Heirs of the Fallen: Book 03 - Shadow and Steel Read online

  “Us?” Adham and Ulmek said as one.

  “Not us, my son,” Adham said, sounding near to tears, “but you. You alone.”

  Laughter rolled like thunder across the gulf between them and the Faceless One.

  The icy sludge within Leitos came alive at that voice, poured through his veins, gathered at the center of his being, compressing into a knot harder than steel. It fought to reach its master, threatening to take him along. He resisted the pull, but then he was shambling across the lightless plane toward the Faceless One.

  Adham wrapped his arms around Leitos, trying to hold him back. “Help me!” he cried to Ulmek.

  The Brother hesitated, shaking his head.

  “You craven wretch,” Adham shrieked.

  That broke Ulmek’s resistance like a hard slap, and together they threw their weight against Leitos, but still he crept forward, their efforts distant to him, insubstantial, the fluttering of a moth’s wings.

  The ball of ice in his guts swelled larger, filling him up, pushing beyond him. Adham and Ulmek abruptly staggered back, hands held before them like penitents. Their fear seemed to feed his strength, and he drew it in until they dropped to their knees. Then he was past them, seeking richer fare, a pillar of it, not blue as before, but black as pitch and seemingly miles across. Within that darkness he sensed the weapon he needed … a power he desired above all others.

  Each step came quicker than the last, until he was running. Faster he ran, until it seemed as though he soared through a starless night, his hair whipping behind him. The closer he came, the greater his longing grew, until there was nothing else. Fire sprang up where the knot of ice had resided in his middle, burning away the cold in his marrow and veins, filling him more deeply than the ice ever had. In his ears, in his heart and chest, in every limb, storm winds raged.

  His hate for the Faceless One surged like floodwaters. When it burst from him, it was as though his skin covered not bones and muscle and sinew, but a red sun, leaving him to shine like a beacon-fire atop a mountain so high that the eyes of all men and every crawling beast could gaze upon it. He was the mountain, he was the storm, and more than all else, he was death.

  Lost in the tumult of power, he stretched out his hand, and marked his foe. A crackling stab of lightning struck the Faceless One, cutting off his laughter, and from that impact flared an expanding ring of brilliant azure.

  Leitos halted abruptly, eyes pinched to slits. The ring raced toward him across all that darkness, and before its silent assault, he detected a fleeing figure. The light burned brighter, and he recognized Adu’lin, his narrow Fauthian face stretched in terror.

  In a single instant, that luminous burst scorched away the man’s flesh and bones, leaving a swirling drift of ashes, then setting even them alight, and reducing them to less than dust.

  Leitos trembled, fearing such a fate for himself, his father, and Ulmek. At the same moment, he found his answer to that consuming ring of light, and reached out to the power locked within the Faceless One’s oblivion. Somehow, he drank in the endless night around him, becoming one with the boundless black.

  The vast chamber rang like a struck bell. The darkness began to twist and swirl, and poured into him like ink into a vessel. With a thought, he swept a wing of protection over himself and his companions, knowing that shield would withstand all threats.

  The chamber began to fade to gray, and then to crumble. From far, far above came the grinding crunch of granite hills smashing together. Fire erupted from rock, molten rivers flowed. Burning pieces rained down, large as houses, palaces, some larger yet. They crashed against the glass-smooth plane, and exploded into dust and smelted ore. Others punched through the surface like fists, leaving rough holes in their wake. Cracks and widening fissures spread outward, releasing living shadows of such hellish forms that Leitos could not bear to look upon them. But where his eyes revolted, his soul devoured their being, taking them into himself, erasing them from existence.

  The ring of light continued to widen, roasting all before it. Yet his only thought was to quench his thirst for the surging energies cascading through the decaying chamber. He hungered to take his fill from the purest source of all that darkness, from the Faceless One himself.

  As the light bathed him in its immeasurable heat, he fortified his shield, and then reached out, his desire manifesting as a clawed hand passing through the searing radiance, reaching to the Faceless One.

  The dark and sustaining pillar of energy abandoned the enemy of humankind, and stretched out to meet Leitos. When they touched, the motion of life ground to a sudden, violent halt. The world Leitos knew, the chamber, all ceased to be.

  Chapter 45

  Leitos stood before the obsidian throne, not sure how he had gotten there. The chamber’s destruction had ceased … but that was not quite true. The devastation remained, but frozen. Massive stones had ceased their plummet, and the cracks in the chamber floor no longer spread. All was stationary within a clutching gray mist.

  He remembered trying to take the Faceless One’s power, reaching out to catch hold of it. Storms continued to rage inside him, and his veins rushed with dark energies that threatened to unmake him. By his will alone, he withstood those forces.

  To one side, Ulmek lay on his back. His unblinking eyes shone with fear, and a dribble of foam flecked his lips. To the other side knelt Adham, hands clasped in his lap like a child taking instruction, his gray eyes locked on the figure upon the throne. Both men resembled wraiths, their skin bleached and haggard.

  Leitos slowly looked to the one he had come to destroy. The man slumped in the magnificent obsidian chair, the fingers of one hand idly tracing mysterious shapes engraved in the arms of the throne.

  “Show yourself to me,” Leitos commanded.

  “You should not have come,” answered the same tired voice he had heard the first time.

  Leitos could have offered up innumerable condemnations, hurled curses, made demands, but when he spoke again, he begged the simplest question. “Who are you?”

  The man slowly raised his head. Inch by inch, his features came into view. In place of roiling blue fires, a rugged, craggy face peered at him through ropes of lank hair. Stubble bristled his hard jaw. Pale blue eyes, the whites shot through with blood, locked on Leitos, a stare that was at once harsh and unforgiving, yet captivating.

  Leitos’s heart seemed to freeze solid inside his chest. While there were differences, he knew well this man’s likeness, for he had seen its legacy written in the bones of his own face.

  “Father?” Adham rasped. “How have you come to be here … why—”

  “Adham, my son,” Kian Valara said, his face twisting as if another presence lurked under the skin. “I did not expect to find you alive, let alone here. But you cannot stay. Return to Izutar, and warn the others that—”

  “No!” Adham was on his feet now, trying to claw his way up the black stone pedestal to reach the throne. “Why are you here … why are you serving the Faceless One?”

  Kian’s features writhed, his teeth clamped together in a grimace. By shuddering fractions, he went still. His icy stare began dancing with blue flame. “I serve no one,” he said, a murderous grin pulling his lips tight.

  The fires of his eyes began to spread, licking out over his cheekbones, puffing from his nostrils and mouth. More sprang from his skin and clothing. Above him, the black pillar of energy burst once more into existence, and all that had been still, again fell into motion.

  Over the thundering roar of destruction, Leitos’s grandfather, the legendary ice-born king who was said to have rallied his people against the Faceless One, declared a different truth. “I am the lord and master of this world. I am the Faceless One.”

  Adham scrambled away with an agonized sob, but Leitos stepped closer. Whoever Kian had been, he was no more. He had proclaimed himself the greatest adversary to humankind, and Leitos needed no other reason to attack.

  As the blue fires engulfed Kian, Leitos reach
ed out to the black pillar of bound power that gave strength to his foe, and stole it into himself. The pillar withered and paled, like a vine stricken with pestilence.

  “No!” cried the Faceless One, leaping down from his seat. Where his feet struck, the plane cracked like rotten ice. A crimson blade came into his hand, and he stalked forward.

  At a thought, a rippling sword sprang from Leitos’s fist, its length black and cold, a weapon forged from the souls of the thousand and more Mahk’lar he had taken within himself.

  As the Faceless One drew near, Leitos swung his blade. The two weapons clashed with the shriek of damned souls, and swirling sheets of fire erupted between them, driving them apart, forming a barrier. Before those crackling flames burned out, Leitos sought his father.

  Adham knelt at Ulmek’s side, attempting to help him to his feet.

  “You must flee,” Leitos warned, the resonance of his voice shaking the chamber.

  “No,” Adham said, his face twisted with misery. “You are all that I have left in this world.”

  A shout jerked Leitos’s head around. The Faceless One’s sword ripped a burning line through the air, and Leitos barely deflected the attack. Again, an impenetrable wall of fire burst between them, and Leitos danced back to stand over his father and Ulmek.

  Beyond them, the now pale plane buckled and heaved under the falling ceiling. No safe passage showed itself … and so he made a way, though he did not know how, save that he desired it, and it was so.

  One moment the way back was blocked, the next a gleaming passageway of transparent gold led to the distant blue point. Where blocks of molten stone slammed against the arched pathway, they bounced away or shattered.

  “Follow it to safety,” Leitos ordered.

  Adham shrank away from the power of his voice, but did not heed him. “Not without you!”

  “Go, and I will follow. Do not slow or stop, no matter what happens.” As he spoke, he could feel the heat from the clashing of swords diminishing behind him, and knew the Faceless One would attack again at any moment.

  Adham wrapped Ulmek’s arm around his neck and hoisted him to his feet. He glanced once more at Leitos, an unsettling awe lighting his eyes, then turned and carried Ulmek into the gleaming passage.

  Leitos pivoted to meet the Faceless One’s next assault. Instead of crossing blades with him, Leitos ducked low and lunged, stabbing his black sword at the burning figure’s heart. The Faceless One easily avoided the strike. Leitos flung himself out of reach, then braced his feet.

  The Faceless One laughed. “Fight as you will,” he said, “but you do so in vain. Better to attempt the capture of the wind in your hands.”

  As he spoke, he changed from a man into a shapeless figure with a hundred arms, each bearing a flaming sword. As Leitos retreated after Adham and Ulmek, those blades twirled, creating whirlwinds of fire. Leitos inched back, and when a sword snaked out, he blocked it and retreated farther.

  “Have you lost the will to fight?” the Faceless One mocked. “Has your hatred turned to cowardice?”

  With a shout, Leitos lashed out, slashing and stabbing, but his black blade cleaved only empty space where the Faceless One had been. He tried again, but his foe shifted faster than his eye could follow. Tendrils of worry gripped his heart. If he could not even touch this creature when he wanted to, how could he believe a chance existed for victory?

  “You have no hope of defeating me,” the Faceless One admonished. “No matter the puny power you have taken for yourself, you are still but a man.”

  “And what are you,” Leitos said, resuming his cautious retreat, “if not a man with those same powers?”

  Laughter boomed. “I am a god.”

  “A god?” Leitos glanced over his shoulder at his father. Ulmek now tottered along at Adham’s side, keeping one hand on his shoulder for support. The Throat waited not far ahead. He turned back. “Kian Valara, my own grandfather, a god? Long years I spent grubbing in the sand and rock of Geldain, all the while listening to tales of your deeds. Only one story my father ever mentioned spoke of a god—in it, you destroyed the one who named himself so. Is it not strange that you now take that mantle for yourself?”

  The many-armed figure drew up short. “Prince Varis Kilvar was a petty fool who did not know his proper place. He thought his gift greater than it was, believed he could challenge and rule over all, even the makers of the world. His pride and ambition destroyed him … as will yours.”

  “What pride can a former slave have?” Leitos retorted. “I have no wealth, no station, and no desire for either.”

  The fiery shape of the Faceless One leaned near in a posture of curiosity. “Then what do you desire?”

  Leitos frowned. The voice was still Kian Valara’s, but the tone had changed, a subtle difference—

  “Hurry!” Adham cried.

  Leitos looked around. His father waved frantically from the threshold of the Throat of Balaam. Ulmek had already stepped through.

  “Tell me the longing of your heart,” the Faceless One urged, as Leitos turned back to face him. “Tell me, and I will bless you with those wants. Tell me….”

  Leitos’s smile hid the tumult building within him. Powers beyond reckoning surged, an instant from breaking free. It was all he could do to keep his voice from shaking. “In all the world, only your death matters to me.”

  He said it so calmly, so quietly, that the Faceless One did not respond. Leitos filled his mind with an image of the obsidian throne, and upon it the Faceless One, and then imprisoned both within a pillar of black—

  Where the demon had been, now only what Leitos had pictured stood before him. Muted shrieks filtered through the opaque cage.

  But it was not finished. Not yet. Leitos feared that what he had done, all by means outside his understanding, could just as easily be undone. He must erase the Faceless One from Creation. But who do I destroy … the creature, or my grandfather?

  His hesitation did not last long. He made his choice and focused on creating a vision of Kian Valara sitting within the pillar. His grandfather, a man he had never met, until now. Despite the worthy deeds of his youth, he must have fallen to the lure of power at some point, and become the betrayer of all the world. And upon him, upon that throne, upon the chamber in which it sat, Leitos unleashed all the dark powers caught inside himself.

  In a single, focused blast, the Powers of Creation, those never intended for the hands of men, turned all in its path to dark, smoking glass. At the same instant, Leitos swooned drunkenly, for a moment his mind and body seemingly in two different places—

  When his mind caught up to the rest of him, the darkness of the Faceless One’s chamber fell swiftly away, as if a curtain had been torn back from a window that opened on a world of pure white.

  Squinting against the sudden glare, Leitos fought to stand against a screaming gale, its breath colder than anything he had ever known, cold enough to turn tears to ice. Wind-driven snow stung his cheeks, pricking his skin like ground glass.

  Where am I? The thought filled him with terror. He did not know if what he had done to destroy his enemy had failed. And if he had failed, then the Faceless One, the Bane of Creation, had won.

  “No,” he murmured in disbelief, his voice swallowed by the white storm. Louder, a shout of outrage and regret. “NO!”

  Then, straight ahead of him, carried on the back of the shrieking wind, he heard a dwindling shout.

  He bent his head against the storm and struggled forward, each step sinking to his knees in feathery snow. He avoided thinking about the white cold, about where he was, and about how he had gotten there.

  Out of the storm materialized a sprawled shape. A man, facedown, clad in leathers and furs. Beyond him, almost lost amid the shifting white gale, stood a black stone tower of graceless construction.

  Of their own volition, Leitos’s feet slowed, and his hand sought his sword. A memory flitted through his mind when he touched the hilt, of how the weapon had looked while in t
he Faceless One’s throne room, black as the demonic souls of its forging.

  But this was not that accursed blade, and the power to forge it had fled him.

  He yanked at the hilt of the blade given him by Ba’Sel, and found that ice had welded it into the scabbard. He tried again, but it was no use. It did not matter. He would not need it.

  Leitos halted above the still figure, working his cold, stiffening fingers to keep them supple. He kicked the figure onto his back, and found that he was again just a man. Kian Valera.

  Leitos stared into the unconscious face of his oppressor, a face so like his own, and thought of Zera’s sisters, Belina with her visions, and of Nola, who looked so much like Zera. He thought of his father and the pain of revelation that must be, even now, crushing his spirit. He thought of Ulmek and Ba’Sel, of Sumahn and Daris, of Halan and Ke’uld, of all his lost brothers and dead Yatoans. And he thought of all the lands and peoples this man before him had crushed under his heel, slaying and enslaving, simply because it was within his power to do so. For those who yet lived, and for those who were not yet born, Leitos passed his silent judgment upon the Bane of Creation.

  Teeth bared in a rictus snarl, Leitos knelt in the snow, wrapped his fingers around his grandfather’s thick neck, and began to squeeze.

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  Chapter 1

  “O-ho, there’s always a price for favors such as you ask, dear one,” Mother Safi said, sitting beyond the candle’s pool of dim light. Her knotted fingers stroked a weasel lying curled on the table, her cracked yellow nails rustling through the vermin’s sable hair.

  “A price, you say?” Wina said, trying in vain to hold her breath against the hovel’s stenches, which were made all the more oppressive by the heat rising off the bed of coals on the hearth behind the old woman. At the edges of her sight, in every corner of the room, shapes flitted in the murk. She felt the weight of eyes and unkind intentions upon her, but could not pinpoint the source. I never should have come here.