Risen, p.28
Risen, page 28
part #12 of Alex Verus Series
‘No,’ both Annes said in echo.
‘I wasn’t asking,’ I told them. I pulled the ring from my pocket and held it up. ‘You do this, or I die and the two of you are enslaved for ever.’
‘I can’t work with her—’
‘This is her fault—’
‘I SAID SHUT UP!’ I shouted. ‘All of this insane crap started because the two of you couldn’t deal with each other! Now once that marid is gone you can do whatever the hell you like, but right now you ARE going to work together or I swear to God, before I die, the last thing I do will be to figure out which one of you helped least and put the other one in charge!’
Light Anne and Dark Anne glared but didn’t argue. I knelt down next to Anne’s body, placed the ring on her stomach and clasped her hands over it. The first faint trails of mist were starting to rise from her skin. ‘One on each side,’ I ordered, pointing. ‘We’re only getting one shot at this.’
Surprisingly, both Annes obeyed. Far away I could hear something approaching, the distant crashing sound of falling trees.
Ever since I’d stepped into Elsewhere I’d sensed a change in the sovnya. I turned to look.
It felt as though I were seeing the weapon for the first time. On one level it looked as it had in the outside world, a long, slender polearm with a black haft and a curving blade. But overlaid upon that was another form, something larger and brighter and more real, something that towered over me from more than twice my height. It was sculpted of black iron that burned like fire, lined with claw-like barbs hooked to rip and tear. The blade was almost as tall as I was, a monstrous thing of twisted metal, etched with glowing letters in a language that stung my eyes. Where the blade met the haft was an eye, yellow and slitted like a cat’s, that blinked and roved. Just to look at the weapon was to feel a hunger, a void that could never be filled.
I pulled my eyes away with a shudder. I’ve been wielding THAT?
The sovnya didn’t seem to notice my reaction. Its attention was turned away, towards the approaching jinn. And that was how it had always been, hadn’t it? All it’d cared about was killing, and all I’d cared about was what it could do.
Maybe what I saw looking at the weapon was how Light mages saw me.
I put it out of my mind. The thunder of the marid was growing louder, and I could see a disturbance in the clouds. ‘The marid will come at us with everything it’s got,’ I told the two Annes. ‘It can’t back down, not now.’ I pointed to Light Anne. ‘You have the strength. You never accepted the marid’s contract. That gives you power over it.’ I pointed to Dark Anne. ‘You have the knowledge. You worked with the marid, used its magic.’ I looked from one to the other. ‘The two of you together have the power to bind it. But only if you commit absolutely. Falter, waver, and . . .’ I turned away from the Annes and took a grip on the sovnya. ‘Get ready.’
The obsidian beneath my feet was shuddering. The crashing of falling trees was a constant roar, mixing with the thunder of the storm. I could feel the sovnya trembling with anticipation. There was a vortex spinning in the clouds, glowing with a sickly yellow light. It drew closer until it was just outside the walls.
A towering figure materialised beneath the vortex.
I kicked off the ground, soaring upwards. I couldn’t see the jinn, not really – my eyes slid away from it, and at some level I knew it was for my own protection, that seeing it fully and clearly would tear something open inside my mind. All I had was an impression, a looming giant with legs like mountains and arms that blotted out the sky. Its steps shook the earth, and its gaze burned like fire, but as I flew up to meet it there was no fear in me, and the sovnya in my hands needed no guidance at all. Bloodlust and exultation filled me as the sovnya tore into the marid’s enormous form.
And the marid flinched. Unfathomably powerful as it was, it could still be hurt, and it was facing a weapon created to be its living nemesis. A fiery gash opened up on the jinn’s body as I came around for another blow.
Far below, at the foot of the tower, I heard Dark Anne’s voice, ringing out above the storm. ‘By my will and power, our contract is ended! I cast you out from my body and mind, and I bind you to your prison in Suleiman’s name!’
The marid aimed some kind of attack at me. I couldn’t see it and didn’t know what it was, but I knew what I could do and somehow I managed to dodge. Behind me, the top half of the tower disintegrated into dust. I struck the marid once more and felt it recoil from the sovnya’s dark flame.
Below me, Dark Anne shouted again. ‘Twice I bind you! This is my place of power, and you are not welcome here! Be gone, and be bound to your prison in Suleiman’s name!’
I could sense something building below, a wave of power. The marid sensed it too and it turned down and away, reaching for Anne’s body where it lay helpless on the ground.
I dived in, bringing around the sovnya, but this time the marid was ready. Another attack came swinging at me, ponderous and massive. I tried to get out of the way, but it was like trying to dodge a falling tree and it caught me a glancing blow.
My vision fuzzed out. Thoughts frayed and scattered; the jinn’s attack was striking both my body and mind and I could feel a horrible thinning sensation, as though I was fraying away thread by thread. I clung desperately to my thoughts, my feelings, everything from my memories of Anne to the fight in the shadow realm; I squeezed the sovnya in a death grip. For an endless moment, I teetered between existence and the void.
Gradually, I caught my balance. It was like wavering on the very edge of a cliff and pulling yourself back. Sight and hearing returned and I realised that both my armour and the sovnya were blazing with power; both looked weakened but they’d shared the blow, anchoring me. I looked down.
Below me was the kind of scene that you remember for the rest of your life. The marid was looming over the remains of the walls and tower, a titan of darkness, so vast that it seemed the mountains themselves had risen in anger. It was leaning downwards, its attention fixed, bringing all of its crushing power to bear – but where that power met the earth was a sphere of brilliant white-green light. Anne’s body lay unmoving on the ground, but Anne’s Elsewhere-self stood in front of it, her hand raised up in a command to halt. And the marid had halted. That globe of light looked like a marble caught beneath a giant’s hammer, but it was holding the marid back.
I took it all in in a single glance, then dived towards the marid like a thunderbolt.
The sovnya flared with a terrible joy. It tore through the marid like a lance, cutting through the jinn’s outer self and into its core.
The marid screamed, a noise beyond imagining. Walls cracked and trees shattered, and it reared back in agony.
Dark Anne’s voice rose up one last time, somehow audible over the scream. ‘Three times I bind you! By my power, by our power, by the strength of this land and earth and life! Be bound to your prison in Suleiman’s name!’ She drew a breath and when she spoke again it was with vengeful anger. ‘Get out and never come back!’
Power boomed with a clap of thunder. The marid reached down, trying to blot us from existence, but something else reached up to seize it, pulling into a vortex. The marid was drawn down into the ring, shrinking. I heard it scream, an awful sound of rage and hatred, as it was pulled in, smaller and smaller until it was a sphere of impenetrable black.
The sphere imploded and a shockwave burst out. The debris from the battle was flung away and every remaining tree had its leaves stripped from its branches in an echoing boom.
And suddenly everything was silent.
I sank from the sky, touching down on the plaza. The obsidian floor had been scoured mirror-smooth. Anne lay where I’d placed her, eyes still closed, hands still folded over her stomach, wisps of light trailing from her skin and dress. But the item in her hands . . . I couldn’t see the ring beneath her fingers, but I could feel it. It was the same feeling I’d once sensed from the monkey’s paw.
The marid was bound again.
Movement made me look up. Light Anne and Dark Anne were getting to their feet. They’d both been flung away, but they didn’t seem hurt and as they recovered they began walking back towards me. But as they drew closer to me, they drew closer to each other, and they shot each other looks and slowed until both came to a stop, the three of us forming a triangle fifteen feet on each side.
‘We actually did it,’ Dark Anne said. For once she didn’t sound flippant or angry.
‘It’s really over,’ Light Anne said.
‘No,’ I said. I looked between the two Annes. ‘There’s one last thing.’
Both Annes’ faces changed. ‘I won’t—’ one began.
‘I can’t—’ the other said.
I spoke over them both. ‘Be quiet.’
They frowned at me.
‘You do not get a vote on this,’ I said. ‘William Shakespeare himself could not find the words to express how tired I am of the both of you. I have journeyed through war and blood and death to reach you here, and after all I have sacrificed I am not going to let you pick yourselves up and do the same stupid shit all over again.’
‘We’re different people, Alex,’ Light Anne said.
‘You can’t shove us together,’ Dark Anne said.
‘For any other two people, you’d be right. But you’re not two people. You’re one person, and the only reason you stay apart is because the two of you keep it that way.’ I gestured. ‘Look around.’
Dark Anne and Light Anne did as I said, frowning. The walls around the tower had been rebuilt, sheer and tall once again. So had the tower itself. Hardly any time had gone by, but it was as though the battle with the jinn had never happened.
‘You told me, when we first met,’ I said to Dark Anne. ‘The very first words out of your mouth. You said those walls were to keep things in. But that was only half true, wasn’t it? You fight just as hard to keep her out.’
‘Can’t we just go home?’ Light Anne said.
‘In fact, you two are so split that when I take you into Elsewhere, you can’t even occupy your own body.’ I gestured back to where Anne’s body lay, its eyes still closed. ‘Which is bad for a lot of reasons, but right now, the most relevant one is that it means you can’t defend yourself very well.’
‘From what?’ Dark Anne said sharply.
I met her eyes, then raised one hand.
It was Dr Shirland who’d given me the clue to figure it out. Anne’s two halves weren’t different people: they were just two parts of her that wanted incompatible things. On its own, that was nothing special. But just at the age where Anne should have been dealing with that, when she should have been coming to understand herself, Sagash had captured her and taken her to his castle, and he’d hurt her badly enough that she couldn’t handle the things she’d had to do.
So Anne had turned to Elsewhere, sealing off the parts of herself she couldn’t accept. Aggression, self-interest, short-term desire – she’d poured them all into this tower, into her other self. But Elsewhere couldn’t actually change her into a different person; the most it could do was keep the two halves of her personality apart. The two Annes weren’t meant to be separate – they were drawn together like opposite poles of a magnet, and the only reason they hadn’t merged long ago was because they were both using Elsewhere to maintain the barrier that held the other at arm’s length.
And if that barrier was created in Elsewhere, it could be destroyed in Elsewhere.
Realisation flashed into Dark Anne’s eyes. ‘Wait—’
The walls and the tower were a part of Anne. It had been easy to spot, once I’d thought to look for it. They existed both outside her, and within the mind of the girl behind me. I focused my will, took a deep breath and prayed with all my heart that this was going to work.
Then I snapped my fingers and wiped the barrier from existence.
Both Annes cried out in shock. The tower and the walls burst, shattering into a million pieces that flared into nothingness. The two Annes were pulled towards each other, their cries ringing out in stereo, their bodies thinning and fading. As they did, Anne’s Elsewhere dissolved around us, and both Anne and I fell into nothingness.
It was only for a moment, then we were standing on stone. We were in the Elsewhere-reflection of Sagash’s duelling arena, the walls shadowed and grim, holding the echo of all those that had died there. Anne’s body was lying at my feet, still unconscious. Of Anne’s light and dark halves, there was no sign.
There was no more time. My armour and Anne’s dress had given us some protection, but the wisps of light rising from Anne’s skin were dangerously bright and I was starting to get the airy, too-light feeling that I recognised as a warning of approaching death. I shouldered the sovnya, lifted Anne, and channelled through the dreamstone, feeling for the thin patch where I’d brought Elsewhere together with the castle. A portal opened and I jumped back into the shadow realm.
20
Sight and sound crashed into me as I came back down in the shadow realm, weight and light and feeling. I was standing in Sagash’s duelling ring with Anne in my arms and I looked down at her, my heart in my throat. I didn’t know how much damage I’d done to her mind, but her chest rose and fell and that meant she was still alive, at least for now. Luna and the others might already be gone; I had to get Anne out of here before—
A terrible pain stabbed through my chest.
I gasped, falling to one knee. For a moment I thought I’d been shot, and I scanned the room, searching for enemies. Nothing. Then why—
Oh.
Klara’s words from a week and a half ago echoed through my head: ‘. . . your right lung will be transmuted, followed by your heart. This will cause them both to shut down . . .’
The pain was like nothing I’d ever felt. No, once before – that time in the deep shadow realm, when something that looked like Anne had stopped my heart. It was like a muscle cramp through my lungs, one that didn’t stop but got worse and worse. My vision was greying out with the pain and I was feeling light-headed; I was getting a tiny trickle of air, but it wasn’t enough.
I kept trying to breathe but it wasn’t working, and deep down, I knew it wasn’t going to. Klara had warned me this would happen, warned that if I kept using the fateweaver it’d kill me. I hadn’t listened, and now I was paying the price.
I couldn’t see any more. I’d dropped Anne and the sovnya; dimly I was aware that I was lying on my side. The pain in my chest was burning agony, and I found myself wishing it would be over soon. Diviners get to experience a lot of ways to die and suffocation is one of the bad ones, but at least it’s quick. A little more and it would be over.
Over . . .
Faces swam up through my memories. My mother, her eyes dark and intense, fingers gripping my arm as she told me you come back. Luna, making me promise to fight to the end.
Something rose up inside me with a snarl. No.
I reached inside myself, to the fateweaver. It was killing me, but it was still mine. I found the future I needed and forced it through, willing my lungs to expand.
Air flooded into my chest with a gasp. It burned, but it was life, and I pulled it in and out as I forced my own lungs to breathe. My muscles did half the work, the fateweaver the other. Air kept cycling through my body, and as I opened my eyes the ceiling above me swam back into view.
Up. Get up. Painfully I rolled over, getting onto hands and knees. Anne was next to me, lying on her back on the stone.
And next to Anne was Hermes. The blink fox yipped at me.
I’m okay, I told Hermes through the dreamstone. I couldn’t manage speaking yet. I controlled my breaths, getting them to a steady rhythm until I had enough oxygen again. It was a bizarre, unpleasant feeling, like giving CPR to your own chest. Pain flared in my body with each breath, but compared with a moment ago, it was nothing.
Hermes yipped again. I’m coming, I thought, and reached for the sovnya.
Hermes shrank down, his tail curling between his legs.
It’s all right, I told him. I won’t let it . . . hurt . . . you . . .
I trailed off. Hermes wasn’t looking at the sovnya. He was looking behind me, up towards the door.
‘Hello, Alex,’ a voice said.
It was a very familiar voice.
Hermes blinked away, air rushing in to fill the space as he vanished. I took a deep, mechanical breath, pulling air into my lungs and pushing it out. Then using the sovnya, I hauled myself up.
Richard was standing on the gallery, just inside the door by which I’d entered.
A tremor ran through the shadow realm. I felt the stones shift under my feet; trails of dust came trickling from the ceiling. ‘Well,’ Richard said. He began walking, circling the gallery. He reached the stairs and descended, shoes ringing on the metal steps. ‘It seems I missed quite a show.’
My eyes tracked Richard all the way down.
Richard stepped off the stairs onto my level and I took a step sideways to place myself between him and Anne. ‘I see you put my ring to good use,’ Richard said with a nod towards Anne.
‘I was wondering why you gave it up so easily.’
Richard came to a stop, watching me pleasantly from just outside the duelling ring. He seemed in no hurry.
‘Why did you let me have the Council’s weapon too?’ I asked when Richard didn’t speak. ‘Just feeling generous?’
‘You seemed to need it more than I did,’ Richard said with a shrug. ‘No need to be greedy.’
‘You never did value possessions for their own sake.’
Richard inclined his head. There was a pause.
‘Did you plan this from the beginning?’ I asked.
‘Plan all this from the beginning?’ Richard said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Alex, I’m flattered you believe I possess that level of foresight, but you and Anne between you have managed to create such utter chaos that my long-term plans were wrecked weeks ago. You personally have forced me to abandon my entire course of action and start from scratch no less than twice in the past twenty-four hours. I don’t know who could have possibly anticipated all of the absurd things you’ve ended up doing. I certainly didn’t.’
