Brian Staveley - The Last Mortal Bond

“You’re not letting him go,” Nira growled. “You’re sending me.”

“We are both going,” Adare said, surprised by the iron in her own voice. “The creature who murdered my father, blinded my brother, and stole my son is inside that tower. I am going .”

Nira spat. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can see him die.”

“Or die yourself.”

Adare nodded. When she spoke again, the words felt right. “Or die myself.”

* * *

The steel of the prison blocked the fire. Blocked it, at least, for a brief time. As the prisoners screamed in their cages, Valyn slammed shut the huge metal doors, wrapped them with chain, trapping il Tornja’s soldiers in the horrible furnace below. Strangely, of the prison guards there was no sign, as though they had abandoned their post long before the fire came to the Spear. Kaden could think of no reason why, but there was no time to ponder the question. Even as they climbed, he could hear the protestations of the wooden beams and metal plates supporting the floor, screeching, snapping, warped by the vicious heat. Finally, the whole thing twisted, screamed, cracked, and then collapsed.

Kaden seized the railing of the stairwell as it bucked and shuddered, waiting to be dragged down with the rest of the structure into the inferno boiling below. The wave of heat hit him a moment later, knocking him back into the shadow of the stairs. It was like standing inside the huge stone hearth back in Ashk’lan, and though the flames were too far below to reach them, the air seared his throat, scalded his lungs. He squeezed shut his eyes against the heat blasting up from beneath. Triste wrapped her arms around him, seeking solace and giving it in the same gesture.

The Kettral were talking in low, urgent tones. There was no fear in their voices, only weariness mixed with determination. A few moments later, the staircase stopped shuddering. Valyn leaned out over the edge, stared down for a moment, then pulled back.

“It’s gone. Broke off about five hundred feet below us. Takes care of the soldiers.”

“Beats having to fight them,” the Flea said.

Triste stared up at the stairs twisting away out of sight. “Why haven’t we fallen?”

“Cables,” Valyn said, gesturing up without looking. “The lower stairs were built from the ground up, the next section hung from the prison level. Both of those are gone. We’re on the last part. It’s suspended from the ceiling, not built up from the floor, but we need to keep climbing, get clear of this heat.”

The climb was an agony of burning lungs and legs pushed past all exhaustion. Kaden counted a hundred stairs, then a thousand, but instead of flagging, the fire below burned higher, brighter, gnawing through the wreckage, rendering all human instruments inside the Spear to ash and char, as though the goddess herself had come down to purify the monument, to consecrate what was divine in a bath of perfect flame. It seemed, for a while, that the fire would overtake them, claim them, too, but there was nothing to do but climb, and so, soaked with sweat and blood, the stairs swaying ominously beneath them, they climbed.

Finally, after another thousand stairs, the air began to cool. Kaden dragged a breath into his lungs, savored the relief, then another, then another, pausing to haul in great deep gulps of it. He tried calling out to Valyn, who was plunging up the steps above, blood burned onto both axes. His voice came out a desiccated husk. He licked his lips, swallowed, then tried again.

“We have to stop,” he managed. “We have to stop.”

Valyn paused, turned. He looked lost, as though he’d forgotten where they were or why they had come. Those ravaged eyes roamed across Kaden’s face for what seemed a long time. Finally he nodded.

“Good a place as any.”

Triste leaned against the railing, groaned, then slid down until she was half sitting, half slumped. She vomited noisily onto the platform, over and over, long after her stomach was empty. The Flea and Sigrid took up opposite positions, one a dozen steps above the landing, one below. What foe they expected to fight, Kaden had no idea. Neither soldier had asked why they were here inside the Spear or what they had come to do. Their presence should have been a comfort; without them, il Tornja would have won the fight already. And yet, there was something terrible about warriors willing to kill in the total absence of question or explanation. What they felt about the trail of corpses they’d left littered across the city, Kaden couldn’t say. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe that was part of what it was to be Kettral. Maybe, like the Shin, they trained the feeling out of you.

“What now?” Valyn asked.

Kaden glanced at his brother, then looked over at Triste. She had stopped throwing up, mopped the vomit from her chin, then closed her eyes and nodded.

“The obviate, ” Kaden said slowly, trying to frame a truth larger than the human world with a few words. “It is almost time to free … what we carry inside us.”

The Flea didn’t turn. Neither did Sigrid. Just soldiers doing a soldier’s work. Suddenly, Kaden envied them that simplicity. Kill. Run. Guard. Already they’d faced down dangers by the thousands, and yet those were human dangers-swords, arrows, fire, threats such as men and women were built to face. They might die in a fight, but no one would ask them to grind out their own lives.

“This tower,” Kaden went on after a pause, “is a link. A bridge. Between this world and another.”

“Whatever that means,” Valyn growled.

“I don’t understand it any more than you. The only thing I know is that this is the only place from which the gods can ascend.”

Valyn looked like he was going to object, question the notion further. Then he just shook his head. “Great. We’re here. We’ll get you to the top. What happens then?”

Triste let out a small noise. It might have been a whimper or a twisted little laugh.

Kaden put a hand on her shoulder, but turned inward, to the mind locked inside the depths of his own mind.

We are close, he said to the god. It is time. Explain the obviate. Tell me how I can set you free.

For a long time, he thought Meshkent would not respond. Hundreds of feet below, flame chewed eagerly through tons of flesh and wood, roaring as it feasted. Each breath was ash and hot iron. Kaden’s legs quaked beneath him. Triste’s sweat-drenched skin was molten beneath his touch.

Tell me, Kaden said, or you will die here.

Inside, silence. The world beyond, fire. Then, at last, the god spoke.

Submit, and I will burn these foes to ash.

Kaden shook his head grimly, released Triste, then stepped to the edge of the railing.

Explain the obviate, or I will end you myself.

Meshkent’s snarl was a notched blade twisted in the brain.

You would pit yourself against your god?

Kaden gazed down into the conflagration. I trained at the feet of an older god than you.

I will flay you with a blade of screams.

Kaden shook his head. You cannot flay what is not there.

Then, with a motion of thought, he brought the honed blade of his own emptiness to bear against the god’s throat, a promise, a threat. I carried you this far. Do not test me further.

Meshkent, the Lord of all Pain, shuddered, raged, and then went slack. His voice, when he finally gave up the truth of the obviate, echoed in Kaden’s mind like a child’s voice lost in a vast cavern.

“What happens when we get to the top?” Valyn demanded at last. “The gods just … float away?”

“Not quite,” Kaden said quietly, the truth heavy and simple inside him.