Lord of Souls

NINE

When Attrebus plunged Umbra into the ingenium, Sul heard the Universe scream. The tortured cry rang from every surface, from the air itself, from Vuhon’s gaping mouth. A tongue of white blaze licked out from the ingenium and struck his old enemy, and his body twisted, deformed, grew blacker, hunched, feral.

“Umbra,” Sul said.

“Umbriel,” the creature snarled, slumping toward him. The flame had thinned, but remained, like a tether. “Why?”

“This has nothing to do with you. It was about Vuhon.”

“I can cleanse myself of him. I can make you powerful, more powerful than we were. We can still escape Vile.”

“No,” Sul replied. “I’m done with this.”

“You are not,” the thing snapped, leaping forward. Sul felt fingers as hard as steel close on his windpipe. He struck into Umbriel’s throat, but the creature only squeezed harder.

But then Umbra vented one last howl, and the grip softened. The flame snaked back away from his body and into the ingenium as the body went limp.

Sul pushed it off him, coughing, sucking air into his lungs.

Below, Attrebus was starting to glow and was beginning to distort. Sul glanced at his enemy, which looked like Vuhon again. His chest was still rising and falling. Sul’s hand went to his knife, but he didn’t draw it. Instead he jumped down to join Attrebus.

“It’s working,” Attrebus said. But it wasn’t his voice, and the eyes staring out at Sul were the strange eyes of Clavicus Vile.

“Let him go,” Sul snapped. “You’re destroying him.”

“He made the sacrifice,” Vile said. “You, I think, knew what the price would be.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be him.”

“Well, things don’t always work out as we plan,” the daedra said. “In coming here, I lifted the restraints around this place. A deal is a deal-you’re free to go.”

Sul balled his fist and swung, but Attrebus-or the thing wearing him-was fast. It whipped Umbra out of the ingenium and stabbed him, just under the sternum. It knocked all the wind out of him, and his legs and arms went loose, so he just hung on the blade.

Sul turned into himself then, searching for the fury that had driven him for forty years, remembering Ilzheven, the ruins of Morrowind, years of torture and hardship.

He felt his heart stop, and opened his eyes, staring at his killer, at Attrebus. It was then that he found what he needed, and it wasn’t anger, or hatred.

As if in a dream, he reached out and grabbed the hilt of Umbra and pulled himself up the blade, and with everything left in him he struck Attrebus in the jaw.

Attrebus fell back, releasing the weapon. Sul saw his gaze return to puzzled normalcy.

“It’s okay,” he told the boy. Then he took one step, fell against the glowing orb, and let go of everything. Light filled him, and coarse, mocking laughter-but then he was gone.

For Attrebus, it was like waking from one nightmare into another. Sul slumped against the sphere, and he and the sword seemed to melt together into a dark smoke with a heart of lightning.

“Sul!”

“You can’t help him now,” a weary voice said.

He looked up and saw Vuhon gazing down at him. With a cry of fury, Attrebus clambered up the wall of cable and wire and stood over him.

“I can kill you, though,” Attrebus said. He reached for Flashing.

“You might,” Vuhon said. “And you might not. It would be a wasted effort. Vile will have me now no matter what. I can fight him-I had power before I met Umbra, and that he can’t take back-but I won’t last long. But maybe long enough.”

“Long enough for what?”

“For your friend there to save something of Umbriel,” Vuhon replied.

“I don’t understand.”

“Clavicus Vile will have the city now. Is that really what you want? He’ll probably just drain it and let it fall on the Imperial City, but knowing him, he may just play in your world for a while.” He nodded at Mere-Glim, who was standing up, wiping blood from his nose.

“The Argonian is a part of this place now. He has the power to remove it from this plane.”

“That’s what he said. He tried it and it didn’t work.”

“Because I became aware of him and stopped him. After all, I have been master of this place for decades.” He looked at Mere-Glim. “Do you feel it now?”

The Argonian nodded.

“Go, then,” Vuhon said. “The membrane will allow you to pass from this side as well.”

Then he turned to face the cloud, which was now twenty feet high and beginning to take on something like a human shape again. His face, so like Sul’s, was set in an expression of quiet determination.

“He’s right,” Glim said. “But we have to hurry.”

Annaig felt Umbriel shudder beneath her, and then she was suddenly falling. It lasted only an instant, but it was a terrifying one.

“What’s happening?” Fhena asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe they made it to the ingenium.”

“You mean maybe they’ve destroyed it? What does that mean?”

“Well, if the ingenium stops working, I imagine we’ll fall,” Annaig said.

“But then we’ll die.”

Annaig reached into her pocket and produced a small vial.

“There is a chance,” she said to Fhena. “If you drink this, you should be able to fly. We might dissolve into smoke, but it’s worth a try.”

“But what about Glim? And your other friends?”

“We’ll wait as long as we can,” Annaig said.

“But what about everyone else?” Fhena demanded.

“I don’t care about everyone else,” she replied. “Come on; let’s get above, so we can see what’s going on.”

They climbed up to where they could see Tamriel spread before them. She could see a lake, but the Imperial City wasn’t visible, so it must be beneath them.

Umbriel shuddered again.

They sat and waited, while Fhena wept.

Umbriel was trembling constantly by the time Attrebus and Mere-Glim reached the hiding place. They found the women outside, clinging to branches. Fhena rushed to Glim, sobbing, as a deeper convulsion quaked the tree. Attrebus found himself staring at Annaig, wondering what he was supposed to do. He felt as if he was watching everything through Coo now-the fight, Sul’s death, this meeting-all seen from a great distance. He didn’t seem to feel anything at all about any of it.

But Annaig strode purposefully across the shivering branch.

“Drink this,” she said. “At least we’ll have a chance.”

He took the vial numbly, glad he didn’t have to respond to anything more-emotional.

When Annaig reached Glim, he threw his arms around her and enveloped her in his familiar musk. Something burst in her then, and tears trickled on her cheeks as he stroked the back of her head.

“I’m so sorry, Glim,” she said. “About all of it.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “You know I love you.”

“Still?”

“Always.” He held her for a few more heartbeats and then pushed her gently back. “Vile lifted his striction. You’ll be able to leave this time.”

Annaig felt her heart pause.

“You mean we,” she corrected.

He shook his head. “I’m taking the trees home,” he said. “I’m going with them.”

“You can’t,” she said. “What will I…” She broke off and put her forehead against his scaly chest.

“What will I,” she repeated. “ I. But this is about you, isn’t it?”

“Finally, after all of these years, yes,” he replied. “I have people who need me. I have a place that wants me.”

“I understand,” she said. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”

“I’m glad,” he replied. “It makes it easier. Now, go. I have to do it now.”

She wiped her eyes and glanced over at Fhena.

“Take care of him,” she said. Then she drank the contents of her vial and turned to Attrebus.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“What do I do?” he asked.

She lifted her arm toward him and spread her fingers.

“Just hold my hand,” she said.

Colin thought of Anvil, where he had been born, of the docks and the autumn evenings, when the sun painted the sky red and gold and the waves seemed to murmur in a melancholy but somehow contented way.

He remembered the fingers of a five-year-old boy, fiddling with a little boat made of reeds. He’d put a lot of care into it, because he knew it had a long journey to make. He glanced down at the stream that wound through the willows toward the sea, but he knew the boat wasn’t ready yet, so he brushed the cracks with pine resin.

He remembered his grandmother placing those same little hands on the altar of the great chapel of Dibella.

“The gods are good,” she told him. “They came from an infinite place, but for us they limited themselves and became this world. They are everything we see and touch, everything we feel. And of them all, Dibella is most kind.” And she smiled so beautifully that he wondered if it was really his grandmother at all.

He woke on stairs, sticky with blood, laboring to breathe. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious; he hoped not long, because he didn’t have that much time left.

Doggedly, he dragged himself to his feet, leaned against the wall, and put one foot in front of the other. He felt oddly stronger, as if the prayer to Dibella had actually been answered in some small way, although he’d never had that talent.

But he knew soon enough he was either going to bleed to death or drown in his own blood.

Letine must have known or guessed where the stairs were-they hadn’t been on his map. He doubted it was a coincidence that the steps began at a hidden door in Hierem’s chambers; the minister must have been thinking about this moment for a long time. Colin guessed the secret stairway was hidden just below the much broader, higher staircase that led up from the Emperor’s quarters to the summit of the White-Gold Tower.

He moved slower now, but knew he couldn’t stop again.

He heard her before he saw her, or in fact saw any light at all. She was talking to herself, but he couldn’t make out the words. Presently he encountered a flat surface, and after a little searching found the catch that opened it.

He’d expected to be on the summit of the tower, but instead saw a large, low-ceilinged room. Signs and sigils were painted all over the floor, familiar to him from the diagram he’d seen in Hierem’s chambers. Fires of strange colors flickered on some, while arcane objects of various size were on others. Letine stood in the center of the room, what was probably the very axis of the tower. Beyond her, a long, broad window showed him a little sky but mostly a vast rocky surface that resembled a mountain-except it was moving, steadily growing in size.

“Come here,” she was saying.

“You mean to steal its power,” Colin said, on his knees on the floor.

Letine spun to face him, surprise evident on her face.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “I knew I should have…” She started to walk toward him, but seemed to think better of it.

“Should have finished me off,” he replied.

She shrugged. “I’m usually more efficient. I think I must have let my emotions cloud my judgment this time.”

“So you do love me,” Colin said with a rueful chuckle.

She took him seriously. “I might have,” she said, “under other conditions. But I know you would have tried to stop me.”

“Hierem tricked Umbriel, didn’t he? He planned to use all of this to siphon off the souls the city collects. And you used me to get it.”

“I didn’t know exactly what he was up to,” she said. “Not until a few days ago. Hierem imagined it would make him a god. I don’t know about that. But I do know I’ll have enough power to never be afraid again, to take what I want from this life, this world.” She looked out the window.

“It’s almost here, Colin. Once it happens, there is no need for you to die. I can fix your body.”

“Maybe,” he said, crawling forward on his hands and knees. “But the things I need fixed, you can’t do a thing about.”

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned.

“If you’re not right in the middle, it won’t work, will it?” he asked. “What if this isn’t right here?” He reached to move a crystal sphere with silvery wire wound about it.

Her eyes rolled back as she started to summon something.

He yanked the knife from his chest; blood from his wound gouted onto the floor. He sat back on his heels, cocked his arm, and threw.

Letine looked up at the ceiling and took a step back. He thought he’d missed, at first, but then she toppled back and he saw the hilt of the dagger standing from her eye.

He sat there, watching her for a moment. The air crackled, and rainbow colors flickered about the construct she lay in. He heard what might have been voices, calling from far away.

Outside, the rock face was so near he could almost touch it-then it seemed to turn sideways, before it vanished, leaving behind a boom like a thousand thunders at once.

“Attrebus,” he murmured. “Good for you.”

He managed to get to the window. It was solid, thick as stone, but transparent. He wondered idly if it was transparent from the other side as well, or if it appeared as stone.

He looked out across the city and Lake Rumare, to the green valley beyond, and watched it as his eyes dimmed.

He felt the breeze on his face, heard it sigh through the willows. He put his little boat in the stream and watched it carried away, and wondered where it would go, wishing he could be with it, share its adventures. He dipped his hands in the stream and took a breath that went on and on, filling him, at last, with peace.

They met up with what was left of the Twelfth Legion a few hours from sundown and pushed the wormies into the wall. They cleared the gate and set up positions to defend it from another siege.

Mazgar and Brennus found themselves on the western flank of the action, where little or no fighting was going on.

Umbriel was closer than Mazgar had ever seen it, blocking most of the sky, casting a shadow east that she couldn’t see the end of, the strange light of its soul-stealing filaments dominating her field of view. What would it feel like when she was beneath it? If she grabbed one of the things, would it pull her up? Had that been tried?

She heard a commotion off to the west, and Brennus swore. She started to ask what the matter was but then saw.

Wormies-thousands of them-were swarming from the west, pushing what remained of the cavalry before them. That wasn’t enough for the gods, apparently-more were pouring from the lake and from the east, as if every single one of them had been called to this one place on the wall.

“Why?” she grunted as they hastily tightened ranks.

“This is where Umbriel is crossing over,” Brennus said.

“So? There’s no gate here to breach.”

“Not yet,” Brennus said.

Mazgar growled, raised Blondie’s shield, and locked it with her companions on the left and right.

The wormies came at a dead-on run, in nothing resembling ranks. They reminded Mazgar of ants, converging on a bit of offal.

The first shock slid them back two yards, leaving a pile of the enemy like a low wall before them. But that didn’t deter the foe in the slightest; they scrambled up over each other and tried to run over the line, using the soldiers’ heads and shoulders as steppingstones. They needed spearmen, but those were mostly at the gate, where the main assault had been until moments ago.

Mazgar roared her battle cry and sent Sister chopping over her shield. Maggots and putrefaction spattered on her face; she could taste them on her tongue, and like a tide coming in, more and more of them rolled out of the water.

“The wall,” she heard Brennus gasp.

She had a second a moment later to spare a glance to see what he meant. Their left flank had collapsed, but instead of rolling up the line, the wormies were throwing themselves on the wall, building ladders with their bodies. Above, the sky was bright with eruptions and incandescences, making a strange semblance of daylight that revealed the rotting faces leering at her, making colored jewels of their filmed eyes.

Another wave of wormies hit, and they were pushed back almost to the wall itself, and more of them were ignoring her completely now as they tried to join their comrades in their insane climb.

The man on her right fell, and as four wormies poured into the gap, she felt a bright and terrible pain in her side. Howling, she swung her shield and decapitated one as she slung it off, then took Sister two-handed to slay other wormies.

Above, Umbriel passed over the wall, undeterred.

Brennus cried out and fell against her from behind. With a grunt she swept one arm back, found him, and retreated until his spine was against the wall. A semicircle of blue flame arced out around them, and she braced for the wormies to come through, but they didn’t. More likely they were just going around.

It was over.

Brennus lay against the stone, heaving ragged breaths. She saw his wound, and felt her heart go cold.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I’ve seen worse,” she replied.

“Right,” he coughed. “But I’ll bet this is good enough.”

“Brenn-”

“I know,” he said. “I know what you have to do.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“It’s been an honor,” he said. “I may have said some things…”

“You were right,” she said.

The look of surprise on his face almost made her laugh. “About what?”

“Children. I would have liked to have done that.”

“I hope you know it wasn’t a proposition,” he replied weakly.

“Yeah,” she said. The fire was starting to die. “I’ve gotta do it now.”

He nodded.

She raised Sister, fixed her gaze on Brenn’s throat.

Then the sky seemed to crack, and her ears popped before a wind from above slapped her to her knees.

Ears ringing, she fought back to her feet. Something had changed. She looked out over the ebbing flames and didn’t see any motion. Wormies were everywhere, piled against the wall as if blown there. But not a damn one of them was even so much as twitching.

She lowered her sword.

“What do you think happened?” she asked Brennus.

He didn’t answer, and when she realized he wasn’t ever going to, she slid down next to him and wept, unashamed, until the sun came up.