The Labyrinth of the Dead (16 page)

"Shhh," she
reached out and found Imogen’s lips, silencing her
with a touch of her forefinger. "I know I don’t need to, but I want to. I can
give us both sight. And this way, we will not be one without the other.
Wherever you go, I will be with you. And now, the same will be true of me."

Portia put the coin on her tongue and
swallowed it whole. At first, it lodged in her throat, as if fighting her
intentions. Then it began to melt, to form into a tiny, intense ball of light like
the ones she had seen whisked away to this very tower.

Eyes of Imogen, power of sight, you are
mine and none other’s. You will be servant to my will, spirit of my soul,
tissue of my flesh. By my birthright I command you. What I freely gave, you
shall replace. I bind you to me in body, in soul, in this plane and the next.
So by my will, forever, be married to my flesh, my blood, my mind, and my soul.

Portia was aware of the light. It grew
steadily brighter, surrounding her. And when she opened her eyes, she saw what
she had done.

The floor of the
tower was translucent and glittering, as if they stood on nothing more than a
whim of the air. Imogen, too, was a glimmering thing, all soft light and dim
shadow with nothing solid about her but a set of auburn eyes and a silvery
heart-shaped pendant.

Portia gazed beyond the insubstantial
walls that surrounded them and saw that the city of Salus had crumbled entirely
into soot and ruins. Above, the brilliant soul-light streamed upward, passing
them in waves like a waterfall running uphill. Portia swayed on her feet and
shut her eyes against the tremendous sight. She felt Imogen’s
cool hands on her shoulders, steadying her and giving her strength. They
intertwined their fingers for a moment. When Portia looked around again, she
saw the blood seeping in under the door, turning the prismatic floor to stone.
The tower shuddered and the blood spread a little bit more.

Portia’s brow furrowed.

"What do you see, love?" said Imogen.

"The tower, it’s becoming solid,
becoming real. I think this is the epicenter, the place where they are going to
bridge the gap between the underworld and the land of the living."

"And they need me for that, don’t they?
They want to press me between the planes of the worlds and open up a path."

The ground rumbled ominously. Portia
could see the machinations now, the inner workings of the great engine buried
beneath her feet. A scream rang out from beyond the door once more, rising in
pitch with deep gurgling cries. Portia saw through the still-sheer wall that Lahash and his fellows had not only gained the top floor at
last, but that his reapers were engaging Kanika with little success.

She took Imogen’s
hands and held them tightly in her own. "Whatever happens, Imogen, I will not
leave here without you."

"Which means you may not leave."

"I knew that when I stepped through the
doorway that brought me here."

Imogen squeezed Portia’s fingers in
return. "Thank you."

Portia fought back a teary hiccup and kissed
her beloved. For a moment too short, they were schoolgirls again, learning the
secrets of one another’s bodies in the dark and secret quiet of their rooms.
The weight of those fond memories threatened to crush the breath out of
Portia’s lungs. She clung tightly to Imogen, whose body was agonizingly
familiar yet wondrously new. They parted reluctantly, panting, with high color
flushing their cheeks.

"It has been too long since I have been
able to kiss you properly," Portia whispered, smiling despite herself.

"First thing when we get home."

"Absolutely. I’ll tie a stocking to the
doorknob."

Imogen laughed then, a clear,
unburdened giggle. "You always know how to make me smile."

"You haven’t seen the half, my love."
Portia held her hands tightly, still marveling at the strangeness of seeing her
own eyes smiling at her.

She took up the axe and Imogen fell in
at her back, just like she always had, although her gait was unsteady. The
walls around them had grown cloudy and opaque as the tower slowly shifted into
something that was not wholly of Salus and not yet entirely something else. She
could hear the struggle and smell the blood, but she could no longer see who
had the advantage.

With a whispered prayer, Portia threw open the door.

—11—

THE TOPMOST tower room was awash in blood, both
sticky, dark ichor and the shimmering fluid that passed through the veins of
the spirits. The withered husks of several of the shrouded women lay motionless
on the floor with Celestine keening over them, straining the length of chain
that still bound her.

Portia staggered a step back as she
beheld Kanika. The girl’s body was but a mask worn tightly over Nigel’s soul,
which was half the young man she knew and half the vile demon he had become.
His flesh was putrid grey with gill-like slits running along ribs teeming with
writhing appendages, some made of spirit, some looking far too real. Analise
Aldias was overlaid upon him, and the angel Katriel
on top of that. Countless sallow faces with mouths wide in fear and agony wreathed
him, with Belial above them all. Angry, betrayed, vain, she fought against
Nigel with what small strength she had left to her. And at the bottom of this
sickening kaleidoscope was one small pearl: a girl with coal-black curls,
sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, weak, defeated. She was the girl
with the piping song and rosy cheeks; she was the real Kanika.

The Kanika that owned them all looked
up with her stolen face and turned away from Lahash,
advancing on Portia.

"Sweet sister, have you had your
reverie? You can’t say I am heartless, now, can you? I saved her for you! Just
for you." The veiled maidens had been lined up like a string of sacrifices.
With their heads bowed, they did nothing, they said nothing, only went meekly
to their deaths when Kanika beckoned. Celestine had been bound, hand and foot,
to the couch and could only look on helplessly as Kanika devoured her charges
one by one.

Kanika took the next woman in line and
sank her sharp teeth into her throat, savoring a long draught but looking
across the room at Imogen with hunger plain in her eyes. She licked the bronze
blood from her lips. "I could have consumed her at any point, Portia. But I did
not. I wanted to, oh I very much wanted to, but I thought waiting would yield
me the greater pleasure. After she has served her purpose, I will get to avail
myself of her body, again."

Still fixated on Imogen, Kanika moaned
into her prey, drawing out mouthfuls of the maiden’s life. As she drank, Portia
could see the essence leaving the woman and filling Kanika with yet another
fractured spirit. Portia brought the axe down between them, slaying the
shrouded one who fell too lightly to the ever-shifting floor with a sigh.
Bringing the blade up, she watched the throng of ghosts move away from the axe
as she aimed for Kanika’s abdomen.

It was merely a glancing blow that
healed as quickly as it bled.

"Portia, this is not the way to go
about this. I offered you a place at my side, and you spurned me. In fact, you
killed me. Such good it did. I am more powerful now than I have ever been, more
powerful than I could even have imagined being. How limiting it is to be
alive
.
I had no idea that death could be so expansive, so mutable, so powerful. I
suppose I should thank you, sweet sister. You’re good for me." She rubbed her
small hands across the tattered dress that clothed Kanika’s
body, pushing up her small, young breasts. "And I was hoping that like this, I
might be good for you, too."

"The answer is still the same. I am
here to stand between you and the destruction you crave. I will not let you
win, Nigel."

"Oh,
that
. It’s far too late for
that, Portia. I have already won. Penemue is a dying place now, devoid of
leadership and lacking new charges. The Primacy had turned a blind eye to it,
leaving it sitting prettily in the Aldias’ grasp. And all the gateways found
there are under my control now. Soon, there will be one more."

The tower shook. The quakes were
closer, stronger than they had been.

"You were always too self-absorbed,
Nigel. Telling me of your great plans, talking instead of acting on them."

Imogen stepped around Portia, and just
as Celestine had done, she created a sword of light and fire. She thrust it
through Kanika’s back, the shining tip ripping
through the girl’s narrow body. Around it, Portia could see the battling forces
of spirit: the sword’s essence trying to cleanse the darkness with fire and
that which was Kanika pooling her power around the wound to stop it. Kanika
roared in pain and the aura of spirits and shadows around her writhed and
contracted, healing the rent in her flesh.

Without turning away from Portia,
Kanika knocked Imogen to the floor with ease. "If I destroyed her, it would kill
you. It would please me to break you, Portia, to bring you to your knees,
begging for her life."

"You need her too much, Nigel. That
threat means nothing and you know it!"

Lahash intervened, then, stepping over the bodies of
several fallen reapers, baring his small black blade. "You know what this is,
demon. You know how it can harm you."

"Your queen commands you to stand
down," Kanika boomed in Belial’s voice.

"Enough of your tricks!" He threw
himself forward, catching his barbed bone spurs on Kanika’s
skin so she could not evade him. He brought the blade around, sliding it
between her ribs. Portia recoiled from the darkness that spilled, evaporating
Lady Analise’s soul in a crackle of quiet thunder.
Kanika fought free, clutching her side, which bled steadily and refused to
close up.

Portia had seen the blade in action and
knew how quickly it could kill. Kanika hissed and leapt at Lahash,
fingers extending into long golden talons. She parted muscle and flesh from
bone with ease, leaving a gash wide enough that Portia could see his wrist
joint. Reapers came, piling one on top of the other, attempting to smother
Kanika.

"Celestine," Portia urged her. "Help
us!" She rushed toward the couch and took the chain in her hands. It was easy
to snap, each link pulling apart as easily as soft wax in her hands.

"No. It is too late. There is nothing
we can do." The woman turned her face away.

Frustrated, Portia unwound the golden
links from the woman’s neck. "You were eager enough to put your blade through
me and now you’re ready to just roll over and let
this
happen?"

"You do not understand, my dear. It
does not matter what happens to Kanika or Nigel or whatever name or face Belial
wears now. What has been put in motion cannot be stopped, and it cannot be
undone."

"And so you won’t even go down
fighting?"

Celestine chuckled darkly. "Gyony. Do
you ever think beyond honor and glory?"

"There has to be a way to put a stop to
this!"

The woman shrugged. "Then find it. But
I have no answers for you." She raised herself from the couch and slipped into
group of her remaining maidens, calling softly to them. They followed in a
silent wave of white, slinking away behind their mistress into the room where
Imogen had been kept.

"Cowards!" Portia shouted, and
regretted it. The weakly flickering energies of the beleaguered women dimmed
even more. Celestine held her head high as she closed the door behind them and
used the last of her strength to weave a ward that even Portia did not think
she could break.

Kanika’s strength was diminished, but not nearly enough to
make her easy prey for the reapers. She drank from them as they attacked her,
draining what she wanted and leaving them to be trampled beneath the too-eager
feet of their comrades. Slowly, she regained her power as they dwindled in
number.

Portia struck a blow here and there,
darting in and out of the fray with the axe, but in the confusion of bodies,
she could not make good contact with Kanika’s small
frame.

"This cannot end well." Portia snapped
her wings in frustration and called to Lahash. "Call
off your dogs, they are doing us no good!"

"What do we do now?" Imogen circled
widely of the brawl, favoring her right leg and glancing at the closed door
with a certain heaviness.

Portia kept one eye on the fighting and
the other on Lahash, who, although agitated, did not
engage in combat. "The blade, what exactly does it do?"

"It destroys," was the simple answer he
gave her. "It was forged in hell for no other purpose."

Portia blinked, caught off guard. "Are
there more of them?"

"Not in Salus. Not that I know of,
anyway."

She thought of the heaving, steaming
forges belching thick smoke into the night air. "I think Belial was too canny
to allow the only thing that could destroy her to rest in your hands. I think
if we went searching, we could find more of this metal."

"Her Highness would not lie to me."

Portia whistled for the herders, who
came to her at once, emerging from their hiding place in the stairwell.
Ruthlessly, she took the skinned palm of one of them and pressed it to the flat
side of the kris blade. The creature yowled like a
scalded cat and jerked its hand away.

"Now that you have tasted it, you can
find another. Bring it all to me. Go."

They ducked their heads, clicking and
chirping and falling over one another as they fled down the stairs. The body of
a reaper tumbled down the steps in their wake, spewing faintly steaming ichor
as it went. Kanika had dispatched with almost all of them, leaving a sorry mess
of broken bodies in a thick ring around her.

Portia watched the herders go, sending
a silent prayer after them. She then rounded on Lahash.
"Give me the dagger."