Taunting the Devil (The Bastard Cadre Book 5) Page 14

  Valan nodded from his knee. He gestured rapidly between himself and Tralit, he wanted to tell him, We both stand apart, but we can work together. You and I. We can finish it, together, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “You were there, so you know,” Tralit said again.

  Valan knew the dragon was remembering the wrong things. He shook his head, but Tralit ignored him and walked back to Rarick. He was enjoying the drama of the moment.

  He told Rarick, “I was going to take my time with you, but what’s the point now?” He pointed to a back corner of the hall, and asked, “Are those your children?”

  Rarick gargled something, spraying a small geyser of blood, but his eyes, though still wide in his face, were uncomprehending.

  Valan tried to say hostages, but the sound he made was more like houses.

  Tralit looked back at Valan and then the cowering children and Lilly.

  “You sent the giant?” Tralit asked.

  Valan shook his head.

  “He was fierce, for a giant. I left him with a child. She’d pinned him to the beach with a spear he meant for me. He was your man? You sent a little giant to fight me? You were smarter the last time we met.”

  Valan shook his head again.

  “Why are you here?” Tralit demanded.

  Valan looked at Rarick then back at Tralit.

  “The True Gods,” Tralit snarled, “are nothing. Shades who cower in other realms, too afraid to or forbidden from walking the land. None of your True Gods dare stand against me. You shouldn’t waste your time on them.”

  Valan’s other leg gave way, and he dropped into a kneeling position. He shook his head and looked imploringly at Tralit.

  “I’m glad you’re not dead. I remember when you whispered the words to me, encouraging me to kill Sah Pitan, the last of the Dragon Lords. The promises you made about the things we would do. I was furious when I learned you told him I was coming. I’m glad you’re not dead because I can kill you again.”

  Valan shook his head desperately

  “Is that your son back there, Wolf? Maybe I’ll start with him,” Tralit said before shifting back into the dragon that had lay Maiten’s Hall in ruins.

  Valan glanced back at the boy and saw Vincent d’Rhyne flicker in and out of existence with two children. He ran at the back wall and disappeared. When he reappeared he was on his own and skimming back to Lilly and the remaining children. It looked like he’d already taken about half of the group to safety.

  Tralit reared up and prepared to turn his fire on them all.

  The brute who had accompanied Vincent appeared out of nowhere, shouting, “Hey, you big ugly bastard.”

  Tralit turned toward the newcomer and exhaled. Pete, Valan remembered the man’s name, disappeared. At first, Valan thought he had simply disintegrated in the flames, but then he came at Tralit from another direction.

  “You missed, you big idiot!” Pete screamed.

  Tralit drew in breath again, and this time Valan knew none of them would escape. His eyes went to Maiten’s heart, so close, but it couldn’t hold his attention. He looked back and saw Vincent had Lomar and another child and was skimming toward the back of the hall with them.

  The child with them tripped. Vincent pulled the girl to her feet, and they skimmed again.

  Please, Valan thought and shifted.

  He turned back to Tralit. As a wolf, he ran at the dragon.

  He felt the heat of Tralit’s flames before they touched his fur. He turned and saw Pete, engulfed in flames swinging his sword one last time at the dragon. Rarick and Walden were engulfed.

  Unable to stop himself, Valan turned back to witness the fate of his son and saw Vincent and the two children disappear through a portal that appeared and disappeared like a giant eye opening and closing.

  Valan turned on the dragon ready to attack, but the world exploded in white light, and Valan lost all sense of himself.

  24

  The Lord of Damar

  Rain fell in a pleasant drizzle throughout Maiten’s hall.

  Vincent glanced back through the portal at Doran and the two children with her. They were cousins who said their names were Lomar and Seine. Doran spoke to them calmly, reassuring them. Their backs were to the portal and the destruction of Maiten’s Hall. He hadn’t been able to save any of the others.

  Vincent still wasn’t sure what had happened. He grabbed the two of them and tried to get them out of Maiten’s Hall to the other children he’d removed before Amir set off his explosion or the dragon killed them all, but he’d skimmed and landed in another place. Corsari had been there for a moment. She’d looked at him, then nodded and faded from view, leaving him in that strange place with Doran and her terrifying shadows.

  He’d demanded that Doran let him go back for the others, he needed to get the other children out, he needed to make sure the children he’d already saved were far enough away from the blast, but she glanced at the children and shook her head minutely. Vincent had understood and not asked again. Instead, he’d screamed and shouted obscenities at the darkness around them like a man on the edge of sanity.

  The two children had retreated to the edge of the strange platform where they found themselves. They’d sat whispering to each other and holding hands.

  When he’d calmed down, or worn himself out, Vincent wasn’t sure which, he’d wanted to ask Doran how she was, but something in her eyes stopped him. He knew how she was and that talking about it wasn’t going to help, just like screaming at the abyss wouldn’t help. He’d said only, “I want to go back as soon as I can.”

  The walls and the ceiling of Maiten’s Hall had all fallen. Piles of rubble smoldered and hissed in the rain. The last time he’d seen the sky it had been a clear blue, but then he’d been a thousand miles away in Turintar. The sky above Ardel was streaked with gray.

  Vincent studied his surroundings, knowing he wouldn’t find what he looked for, but determined to look anyway.

  Twisted, burned bodies were scattered around the ruins. Most were men and women, their features burned beyond recognition, their poses trapped in their horrific final moments. Dimin were among the dead. Their pale skin ugly in the daylight, their white wings dirty and tragic. One of the dimin had died with four of Ulri’s bondsan tightly packed around it and he wondered again at their silent bravery and determination.

  Father taught them well, Vincent thought cynically.

  The stone statue of Maiten was on its side, broken in two from shoulder to shoulder. Maiten’s spear and the hand that held it, now snapped off at the wrist, remained upright.

  Rarick’s throne had been smashed. Next to the remains of that throne, a naked, broad-backed man worked on something that Vincent couldn’t see.

  Tralit. He survived.

  Vincent stepped back to avoid the dragon, but his feet shifted rubble, and Tralit turned to face him. As he turned, Vincent saw what the dragon worked on. In his right hand, he held a string of six fire-blackened skulls. Rarick’s headless corpse lie among the ruins of his throne. Vincent closed his eyes and breathed deep.

  When he opened his eyes again, Tralit was tying the final knot in his cord.

  “Who are you?” Tralit demanded.

  “Nobody,” Vincent managed through his fear.

  Tralit looked off to one side, then back at Vincent. He grunted, but he seemed satisfied. He nodded toward the broken statue, and said, “It’s there. If you wish to remain nobody, piss on it and leave.”

  Tralit shifted then. One instant he was a man, the next he returned to the terrifying form Vincent had first seen him occupy. Black wings beat and carried Tralit from the ruins. Stone blocks fell to the ground as the dragon past them.

  Nothing moved for a long time. Vincent scanned the wreckage and slowly became aware of the smell and tried to breathe through his mouth. Eventually, he approached the last place he’d seen Pete. He realized that was the spot Tralit had looked at when they spoke.

  He recognized me.

&nb
sp; The body was charred, and it looked smaller than Vincent thought it should. Vincent struggled for some gesture even though he knew Pete would mock him for it.

  “See you in the next life,” Vincent said.

  Curious about Tralit’s parting remark, Vincent wandered across to the throne and the broken statue. As he got closer, he felt the excitement in his chest. His heart beat hard, and his fingers tingled. He felt observed and knew exactly what he would find and where it was before he even saw it.

  Rhysin had offered Vincent peace from the demons of his past. Maiten offered him power. Visions of cities in flames and people on their knees came to Vincent. He squeezed his eyes shut against them and breathed deeply until the visions faded.

  I am not my father. The mantra now had an unexpected calming effect.

  When he opened his eyes again, Vincent glanced at the sky and decided to take Tralit’s advice, though he doubted the dragon had meant it quite so literally. Vincent unzipped his fly and pissed on Maiten’s heart. The stone and bracelet hissed, and the stone glowed brightly in silent protest, but Vincent laughed hysterically and wondered if he were the only person in history to piss on a God’s heart.

  Stones slid and knocked into each other as somebody clambered up a pile of rubble. Amir, his face clean of dust and soot, looked back at Vincent.

  “Are you sure you want it?” Vincent asked.

  “Maiten calls me,” Amir said.

  Vincent felt like saying, Me too, but he let it pass.

  “You brought Walden here?” Vincent asked.

  “As I promised I would,” Amir said.

  Vincent touched the hilt of his sword as he thought about killing Amir, but in the end, he realized Valan was right, though he hated admitting it. Walden had died because he wanted Maiten’s heart and he’d been prepared to kill for it. It was simple.

  He’s better off dead, Vincent thought, then smiled. “It’s yours.” To himself he added, Let that be your punishment.

  Vincent advanced on Amir, and neither man showed any sign of backing down. As Vincent approached he said, “All hail Amir Chi’Maiten Chosen, Emperor of Rubble, and Lord of Urine.”

  Vincent kept walking and didn’t turn to witness the man claim his ascension.

  He passed a body that stared sightlessly at the sky. Covered in fallen debris, burned in places and blackened from soot and ash, part of its jaw was missing, but there was enough of the face and ruffled blond hair left, that Vincent recognized Valan. Before walking away from the ruined citadel and the Gods and their pathetic servants and their games, he told the body, “Good.”

  25

  Sins of the Father

  493rd year of the True Gods

  2 years after the Cleansing

  Vincent stood in front of the door for long minutes, asking himself, Why am I here?

  But he knew why. When he’d left Peak City with Lord Obdurin and Obdurin’s killers the year before, himself one of the killers, he hadn’t had a chance to return to his old home and collect his things. He hadn’t known that he’d tell Obdurin he would never return to Peak City.

  It didn’t matter that Vincent hadn’t been through that door in the two years since the Cleansing. As long as he’d stayed in Peak City, he’d known he could go through that door anytime he wanted. He hadn’t because he wasn’t ready to be surrounded by the memories of his life between the time of his father’s death and the Cleansing.

  Six years. It wasn’t enough.

  Some people, he knew, were lucky enough to live their entire lives behind doors like this one.

  He squeezed his hands into fists and leaned against it, eyes closed, and his forehead pressed against the cold, white painted surface.

  Grace only had three years.

  Thoughts of his daughter forced him into action. He placed his right hand on the scanner next to the door. The panel glowed blue for an instant, and then the lock clicked.

  The door was no different to a dozen others that lined this corridor, or the fifteen corridors above and below this one. Every one of the apartments beyond those doors had the same configuration with the only variations in design dictated by the structure that enclosed them, only the way their occupants populated those apartments with possessions and memories was any different. Vincent remembered telling Grace their apartment was the middle apartment on the middle floor, it was at the very center of the building. It was his attempt at making her feel special among a sea of occupants in this tower of high-density living.

  Vincent smiled. She hadn’t needed it. Grace had a way of making everything special without his clumsy attempts.

  The lock clicked again as the time to enter elapsed.

  Vincent blew out his breath and put his hand back on the scanner. This time he entered the room on the first click, and he was overwhelmed by the life he’d lived here with his wife and daughter. He stood in the doorway, assaulted by memories. Before Grace, it had just been him and Kilara. He thought they’d be happy forever, but after Grace’s birth, Kilara had changed in a way that Vincent couldn’t understand. They’d still been happy, but there was an unwanted distance between them.

  He remembered her standing in the kitchen alcove, telling him, You only see Grace now. It’s like I’m not here anymore.

  She’d retracted it instantly, but it had stayed with Vincent, and he thought perhaps it was true. He was so determined to be a real father to his daughter that it eclipsed almost everything else.

  He dropped his pack by the door. It contained all of the possessions that he wasn’t wearing on himself, an AI, a stash of nutri-vials, a paper journal and pen he’d found in Varde when he’d traveled through Charoon.

  Vincent stepped all the way into the apartment and let the door close behind him. A canary yellow tomyton slid into view, still cleaning three years after anybody had last stepped foot in the apartment. Vincent walked to the machine and turned it off.

  With those steps taken, it got easier, and he went to Grace’s room. Her bed was neatly made with her toys arrayed on her pillow. There was a small disc AI on the shelf above the headboard. Vincent tapped it once, and a hologram of Grace bubbled up into life. The device came with a selection of colorful characters, and Grace had given each of them a turn but eventually tired of them and recorded her own greeting and prompt.

  Hologram Grace asked, “‘Sup?”

  With a lump in his throat, he tapped the device again to deactivate it and slid it into his pocket. He’d watch Grace’s entries later.

  The lock on the door in the main room clicked, and he heard the door open and close for the second time in three years.

  Vincent drew his laser-cutter and crossed to Grace’s door to listen. He hadn’t seen any vultures when he entered the tower, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t somebody somewhere remote monitoring this building and others on the look out for unwary travelers.

  A familiar voice carried from the main room. “Thank you, Gordon. I will be fine. Please wait outside for a moment.”

  Vincent holstered the laser-cutter and left his daughter’s room with one final look around, knowing he’d never come back again.

  In the main room, he told Lord Obdurin, “I’m not staying long.”

  Rhysin’s heart drew Vincent’s eyes, but he resisted the pull and studied Obdurin’s face. In his peripheral vision, he saw slate-skinned Sunder.

  “This was your home for a long time. You are welcome to stay for as long as you want to,” Obdurin said.

  Vincent wondered if Obdurin meant in this apartment or Peak City, but he didn’t ask, it didn’t matter either way. “I’m free to leave?”

  “Of course,” Obdurin said.

  “Then why the bodyguard?” Vincent nodded at Sunder who blocked the door, his massive arms hanging by his side. The yellow bands of color that circled Sunder’s biceps looked brighter than Vincent remembered.

  “They tell me I’m a God’s Chosen and that I rule all of Rhyne, but anytime I try to go anywhere or do anything there is an army o
f people who get in my way or insist on accompanying me like I’m a child who can’t be trusted and needs watching.”

  “Why Sunder?” Vincent asked.

  Obdurin glanced back at the dimin in surprise. “Why not?”

  Vincent watched Obdurin and wondered, Does he know? The Chosen’s question seemed genuine enough.

  “My father was very specific about the names he gave his dimin,” Vincent said. “Sunder and Thwart were still young when Benshi died, and you became their master, but there was already a pattern to their personalities, and he picked it right.”

  He doesn’t know, Vincent realized when Obdurin’s eyes narrowed.

  “It would be better if none of your dimin were with you, but of all the dimin you could have brought, Sunder is the least reassuring.”

  “My choice of companion has no bearing on my state of mind,” Obdurin said.

  “Perhaps it was Rhysin’s decision then,” Vincent didn’t mean it as a question.

  There was silence for a moment. Obdurin finally broke it, “I never thanked you.”

  Vincent didn’t let him finish. “How did you know I was here?”

  “Nobody enters my city without my knowledge.”

  Vincent nodded. Obdurin stood in the center of the main room. Behind him, Sunder still blocked the doorway.

  “I am pleased you were not tempted to claim Maiten’s heart.”

  Vincent thought back to that moment in the ruins of Maiten’s Hall when he’d seen Maiten’s heart among the rubble and almost laughed. He said only, “There was no temptation.”

  Obdurin nodded, but it was clear he didn’t understand.

  “I have everything I came for,” Vincent said and started for the door. Sunder didn’t move.

  “I have to ask you something before you go,” Obdurin said.

  “I paid my debt to you. We’re square,” Vincent said.

  “We are,” Obdurin agreed.

  Vincent stopped. “I won’t stay. After Turintar I can’t believe you’d want me to.”