Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) (22 page)

Xander’s body shone clearly against the cool spongy floor. He looked like a player in a certain style of opera where Workings leeched out all the colors. Not a leading man—his heritage and plumpness would have ruled that out. But his quiet courage had its own appeal. Though he was still in shock, his presence gave her comfort.

Astlin sat against the circular room’s curved wall, neither moving nor breathing, and watched him as he stirred.

“Where am I?” he demanded of the darkness.

“On the ship,” Astlin said. “The light dazed you.”

Xander sat bolt upright. His breath came fast and heavy. His hands groped the smooth padding beneath him.

Astlin opened her eyes wide and looked directly at him. “I’m here.”

Xander met her gaze. “Are you hurt?”

“No. Are you?”

“I am all right.” Xander punched the jelly-like surface that covered the floor. He sounded on the verge of tears. “I’m always all right! My people were massacred, but I escaped unharmed. I owed Nahel my life, and he is dead because I wasn’t there to repay him!”

“I’m sorry,” Astlin said. “You weren’t there because I took you.”

Xander’s face softened. “You saved my life.”

Shame reduced Astlin’s voice to a whisper. “I would’ve killed you.”

“If you care nothing for me, why let Thurif bring you aboard?”

“To eat your soul,” Astlin said.

A wry grin tugged at Xander’s lip. “You must not be hungry.”

The cell door slid open with a soft hiss. Someone stood outside, backlit by an ambient green glow. The sudden return of light briefly confused Astlin’s eyes, but she welcomed even this small breach in her cell.

“The stars are twinkling,” said a familiar masculine voice. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see them.”

Astlin’s vision cleared, matching a face to the voice. “Damus?”

Xander rose to his feet. “Thank God you are alive!”

“A sentiment I share,” said Damus. He’d swapped his bloody clothes for a black shirt and light-colored pants. But that wasn’t the most dramatic change.

Xander approached the door. “Your wounds…”

Damus looked down at himself. “They’re gone, yes. I think he made some improvements in the bargain.”

Astlin stared at the Gen’s flawless face with mixed wonder and fear. “Thurif did that?”

“He owed me.”

“Yet he is keeping you prisoner,” Xander said.

Damus raised a hand. “You misjudge our host’s intent. We’re not Thurif’s prisoners. In fact, he hopes to resume our partnership.”

“Have you gone mad?” Xander raged. “That traitor’s heirs will carry his curse for generations! Or they would, were his face not fit to make women weep.”

Damus sighed. “He predicted your reaction. That’s why I’m making the offer.”

Xander crossed his arms. “I will accept if he lets us go and slits his own throat.”

“You should be more open-minded,” Damus said. “If not for yourself, then for your pet souldancer.”

The Fire blazed. Astlin impulsively sought Damus’ mind but found nothing. “It’s like he’s not even there.”

Damus shook his head. “You’re just as predictable. We took precautions this time.”

“You ask our trust but expect deceit,” Xander accused.

“Spare me your umbrage. Thurif was busy while we wandered the Tower Graves. He learned a great deal at Teran Nazim and even more since then—what
she
is, for one thing.”

The allure of awful truths drove Astlin to her feet. “He knows what I am?”

“Yes. And what he knows is none too flattering.” Damus smirked at Xander. “She’s a byproduct of blasphemous rites designed to raise Thera. Nothing but dross.”

Desolation cooled the fires of Astlin’s soul.

Xander moved to stand face-to-face with the Gen. “I owe you my life, but a debt is not a shield.”

“This is.” Damus pressed his hand against the seemingly empty space between them. “The Night Gen are quite adept at nexic containment. If this barrier can block your soul-sucking strumpet; believe me, it will block you.”

“
Thera emitte sherrad
—you
and
your thrice-damned ward!”

“Don’t curse the ward,” Damus said. “If you hadn’t sprung one at Teran Nazim, it might be
you
scaring women off.”

“What does Thurif want with us?” Xander asked.

“You’ve already done your part. The girl may be glorified slag, but she’s useful—and dangerous. Thurif knew you had a connection to her. He hoped you’d make her manageable, and you’ve succeeded brilliantly.”

“If the traitor had no use for me, I would be dead.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Damus. “You and Thurif share a bond too, though you’d rather not admit it. He’s offering you a place at the table out of respect.”

“Locking someone in a dark cell is not a sign of respect.”

Damus clicked his tongue. “Shall I take that as a refusal?”

“I will die before I help him use Astlin,” Xander said.

Damus turned to leave. “Have it your way.”

Xander slammed his fists against the wall on either side of the door. “You were never so spiteful! Thurif may have healed your face, but he twisted your heart.”

“I imagine it was easy for him,” Damus said as he walked away. “Someone had put a knife there.”

The door hissed again, shutting out the light and renewing Astlin’s torment.

Xander’s strained voice broke the silence. “All my friends die or betray me. Except you.”

“I did betray you,” Astlin said. “I stole your thoughts.”

“You showed me just as much of yourself.”

“What I showed you is gone. Why don’t you hate what I am now?”

“Because you need me.”

Astlin pondered his words and realized they were true. “I’m afraid, Xander. I’m so afraid.”

“Your fear is not for yourself,” Xander said, drawing her into his arms. “I know your heart,
Serieigna
.”

Astlin drew the Nesshin word’s meaning from Xander’s mind as he spoke it.

Beautiful Flame.

“There’s nothing beautiful about it,” she said.

“That is not your judgment to make.”

Gently, tentatively, Astlin returned Xander’s embrace and found firm strength beneath his outer softness. He’d been strong for her sake. He still was, and always would be.

For the first time since her old life had ended in fire, Astlin knew peace.

Damus strode through the
Kerioth’s
permanent emerald dusk, whistling a jaunty tune. He averted his eyes as he passed the bridge. Thurif had sequestered the nexus-runner’s last crew members there. He’d displayed what he called his “galley slaves” during Damus’ brief tour of the ship, and the Light Gen had no desire to think about—much less see—the products of his host’s flesh-shaping gift.

What kind of fiend have I fallen in with?
Damus wondered. But he touched his face and knew why—if not what—he served.

Damus found Thurif seated behind a metal desk in the former captain’s spacious quarters. His hood with its marred golden trim was pulled low, exposing only his anemic smile and jutting chin. A faint smell like an electrical fire lingered about him.

“From the look of you, I presume that Master Sykes has rejected my friendship.”

Damus nodded. “He also suggested that you kill yourself.”

A sigh escaped Thurif’s grin. “I don’t blame him. I’ve done little to earn his trust—or yours.”

Absently rubbing his hands raised the phantom of Damus’ vanished burns. “I trust you more than that walking furnace.”

“Still, you have your doubts.”

Damus felt a stab of guilt. “Me?” he dissembled. “I consider my grievances with you quite redressed.”

“Our young Nesshin is right in one respect,” Thurif said. “I betrayed you all. But I am not the man I was. Once I shared the Guild’s narrow view. Now my eyes are open.”

Dread failed to check Damus’ curiosity. “What do you see?”

Thurif chuckled. “I see a world waiting to learn how the dice will land. Such moments are rife with possibility. Your queen would say the same.”

Damus thought for a moment. “Some possibilities must interest you more than others.”

“The young lady interned below offers one,” Thurif said. “My other half furnished basic concepts for creating her kind. This vessel’s crew supplied more concrete details.”

“Such as?”

“You already know that a secret cult tried to revive a god.”

“Thera,” Damus said. “The Souldancer.”

“The facts are unclear, but it seems they succeeded—at least in part. Fragments of Thera were taken from nine living souls. The victims survived, but their silver cords tore the ether and assumed properties of other Strata.”

“That’s grotesquely fascinating, but I fail to see the advantage in it.”

Thurif laced his pale fingers. “Does all power have equal potential for good or evil?”

“I suppose so,” Damus said at length.

“These lesser souldancers are living gates to other worlds. One or more of them likely caused the Cataclysm. Imagine the benefits of such power.”

Damus’ blood froze. “I’ll wager that the Arcana Divines did.”

Thurif rose and rounded the desk. “The missteps of pioneers. Standing on their shoulders affords us a clearer view.”

“So our souldancer is a gate to cataclysmic power?”

“Perhaps,” Thurif said, “but she will surely interest those who hold the key.”

Damus took a moment to digest Thurif’s insights into the souldancers. The implications turned his stomach.

“Do they all suffer like the Kethan girl?”

Thurif’s expression sobered. “I know whom you long and dread to find. If she has suffered similar hurts, I will devote all my power to mending them.”

He laid a pale hand on Damus’ shoulder. The Gen couldn’t help flinching.

Sulaiman clambered over the last of the scree that now covered the ridge’s western face. Reaching the summit marked a milestone in his days-long pursuit.

Not days. Since time immemorial have I chased Hazeroth of Gheninom.

He almost admired the artistry with which Despenser had visited Hazeroth’s curse—the just wage of a cutthroat’s folly—upon him. But justice was Sulaiman’s art. Nakvin had given the baal his due. Sulaiman would give the prince his.

Sulaiman had searched so long that he’d questioned spurning his hidden companion’s aid—until he saw the landslide from afar and thanked his absent god that he hadn’t gained the mountains’ slopes.

Now he stood atop a broad peak and saw what had rent the sky behind the crumbling hills. As if adding insult to the injuries dealt by the Cataclysm, Ostrith’s Guild house had torn itself asunder. Obsidian shards—some exceeding the acreage of modest farms—lorded over the base debris. Enormous black fragments jutted from towers that they’d almost cut in twain. Below him, chunks of the Guild hall’s shell littered the ridge’s eastern slope.

The strangest sign of the Guild hall’s passing lay at the dead city’s heart. The stones of Steersmen’s Square had fused into a plane of grey glass. Myriad cubic depressions of varying sizes and depths sank into the gleaming surface; most overlapping several others, as if mad giants had carved a series of aimless stairways.

Fickle winds brought the smell of lightning. Indeed, varicolored bolts joined a frenzied dance in the sheets of ash that were still raining upon the ruins. The ash fall parted around cube-shaped regions that hung in midair—some empty; some holding views of alien skies.

This disaster happened recently.

Sulaiman knew only what was needful of the Guild’s ways, and this knowledge did not include likely causes of the Guild hall’s collapse. His ignorance brought him no comfort.

A steady hum suffused the air. The land below had the quality of a bell whose ringing persists long after it’s struck. Neither human voices, nor calls of birds, nor cries of beasts came to Sulaiman’s ear.

Even the few worms that fed on this city’s corpse lie dead.

Sulaiman set his face to the north. His stolen eyes saw to the curve of the horizon, where a branching form overshadowed high mountains. The sight rivaled Ostrith’s remains for the most startling he’d seen since returning to Mithgar.

In that far distance, a black speck glinted.

Thurif’s Master had taught him many secrets. His experience at Teran Nazim had imparted many more. Yet his first sight of the
Irminsul
rekindled his sense of wonder.