The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (8 page)

There was a difference in the general’s tone, an almost gleeful quality that seemed to soften the normally harsh edges. No doubt, the man was feeling rather smug at having finally become the city’s chief authority.

“And here we are,” Allion dared, “the last of those who might dispute it.”

“Not the last, I assure you. The loudest, perhaps. You understand my predicament.”

“Are we to remain prisoners, then?”

The general chuckled—an eerie sound, coming from him. “I gave you a chance to prove your strength. Look at the result. From now on, I intend to run matters as I alone see fit. Had I done so sooner, we would not be in this mess.”

Allion could not easily disagree. The general had done them much good—in great part because of his absolute faith in himself. The hunter would have liked to share in that faith, but still felt the general to be too headstrong and dismissive of others. Wise and experienced, perhaps, yet Allion found it difficult to trust a man who claimed to know the best for all.

“You are tracking Thaddreus, then?” he asked pointedly.

“An elite squad has been sent to recover the Sword,” Rogun assured him, “dispatched the moment I learned of Marisha’s plight. Something I should have been apprised of immediately,” he added, glaring at Stephan.

The glum seneschal bowed his head dutifully, but offered no apology.

“And Partha?” Allion pressed.

Rogun shook his head. “I have sent my response. It is too late to be sending troops back and forth across the open plain. The Illychar that pressed us here at home might easily regroup. The best way to protect ourselves at this juncture is to guard our own walls, and let them guard theirs.”

“Then their pleas go unheard?”

“Reports are that Partha’s own legion is already en route. A shame they were ever drawn away,” Rogun observed incisively. “But that is their folly, not mine. I’m afraid they shall have to reap the results of it, as it is beyond Alson’s limited resources to lend aid.”

“You cannot be serious!”

“I am ever serious, especially in matters of war. That is my business, as it has been my family’s for generations. I would not expect a village huntsman to fully understand.”

There it was at last, that hallmark scorn that had been missing. As usual, it set Allion’s teeth on edge.

“I am no mere huntsman,” he snapped, rising from Marisha’s bedside to face the general archly. “I am Allion, regent of Krynwall—”

“Whose powers were voted to me in absentee, by the surviving members of his own council. Should you deny my command, I am within my right to have you jailed for treason.”

Allion felt his blood boil. He glanced again at Zain, Rogun’s right hand, who wore a look of vague amusement. He was half tempted to launch himself upon the haughty commander when he felt a soft touch upon his wrist. Turning back, he found that Marisha had worked an arm free of her blankets. Her silent expression told him that this was not the time.

“Believe it or not, I have no desire to do so,” Rogun declared. The scorn had slipped away, though his gruff candor remained. “However, the situation is difficult enough as is, and I’ll not tolerate further dissension from within. Should you wish to challenge me, I’ll gladly entertain you, but not before this war is ended. Is that understood?”

Allion glowered, but left it at that. In truth, he could live with the general’s small opinion of him. He only wanted to do what he could to help—and to make sure none were abandoned.

“And what does Nevik have to say?” he asked, recalling the baron suddenly.

“Ask him yourself, if that is your wish. Only, bear in mind the futility—and consequences—of any attempt at revolt.”

Marisha’s grip on his wrist tightened.

“I have been so warned,” Allion replied.

“Good. Then we are finished here. You are free to come and go as you please, though I suspect you will wish to stay close to the lady, and thus have ordered chambers prepared for both you and Stephan nearby. My guardsmen will be happy to see to anything that may have been neglected.” He bowed his head to Marisha. “Lady, I bid you a swift recovery.”

With that, he turned on a heel and marched back through his aisle of soldiers. Zain smirked again before following. The door opened upon the general’s knock, and the entire procession filed out in reverse order.

“I’m sorry I let things get out of hand,” Marisha said when the three were alone again.

Allion spun, taking her hand and gripping it reassuringly. “The fault is mine.” He glanced at Stephan. “All of it.”

Marisha smiled weakly. “We will be all right. As you said.”

He nodded. “Just the same, if you will forgive me, I think I’ll go and arrange for that word with Nevik.”

D
ARKNESS.

Its folds enveloped him, comforted him. Within that vast emptiness, he knew only warmth and peace—a timeless calm that permeated his soul and swept forth beyond the bounds of his limited consciousness.

Then it stirred. Silent ripples churned and gathered. A tingling, soft at first, grew steadily more acute, stealing his numbness. He felt a crack, and the darkness shattered.

The light pierced him, and he lashed out against it. Then a burning within. He cried out, and was horrified by the sound. A stink assailed him. He snorted, but it was all around, penetrating, driving away the shards of retreating darkness. His cries became a desperate bellow as his world flew apart.

Color and shape drew into focus. He was seeing. Before him, a face, wreathed in starlight. The face of a man.

It spoke. “Welcome, brother, to the realm of flesh.”

He bucked forward, straining with unfamiliar limbs. A force restrained him. He howled and gnashed his teeth, driven by a feral frenzy he did not understand but did not bother to deny. His senses, raw and biting, tormented him. The burning at his core. The stench clouding his thoughts. If only he could kill this man before him, it might all go away.

And yet, already the sting was lessening, his horror softening, as realization lay claim. Lungs, nostrils, to go with limbs and teeth. The sensations they wrought no longer frightened him. A man himself. Seated within a forest, his back to a tree. Pinned there by another pair of men who gripped his arms, each to one side. He blinked, felt muscles relax. The pair to either side released him and stepped away.

He turned back to the face before him, the one he would have ripped asunder. It grinned. “Who are you?”

He considered. An ache tore at his stomach as he probed a mind not his own.
Torin
, it yielded. He recoiled, searching elsewhere. All at once, he knew the answer.

“I am nameless,” he heard himself whisper.

Torin had been the name of this body, but that was not who
he
was. He had yet to be defined. He was Illysp no longer, but Illychar, reborn into this mortal coil.
His
coil.

He glanced at his companions, those who had restrained him during his birth throes, then glared at Vorric Haze—the one who had once been called Thaddreus. That much he remembered easily now, along with the rest of
his Illysp past. The memories and experiences returned as if they had never been lost. The centuries of entrapment, caught between this world and his own. Their sudden and unexpected freedom. Kael-Magus, and the scheme concocted to ensure their freedom forever. Biding his time among so many others, waiting for the perfect vessel to make his own. The confrontation in the tunnel…Kael-Magus’s destruction…Torin’s fall…

“Yes, brother,” Vorric Haze hissed. “You remember well, don’t you? But that is not what I wish of you. I already share your
former
memories. What I desire now are your
new
ones.”

Again the brush with a mind that did not belong to him, and again he recoiled. He knew now what was being asked of him, but he was not yet ready.

“Few come to know their host this soon, I realize,” Haze continued in a tone of false regret. “But our time here may be short. I need you to do so now.”

Still he hesitated. Even as an Illysp, he had “seen” the process enough times to know the agony to which Haze meant to subject him.

“Start small,” Haze encouraged. “For instance, we all know your former name to be Torin, son of Sorl. But tell me, who was the man who raised you?”

He shifted focus from his own, innate awareness to the one that lay unexplored. Another fierce and sudden pang assaulted him as he tore free the name Haze sought.

“Esaias,” he croaked.

“Esaias. Good. Now tell me more. Tell me about the Sword.”

The Sword of Asahiel. The divine talisman that had helped drive their kind back into the bowels of Thrak-Symbos and seal them away for millennia—unable to return to their own world; unable to fully claim this one. The one that Torin now wielded. Except that…

Haze pulled back his cloak, revealing the gem-studded hilt belted at his waist. The Illychar grinned menacingly. “You did not expect to claim Torin’s coil
and
his weapon, did you?”

The Nameless One glowered. He had known, of course, that there would be a period of separation. He hadn’t truly believed that the blade would be buried with the king’s body. But yes, he had fully expected that, once revived—be it in a royal crypt or among his enemies—he would find a way to make the weapon his once more.

“Granted, you have something I do not,” Haze allowed. “A knowledge and familiarity that I can only gain with time. But war beckons, brother. The sooner I learn the weapon’s secrets, the sooner I can use its powers for all of us. You can help me by sharing any insights your host may have already gleaned.”

He was not so easily swayed. Haze had none but selfish interests at heart. That was how it worked among their kind. The strongest, most ruthless endured; the weak were destroyed. By giving in to Haze’s demand, he would in
fact strengthen all Illysp in their war against the flesh-wearers. But he would also be weakening himself against his brother when the time came to take back what belonged to him.

“Your swift infestation has spared me much delay,” Haze offered with genuine approval. “By the same token, you owe me a debt of thanks. For, without me, it would have taken you some time to free yourself from this earthen prison.”

The Elder gestured to a pit—an open grave—in the floor of the moonlit grove. Severed bindings and a discarded shroud lay nearby.

“So tell me.”

Resistance would win him nothing. The rape of its host’s memories and experiences was the most gratifying aspect of an Illychar’s existence—the ultimate conquest of another living being. Already, he hungered for it. There was no question as to
if
it would happen, only
when
.

But there was a price to be paid. Illychar who underwent the process too quickly or too soon often drove themselves mad. Given the pain wrought by just those few, simple brushes with Torin’s former self, he was inclined to make himself—and Haze—wait.

Then the Sword was in Haze’s hand, and its radiant tip at his throat.

“Do it now, or remain nameless forever.”

One of the others snickered. Another’s pain was an Illysp’s pleasure—even among their own kind. He would have felt the same had their positions been reversed.

But he saw no way to make that happen, and so surrendered to Haze’s demand and his own feral hunger. With a snarl upon his lips, he turned his savage focus inward.

He began slowly, like a predator circling its wounded prey. Torin’s mind lay fallen, not defenseless. Mental probes picked experimentally, exposing various images of people and places. For each, he suffered a wracking, physical response—a pinch in his chest, a stab in his gut. The deeper the probe, the deeper his pain.

But with each taste, his hunger grew. He tolerated the pain at first, then challenged it, gritting aside its feeble counterattacks. The stolen treasures to which he lay claim were well worth the price.

A memory of this forest, Torin’s homeland. He did not just glimpse this vision, but allowed himself to savor it. He was there, as the boy Jarom, racing through woods of summer gold alongside laughing companions. A girl, Hidee, smiled at him—

So intense was his body’s reaction that his eyes popped open and his vision spun. He had slipped too deep, beyond mere image to the emotion that accompanied it. An old emotion, vague and inconsequential to Torin, but fresh to
him
. Fresh and powerful. A child’s longing, yet experienced as though by a child. It was too much. He told himself again he was not yet ready.

His vision regained focus. Vorric Haze, he saw, was not about to allow him pause. But the other’s threat mattered not. For as the sharp sting of that
simple emotion slipped away, he knew that he must have more.

His lust consumed him, and the pain became its own reward. He welcomed it, mocked its inability to defeat his efforts. A twisting, gut-wrenching torment paralyzed him, causing muscles to clench and his stomach to heave. But he would not stop now. Each memory became his own. Every sight, every sensation, every raw emotion Torin had known. A crippling onslaught of love and hate, joy and sorrow, triumph and failure. A lifetime of hopes realized and dreams dashed, all in one fell swoop. The knowledge and experiences of another, made his own.

In some small, distant way, he realized they were destroying him.

And he reveled in it.

All too soon, it ended. At full fury, he made short work of his prey. As his assault waned, a void closed round, in which nothing remained but indigestible fragments.

And the ecstasy, of course—ultimate, indescribable. All that the young mortal had ever been or aimed to become, shredded and consumed with bestial efficiency, devoured and assimilated into his own awareness. Had he known—truly known—the savage pleasure this would bring him, he never would have hesitated to complete his transformation.

Nor was it fully finished. The hollow ache he might otherwise have felt was assuaged in that he still had the fragments. He had understood from others that it would be so. For some reason, there were invariably a few memories that escaped an Illychar’s initial onslaught, a few treasured images and emotions held most dear by their original host. Rarely did these more closely guarded visions prove to bear any practical significance; their value was often of a private, sentimental nature. Whatever the source of their resistance, even these wasted away and were devoured in time. All that Torin had managed to hide would eventually be his—a future conquest to be regarded with savory anticipation.

When he opened his eyes again to the natural world, he did so with the entirety of Torin’s faculties, mental and physical, at his disposal. His feasting had made him master of this coil and the enslaved, former essence that churned inside. He lacked only one thing more: the name by which his deeds in this realm would become known.

Haze leaned near. “So then, tell me what you know.”

Images whirled through his head, summoned as if they had belonged to him all along. The most recent were of Cianellen, Allion, Marisha. He understood now why Torin had truly collapsed in those tunnels, and knew that Allion was alive, raised in his stead. He felt a smile form upon his lips, for the recollection of the king’s sacrifice—of which no one else knew—amused him.

The expression seemed to anger Haze. “Your time grows short, Nameless One.”

Already, his new life hung by a string. With Kael-Magus gone, Vorric Haze clearly meant to assume the mantle of leadership among them—and as wielder of the Sword, was in the best position to do so. Though it chafed him
to admit it, he had to appease his brother before he could ever hope to satisfy himself. That was going to prove difficult, knowing that he lacked the answers Haze sought.

“The Sword’s power is…mercurial,” he replied. He had to be direct enough that Haze did not kill him on the spot, yet evasive enough to imply hidden worth. His brother would expect nothing less.

“Go on.”

“It is not sentient, yet it seems to sense your goal, and will amplify your ability to achieve it.”

“What of its inner fires? How do I summon them?”

He chuckled derisively. “Had Torin known the answer to that, do you believe he would have fallen?”

The lines in Haze’s forehead deepened. “Perhaps the next Illysp to inhabit this coil will respond better,” he said, and drew back as if to stab forward and drive the Sword home.

“He did, however, witness the eruption of those fires more than once. Perhaps you can solve a riddle he could not.”

Haze spared him, but continued to scowl. “Speak quickly.”

“It defends itself,” he claimed, peering beyond the surface of the gleaming blade to stare at the crimson fires swirling hypnotically within, “at all costs.”

“From magical assaults, yes. And the wielder with it. I have already heard that this is how he destroyed Spithaera.”

An inexact account, but no matter. He saw no reason to divulge the full truth of that final conflict, or tell of the Pendant’s existence.

“And do you know of Leaven’s jailor?” he asked instead.

“Would you suggest I seek to pry one of the heartstones from the blade’s hilt?” Haze teased, knowing, evidently, that it would destroy him.

“I only suggest, brother, that it is not just magic to which the Sword responds, but physical assault. A clue, perhaps?”

“You raise more questions than answers,” Haze determined. “If your next words do not please me, they will be your last.”

“He spoke with the Vandari.”

Haze stiffened at the name, but arched an eyebrow in obvious interest.

“And learned what?”

Very little, though he could ill afford to admit it.

Before he could summon a more pleasing lie, Haze tensed, then whipped about to dodge a crossbow bolt, which drove with a thwack into the trunk beside his ear.

“Coils!” his brother hissed, angry yet eager.

The Nameless One glanced at the Illychar Fasor to either side of him. Each had taken a bolt in the chest, but that did not stop them now from drawing their swords. Already, their opponents were bursting through the brush, soldiers wearing light mail and the colors of Alson’s Legion of the Sword. An elite cadre of swordsmen and marksmen, fanned out in a half-moon arc meant to keep its quarry pinned against the nearby stream. Across that body
of water, a secondary trio of crossbowmen appeared, cutting off any retreat.

He scrambled to his feet, casting about for a weapon of his own. His gaze snagged upon a discarded shovel, and he dove toward it. It came to hand as an enemy soldier bore down on him. He looked up, and their eyes met. If the soldier had any hesitation about striking down his former king, the Nameless One did not perceive it.

He ducked the soldier’s swipe and came up swinging. The flat of the shovel’s blade cracked against the man’s mail hood, spinning him about. Euphoric, the Illychar took that moment to snap the haft of the shovel across his own knee, providing a weapon for each hand. As his enemy recovered, he used the metal scoop to deflect a second swordstroke, then lunged forward with his weight behind the empty shaft, driving its splintered end into the soldier’s throat.