The Lightning Wastes (The Traveler's Gate Chronicles: Collection #3) (6 page)

Tutor Petrus' private dwelling was dug into the rock about half a mile from the main outpost. While most Travelers lived in the tower sanctuary during their stay in Naraka, a few of them—those who spent the most time in specific regions of the Territory—kept small, permanent houses here. Rasmus didn't mind the trip, since no senior Travelers were around to give him any other chores while he was outside the outpost walls, but the ever-present threat of predators hung over him like a cloud of smoke.
 

The deadliest creatures waited deeper in the Caverns, away from populated human settlements, but you could find ash hounds anywhere, trotting down tunnels or over cliffs. Sometimes a snapdragon or swarm of
mor'we
got hungry enough that they would hunt down the dogs near a waypoint. Everyone who lived long in Naraka knew someone who had vanished outside of the outpost walls, never to be heard from again.

Tutor Petrus' well waited just outside his round charwood doorway. The pool was covered by a stone lid that took both of them to drag it off, and it was much smaller than the well in the sanctuary. Their four buckets filled it almost to the brim.

“How about you?” Taichon asked, as they walked away from Tutor Petrus' house. “Do you know what you're going to say to the tree?”

Rasmus couldn't tell the truth, of course. That would be admitting defeat to Taichon again. “I have...some idea,” he said.

Though part of the route back to the outpost wound through tunnels carved in the red stone walls, much of the road was exposed. They had to step carefully on these sections, because there was often a sheer cliff to the side, dropping ten or fifteen feet to another plateau of solid rock. Rasmus had known careless students or visitors to slip in the grit and ash, tumbling down to the stone below. The fortunate survived with only a few broken ribs, while the unlucky could suffer a twisted neck or shattered skull.

“Well, I told you my story...” Taichon trailed off uncomfortably. Good manners suggested that Rasmus should share his tale now.

“It's a lot like yours, I would say,” Rasmus said. The bucket in Taichon's right hand swung out over a fifteen-foot drop. “Pushed someone. They fell and got hurt. The difference was, they deserved it.”

“Huh.” Taichon sounded disappointed. He clearly didn't think Rasmus had any such story. That was just like him: he never believed anything Rasmus said. Sure, he was making up the tale this time, but he had certainly earned a little trust.

“You don't believe me.”

“No, that's not true,” Taichon protested.

Rasmus would show him.

He barely thought about it. It was more a surge of emotion, of inspiration, of something long hidden inside him lurching up and taking control for a single instant.

Rasmus took one step to the right and shoved.

Taichon had time for one startled, panicked expression before he went over the cliff. A second later, a cracking thud and two hollow thunks marked Taichon and his pair of barrels hitting the ground.

I’ve done it now,
Taichon thought.
I did it.
His head felt like someone had pumped it full of smoke. Would the Travelers find him now? He had intentionally injured another student, after all. That was a crime. He had committed a crime in
Naraka,
of all places. What was going to happen to him?

No, not a crime. A punishment.
After all, had Taichon not confessed to him that he had gone unpunished for hurting his little sister? Wasn't it a Naraka Traveler's job to arbitrate such cases? In fact, this was the best kind of penalty: one that fit the transgression. Taichon had pushed his sister out of a tree, and in just retaliation, Rasmus had pushed him off of a cliff. If the fates were kind, Taichon would suffer the same injuries as his sister. The scales of justice would be balanced. Rasmus might even be rewarded, for acting as befit a Traveler of Naraka.

That was when it occurred to him that he couldn't hear any of the noises he had expected from Taichon. No screams, no groans, nothing. Maybe he had hit his head, just like his sister. That would be for the best: maybe he wouldn't remember anything when he woke up.

Rasmus stepped around a wild ash hound as he walked toward the cliff, shoving the dog out of the way with one leg. He leaned down.

Most of Taichon's body lay pressed flat against the stone, but his head had twisted almost all the way around, as though he had tried to get one last look at Rasmus.

His killer.

Rasmus stumbled back from the edge, thinking fast. He would have to come up with a story that didn't make him sound like a murderer. He couldn't lie; the older Travelers had ways of finding guilt even through the most clever lies. He had to make the truth serve his purposes.

Taichon had fallen from a cliff, and Rasmus saw it happen. He wished it hadn't happened, he was full of regrets, and all that. It was true; he now wished he had waited for a shorter drop. He had never meant to have a body on his hands.

As cover stories went, that one would do. But he had to look like a real friend in grief. He threw his buckets to the ground, convinced that someone who had truly witnessed the death of someone he loved would have abandoned the buckets instead of carefully carrying them back. Rasmus then started to run. Someone in his position would be expected to go for help as soon as possible.

As he ran, he couldn't escape one thought: at least he would have something really good to confess in his Initiation.

He barely made it three paces before he was forced to stop. A trio of ash hounds, their manes burning, stood in his path. They stared at him with orange eyes.

That was odd behavior for the dogs. They were mostly scavengers, except under certain conditions, when they would work together to bring down larger game. They never stood and waited for something to come to them. Rasmus swerved to run around them, but another hound emerged from a nearby tunnel and glared at him with glowing eyes.

Rasmus spun around to try another route. There was a second tunnel back near Tutor Petrus' house; it took more time, but he could always explain that he had been forced to take the longer route.

As he hurried back, he noticed three or four more ash-gray shadows, smoldering gently and trailing smoke.

He ran faster.

He had passed the spot where Taichon's body lay before he saw the hound behind him. Now, how had it gotten through? It couldn't have passed him without him seeing it, and it couldn't have come from behind him: the only other thing behind this point was Petrus' house.

The tiny dog, barely more than a puppy, stared at him, its back burning with a line of embers. Something in its stance gave it away.

This was
his
ash hound, so to speak. The first creature he had ever summoned.

“I didn't call you.”

Rasmus sent a mental command before him, ordering the dog aside. It stayed where it was. Instead of moving, it lowered its snout to the ground and drew in a long breath through its nose. Once. Twice. All of the other ash hounds, in fact, were loudly sniffing the air and drawing closer.

Ash hounds could smell a murderer.

His stomach twisted, and his heart hammered through his rib cage. “No, it's not me. It wasn't me. It's not a murder, it was an accident.”

One of the largest hounds, whose fur was actually ablaze, let out a growl that sounded like distant thunder.

“He deserved it!” Rasmus begged. Sometimes, his tutors said, you could talk Naraka creatures into agreeing with your view of justice. You just had to make your points in the right way. Rasmus sent his sincerity into a mental pulse aimed at the ring of hounds; surely they could sense that he was right. “I gave him a just punishment. You see? I'm not a murderer! I'm a Naraka Traveler!”

One of the closest hounds lunged, knocking him onto his back. Its teeth in his shoulder felt like a handful of red-hot knives. Rasmus screamed as he'd never screamed before, a desperate sound that tore at his throat.

Another set of jaws closed around his ankles, and he thrashed physically and mentally, trying to shake them loose. They were going to tear him to pieces. This was how he would die: not like a Traveler, but like a criminal, torn apart by a pack of hungry dogs.

It took him a handful of seconds to wonder why more of them hadn't started biting him. Some had the tops of their heads pressed against his side. Were they trying to save him? Maybe a handful of the pack agreed with his version of justice.

Then he felt the tearing pain in his ankle, felt the stone scraping under his back, and he realized they weren't going to eat him after all.

He screamed louder.

With one final push, the pack of ash hounds hurled him off the cliff.

He only had an instant, twisting in the air, to see the coal-orange eyes of his summoned hound, staring down at him like an Arbiter in judgment.

Then he hit the rock.

Naraka Travelers believe that punishment should be like a well-executed crime: direct, focused, and brutal.

Very few of them have ever experienced real mercy. They are not to be judged for this, only pitied.

-Elysian Book of Virtues, Chapter 8: Blue

R
AGNARUS

1
st
Year of the Damascan Calendar

1
st
Year in the Reign of Queen Cynara I

Winter’s End

Cynara of Damasca stood on the remnants of a wall that she herself had broken. Only a few months ago, Cana had been an enemy city that she’d paid dearly to capture. Now, it was her final refuge.

And not much of one, at that.

From here, she could see the enemy arrayed against her, a set of game pieces arranged neatly on a vast board. They stood in three distinct groups, as she would have expected, given their vastly different natures.

To the north, the Asphodel Incarnation towered over the rest. He looked like nothing so much as a cloudbank shaped into a robed scholar. His head scraped the sky, and at his feet, a colorful garden of deadly plants sprouted spontaneously. Serpentine shapes moved in the clouds of his feet, and flocks of birds wheeled in the Mist of his chest, but he was otherwise motionless.

To the south, a flashing thunderstorm followed the hordes of Endross. Wyverns flew and spat lightning back up at the clouds while, on the ground, giant snakes and draconic lizards frolicked in a spectacle of blue-white sparks. The Endross Incarnation was lost among them, but she supposedly had the face of a beautiful woman and the clawed limbs of a giant reptile. That was solely rumor, though; the last Endross Incarnation that Cynara had destroyed had been a man who looked like he was made of packed sand and pure lightning.

Directly ahead, between the other two camps, were the Elysians.

They were divided into nine neat camps, color-coded for her convenience. She couldn’t make out the details of individual figures, but she could guess well enough. The Gold District would be made up of armored soldiers, some of which had the heads or bodies of animals. The Red District would be tiny, deceptively strong gnomes; the Blue made up of twisting vampiric sea creatures, and so on. After the campaign she had just fought, she was more familiar with Elysia than she had ever wanted to be.

The wind caught Cynara’s blond hair, pulling it behind her like a flag. She felt the icy winter wind on her face and didn’t flinch. It would be hot enough in the battle; she should cool down now, while she still could.

The Old Man’s laughter sounded from the swirling crimson portal next to her. “Don’t look so grim, girl. I would have thought you’d be happy. Only three Incarnations here, those are much better odds than you expected.”

Cynara kept her eyes fixed on the Elysia Incarnation, who at this distance was nothing more than a gold-and-white blur. “Three? That means six are free to rampage across my kingdom, killing freely.”

The Old Man smiled, splitting his gray-black beard in two. As always when she had seen him, he carried a simple wooden staff, despite the weapons available to him in his Crimson Vault. He wore simple gray robes, tied at the waist by a hemp rope, and his beard fell in a fan across his chest. From those features alone, he might have looked like a homeless beggar, but the whole of him was…majestic, somehow. As though he were a king who had decided to dress himself as a peasant to survey the common folk.

He turned his eyes to her, one an ordinary gray eye, and one a shining scarlet stone. “Truly, you always look on the sweet side of things.”

Cynara lowered herself to sit on the wall. No need to keep standing, and she would need all her strength for the upcoming fight. “Have you found a solution?”

“It just so happens that I have.”

She eyed him suspiciously. With the Old Man, things were never simple. “Is that so?”

He spread one gnarled hand, revealing a handful of blood-red seeds. They looked simple enough, like stubby beans. “It took me years to gather this many, but I’ve finally done it.”

She didn’t take them. “We’ve been down this path before.”

“There are nine here, Cynara. One to bind each of the eight lesser Incarnations, and one for Elysia.”

Cynara shook her head, watching the wind push the Asphodel Incarnation’s mist around. “Only nine? I would have thought you’d want a backup plan.”

The Old Man leaned heavily on his staff, making the wood creak. Or maybe that was his back. “The Hanging Trees work best in multiples of three. More than nine, and it may become unstable. You don’t want that.”

“I don’t want to pay that price at all,” she said. “We’ve spoken of this before. There’s only one life I have the authority to sacrifice.”

He nodded toward the three otherworldly armies. “How many lives have they taken, do you think? How many more, before you or they are defeated? I’m asking you to walk the path of lesser carnage, not greater.”

Cynara pretended to work that over in her mind, but the truth was, she had reached a decision weeks ago. She had only argued for the principle of it, to soothe her wounded conscience. He was right. In this case, a lesser sacrifice was necessary to prevent a greater.