Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (39 page)

Was it injured? Lance’s own feet were bleeding from the sharp stones embedded in the floor. Poisoned?

Lance reached out to heal it, and green sparks shocked his fingertips. He drew his hand back.

The emerald fire expanded into a large ball with the refetti at its heart. It gave off no heat, but the refetti screamed, a high-pitched, all-too-human sound.

About to wade back in and call on the Goddess for help, Lance noticed that the refetti was…unfolding. Its limbs grew longer, and its chest broadened. Its fur shrank, its snout pushed in, and its tail dwindled until it was no longer a refetti at all, but a man.

Claudius whimpered with fear and backed away.

“Quiet or I’ll belt you,” Marcus said absently. “Who is that? Is he Qiph?” His hand went to the chain wrapped around his wrist.

A Qiph had run Marcus through with his sword and sent him over the falls. “He’s on our side,” Lance said quickly.

The emerald fire winked out, leaving a Qiph warrior groaning on the floor, his naked body curled up into a ball. Lance laid his hand on the youth’s shoulder.

Deep in the healing trance, Lance didn’t move when one of the Primus’s guards came around the corner, his face set and suspicious. Lance felt a surge of hate: It was one of the men who’d held Lance for his beating. “What’s this then?” He had his sword out.

Marcus smiled at him, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “Opportunity.” Marcus shook loose a coil of chain and swung it. The chain tangled the guard’s sword; Marcus gave a sharp jerk, and it fell to the ground.

The guard reached for his dagger, but Marcus stepped in close and hammered him twice in the stomach. A grunt escaped the guard. He bent forward. Marcus grabbed his hair and pulled the man’s face down into his rising knee. One smash, and the guard was down, bleeding and unconscious.

It was brutal and efficient and silent. Lance watched with rising respect. Yes, this man might very well do for Wenda. He understood the “protect” part perfectly.

While Marcus armed himself with the fallen guard’s sword, dagger and breastplate, Lance turned back to his patient. The Qiph warrior had stopped shuddering and had gotten to his feet. He looked feral, ready to bolt.

Lance tried to calm him. “Do you remember me?”

A cautious nod.

“What happened? Why have you changed back to a man?” Lance asked urgently.

The Qiph shook his head as if to clear it. “Perhaps the spell wore off,” he offered, his accent giving his voice a musicality a Republican’s lacked. “Or the Pathfinders in my homeland freed me. I do not know.”

“Never mind. The blue devil is ahead?”

“The Defiler? Yes, I believe so.” A small hesitation. “The once-Defiled as well.”

Sara. He meant Sara. Lance’s heart clenched. She was supposed to be safe.

While they’d been talking, Marcus had crept up to the corner from which the guard had appeared. He took a quick look, then flattened back against the wall. Holding a finger to his lips, he gestured for Lance to take his own peek.

The tunnel ended in a large brass-bound door. Sara and Wenda were behind there. Unfortunately, out in front were two more armed guards.

* * *

Her father held the Qiph box over his head, laughing in triumph. “And so my rival is vanquished.” He tied the box shut with his sash.

Sara felt a spark of hope. The ceremony was over now; her father would want to save her—and her blood—for other occasions.

Unfortunately, she doubted the same was true for Wenda. Lance’s sister lay motionless on the floor. Her chest rose and fell, but her red hair competed for vividness with a spreading pool of blood.

She needed a healer, and Lance, being tortured, was unavailable. Sara shivered, cold with guilt.

No, cold with blood loss. Her life was draining away. She would have to call her father, though she hated the thought of attracting his attention. It was beg or die.

What should she call him? Father seemed a travesty, but anything else was a lie. Her thoughts were wandering.
Call him now before it’s too late
. “Father—”

“Sarathena, are you still alive?” He sounded curious.

Her lips felt numb. “Yes, but—”

She forgot what she meant to say, staring. Behind her father on the wall, Vez’s golden eye opened. A blue pupil stared out of a wholly black iris. A suffocating sense of evil filled the room.

The mouth moved under Sara; the knives savaged her arms.
“What have you done?”
Vez demanded. Sara’s hair moved in the blast of wind from the pit.

Her father looked shaken. He flung himself to his knees, the gesture somehow theatrical, and bowed his head. “Most Cruel One, I have done as all your acolytes strive to do—malice!”

“So you have,”
Vez agreed. This time, Sara kept her hands from being further sliced.

Her father preened. Sara blinked in amazement. Couldn’t he hear the oily promise in Vez’s voice?

Apparently not, because his face showed stupefaction when Vez purred,
“You surprise me, acolyte. I had not thought you ready yet to take the next step.”

“The next step?” Her father’s complexion grayed. “But—but that’s impossible. I mean, one day of course, when I’m old I will be happy to, uh, join with you.”

Her father never fumbled with words. He must be terrified, Sara thought distantly. She herself felt beyond fear and was only cold.

“I only recently became Primus,” her father said more strongly. “You need me to keep the war with Kandrith going and further your aims.”

“Don’t tell me what I need.”
The rumble shook the floor and half-deafened Sara.

Her father abased himself, touching his head to the floor. “Forgive me, Cruel One. Only tell me what you require and I will see it done.”

“Better.”
Vez’s voice was rich with pleasure.
“I require you to become High Priest and take the place of the one you just imprisoned. You must break your last ties and sacrifice your body.”

“N-now, Cruel One?”

“Now.”
Implacable.

“I could open the box again and free—”

“If you open it, your former master will kill you. And I won’t stop him. Give up the shell of your body, and I will give you power beyond your imaginings. You may have your choice of fountains.”

Her father looked at the green poison flowing into one golden ear and the bubbling acid in the other. Acid splashed his robe, and it began to smoke. “I-I can’t.” Raw panic on his face, her father backed away.

“You must. Or I will find another to open the box. Your former master’s wrath will be great. He will torture you.”

Her father licked his lips, obviously trying to come up with another solution. “Very well. I choose the poison.” But when he turned in that direction he stumbled over a crack in the floor, sidestepped to regain his balance and fell into the pool of acid. Malice.

Vez laughed.

Sara laboriously turned her head away, wishing she could stop hearing her father’s screams as easily as she could avoid watching him.

The lips under her arm chuckled once more then fell still, only stone once more. The black eye closed.

Four against two should have been good odds. Except Claudius hardly counted as a man, much less someone who could be depended on in a fight. Lance was good in a fight—with his fists. Against trained swordsmen he would be helpless.

Apparently having made much the same assessment, Marcus handed the knife to the Qiph, then stepped around the corner.

Lance followed shoulder-to-shoulder with the Qiph.

The guards must have heard them coming. Both had swords in hand. The one with the cleft chin grimaced when he saw Lance. “You again? She told you she never loved you and yet here you are crawling back for more.” He turned to Marcus. “And you were sniffing after the redhead, weren’t you? They’ll be dead by now, but if you wait the Primus might let us tup the corpses—”

A knife suddenly appeared in his throat, and he went down in a gurgle of blood.

Lance nodded a tense thanks to the Qiph warrior. He’d been about to jump the man.
They’re not dead yet, they can’t be. Goddess have mercy
.

Leaping over the downed guard, the other guard charged. Marcus took a nasty cut across his ribs and fell back a step, but parried the next two blows in a clash of metal.

Lance eyed the two skirmishers, wishing he could help, but stepping into the middle of a swordfight was stupid. He could well end up injured—by either man—and nobody could heal Lance.

A high-pitched scream came from the other side of the brass door.

The sound of someone in agony seemed to give the remaining guard more confidence. “You’re too late.” He lunged, but Marcus used the chain to tangle his sword, then finished him off with a thrust under his breastplate.

The guard clutched his abdomen and sank to his knees, keening.

Lance sprinted past him as if he wasn’t there. The screaming on the other side of the door stopped just as he and Marcus pushed open the door. They rushed in—only to stop in amazement. There was no enemy to fight. The Primus lay dead, half in and half out of a fountain of acid. The Qiph box lay on the floor, tied shut. The blue devil had already been captured, then. Sara’s doing?

Then he spied the two slumped figures near the obscene gold mouth. He cursed and dashed toward them.

* * *

The screaming had stopped.

Sara heard someone shout, but lacked the strength to turn her head. She leaned against the stone mouth, held up only by her chained wrist.

And then Lance threw himself onto his knees between Sara and Wenda.
He was alive.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Forgive me for leaving you with her. I should have—”

“Shh,” he told her tenderly. “I shouldn’t have asked so much of you.” He took her hand.

Sara pulled away. “Heal your sister first.” Wenda was more important, the next Kandrith.

He turned away, his expression grim as he catalogued Wenda’s injuries. There was no question that Wenda was more gravely wounded. But by the time Lance healed her, Sara thought she might have slipped away into the icy cold darkness…

Except there was a feeling of heat around her foot. Laboriously, Sara looked down and saw Lance’s hand grasping her ankle. Awe touched her when she realized that he was healing both her and Wenda at once. His eyes were closed, his head tipped back, channeling the Goddess of Mercy. The smell of springtime fought against the mustiness of the underground chamber, and the usual humming note seemed muted.

Sara wondered what age Lance had been when he made his sacrifice. How powerful a healer was he? Could anyone but Lance have saved her life after her head had been cut off? She doubted it.

“Is she going to recover?” A scruffy, half-naked man with a sword hovered protectively over Wenda.

Sara blinked. What was Captain Marcus doing here?

“She’s half-starved, dehydrated and has a bloody great crack in her skull,” Lance said tersely. “I’m mending it now.” Then more kindly, “Why don’t you hold her for me?”

Marcus knelt and gently raised Wenda’s head onto his thigh, stroking her hair. “You’re going to be fine,” he murmured, though her eyes were still shut.

Sara pulled back. “I’m better now. Concentrate on your sister.”

Lance cast her a brief, irritated glance and clamped down harder on her ankle. “Not yet. You’re still pale.”

Sara subsided into silence. But as a lovely warmth rose in her skin and her faculties returned, a sense of urgency nagged at her. “We have to get out of here.”

“No hurry,” Lance said. “The blue devil’s boxed, and your father’s dead.”

Sara looked at her father’s acid-eaten body, but instead of sadness or relief she felt doubt. He wasn’t really dead. Something else had happened. Something important that she’d forgotten…

Lance raised his voice. “See if you can find the manacle keys.”

There was a third man in the room—the Qiph warrior who had attacked Felicia. Was it her refetti?

“Sara, do you know where the keys are?” Lance asked.

She wrenched her mind back into focus. The Qiph’s identity didn’t matter, getting out of here did. “My fath—”

Vez’s stone lips moved, jerking her arm.
“Who’s there?”

The god’s sibilant whisper made the hair on Sara’s nape rise straight up as if it were trying to flee her head. She wanted to flee herself.

“My Sissssster.”
A cry of rage—and pain.
“Who dares bring my Sister’s taint into My holy presence?”

Loma’s acts of mercy must be almost unbearable to the God of Malice.

“I will not allow this desecration. Smite them, my priest.”

And then Sara remembered. Her father wasn’t dead; he’d sacrificed his body to Vez. In return, Vez had given him the power of a blue devil.

She gabbled a warning and pulled uselessly at the chain around her wrist.

* * *

“My father—he’s become a blue devil—we have to go!”

A strange calm filled Lance at Sara’s words. He should have known it was too easy. He shook his sister. “Wenda?”

“Lance?” Her eyes opened and then widened in surprise. “What are you doing here?” She sat up.

Lance put his hands on her shoulders. “Forgive me for telling you like this. Wenda, our father is dead.”

A little moan dribbled out of her throat. Her eyes locked on his, demanding that he take it back.

Inexorably, Lance kept on, “We’re at war. Cadwallader has named you the next Kandrith.”

Tears spilled down Wenda’s cheeks, but she nodded.

In the background, Sara asked someone if they’d found the keys, but Lance had the fatal sense it was too late for that. Blue shadows spawned in the corners. “Will you be the Kandrith?” Lance asked the first formal question.

Wenda swiped at her tears. “Yes.”

As tension built around them, Lance administered the oath. “Do you swear to sacrifice your life, your sight, your hearing, your taste, your hands, your legs—”

“I found it!” the Qiph cried, holding up a key. He hurried toward Wenda.

Lance lost his place in the list. “—and whatever else your country requires of you?” he finished.

“I swear,” Wenda said intensely. “Goddess help me.”

“You need a Protector. Marcus!” Lance snapped, grabbing the man’s attention from where he’d been apprehensively scanning the room. “Do you swear to protect Wenda with your life?” The air felt oppressive. Dense with fear. The blue devil was coming.

Marcus nodded. “I—”

“Wait!” Released from her chains, Wenda covered his mouth. “You don’t know what you’re saying, what you’ll be asked to do.”

Looking at her seemed to steady Marcus. “I know that I’ll do anything to keep you safe.” Over her head, his eyes met Lance’s. “I swear.”

With an unholy howl, the blue devil descended.

* * *

The Qiph warrior had just begun to fumble with Sara’s manacle when the blue devil howled.

They both flinched. The Qiph dropped the key. It skittered off a tooth and fell into Vez’s mouth.

She and the Qiph stared at each other in mutual horror. For a second she saw an echo of her pet refetti in his eyes and then…he gave up on her. The key was gone, and there was no way to break the metal band.

He drew his sword and moved to defend the others.

* * *

Lance, Marcus and the Qiph ranged themselves in a rough circle around Wenda, weapons drawn. Lance stood tensely, uncertain from which direction and what manner of threat they would face.

Within seconds, a rain of falling masonry answered him.

He threw up his hands as a fist-sized rock thumped his head. Two more battered his arms and shoulders, and a shard of ceramic tile cut his forehead.

Marcus tried to deflect them from Wenda, but it was hopeless. Within moments they were all bruised, forced to cower with their hands over their heads.

The stones and debris began to whirl around, a deadly hail that could break bones—

“No!” Wenda shouted. She flung up her arm—and her right hand vanished. Her first sacrifice.

A shield of air formed over the four of them. The whizzing rocks bounced off. Worried, Lance glanced at Sara and saw that the rockstorm hadn’t affected her.

“We should put a wall at our backs,” Marcus said.

Wenda nodded agreement, but before they could take more than a few steps, the floor under their feet softened. Lance could see the rock crumble and turn spongy and wet.

“Quicksand!” Marcus yelled.

Marshy water sucked at Lance’s calves. He tried to step back, but with no ground to push against he just sank more. The quicksand climbed up to his knees.

Wenda wobbled on a small island, but Marcus and the Qiph were also floundering.

Muddy glop splashed Lance as Marcus fell onto his back. “Spread out your weight!” Marcus yelled. The quicksand covered his hair, but he’d stopped sinking and seemed to be floating on top.

Lance had sunk to his thighs, but he didn’t want to swim in it if he didn’t have to. “Wenda, a lift, please?”

He’d seen his father raise a man five feet in the air once with his power. Wenda gave a quick nod, and an unseen force boosted him, throwing him out of the clutching grip of the quicksand and onto solid ground.

Infuriated, the blue devil threw more rocks. Desperately, Wenda formed the air shield again. Seeing that she couldn’t lift the others out at the same time, Lance untied his muddy loincloth and threw one end to the Qiph, who was flailing up to his neck.

“Qiph! Take it!”

“Thank you,” the Qiph panted as he grabbed the cloth. “But my name…is…Esam.”

Lance felt a flash of sympathy. For weeks the man had been trapped as a refetti, nameless, and now that he was free they were about to die. Calling him by name, and thus acknowledging his humanity, was the least Lance could do. “Hang on, Esam. I’ll have you out in a moment.”

The quicksand did not want to give up Esam. Lance’s bruised muscles burned as he towed the Qiph to high ground. Esam crawled on his hands and knees, then promptly collapsed. Lance wished he could do the same, but he ignored the pain and rescued Marcus next.

The blue devil howled when Marcus caught the makeshift rope. The rock storm ceased.

“We have to get out of here,” Marcus said, clumsily stroking the last two feet toward shore. He was head to foot mud except for a small oval around his nose and eyes.

“The blue devil will follow us. We have to fight back,” Lance disagreed, helping Marcus onto solid ground.

“I can’t fight what I can’t see,” Wenda said in frustration.

Lance couldn’t bring himself to make the obvious answer.

He didn’t need to. Cadwallader had picked Wenda as the next Kandrith for a reason.

Determination settled over her face. Her lips moved in a silent prayer to the Goddess. When she opened her eyes again, they were milky pale. “Ah, there you are.” Her blind gaze fixed on a corner of the ceiling.

At her gesture, five rocks rose into the air and smashed into the corner with enough force to turn them to powder.

“You can’t hurt me that way, foolish girl. I have no body,” the blue devil taunted her.

“True. There’s only one way to kill a blue devil,” Wenda said. Her face was pale but composed.

Marcus and Esam didn’t understand, but Lance couldn’t keep silent. “Don’t! Kandrith is at war. You’re needed at home. Dulcima brought me here to save you.”
I don’t want to lose my sister the same week as my father.

Her hand reached blindly for his and squeezed. “The next Kandrith will have to stop the war. This is my task, my choice.” She raised her voice. “Goddess, I sacrifice my life to kill the blue devil!”

Lance made himself watch. His father had crumpled at once, a smile of peace on his face—but Wenda kept standing. She looked first expectant, then puzzled.

Dread and relief clashed in Lance’s heart as he suddenly understood. “It’s not enough,” he told her. “You’ve only been the Kandrith for a few minutes.” Her Lifegift was probably worth less than Lance’s own. And sacrificing more wouldn’t work. Losing one’s hearing for a few minutes prior to death wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

Mocking laughter rolled through the room. “You’re helpless. Your Goddess has abandoned you. Cruel One, I offer you pain!”

Lance looked up, half-expecting a rain of knives.

“Hurt her!” the devil shouted.

Marcus gave an odd grunt. Before Lance could react, Marcus stepped forward and jerkily thrust the tip of his sword into Wenda’s eye, popping the milky orb.

Wenda screamed and clutched her face. Blood and gore showed through her fingers.

The blue devil chuckled. “Come now. You’re blind, you don’t really need those. Do the other one too.”

Lance tackled Marcus before the man could be forced to obey. He sat on the ex-legionnaire’s chest and pinned his sword arm with one knee.

But Lance was just as vulnerable to the blue devil’s commands as Marcus was. He remembered the horrible dead heaviness of his limbs when the Primus had commanded him to give him the Qiph box.

“Wenda,” he said quietly.

“So many possibilities!” The blue devil sounded drunk with power. “Howsoever shall I choose?”

Wenda crept closer. Her eye was a red ruin, but he’d healed worse. Lance leaned to one side, so that his arm touched his sister’s.