sight evoked a sympathy pang in Xander’s wounded arm.

Szodrin worked in silence, but questions weighed on Xander’s mind.

“You knew my mother,” Xander said at length.

“I did.”

“You loved her.”

Szodrin stopped laboring over the console. “Perhaps more than she knew.”

“Am I your prisoner?”

The Night Gen turned. “I expected another question.”

“You and the
Isnashi
argued,” said Xander, “more like quarreling allies than foes.”

“I was ordered to find you,” Szodrin said. “That I’ve done. I had further orders to recapture you, which I intend to break.”

Xander spoke his next words with an effort. “Even though I killed my mother?”

Szodrin closed his eyes. When they opened, they flashed like jade knives. “Why did you attack the wolves?”