Chapter XXXIII
The Shadow Gate
In which they fight Artostes
As soon as Edana stepped through the barrier the reek of brimstone and death assaulted her nose. The crimson miasma roiled over her, blinding her for a frantic heartbeat. She stumbled, catching her footing just in time as she slipped on a puddle of what she assumed was blood. Something hot, wet, and mushy stuck hard on the soles of her boots. While the miasma almost completely obscured the floor, a few patches allowed glimpses of blood and the shredded remains of what might have once been men.
By strength of will Edana kept the contents of her stomach—the stench was no worse than what she’d endured before, starting with the massacre of her caravan.
She looked up.
Her breath left her then.
The paradox being facing them now was not like Murena, in that his legs weren’t eels. His head, which was that of a man’s, brushed the ceiling. His countenance promised death with every glance of his maggot-colored eyes. Like a man, he had a broad, barrel chest. In powerful hands he wielded swords of bone-cutting sharpness. His similarity to men ended there: below the waist, he seamlessly transitioned to the pus-colored body and stinger of a deathstalker scorpion, colossal in scale.
With every turn he lashed the floor with his stinger, boring holes in his attempts to pin down anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way. He dominated the room, covering most of the gate seals. Behind him, noxious red mists wind poured out of an archway in the walls.
“A scorpion man,” Edana whispered.
Lore scrolls in Lady Nensela’s library told of scorpion men, the formidable guardians of the nekromanteion. As a scorpion man, the foe before them now possessed a singular advantage: the ability to stand upon the gate seals and cross them with impunity.
Nothing Edana read of them said the scorpion men were inherently hostile—they were supposed to be neutral, and didn’t attack anyone who wasn’t trying to unlawfully enter the shadow gates. Just how many creatures had Rahqu suborned?
Having sheltered behind the captains of the Watch, Edana came to an abrupt halt when Captain Darasha exclaimed, “By the gods! That’s Artostes! That scorpion bastard is Artostes!” He pointed his sword at the scorpion man.
“The leader of our war council? That Artostes? By Khratu, who is leading our people?” Captain Jahan sounded both dismayed and furious all at once.
Standing still made Edana twitch in apprehension; the miasma hid too much. Then, from the corner of her eye she glimpsed a wriggling mass silhouetted in the red mist. Her entire body recoiled in reflexive disgust before a bolt of alarm shot through.
“Drakaina!” Edana warned.
Just in time, as the snake-haired serpent woman burst through the mist, adroitly slithering around Artostes and barreling straight toward them.
Instinctively Edana leapt back, nearly missing Tregarde as he rushed past her.
A shimmering haze of silver swooshed up, from floor to ceiling, in a semicircle in front of the doorway where everyone clustered. But in the center of the circle, a thin handspan of an opening left them vulnerable, to the mist in particular.
Before Edana could cry out in warning, Tregarde’s purpose became clear: the drakaina tried to slither her way through the opening, and got a spear through the neck for her trouble. The watchmen, with their long spears, were allotted that opening to guard.
Narsai swiped up one of the fallen drakaina’s swords, using it to clear a path through the rabisu as he extended Tregarde’s barrier rightward. Lightning flashed as Edana used her thunder mace against a rabisu hurling itself toward him.
The alû were surging forth from the open gate behind Artostes, swarming around the scorpion man. Edana slashed the air with the moonbow-steel knife in her left hand.
“By the Speaker! To the Serpent with you,” she screamed. White filaments shot from her knife, lancing through the barrier’s opening to the nearest of the alû.
At the far side of the room, beyond Artostes, Edana glimpsed Khorshid. He sheltered with several others in the doorway of a secondary entrance to the gate room. No sorcerers stood amongst them—it was their bodies she tripped over near the bronze doors.
Tregarde and Alia arced left, making steady progress towards Khorshid’s group. Once complete, Tregarde’s barrier would enclose the monsters occupying the gate seals, leaving only the sliver of an entrance he’d left for the drakaina.
Silently, Edana cheered the shield’s progress. But she wasn’t the only one who understood what Tregarde was up to: Artostes quit his revolutions. He lunged, aiming for Tregarde. Alia, guarding Tregarde’s flank, leapt back, taking the sorcerer with her. Artostes impaled the floor where they had stood not a heartbeat before. With a feral laugh, Alia whirled forward. The scorpion man skittered back, leaving the point of his stinger behind; learning too late that Alia was fast with her knives.
Artostes screamed. Sickly effluent gushed from his tail, burning the ground where the droplets landed.
As one, the Salamandra gathered around Khorshid hurled fire at Artostes, and Alia uttered a blessing, changing the fire from blue to white. The holy fire drove the scorpion man back to the death-wind gate. Any of the monsters between him and them were destroyed instantly. His body dissolved, back to the smoke form Zephyra had said he’d taken when she slew him. The Salamandra broke off their attack, having no means to affect him in this state.
Without Artostes in the way, Edana could now see the shadow gates. Mercifully, all of them were shut, except the one from which the death wind billowed forth. Through the mists, eyes glinted and teeth glistened.
“Come!”
It was Alia, gesturing wildly at Edana and Narsai from the opposite side of the room. The alû were dashing themselves against the shield. Narsai, having extended the barrier all the way to the right of the open gate, unleashed his amulet again. Edana hastened to obey. Running left, she held her knife straight out at her right, where it penetrated through the barrier. Each alû she sliced flew backward, into the maw of the shadow gate.
Ahead, the watchmen held their own against the arsh’atûm, pushing them back with their spears. She dashed behind them, Narsai hot on her heels. Suddenly Alia was before her, and green lightning clashed with violet as the huntress once more joined her amulet with Narsai’s. Those alû who were fast enough retreated beyond the shadow gate. The others met their end.
A new barrier began to shimmer, this time in front of the shadow gate itself.
Then it happened.
From the bowels of the shadow gate a titanic claw shot forth, bursting through the gate and into the midst of the gate room. Long, gnarled fingers uncurled from a fist, exposing the palm of the claw. A gale of wind poured out from the palm. Shadow-Artostes dissolved into it, vanishing into the claw as if he’d never been there.
The claws closed again, making a fist of the palm once more. A fist too large to fit through the archway of the death-wind gate. Though Edana braced for it, she still swayed on her feet when the force of the fist slammed into the archway.
Cracks and gashes appeared in the supports of the archway. Allowing one more horror to enter the fray.
The newest arsh’atûm looked like a man, or like something that had once been a man. Its sickly green skin, withered cheeks and eyeless face was the first hint of its nature. On its body, once-sumptuous clothes—a silk surcoat and trousers—now flapped about him, tattered and decayed. Eyeless, the man nevertheless turned its head this way and that as though it could see them. The creature’s cadaverous hands stretched out before it. With every blink of their eyes the group saw his nails grow and grow, until it sported foot-long fingernails which curved inward, like a cat’s claws.
What was that?
Alia and Khorshid exclaimed as one, calling out the name jiangshi. Then, Alia shouted something else that Edana managed to catch above the maelstrom. Hearing it, her blood ran cold.
Soul thief.
----------------------------------------
Bessa’s heart was in her mouth. She ran to the shield barring the antechamber from the gate room, but did not step through it. Her upbringing left her too well-schooled in honoring her duties for her to give in to her impulses now. But something had to give, and that something was the dam that kept her grief in check.
She let out a loud keening, overcome at last.
Despair brought her to her knees. Sinking onto the hard floor, she took no notice of anything else around her. Even her sight dimmed as the world went black. Visions came to her then, of Edana dead, of herself having to live without her sister. She pounded the floor, putting all of her rage into it as her keening turned to sobbing.
The first time Edana left her, when they were children, Bessa at least had the comfort of imagining a reunion. This time…this time no comfort availed itself to her. All she could imagine now was a bleak future without her best friend by her side. And she could do nothing at all to help her. So she wept, her body racked and aching.
How long she wept she would never know. Little by little voices penetrated, until Sheridan’s sharp question pierced through her fog of sorrow.
“…Don’t you have anything we can do?”
Bessa’s ears perked up. Was there anything? She wiped her eyes, prepared to do anything Zephyra might suggest.
But Zephyra only shrugged and muttered something. In an instant Bessa was on her feet again. She hurled herself at the Handmaiden, knocking the woman flat on her back. Bessa straddled her, pinning her to the floor.
The faces of her dead came back to her. Slaughtered when they should have been safe in her beds. Running in terror for their lives from beings who should only have existed in nightmares. Dead because it suited Zephyra’s plans.
And now Edana may die for the same reason.
And Zephyra had the nerve to shrug? To react with indifference to their plight? As if the deaths of all these people meant nothing?
With all her might, all her rage, and all her grief, Bessa brought down her hand, slapping Zephyra hard across her face.
The blow must have stunned Zephyra, for her eyes went flat. Which allowed Bessa to get in another slap. Then a punch. In High Siluran and Low Bessa called curses down upon her.
Whether she was still dazed or not, Zephyra raised her hands in front of her face, but she was no match for Bessa’s fury.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
In a blur Bessa found herself upright again, her feet off the ground and her arms held fast behind her back. She kicked violently, managing to connect with Zephyra’s knee.
Freed now, Zephyra scrambled back, out of reach of Bessa’s kickspan. Only when Bessa found herself facing a tapestry did it finally dawn on her that Sheridan had pulled her back. His voice came to her from far away.
“…Optima Philomelos…You need to get a hold of yourself,” he was saying, his voice low in her ear. “It’s just two of us against her. I will need your help.”
Her breathing slowed. She choked back a sob, and the thunder in her ears quieted as her blood slowed again. Spent, she relaxed against Sheridan. After a moment his iron grip on her eased slightly, and he lowered her so that her feet touched the floor. Only then did he shift his grip so he pinned her arms at her sides instead of behind her back.
Calmly, Bessa turned to face Zephyra, who was only just beginning to sit up. Gingerly, Zephyra touched her lips, probing the cut Bessa made with her signet ring. She eyed Bessa warily, but said nothing. Slowly, she rose to her feet. Gone now was any trace of arrogance. If anything, she looked thoroughly chastened.
It occurred to Bessa that in Zephyra’s life no one had meted out corporal punishment to her; doubtless everyone she knew treated her with deference and paid her obeisance.
Well, those days were over.
Darkly amused, Bessa swallowed her anger as she came back to herself at last.
“They’re dying in there. Because of you,” Bessa spat. “Good men and women and children on my estate died because of your damned Atta’u. Because you sent them to kill my family. And now my sister—” she broke off, feeling her pulse rise again.
A memory bubbled up, of her and Edana when they were still small, playing catch-or-run among the rows of grapes in Bessa’s vineyard.
No. No. Now was not the time to let herself give in to fury or sorrow. Focus!
With a hard stare she looked Zephyra over, taking her measure. The so-called Handmaiden looked enough like Lady Nensela that Bessa could not help but think the resemblance a dishonorable mockery. She could not stop herself from saying it aloud, either.
“You’re nothing like your mother.”
Zephyra flinched. “My mother lives? But I thought—” Whatever she might have said, she reconsidered. Instead, she drew herself up to her full height, looking for just a moment as regal as Lady Nensela ever had.
But with none of the seer’s warmth, her spark of humanity. Just a cold formality, from a woman who had been accustomed to being treated with reverence.
In her heart, Bessa fervently desired to strike Zephyra again. However, Sheridan still kept a hand on Bessa’s arm.
“Let me go, Sheridan. Don’t worry. I won’t kill her. I’ll even keep my hands to myself.”
Sheridan stirred, but did not let go of her just yet. “We need to leave,” he insisted. “Ironwing is not going to let us down. If she dies closing that gate, we can’t let it be for nothing.”
“Go? We’ll have to trust her to guide us. I will trust her to do nothing. She was raised by a fellshade.”
Again Zephyra flinched.
“Optima,” Sheridan began, “we still need to get out of here, regardless. And if Selàna or Zephyra or whoever she is leads us into a trap, we will kill her before we die.” The young man put such steel in his voice that Bessa shivered.
Apparently Zephyra felt it, too, for she clasped her arms about herself as if bracing against a chill. “Optima …? I can swear by nothing you or I would believe in. But I…I do want to know about my family. And you are the only one left, it seems, who knows anything about them. You keep calling me ‘Selàna.’ If that is my name, then you know more about me than I do.”
In ordinary times Bessa would have felt compassion for such a plight. But unrelenting rage was also not her nature, and thus Bessa checked a spiteful reply from passing her lips. Instead she took a deep breath.
“Does it mean anything to you that those people in there are risking their lives? Anything at all?” Bessa searched the other woman’s face, looking for some sign that even a vestigial conscience resided in her depths.
But though she was no longer stunned, Zephyra’s hazel eyes remained flat. Cold. Was she even human? Or was she truly an eidolon? Sweet Amyntas, let it not be so!
When Zephyra spoke her words were careful, measured, a hint of her mother’s cadences.
“It means a great deal to me that two whose deaths I diligently sought are giving their lives to protect mine. I no longer wish to kill any of you, Bessa Philomelos. Nor will I rejoice if Edana or Alia should die.” She raised her hands, which were still cuffed, and reached into her bodice. From it she drew out a long knife, sheathed in an elegant violet shagreen and embroidered in a filigree of red-violet hepatizon.
Bessa started and Sheridan moved. Quick as lightning, Sheridan whirled Bessa behind himself. He pointed his pistol at Zephyra, and his hand did not shake or tremble as he took aim.
Gracefully, Zephyra dropped to her knees. She set the knife down upon the floor, then rose up again to face them. “In the hour when I hunted Alia Ironwing I was visited by the Sending of a woman. She told me I would live if I lay down my weapon. It was my father’s—it was the protector’s gift to me.” A curious edge came into her voice just then. “He said it was a gift from the goddess. A gift from Rahqu.”
From behind Sheridan Bessa peered at the woman. Did she say—? Did it mean—?
Lady Nensela.
Oh, it had to be. A thrill rippled through Bessa. Perhaps the reason Lady Nensela had not awakened was because she was projecting herself elsewhere, seeking the daughter she once prophesied would save them all.
If it were so … if it were so, then it was the first tether of hope Bessa had to latch onto.
No. Right now, she had to see what was in front of her. And right now, Zephyra was stepping away from the knife. Of her own volition she had disarmed herself, revealing a hidden weapon they had not suspected her of carrying.
Zephyra was asking them to trust her.
Which Bessa could not do.
Sentimental though she was, Bessa could not bring herself to assume that the wicked woman carrying Lady Nensela’s blood in her veins must be a good person, ‘deep down.’ To judge Zephyra she must take into account Zephyra’s past actions.
And those actions had been guided and shaped by fellshades, their servant, and the spirit of deception allied to them.
But Lady Nensela had foreseen this moment. And in doing so, she must have trusted that Bessa would be true to herself.
So.
Maybe Zephyra had been schooled well enough in deception to feign the appearance of surrender and contrition. Or maybe, free from the influence of Rahqu and her minions, Zephyra was reassessing what she thought she knew.
The priests in Aletheia’s temple would know. More to the point, if Zephyra drank the waters in Aletheia’s sacred grotto, she would remember. She would remember the truth about herself.
In her mind a plan took shape. Bessa stepped from around Sheridan. Before she could speak the sight of the dagger arrested her attention. So beautifully wrought it practically begged her to take it for a spoil.
Instinct told her to reject the temptation. From what Lady Nensela had reported, Halie had destroyed every part of the Red Daggers’ base. The demigoddess further refused to allow the Star Dragons to take anything belonging to the band of outlaws. And all because Murena had trod in their halls.
There was peril in that knife.
From Sheridan’s pack peeked the box they had taken from Zephyra. Like the knife, the box was also covered in shagreen, this one teal, and bossed with gold. The lock upon it reminded her of Edana’s description of Duke Gagnon’s asrai lock. This one; however, was made of polished jet instead of jade, and cut with an intricate carving.
“What is in that?” Bessa lifted the box out of Sheridan’s pack and waved it for emphasis.
“The dryads’ seeds, which give us the way to the sacred tree. The tree the simurghs guard.”
Bessa exchanged a glance with Sheridan. He lowered his gun, but still kept a sharp eye on Zephyra.
The simurghs guarded the Tree of Life.
The Restorer’s tree.
“What were you planning to do to the tree?” Sheridan demanded. “You were poisoning the springs of the naiads and the groves of the dryads. You were going to destroy the tree, weren’t you?”
“It was going to be turned to a different purpose…Amavand had vowed he would find it for the Grea—for Rahqu. He charged me with doing it,” she replied.
“The tree that cures all sickness and evils,” Sheridan said woodenly, “was going to be turned to a different purpose.”
Zephyra put her fingertips to her temples, as if she had a headache. Her body sagged. When she spoke, she sounded exhausted. “Again, I understood the works of the False—the ones I was told were the False Ones—to be corruptions. Now hurry. We can leave if we go back the way we came. All we have to do is go down the steps, the path we did not take.”
Bessa looked back at the barrier to the gate room. Still it shimmered, and no evil shapes had charged it since Edana and the others had gone into the Gate Room.
“May your Speaker keep and guard you,” she whispered, her heart heavy once again.
----------------------------------------
With Sheridan’s gun at her back, Zephyra led them out of the tunnels. Bemused at the weapon, Zephyra had looked at it with her eyebrows furrowed, and Bessa privately supposed Zephyra had never seen a demonstration of its power before. For such reason—well, for one such reason—Bessa kept her thunder mace unsheathed. Thanks to Alia, Zephyra definitely eyed that with undisguised respect.
Crisp air hit Bessa’s cheeks when they stepped outside, shocking her to an alertness she hadn’t realized she’d lacked before. Greedily she gulped in the fresh air, reveling in the cleanness and the weightlessness of it compared to the stifling oppression of the citadel.
She glanced up and down the street, searching for some landmark she could use. Like a beacon Aletheia’s stele, shone brightly against the now-darkening sky. The magnificent structure must be at least a good mile from the dusky street where they’d emerged.
One mile to go.
Cautiously, Bessa looked around for signs of arsh’atûm. However, it turned out Zephyra had brought them to a dead-end street. A blessedly empty dead-end street, for now. Yet if something did lurk near, they would be trapped. Her neck prickled and she shuddered. Once again she looked to Aletheia’s stele. One mile. Just one mile.
Zephyra was already starting forward, and she moved swiftly.
“I know this route,” she said. “I came this way the other day.”
“When you were going to kill Gira?” Sheridan asked.
The lithe young man kept pace with Zephyra, despite her speed. Deliberately, Bessa brought up the rear.
“Yes. That recently,” Zephyra calmly agreed. “In that time I had to evade attention from people. Now we have to hurry. I want your scryers to show us the battle. It may be that there’s something I can do, after all.”
Bessa arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. What could Zephyra possibly do? And from out here? Without her powers?
They turned a corner, and Zephyra jerked back. “Someone’s coming,” she said, putting a finger to her lips.
Sheridan pulled her back, alongside Bessa. In turn Bessa pivoted on her heel so she was facing Zephyra. Coldly she kept her thunder mace pointed at Zephyra, just in case. Sheridan eased ahead of Zephyra, and peered around the corner.
“It’s the watchmen,” he said, and turned back to them. “We’re over here!”
The watchmen shouted greetings in turn. In his odd Lyrcanian accent Sheridan spoke to the guards in Pelasgian, and they answered using the same language. This was how she learned that the watchmen had been sent to retrieve them.
“We apprehended the others who came out already; Lord Fravak saw them through his scrying pool. We had hoped to see more of you, though,” said one of the watchmen, coming into Bessa’s view now. “Come quickly. We’re monitoring the battle.”
Eagerly Bessa stepped forward to obey. And stopped in her tracks, as the men instantly pointed t heir swords at Zephyra. They looked her over, their gazes cold and calculating.
“She’s the one who sent the strix and lamia after our children?”
Profound hatred radiated from his entire body. Even his voice dripped with hatred. And Bessa couldn’t blame him, but she had to find a way to defuse the situation before everything fell apart.
“I did not send them,” Zephyra said quickly. “And the one who did I slew with my own hands. I am their prisoner.” She jerked her head at Bessa and Sheridan.
“And you’re not a threat to us? Is that it?” the watchman demanded, his hand on his sword.
“I did not say that,” Zephyra carefully replied. “What I can only say is that I have no intention of harming you. Accept that or not, but I am not yours to kill.”
Bessa grit her teeth. Did this woman not understand herself to be defeated? Clearly, Alia should not have told her they wouldn’t kill her. If Zephyra believed she would get away with her wicked crimes, she would become a problem later. And—what did she mean by agreeing she was a threat?
Bessa’s gaze strayed to Zephyra’s cuffs. According to Edana, the cuffs bound Zephyra to the natural world. This alone barred her from entering Erebossa, as her powers were a kind of death magic. The Eitanim worshiped the Sower, and Uncle Min’da had convinced her their power was stronger than Zephyra’s: the cuffs should, by extension, bind her from committing any other death spells.
“She can ride with me,” Bessa said, trying to hide her impatience.
The watchmen had ridden horses. At Bessa’s command, they helped Zephyra onto one of the horses first. Then Bessa mounted, once again putting her thunder mace in Zephyra’s back.
“Lead the way, please, and double time if you will,” Bessa said.
They needed to regroup, and fast.