Brent Weeks - Shadow's Edge

Now Durzo was truly dead, released from the prison of his own flesh. But it felt lonely and raw and unjust. Durzo’s reward for seven centuries of isolation and service to some goal that he didn’t understand shouldn’t have been death. It should have been an unveiling of the worth of that goal. It should have been reunion and communion commensurate with seven hundred years of isolation. Kylar was just coming to understand his master now, and now that he wanted to make things right, there was no Durzo to make it right with. He’d been clipped out of the tapestry of Kylar’s life, leaving an ugly hole that nothing could fill.

“I can only hold the full measure of my Talent for so long, young man,” Sister Ariel said, sweat beading on her forehead.

“Oh, right,” Kylar said.

A pool of concentrated light burned in Sister Ariel’s hands. Kylar put his hand in it, willing the power into himself.

Nothing happened.

He brought the ka’kari up to the skin of his palm. Still nothing happened.

It was strangely embarrassing to look so inept. “Just let it happen,” Sister Ariel said.

Just let it happen. That pissed him off. It was that falsely wise crap that teachers pulled. Your body knows what to do. You’re thinking too much. Right.

“Will you look away for a sec?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” Sister Ariel said.

He’d done this before while wearing the ka’kari as a second skin. He knew it could be done.

“I can’t hold this for much longer,” Sister Ariel said.

Kylar drew the ka’kari into a ball in his hand and palmed it, holding his hand palm down over the pool of magic in the sister’s hands. He thought it was quick enough she didn’t see it. Come on, please work!

~Since you ask so nicely …~

Kylar blinked at that. Then the pooled magic winked out like a candle in a high wind. Kylar only had a moment to be unnerved before the thought was obliterated. Where the metallic sphere touched his palm, Kylar felt like he was holding lightning. He lost control of his body as it arced through him, freezing him in place, ignoring his desire to pull away—pullawaypullaway!—before he fried.

Sister Ariel was pulling back, but the ka’kari stretched between them, sucking magic like a lamprey sucking blood.

Kylar felt himself filling, gloriously filling with magic, with power, and light, and life. He could see the very veins in his hands, the veins in the few remaining leaves overhead. He could see life squirming and wriggling everywhere in the forest. He saw through the grasses to the fox’s burrow, through the bark of the fir tree to the woodpecker’s nest. He could feel the kiss of starlight on his skin. He could smell a hundred different men from the rebel camp, tell what they’d eaten, how much they’d worked, who was healthy and who sick. He could hear so much it was overwhelming, he could barely pull the strands apart. The wind made leaves clang against each other like cymbals, there was a roar that was the breathing of two—no, three large animals—himself, and Sister Ariel, and one other. The leaves themselves were breathing. He heard the heartbeat of an owl, the thunderous wallop of …a knee hitting the ground.

“Stop! Stop!” Sister Ariel said. She was slumped on the ground, and still magic flowed from her.

Kylar yanked the ka’kari back and took it into his body.

Sister Ariel fell, but he didn’t even notice her. Light—magic—life—dazzled, bled, exploded from every pore on his body. It was too much. It hurt. Every beat of his heart scoured his veins with more power. His body was too small.

“GOOOOO,” Sister Ariel said. It was ludicrously slow. He waited while her lips moved and the whisper thundered forth. “SAAVE …” Save? Save what? Why didn’t she just say it? Why was everything so slow, so interminably, so damnably slow? He could barely hold himself still. He was bleeding light. His head throbbed. Another chamber of his heart compressed while he waited and waited. “THE …”

Save the king, his impatience supplied. He had to save the king. He had to save Logan.

Before Sister Ariel spoke again, Kylar was running.

Running? No, running was too pedestrian a term. He was moving twice the speed of the fastest man. Three times.

It was sheer joy. It was sheer moment, for there was nothing but the moment. He dodged and twisted, he looked ahead as far as his glowing eyes could see.

He was moving so fast that the air began to battle against him. His feet couldn’t gain the traction they needed to push him faster. He threatened to leave the earth.

Then he saw a camp ahead, right in the middle of his path. He jumped and he did leave the earth. A hundred paces he flew. Two hundred. Straight at a tree.

He threw the ka’kari forward and jerked as he slammed through the three-foot-wide trunk. Wood exploded in every direction, but he kept going. Behind him, he heard the tree cracking and beginning to fall, but he was already too far away to hear it land.

So he ran. He extended the ka’kari before him so it cut the wind, extended it behind him so that it pressed his feet to the earth so he could run faster still.

The night faded, and he ran. The sun rose, and still he ran, a glutton devouring miles.

Sister Ariel crawled back to the tree where she’d bound Ulyssandra. It took a long time, but she had to. She wasn’t sure if she slept that she would ever wake up. Finally, she reached Uly. The little girl was awake, her eyes red, tear tracks covering her cheeks. So she knew Kylar had awakened, and that Sister Ariel had concealed her, betrayed her.

There was nothing Sister Ariel could say. There was nothing either of them could do, anyway. Sister Ariel had loosed Vi and Kylar like twin hunting falcons. There was no calling them back now. If Uly were still here when Ariel woke, she’d take the girl to the Chantry. It would be a long trip, and it might give her some time to think about what she’d just experienced.

By all the gods, the boy had sucked her dry and still had room for more. Her! One of the most powerful women in the Chantry! He was so young, so blithe and terrifying.

It took all her willpower to unbind Uly. Touching magic now was like drinking liquor while hung over. But in a moment, it was done, and she collapsed.

S omehow, Logan had believed that there was something special about him. He’d had everything taken from him. His friends had been taken, his wife taken, his hopes taken, his freedom taken, his dignity taken, his naïveté taken. But his life had been spared.

Now that would be taken, too. The Godking wouldn’t leave him down here. Logan had already died once and been resurrected. This time, Garoth Ursuul would want to see Logan die with his own eyes. There would doubtless be torture first, but Logan couldn’t care.

If he’d been stronger, he would have tried one last desperate plan, but his fever had left him a shell. At the least, he could throw away his own life to kill Fin. He could have done it—before the fever. He’d just never been willing to make that sacrifice while he still had hope. He’d always wanted to preserve his own life, and so now he’d lost his life and gained nothing. Not even for his friends.

Logan brooded in the darkness. Mercifully, whatever Khali was, it had moved further away, and the smothering feel that had so suffused the Maw was now just a dull pressure. Everything that had seemed so unbearable about the Hole—the stink, the heat, the howling—was again familiar, if not comfortable.

“Bitch, come here,” Fin said.

Lilly stood and patted Logan’s shoulder. She whispered to Gnasher, probably telling him to watch over Logan, and then she left.

Of course she left. He didn’t even blame her, though it made him feel even more empty and desolate. Lilly had to be practical. The sentimentality of all the books Logan had once loved died when it came within smelling distance of the Hole. Lilly was a survivor. Logan was going to be dead within an hour or two. Life went on. Logan’s heart might blame her, but his mind couldn’t. In any other circumstance, he would have condemned himself for eating human flesh.