Lord of the White Hell book Two

Chapter Twenty five

Darkness pervaded. If a sky hung above him or ground stretched beneath him, Kiram could not see it. He felt Verano moving under him, but he couldn't hear the horse's hooves strike ground. Javier and Lunaluz blazed ahead of him and he chased that only source of light. Beside him Elezar and Nestor were dim figures, illuminated only by the white blaze Javier cast across them.

They rode ceaselessly but their surroundings never seemed to change. Kiram felt his legs going numb, but he didn't dare to slow for fear of losing sight of Javier. The ache of hunger ground at his belly and then dulled. Kiram clung to his reins, unsure how many hours had passed or even if they had stretched into days. His eyes burned and strange images flickered at the corners of his vision.

"Elezar," Nestor called suddenly. He was smiling into the darkness. "Look, it's Lady-dog! I think she's hurt. Here, girl!"

"Lady-dog is dead, Nestor." Elezar's gaze didn't leave Javier. "This place is full of devils. Don't be tricked."

But when Kiram glanced after a movement to his left, he could swear he saw his grandmother beckoning to him through the darkness. His heart ached at the thought of her all alone in this desolate place. He couldn't just leave her.

Suddenly a strong hand caught his reins and jerked Kiram back into the faint light. Kiram looked up to see Elezar leaning from his own mount.

"Don't look at them, damn it!" Elezar snarled.

Kiram's heart raced at the thought of what he'd nearly done. If he'd lost Javier's light he would never have found his way out of this place.

Elezar straightened and snapped his attention back onto Javier. Nestor rode close beside Elezar, looking frantic.

"Where are we?" Nestor asked.

"I think this is the Sorrowland," Elezar said.

Nestor looked suddenly very frightened and lifted one hand as if shielding himself from the view of the surrounding blackness.

"What's the Sorrowland?" Kiram asked.

Elezar glanced only briefly to Kiram. "The dead must cross the Sorrowland to reach heaven. It's filled with the regrets and losses of a lifetime. If they lure you into the darkness, your soul is lost for eternity."

Kiram frowned at the answer. He only half believed in much of his own religion, and he certainly didn't hold with any Cadeleonian beliefs. Still, Kiram couldn't deny that Elezar seemed to be right.

Memories of his grandmother, the warmth and comfort she had always offered him, haunted Kiram. He wished, not for the first time, that he'd been able to tell her how much he loved her before she'd died. He thought he could hear her crying but didn't dare to look out into the darkness again. He concentrated on Javier's straight back, desperately trying to ignore the ghostly images flickering at the edges of his vision.

Kiram pondered how it was possible that Elezar so easily maintained his focus on Javier. But then Kiram wondered if Javier was the single greatest loss in Elezar's life. Nothing in the surrounding darkness could inspire more desire or regret. Nothing else could feel as lost to him.

As for what Javier himself saw, Kiram had no idea. He prayed that is was nothing, that the light of the shajdi protected him, because of all of them he had known the most grief and suffered the deepest losses.

But Javier didn't waver from his path. He never slowed or called out into the surrounding black. He rode and they followed. And it seemed that their constant chase would never end. Kiram's entire body hurt from the pounding rhythm of riding. He didn't know how the horses could keep moving or how he could remain awake. Sometimes it seemed like the light radiating from Javier held them all in one endless motion and only its constancy kept them all from plunging into complete oblivion.

Then suddenly a dusky sky broke overhead and the horses' hooves clattered against cobblestones. Kiram blinked at the evening stars and the moon as if he were looking at a blazing sun. He'd grown so used to pitch blackness that twilight seemed bright, almost luminous.

Glancing again to the moon, Kiram realized that it was now full, which meant that nearly three days had passed since they had entered the archway. Three days of riding without food, water or rest. He had no idea how they had done it or even how far they had come.

Slowly, he picked out the details of their surroundings. Apple trees lined the winding road. Low, stone walls divided open fields where young stalks of sunflowers stood among rows of spring wheat. Before them the road wound up to the dark fortress of the Sagrada Academy.

"Thank God!" Nestor cried. His voice sounded dry and cracked.

"I don't think God had much to do with it," Elezar told Nestor.

The light of the moon seemed to burn away Javier's dark form. Kiram studied his hunched back. He swayed in his saddle with his head bowed low and the reins hanging limply from his hands. Suddenly Kiram realized that he was about to fall.

Kiram spurred Verano ahead and caught Javier before he toppled from Lunaluz's back. He reeked of sweat, smoke and dry blood. The sharp angles of his body seemed terribly pronounced as if he'd been starved for weeks. His dark eyes looked hollow and haunted.

"Kiram?" Javier's voice came out in a rasp.

"I'm here," Kiram assured him.

Javier grasped his hand with silent desperation. He said nothing but bowed his head against Kiram's shoulder and held him as if he could not bear to let go. Kiram couldn't imagine what visions Javier had endured in the Sorrowland. He could only return Javier's embrace with all his strength and try not to think of what Nestor or Elezar made of their display. He held Javier and forgot everything else.

Then Lunaluz gave an exasperated snort and Javier drew back from Kiram.

"Apparently we're boring my horse." Javier patted the stallion's muscular neck. Then he sighed and turned his gaze to the dark silhouette of the Sagrada Academy. "Well, I suppose there's still much to be done."

He straightened in his saddle, composure lending him an air of command despite his obvious exhaustion. Then he turned to address Elezar and Nestor. "Are you still with me?"

Elezar nodded his assent. Nestor gaped for a moment but then he too agreed.

When they reached the academy grounds they found them mostly deserted. One groom greeted them at the stable but didn't rouse himself when Javier assured him that they could stable their own horses. However, as they left the stables Kiram noticed blue jays gathering in the surrounding trees and circling the academy roofs.

"That's odd," Nestor commented as he peered up at the birds.

"What are they looking for?" Elezar asked.

"Us." Javier sped up his pace.

"Are they your teacher's birds?" Nestor asked hopefully.

"No, they belong to our enemy," Kiram replied. The surrounding trees looked like they had bloomed with thousands of brilliant blue bodies.

"I think we might be in trouble," Kiram said. They were still yards from the dormitory and too far from the stables to retreat there for shelter.

Then the jays dived them.

"Run!" Javier shouted and they all bolted for the dormitory. Talons clawed at their scalps and exposed arms. Hard beaks slashed and stabbed. Blood dribbled into Kiram's eyes as a jay lacerated his brow. Kiram struck back at the small bodies but there were so many. For each one that he knocked away another swept down.

In the flurry of wings and beaks, Elezar swore and Nestor howled. Javier snarled a low grating word and flames gushed up to engulf the birds soaring above them. The jays shrieked and burning bodies fell from the air, but moments later more took flight, pursuing Kiram, Elezar, Javier and Nestor as they raced to the doors of the dormitory.

Inside, Elezar barred the doors and continued to swear at the jays under his breath. Blood trickled from a cut across his nose and his hands were a mass of scratches. Nestor pressed his hand against a gash in his cheek. His gold spectacles had been torn away and his calf was bleeding.

Javier leaned against a wall, breathing hard. He too bore a multitude of small scrapes and cuts but they didn't worry Kiram as much as Javier's pure exhaustion. Javier closed his eyes and swayed on his feet, seeming to be on the edge of collapse, but he caught himself.

He needed to sleep. Kiram wondered how well the wards up in their old tower room would protect Javier. Could he afford to rest up there for a few hours?

"We need to get Kiram to the infirmary," Javier said. Both Elezar and Nestor glanced to Kiram in alarm.

"I need to get to the mechanical cure that Scholar Donamillo created. They aren't what we thought they were, but if I'm right we can still use them," Kiram said. Now even Javier regarded him curiously. "I'll tell you everything on the way there."

As they staggered and limped through the halls, Kiram explained what he'd discovered in Yassin's journal and Scholar Donamillo's diary. Both Nestor and Elezar were horrified. Javier looked desolate.

"Every time I took him to a treatment," Javier murmured, "I was killing him."

"You couldn't have known, Javier," Elezar said. "None of us knew."

"He's right," Kiram agreed. "You aren't to blame. You thought you were protecting him and you did everything you could to help him."

"But I wasn't helping him at all."

"Now we will," Kiram assured him. "Fedeles is still there, I'm sure. Donamillo hasn't won yet."

As they moved deeper into the building, they passed servants dressed in the Sagrada colors. All of the men stared at their bloody, filthy condition, but strangely said nothing.

"Birds!" Nestor announced to one man. "Bloody birds went mad and attacked us."

"We're just popping in to the infirmary to get cleaned up," Kiram added.

But Kiram could tell that the servant's attention wasn't really on him, Elezar or Nestor. It was Javier, whom all of the passing staff members watched with a kind of shocked apprehension.

Kiram suddenly wondered if word of the royal bishop's ruling against Javier had reached the academy. He suspected that it had and when one servant suddenly bolted away, Kiram felt sure that the man had gone to raise some alarm that the hell-branded duke had returned to their midst.

"How hard do you think it would be to barricade the infirmary?" Kiram asked.

Javier offered him a weary smile. "We do think alike, don't we?"

When they reached the infirmary, they found the lamps dimmed but still burning. Scholar Blasio sat beside a bed, while across the room Genimo stood polishing one of Scholar Dona- millo's mechanical cures. Genimo's eyes went wide at the sight of the four of them at the door and the polishing cloth dropped silently from his hand.

Donamillo lay on a bed, sunken and still as a corpse. Scholar Blasio stroked his older brother's waxy brow and whispered what sounded like a prayer over him. Only after smoothing the blankets that covered his brother did he look up and see them in the doorway.

"Dear God!" Blasio cried. "Sit down. Sit down all of you and let me see what I can do."

"We aren't here for medical attention, Scholar," Kiram told him. "We're here because you were right about what your brother wrote in his journal. We have to stop him."

A watery gleam came to the scholar's eyes and he glanced to where Donamillo's body lay on the infirmary bed.

"He's nearly gone," Blasio said softly. Then he looked to Kiram. "I've been nursing his body for weeks hoping that he would come back-that if he would just return to me, it would somehow undo what he has done to himself and to everyone else."

"What on earth are you all talking about?" Genimo demanded. "What happened to you?"

"You wouldn't believe it," Nestor told him.

Scholar Blasio cleaned and dressed their wounds and ordered the servants to bring them food and drink.

Nestor nearly fell asleep on his feet once his wounds had been tended and he'd eaten. Elezar guided him to one of the cots and tucked him in. When Javier dropped to another cot moments later, Kiram felt relieved. It had been almost painful to watch Javier struggling to stay awake. Now he sprawled across a cot, snoring quietly. Elezar sat, bleary-eyed, on a cot between Javier's and Nestor's. He maintained his vigil over the two of them for nearly an hour before he too succumbed.

In the meantime Kiram inspected Scholar Donamillo's mechanical cures and flipped between the two journals, taking notes.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Genimo asked. His tone was genial enough but there was something in his wording that bothered Kiram.

"What I can," Kiram responded.

"Why don't I have a look?" Genimo reached for Yassin's journal but Kiram pulled it back from him.

"Thanks, but it wouldn't do any good. They're both written in Haldiim," Kiram said quickly.

"Suit yourself." Genimo shrugged and stalked back to the medicine cabinets. He picked up a tattered book and flipped through the pages. But as Kiram checked the mechanical cures for the symbols and invocations he found in Yassin's journal, he felt Genimo watching him. The sensation made him uneasy and he considered writing his own notes in Haldiim.

But that would just make it more difficult for everyone else to help him reconstruct the mechanical cures. Besides, he might not like Genimo but that didn't make him a traitor.

Kiram had already made that mistake once, in assuming that just because he was off-putting and bigoted Holy Father Habalan had to be the man responsible for the shadow curse. All the while he'd been blind to Scholar Donamillo's machinations, simply because the two of them had shared tastes and ideas. He didn't want to think that he could have idolized a man who committed such cruelty and yet he had.

Even now, Kiram felt sick with awe as he took in the beauty and pure mechanical mastery of Scholar Donamillo's work. Every screw and incantation was precisely placed, perfectly crafted. The twelve iron ribs arched in magnificent geometry supporting 792 glass panels which interlocked to exactly align every curse and command that gave the mechanism its purpose. Even the wires of the harnesses were carefully braided and measured to exact lengths.

Kiram couldn't deny that the mechanical cure was a masterpiece and the thought both repulsed and frightened him. He needed to reverse what Donamillo had done as quickly as possible but the intricacy and perfection of the mechanical cure defied replication. New glass panels and iron ribs as perfect as these certainly couldn't be fabricated in a matter of weeks, much less a few days.

Kiram knelt on the floor, exhausted and frustrated. He glared at Donamillo's journal, fighting the urge to hurl it across the room. He couldn't compete with this level of experience and perfection.

His own steam engine looked simple and dull in comparison to Donamillo's breathtaking mechanism.

"The wisdom of age defeats the strength of youth," Kiram whispered to himself, remembering how smug Donamillo had been in the stable in Anacleto.

But Donamillo hadn't always been old and wise, had he? Kiram suddenly thought. Wisdom came with experience: trial and error. This perfect mechanical cure wasn't the first machine that Donamillo had built. There had been others and Kiram knew exactly were to find those slightly less ideal iron ribs and glass panels-the tower room.

Elation surged through Kiram's exhaustion. He bolted to his feet and, grabbing a lamp, started out the infirmary doors.

"Kiram?" Scholar Blasio gazed at him with gentle worry. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to bring your brother back to you." Kiram grinned. "Don't wait up for me."

In the tower storage room Kiram moved between the dozens of disused mechanical cures like a moth searching for a flame. In one only a few glass panels were viable, but among them was exactly the sequence of incantations that Kiram needed. He jotted notes and then moved to another broken machine. As he found more and more of the pieces he needed his pulse raced faster and he laughed to himself, half delirious with exhaustion and excitement. Steadily his notes grew into an exact design for the parts he required. He mapped everything out: where each glass panel and iron screw would come from and where they should go.

When he at last stumbled from the tower, he found morning light illuminating the marble staircase and glowing through the vast halls of the academy. In the infirmary everyone was sleeping until Kiram entered and let out a wild crow of triumph. Then only Donamillo remained motionless in his bed.

Kiram bounded gleefully between the cots while Elezar and Nestor stared at him and Javier shoved his tousled hair back from his face. Kiram waved his notes and explained everything much too quickly. He smirked at Donamillo's mechanical cure and feigned punching it. For a moment even Javier looked at him like he might have gone mad.

"You're off your nut, underclassman." Genimo shook his head at Kiram.

"No. I am on my nut! We can do this. We really can." Kiram tried to calm down but only his excitement was keeping him awake and on his feet. "We can rebuild Donamillo's mechanical cure using the parts from his old machines up in the tower. If we do it right we'll be able to exactly reverse the effect. We'll be able to force Donamillo back into his own body. I've worked it all out! We're going to beat the bastard at his own game." Kiram held his notes out to Javier. "The strength of youth farts in the face of age and experience, ha!"

Scholar Blasio's brows rose with worry, but Javier took the notes and carefully read through them.

"This will work?" Javier asked. Thin red scratches slashed his pale skin, bandages wrapped his deeper wounds, and shadows darkened the hollows of his face and yet the hope that lit his expression made him beautiful.

Kiram nodded and his head felt like it was bouncing on a spring.

"Then we'd better get started." Javier turned to Elezar and Nestor. "It's going to be heavy lifting and I think the staff might give us some trouble-"

"I'll talk to the staff," Blasio assured him. "Just do what you have to."

"I'll get my tools-" Kiram started for the doors but Javier caught his shoulder and spun him back around.

"Have you slept at all?" Javier asked him.

"Not yet but-"

"Then rest." Javier pushed him to a cot. "We'll gather the things you need. Once it's all here, I'll wake you to put it all together. You're going to need your sleep for that."

Kiram would have objected but lying down just felt so very good. He decided that he would rest his eyes for a few minutes just to placate Javier and then get right back to work. He rested his head on his pillow and closed his eyes. An instant later a thoughtless deep sleep took him.

The clang of metal and swearing nearly woke him. His eyes fluttered open, and he caught a glimpse of Javier and Elezar muscling huge pieces of iron through the infirmary doors. Nestor tugged a thick coil of wire into the room behind them. Then Kiram's lids dropped and he slept on.

In the heat of afternoon Javier shook him awake. Kiram groaned and slowly dragged his aching, stiff body out of the cot. His hands were a mess of abrasions and bruises. And he suspected that his face wasn't much better. At least he wasn't the only one. Javier, Nestor and Elezar all sported welts and scratches from last night's encounter with the jays.

Though Kiram couldn't see why several deep scratches slashed across Scholar Blasio's forehead.

"The birds are getting worse. They're mobbing just about anybody," Nestor announced. "And it's getting dark outside, even though it's only noon."

The shadow curse was drawing closer.

Suddenly he was very awake. Hundreds of machine parts greeted him as he surveyed the infirmary. Last night when he'd been writing it out on paper, transforming Donamillo's mechanical cure had seemed so simple. Now the physical reality of all that metal, glass and wire loomed over Kiram.

Javier handed Kiram his notes and his tools.

"Can you still do it?" Javier asked and Kiram knew that Javier was afraid that Kiram's plan had been more the product of delirium than realism.

"I can do it," Kiram assured him.

He didn't waste time but went straight to the heart of the matter, wrenching apart the iron ribs and smashing out the glass panels that needed to be removed.

"Let me help with that." Elezar hefted up one of the braces that Kiram had struggled with.

"Thanks."

"Anything I could do?" Nestor asked.

Kiram put them both to work, hauling, lifting and bracing ungainly machine parts. Javier however stepped back from them all and knelt on the floor, writing curling Bahiim symbols in tight columns. As Kiram spliced new wires into the stripped harness of Donamillo's mechanical cure, Javier enclosed them in protective wards.

Genimo offered to help, but he worked too slowly and too sloppily for Kiram to use him. Fortunately Scholar Blasio asked Genimo to help him with Donamillo's body. Genimo seemed far more suited to dribbling water between the old man's lips than aligning delicate glass panels.

The raucous screams of blue jays became so constant that Kiram stopped hearing them. But the growing darkness outside the windows gnawed at him. He disregarded the stew Genimo brought him in favor of his work.

Javier looked like he was going to insist but then the infirmary doors flew open and Master Ignacio charged in with a bleeding groom in his arms. Ignacio took all of them and the chaos of machinery in with a single sweeping glare.

"Blasio!" Ignacio shouted. "This boy needs your help. NOW!"

Blasio bolted from his brother's bedside and rushed to help Ignacio lay the groom on one of the cots. As they laid him back Kiram felt bile rise in his throat. The young man was nearly cut in half: bowels hung exposed from a bloody, gaping wound.

"What the hell happened to him?" Elezar demanded.

"Some demon tore him open in the shadows of the orchard!" Master Ignacio turned his furious gaze on Javier and his hand went to his sword hilt.

"It wasn't my doing." Javier stood straight and met the master's glare directly.

"It wasn't!" Scholar Blasio insisted. He met Ignacio's gaze for only a moment and then looked back down at the groom. "It's my brother's handiwork. This and Fedeles Quemanor's madness, and even the murder of the groom last year. He's done so much harm." Blasio's voice broke and he turned away.

"What in the name of God are you talking about?" Ignacio demanded. Blasio looked too close to tears to speak. He simply shook his head, then lifted a sheet and laid it over the unmoving groom. Then he turned and sat beside his brother's body.

The groom was dead, Kiram realized.

"If you'll listen I'll tell you, Master Ignacio." Javier cautiously stepped closer to Ignacio.

Ignacio studied Javier and then nodded.

While Javier spoke with the war master, Kiram tried to put the dead groom out of his mind. Red stains seeped up through the sheet that Blasio had laid over the body. In the heat of the afternoon the smell of blood and death saturated the air.

Kiram focused on the last glass panel, wedging it into place and then ever so carefully screwing in the brackets that linked it to the curving ribs. With that done, he stoked the fire of his own steam engine. Heat radiated from the boiler and Kiram tossed in more wood.

"Can you keep it hot?" Kiram asked Nestor.

"Will do." Nestor too flinched from the sight of the groom's corpse. Kiram turned to Elezar. Sweat soaked his already stained shirt and a dark bruise colored the scab that cut across his nose.

"After we've strapped Scholar Donamillo's body into the red harness, we'll need to hand crank the mechanical cure until the steam engine's built up enough force to drive it," Kiram told him. "Can you do that?"

Elezar nodded and hefted up the drive bar.

"Now we just need Donamillo's body."

"Are you sure?" Genimo scowled at the rough monstrosity that Kiram had created from Donamillo's beautiful mechanical cure. "That thing looks like it's about to fall apart."

"How it looks doesn't matter," Kiram snapped. "And I'm not asking you in any case."

"No need to shout, Kiram. I'm just saying what everyone is thinking. It doesn't look like it will work for shit and if it doesn't, then what happens to all of us?"

"Genimo," Elezar said flatly. "Shut up before I shut you up."

Kiram found himself smiling at Elezar with exactly the same happy expression as Nestor. Genimo dropped back against the wall, sulking.

"Scholar Blasio?" Kiram called.

Blasio rose from his chair at his brother's bedside. Kiram didn't have to say anything more. Blasio lifted Donamillo's emaciated body easily and carried him like an infant into Kiram's rebuilt machine.

Master Ignacio stood next to Javier, watching Kiram and Blasio strap Donamillo into the harness. His expression seemed equal parts revulsion and confusion. Kiram wondered what all Javier had confessed to the war master during their quiet, tense conversation.

"It's pitch black outside" Nestor nodded at the barred windows. Suddenly something smacked against the window. A second blow cracked apart the glass. A bleeding blue jay shrieked at them through the opening. Then dozens more birds threw themselves against the glass, breaking the panes as they shattered their own bodies. Black blood poured from them and an acrid steam began to rise from the wrought iron bars that held the windows closed. As the bars crumbled and streams of viscous darkness spilled down the walls, Kiram felt a terrible, sick pain twist through his guts.

"Get behind the wards!" Javier shouted. He all but hurled Master Ignacio into the circle of Bahiim symbols. Genimo scurried into the circle and stared wide-eyed as the entire window casing collapsed. Blasio dropped to his knees near the steam engine and covered his face with his hands.

Kiram tightened the last strap of Donamillo's harness and let the old man's body hang limp. He grabbed the wires of the second harness and leapt out from the mechanical cure.

Jays crashed into the infirmary and a seeping darkness followed them, pooling across the floor, burning stones and eating through pieces of iron. The birds screamed and swooped, but none of them seemed capable of flying over the wards Javier had laid down.

"Get the mechanical cure moving!" Kiram called to Elezar. To Kiram's relief, Elezar pumped the drive bar fast and the iron ribs of the mechanical cure swung around, building speed. Faint sparks lit up along the harness wires. Javier and Master Ignacio joined Elezar and the mechanical cure spun like a gigantic top.

Something struck the infirmary doors. They broke open and a wall of darkness flooded the room. Only the blaze in the belly of Kiram's steam engine and the faint sparks given off from the mechanical cure offered them any illumination.

Hissing screams and the shrieks of blue jays rose from the darkness. Master Ignacio groaned and Elezar swore as the discomfort of the shadow curse intensified. Kiram gritted his teeth against the pain. And yet Javier's wards still held the darkness back.

Javier glared at the black mass roiling over them and mouthed Bahiim incantations as he pumped the drive bar.

"Nestor? The engine?" Kiram had to shout over the screams and shrieks that tore the air.

"It's hot!" Nestor yelled back. Even in the dim light Kiram could see the pain in Nestor's face but he still locked the boiler door down and gripped the engine release as Kiram had shown him earlier.

"Let the steam engine take over!" Kiram shouted. "Let go of the drive bar!"

Elezar, Javier and Master Ignacio released the bar and jumped back as the pistons of Kiram's steam pump took over. The ribs of the mechanical cure whirled by at a blinding speed and suddenly the faint sparks inside the mechanical cure erupted to brilliant light.

Only then did Kiram see Genimo crouched over a patch of Javier's wards, scrubbing them away.

"Stop him!" Kiram shouted.

Nestor tackled Genimo and flattened him to the ground but it was already too late. Cold blackness hit Kiram. Agony stabbed through his chest and hot blood spilled down his belly. His knees buckled.

Elezar and Nestor both lay on the ground writhing from pain, as did Master Ignacio and Scholar Blasio. Blood erupted from wounds that opened wherever the curse touched them. Only Genimo remained unscathed, but he looked terrified when he met Kiram's gaze. Then suddenly hot white light blazed over them all.

Javier stood, hands raised with walls of white light pouring from him. As Kiram forced himself up to his feet Genimo bolted from the sphere of the shajdi's light, fleeing back to his master in the darkness.

"Javier, this doesn't need to go on." Fedeles' voice silenced the cacophony of screams. And suddenly he stood there, smiling, at the edge of the shajdi's light. His eyes were too dark and his skin too luminous. This was not Fedeles, Kiram reminded himself. This was Donamillo wearing Fedeles' body.

The whirr of the mechanical cure's spinning ribs and the steady hiss and clang of the steam engine created a strange rhythm, like the beat of a mechanical heart that even Donamillo's shadow curse couldn't stop.

"Your friends don't need to suffer, Javier" Fedeles circled them as if he were enjoying an easy stroll. "Give me the white hell and I will release them. You know I don't want to hurt Kiram. Why force me to kill him?"

Javier didn't respond, but a shudder passed through his body. The light around him intensified, illuminating his bare bones.

"I'm a patient man, Javier. I can wait while you burn away like a candle." Fedeles paused only a few feet from Kiram, though he hardly seemed to take notice. Instead he stared at Javier with an expression of rapt avarice. Kiram could almost see Donamillo's want rising up through Fedeles' features. "We both know you won't kill me, big brother. You promised me you would keep me safe."

Javier trembled and Kiram hated Donamillo, not just for taking such a cruel tactic, but because he knew it would work. Javier would let the shajdi burn him hollow before he would kill Fedeles.

Kiram gripped the wires of the second harness. Donamillo was only a foot from him now. He just had to step into the killing darkness of the shadow curse and close the wires around Fedeles' body. Donamillo's spirit would be drawn back into his own body and they would all be saved.

It was the only way.

Kiram didn't think beyond that.

He threw himself onto Fedeles, embracing him and closing the circuit of the harness. Black blades punched through Kiram's body. Fedeles shouted and shook in his arms. Pain ripped deeper into Kiram, but he held his grip and saw the white sparks of the mechanical cure flurry over Fedeles.

They both fell to the floor. It was hot and slick with blood and Kiram knew it was his own. He tried to draw a breath but his lungs only brought a red froth up into his mouth.

He couldn't survive this. The thought hurt him nearly as deeply as his wounds and yet there was light overhead. The shadow curse had fallen back. This agony hadn't been for nothing.

Kiram tried to hold onto Fedeles even then, but strong hands pulled him away.

"Kiri, Kiri. No, please don't bleed. Don't go!"

Kiram recognized Fedeles' voice, devoid of Donamillo's cold tone, crying from a distance.

But it was Javier who held him. Tears rolled down his face and raw grief broke his voice as he spoke Kiram's name again and again.

"It's good." Kiram could hardly form the words. "I saved you.." He wanted to say more, but Javier was fading from his sight just as the pain drained from his ruined body.

He knew he was dying, but he wasn't scared. He had already crossed the Sorrowlands. Whether it was heaven or a shajdi that awaited him, Kiram didn't know, but a soft light fell across him and seemed to draw him deeper into its purity. It felt so simple and beautiful.

Then something caught him, held him. Pale shadows like the hollows of a skull rose from the light. Long bones wreathed in white flames gripped him as if death itself were embracing him and barring him from its respite.

"I won't let you go." Gentle flames licked Kiram's flesh and he knew the voice was Javier's.