Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (45 page)

He grabbed Maeve by one wing and roughly propelled her out the door. She stumbled into a slanted, twisting hallway. Pale light filtered in through cracks in the concrete walls. Maeve squinted through watering eyes. Hallax none too gently kept her on her feet and pushed her along the hall.

It was narrow and the already uneven floor had buckled in places. Some long-gone designer had tried to disguise the ugly gray walls and painted them over in more cheerful blues and greens, but the concrete glistened with moisture and the paint hung in peeling tatters like diseased skin.

Word must have spread through the Cult of Nihil. A hundred men and women in black stared from splintered doorways and gaps in the broken walls. Some remained silent as Hallax pushed Maeve past, but more whispered and pointed. A few even cheered raggedly, thanking Maeve for what she had unwillingly given. She could not meet their eyes. The Nihilists kept a respectful distance – if not from Maeve, then from the Emberguard who escorted her.

Hallax guided her agonizing progress down to a collapsing stairwell. The going was rough and steep. By the time she had staggered down two flights of warped steps, he very nearly had to carry Maeve.

He dragged her by a wrist and wing into the jagged ruins of a parking lot. Cracked and snapped supports jutted up from the asphalt like great broken teeth. Maeve tried to catch her breath and gagged. The air was thick with a terrible, rancid smell: old blood and rotting flesh and worse.

The pit.

A dark crack tore through the foundation like the huge mouth of a deep, blind creature. Weak, pitiful moans echoed up from the depth, carried by the fetid wind.

Hallax dragged her toward the pit. A choking animal panic rose in Maeve's throat. She did not want to die here, buried away from the sky and wind… Maeve dug her heels into the crumbling asphalt.

"No!" she cried.

Hallax was losing patience. He pushed the fairy down to her knees and grabbed one wing in preparation to break it, as Gavriel had instructed. After everything, Maeve was about to be thrown into a hole like a piece of trash. She had served her purpose. Gavriel's purpose. Even now, he made ready to unleash the Devourers upon a thousand times those lives that had been taken in the White Kingdom.

Maeve had fought so long and so hard to die. A year spent coaxing Logan Coldhand closer and closer. But he had not killed her. If Maeve's hunter could not kill her, how could she let the Nihilists do it?

I will not make it so easy.

Hallax's weight came down to snap her wing like a dry leaf. With an effort that brought tears to her eyes, Maeve heaved her tortured body forward. Not into a fall, but a controlled roll. It
had
to work on the first try. She would not have another chance.

Pulled off balance by the sudden absence of the fairy beneath him, Hallax pitched backward. Maeve jumped up to feet that felt like sacks of shattered glass. For a heart-stuttering moment, Maeve could not remember the spell. Her mind was muddy with pain and chems. Hallax recovered his balance and drew his sword from its well-worn sheath.

"Alon'ii va imanno ishae'na laeling! Vasha imannui eru chen rowshae dae!"
Maeve sang.

Her raw voice was not beautiful, but it was enough to get the job done. Hallax jerked to a stop as a sudden flare in his optic nerve blinded him. It would not last long and the rangy Mirran was already snapping his sword out, searching for her. Maeve spun. What could she do? There was no way she could overpower Hallax. Not like this, not without her spear…

There was only one place to hide. Maeve spread her shaking wings. The feathers were matted with blood and grit, but enough of them remained. Cold, stiff muscles protested painfully as Maeve managed to push herself into the air. One wingtip scraped along the ceiling, and then she was diving into the pit. If she was going down there, she would do it under her own power, for her own purposes.

Black stone and dirt raced by, streaked in wetness that did not bear close inspection. The crevice was wide but irregular. Maeve curled her wings close to her body and tumbled into the darkness. The light was vanishing quickly above. A little further…

Just before the pit narrowed too much, Maeve spread her wings. Cold air pushed against her feathers. They trembled and sweat streamed across her shoulders with the strain, but Maeve slowed and grabbed onto a pipe jutting from the pit's wall. There was something slick under her fingers and Maeve slipped.

She was too tired, too frightened to scream as she fell down into the stinking blackness… Then her left foot came down jarringly hard against a small crag of concrete. Maeve pressed her body against the wall of the pit and held her breath, waiting.

The crack was a barely visible line above, just a ragged streak of shadow only slightly brighter than the deep darkness all around Maeve. For a moment, she could not help thinking of Kemmer's ravine, and cursed herself. It was just such thoughts of the Pylos Waygate that had made so much trouble…!

Here, now. Maeve made herself focus. Had her deception been enough? Hallax could surely see again. Did he realize where she had gone? Would he think to look for her in the pit?

She waited. Her left leg bore most of her weight and began to cramp, but Maeve dared not move. No light appeared at the top of the pit and neither did the Emberguard's shadow. Maeve listened, but could hear nothing more than creaking stone and steel.

She was unexpectedly glad that she had not eaten in two days, or she would have been sick. She could
taste
the stench of sickness and decay in the pit. Maeve closed her eyes and made herself count heartbeats, one hundred until she could climb out of her hiding spot.

Maeve lost count and started again five times. She only made it to forty-seven of the last count, but she
had
to move. Clinging to the side of the pit, her fingers were trembling and threatened to fail. If she let go now, there was not enough room to spread her wings and she would fall.

I must find Gavriel! I must stop him, somehow, before he brings the Devourers to the core.

If Maeve was to find him, she had to go now. Sweating and weeping with the effort, Maeve began to climb.

________

It would all be over soon. Gavriel barely felt the ground under his feet. He walked on high, a savior finally empowered to deliver sweet, swift death to the worlds.

My Jaissa, my Sarru… The suffering will be over soon, my lovely girls. We will all join you in oblivion.

The Nihilists had heard Maeve's cries and their master's song. Men and women lined the broken halls, clustered in bowed doorways, all shivering in their black robes. The close, cold air stank of disease and blood and waste – the cloying scents of life.

The last months on Prianus had liberated so many… Only a hundred or so remained, those few strong enough to move on through painful lives in the service of death. Another hundred Arcadian Nihilists were still in Pylos and awaited only Gavriel's command to return home.

Two hundred of over six thousand who had sworn themselves to the Church of Nihil on Stray. Thousands lost to him because of Maeve Cavainna and Logan Coldhand… Gavriel had not forgotten. Maeve deserved her fate. He gave Xartasia a sidelong glance. The beautiful princess' eyes remained downcast, sooty lashes brushing her cheeks and sparkling with diamond tears.

"Your cousin invited her own end," he reminded Xartasia firmly. "It could have been far worse, in fact."

The fairy snapped her lilac eyes up to meet Gavriel's. They burned with such obvious rage that several of the Nihilists actually drew back. In her flowing white gown and flared ivory wings, she was a bright angel reigning over the dirty Nihilists.

"Maeve is a daughter of the House of Cavain," Xartasia said in a clear, ringing voice. "I have aided you against her only for the sake of my
own
people's suffering!"

Gavriel towered over Xartasia. The Nihilists leaned in again, holding their breath. The icy air was dangerously still. They watched in captivated silence.

"Cavain's was a mighty house, princess," Gavriel said. "But perhaps you forget who is master of
this
house."

"Have you forgotten why you are master of anything but a prison cell, human?" Xartasia challenged. "I taught you the very magics by which you command these creatures' respect!"

"They follow me because I speak the truth, Xartasia. Because I will free them! My magic is a means, not an end." Gavriel raised one age-spotted hand. The Nihilists shouted, screamed and howled. "For me and for us all!"

"Save us!" wailed a scarred woman.

"Free us!"

"Destroy us!"

Xartasia's alabaster cheeks turned bright red. "Without my songs, none of this would be! I have walked beside you on this journey and given you gifts unknown to any human!"

"For which you have my gratitude," Gavriel said. "But not my servility."

The princess held his gaze for a long moment and then reluctantly dropped her eyes. "Yes, Lord Gavriel."

He smiled at her and placed one knobby hand on her shoulder. "Do not lose heart, my dear. We are so close to the ultimate end." Gavriel raised his voice. "There is a Waygate here, in the Kayton Mountains! We go at once to call forth the Devourers, to scour life from the galaxy!"

The Nihilists cheered and screamed their master's praise so loudly that for a long moment, Gavriel did not realize that one of them was pushing his way through the crowded hall. It was Hallax, tall and defiant of his prey heritage as he shouldered past the lesser Nihilists.

Gavriel frowned. The Emberguard was furious. Gavriel beckoned him forward and the rangy Mirran dropped to one knee.

"Lord Gavriel," Hallax began. Every inch of his voice and long body rippled with barely restrained violence. "Lord Gavriel, I've lost Maeve."

"Lost?" Gavriel asked in a low tone.

"She blinded me with a spell, my lord, and then she was gone."

Xartasia leaned close. "Maeve will seek more than simple escape. She surely comes in search of you."

"Then she's still here," Gavriel said. "But we will not be. Not for much longer."

"We should go at once," Xartasia agreed. "If Maeve contacts her captain, the Prian police will be upon us before we can reach the Waygate."

Gavriel nodded and turned back to Hallax. "Find her. Much as she deserves it, we can no longer afford to give Maeve a lingering death. Kill her at once."

Hallax bowed his head, dark green tangles of hair lying sweaty against the back of his striped neck. "Yes, Lord Gavriel."

"When it's done, my friend," he told the Emberguard, "when it's
all
done, you are free. You may kill yourself. You have waited a long time."

Hallax kissed Gavriel's withered hand and drew his greasy-looking nanosword. "Thank you, my lord," he said. "It will be done! For your glory and the death of all."

"A man in search of revenge tears his own wounds bloody in the hunt."

- Duchian Lemanne, Li Marraine author (34 PA)

"Stop!" Gripper shouted. "Stop here!"

Logan slammed on the brakes. It was raining down in the valley and the truck skidded across the wet road. A dented hauler honked and thundered past in the opposite direction as Logan bumped his vehicle up over a slushy snowbank. There was no appreciable shoulder along the road, so Logan parked on the steep downhill slope.

The second truck slid to a stop behind him, just a few feet away, but the rain poured down so heavily that Logan could barely make out Duaal turning in the passenger seat to confer with Xia and Panna.

On the road, the swift-moving traffic did not slow. Logan squinted at the far side of the road. Built close against the steep, stony sides of the valley was a cluster of stark, ugly storage slabs. They were tall, unadorned rectangles of concrete with only a few sealed windows staring out over Pylos like the eyes of dead giants. Several of the slabs had cracked badly across the base and hung precariously to the mountainside, leaning threateningly over the narrow road below.

"It's got to be one of these," Gripper said. He pressed his ogreish face to the window. "Look!"

He was pointing to one of the cracked foundations. A twisted, broken piece of metal jutted out from the stained concrete. The snapped support was covered in rust that looked like congealed blood. Logan's heart skipped a beat. Was this it? Was Maeve in there? Gripper's com beeped. The Arboran jumped and fumbled it from his pocket.

"It's Duaal," the mage said. "Coldhand, we're running out of time. Maeve's given Gavriel everything. She didn't want to, but it's done."

"Do you know which one she's in?" Logan asked. He forced his voice to remain even.

"It's hard as hells to see out there."

"Do you know?"

"I think so. Everything inside is slanted… or leaning, like it's on a hill."

The slab at the end of the row leaned so far out from the mountain that a single quake might very well shake it free and send the whole tower crashing down into Pylos. The small square windows were broken and dark.