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CHAPTER 67

VIOLENT DELIGHTS


The telegraph buzzed again as I mounted the steps—leading Orphan from that valley of the dead and its mother’s side.

I recognized the pattern, spelling out a word.

CALL.

With Kharn dead, and Brethren dead, and the plan executed, it was relatively safe to get on comm again. I keyed my terminal, checked the contact patch behind my ear.

“Edouard?”

An audible sigh filled the wave, sound flooding the bones of my head from the conduction patch. “Where the hell were you?”

I looked at Orphan, the monster following in my wake, its twin heads bowed.

“Long story,” I said.

“It’s done, lord,” Edouard said. “The tunnels flooded pretty badly. The Seventh Deep is underwater.”

“We may have to leave by the surface,” I said.

“My lord . . . ” Edouard’s voice grew grave. “Harendotes’s men are . . . are slaughtering the natives.”

Ignoring this point, I said, “Calen Harendotes is dead.”

Silence on the comm, then, “Mother of God, preserve us.”

Daaxam had not yet reached him with word of what had passed in the palace. That thought filled me with dread, and fear for the bird man.

“Kharn Sagara is dead as well,” I said. Vorgossos still had its defenders in high orbit, mercenaries loyal to the Undying. They might scatter if told their mistress was dead.

Might.

“What happened up there?” Edouard asked, and I had to remember that—though the cavern and the reservoir felt like the deepest part of the underground complex, the tunnels where Edouard was were deeper still.

Once more I looked at Orphan. “It’s a long story.”

We had nearly reached the top of the stair and the place of the broken arch where I had left Cassandra—Cassandra, who had not answered my call. My battle with Orphan and sheer necessity had driven all other considerations from my mind, but as I mounted that final step and found her gone, I allowed myself to fear.

“Edouard, I have to go.”

“What is it?” the other man asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Send men up through the hole if you can! We need reinforcements.”

“What is it?” A2 asked once more.

“Cassandra’s gone,” I said.

I was looking at the body of a man, one of our legionnaires. He was lying face down in a puddle of his own blood. Drops of blood and bloody footprints ran down the steps into the ruins of the power station.

“Dead,” Orphan said in its sepulchral tones.

“All-dead,” its other head agreed.

I leaped down the steps, forgetting my fatigue, forgetting the heartbreak and torment of that hideous day, forgetting everything—even sense—as I shouted, “Cassandra! Cassandra!”

The old Mericanii buildings were all about me, crumbled faces thick with white moss.

“Ramanthanu!” I shouted.

Could the Cielcin have turned?

I had nearly reached the very building where Valka and I had been imprisoned, a low, flat-topped structure a ways back from the seawall. Ahead, a domelike structure housed one of the station’s great geothermal sinks.

Something collided with me, knocked me to the ground. I felt a hard crack against my breastplate, guessed whoever it was had tried to stab me with a knife. I flipped my opponent over on her back, pinned her to the cold, hard ground.

It was a woman, black of hair and gold complected, dark eyed and naked as the day she was born.

That day was that day.

“Sagara!” I said.

It was one of the scions.

I pinned her by the wrists, marked the knife in her right hand. She had tried to stab me, then. I straddled her, knew I would have to kill her.

“Why are you here?”

“You killed it,” she said. “You killed Brethren.”

“What are you planning?” I asked, slamming the woman’s arms against the ground. “Why are you here?”

The sound of Orphan’s feet drew near.

The woman writhed beneath me. The effect was nauseating. Before she could answer, before she could ask again, Orphan hove into view.

The eyes of the demon called Kharn went wide at the sight of it. “What have you done?” she asked. “What have you done?”

I slammed my forehead into her nose, felt the nose break.

Kharn did not cry out in pain.

“Where is my daughter?”

As if in answer, a shot rang out from the building up ahead.

I straightened, stood, kicked the scion across the face. I drew my sword, and before the scion could rise, I slashed her through the heart.

“Cassandra!”

I hurried up the slope toward the dome. The light of the fireflies was dim here, so far from the pier and what once had been the waters.

Another shot rang out, and the shout of human voices.

“Cassandra!”

One of the Cielcin was wrestling with a naked man in the broad door of the power station. As I hurried across the yard toward them, the xenobite forced its opponent to the ground, dragged its scimitar across the scion’s exposed throat.

“Otomno!” I said, recognizing the creature. “Raka Ramanthanu ti-saem gi ne?”

“Vaanan!” the xenobite answered, standing. Within.

Its eyes narrowed, seeing Orphan in my train, but it asked no question.

“The beast is with me,” I said in Cielcin. “Is my daughter inside?”

“The yukajjimn fight yukajjimn,” the scahari answered.

I pushed past it.

Inside, the place was simple. A ring of outer rooms surrounded the inner chamber where the great heat sinks plunged many miles into the planet’s molten mantle. I rushed straight through the vestibule, Otomno and Orphan hard behind.

“Cassandra!”

Inside the power station, I beheld the flashing of swords. Sheets of blue-white flickered and flowed with movement in the gloom of the antique lamps. Like lightning, the glow of those blades danced on the high walls, and the air was filled with the noise and fume of plasma fire as the last two legionnaires laid down suppressive fire.

And there she was, locked in battle with a pair of men in bloody khakis. Still more of them, some dressed in tattered clothing, others naked as Orphan himself, hurried about the room. A knot of three fought with Ramanthanu and Egazimn, while a quartet of others ran along a catwalk above. Three or more lay dead in places. One man sprawled on the floor, body showing the telltale mark of highmatter. A naked woman hung draped over a rail. There must have been a bare dozen of them, not counting the woman who had assaulted me outside.

Some of them held stunners or plasma burners in their hands.

The ones that fought Cassandra held swords.

Kharn Sagara had collected weapons and artifacts for fifteen thousand years. It came as no surprise that he should own highmatter swords.

I swept the head from one of the scions in my haste to reach my daughter, heedless of the fact my shield was dead. She fought both Kharns with all of her Jaddian art, stepping back to get out from between them, retreating to force them to converge in the space before her.

A shot struck the rail just before me, and I skidded to a halt.

“No farther, Marlowe!” cried the Kharn that had fired—a man with skin black as night and hair like fire. “You will not stop me!”

“Stop you from what?”

“Vorgossos must be destroyed!” the dark man barked. “Its time has passed! My brothers and sisters and I must be rid of it, if we are to be rid of one another!”

The power station.

The geothermal sink plunged directly into the planet’s core, drew heat and power for the city. He meant to destroy it. With the power gone, everyone on Vorgossos would die.

I intended to destroy Vorgossos myself, and might have told him so. Cassandra was still fighting, somersaulted over the heads of her opponents to land with her back to the rail. I needed to go to her. To help her.

Seeing my urge to move, the scion fired again, struck a spot two feet to my left. “You’ll never take the Demiurge!” he said. “It should be in my hands already!”

My heart sank.

It was not that I had forgotten the scions in my mad scramble with Brethren and with Orphan after, only that there had been nothing for me to do.

“You’re lying,” I said, eyes going to Cassandra once again. She had retreated around the vast engine of the heat sink in the center of the chamber, gone almost out of sight.

Something silver flashed through the air and tangled about the scion’s face like a chain. The man’s arm jerked upward, and a moment later his plasma burner discharged at the ceiling. He fell, and a moment later, he screamed.

“Siajose o-tajarin!” said an inhuman voice, and turning I saw Ramanthanu, scimitar in hand, relaxing as from a throw.

The nahute had claimed its victim, and chewed its way, bloodied, back into the open air, grinding mouth questing for its next target.

“Thank you,” I said in standard, nodding to the lop-horned captain.

“Iagga!” the captain pointed toward Cassandra.

Go.

I went, barreling round the corner after my daughter and her foes.

She had found herself surrounded once again, pinned between the both of them on a narrow slice of floor between the central tower of the heatsink to my left and the rail that separated it from the rest of the floor. Cassandra parried a blow from one, whirled to redirect the thrust of the other, twisting to force her opponents back together.

“Cassandra!” I bellowed.

It was the worst thing I could have done.

At the sound of my voice and my hammering footfalls, she paused and looked at me, our eyes meeting for the barest instant.

It was an instant too long. Her left arm was extended for the bind, aiming to trap her enemy’s blade. But my momentary distraction cost her dearly.

The nearer Kharn, a man with matted yellow hair, raised his sword like a cathar and brought it down. Not on Cassandra’s blade, but on her arm. Highmatter bit into her flesh well above the elbow. Her armor was not adamant, but the common zircon of any legionnaire. The blade bit through the plates of the manica on her upper arm, severed flesh and bone.

Cassandra’s arm fell from her body, sword going out like a light. The dead weapon struck the ground at Kharn’s feet, and he slashed the hilt in two, killing that blade Cassandra had won for herself in the Trial of the Heart.

My daughter staggered back, lone remaining sword wavering in the face of her daimonic foe.

Kharn raised his sword.

I screamed, and before either Kharn could strike the killing blow I was on them, time splintering. There were a million ways that Kharn might have parried.

He found none of them.

His head fell from his shoulders, and I leaped past my staggering daughter and plunged my blade into the other’s heart. With my free hand I caught his wrist, stopped his sword from falling.

I saw the light leave Kharn Sagara’s eyes for what seemed the hundredth time that day.

As it did, he smiled, and it was Calen Harendotes’s smile, square edged and savage as any beast.

Savage as Ushara herself.

“You’re . . . too late . . . ” he said. “My work is done . . . The others . . . will . . . be . . . ”

But the daimon was already gone.

Whirling, I went to Cassandra. My girl had half fallen against the drum tower of the heatsink cap, her back to it, her good hand—still clutching one sword—pressed to her shoulder. Her suit had already contracted, detecting her injury and stanching the flow of blood. Still, blood trickled from the raw surface of her wound.

“Cassandra!” I unkindled my own blade, heedless of the battle still around us. “I’m sorry! It’s going to be all right now.” Her arm lay on the ground, her ruined sword beside it.

“God of Fire!” she swore. “It hurts! Abba, it hurts.”

“I know,” I said, placing my hands on her shoulders. “I know, Anaryan.”

We could heal her, if we could but get her to the ship.

She slid down the wall, grimacing the while. I crouched over her, flinching as a shot struck the wall overhead. “We’re going to get you out of here,” I said. “Just stay here now. Give me your sword.”

“But Abba!”

I prized the hilt from her remaining fingers.

“Don’t move,” I said, standing. “Stay down!” I turned from her, kindling her blade and mine, I placed myself between her and the daimons that yet lived. The lights went out, and a whine I had not known was there vanished entirely.

Red lights slammed on.

Emergency lighting.

Kharn had spoken true. His . . . her . . . their scheme had been successful.

The heart of Vorgossos was dead. All throughout the city, all had gone dark, would soon go cold.

A cry filled the station then, high and piercing as the scream of a falcon.

Indeed, it was the scream of a falcon, of a creature very like to one. Despite the darkness, despite the madness and the terror and the pain, despite my daughter suffering on the floor at my feet, my heart grew lighter.

It was the cry of the Irchtani.

Edouard had sent the bird men up through the hole from the tunnels below, and they had found us.

Thus came Annaz from the depths of Vorgossos, with thirty of his kinsmen on the wing. One by one they swept through the open doors, and one by one filled the air with the drumbeat of their wings.

Not a one of Kharn’s scions escaped them.

“Abba?” Cassandra spoke into the new-made silence.

I looked down at her, stowed her blade in my sabretache with the swords I’d taken from the dead scions.

“I’m . . . sorry,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t stay at the wall. They attacked us . . . ”

“Hush,” I said, crouching by her side.

“I tried to stop them,” she was saying. “Wasn’t sure what they were doing—what they wanted to do, but . . . ” She swallowed, gritted her teeth, banged her head against the machine at her back from sheer frustration. “I failed.”

I raised a hand to cushion her head. “You did fine.”

My eyes went to her severed arm. Her left arm.

The same arm that I had lost on my last visit to Vorgossos.

The wheel had turned around. The stars had completed their epicycle.

History had recurred.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said, holding her. “I should never have brought you here.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. I wouldn’t have stayed if you made me, I . . . you shouldn’t be alone.”

The tears had returned to my face by then, and I held her close.

That was where they found us, and carried us back to the stars.


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