Part 47 (1/2)

He landed outside the doorway, and immediately a hulking four-armed lizard with black skin leaped out of the nearby flames, ambus.h.i.+ng him the second he landed.

He blasted it back with a quick and overwhelming dose of golden light. He didn't have time for this.

Alin kicked the door open, but no one was in the house.

Then where were they?

A thud sounded behind him, as though someone was playing the earth itself as a drum.

He spun around.

The Naraka Incarnation crouched across from his house, though it hadn't been there before. Alin would have noticed this creature, as it was ten feet of ashen skin and blazing hair. It thumped its enormous lizard-tail, waving a burning hammer the size of an oak tree.

The Incarnation spilled Ilana to the ground, where her body flopped like a rag doll. She didn't move.

It raised its other fist, which tightened around Tamara. With all her strength, she struggled to break free. Alin's stomach tightened.

The Incarnation leaned his hammer against his own shoulder, freeing his hand to reach down for Tamara's travel-bag.

”I smell Ragnarus,” the Incarnation grumbled, in a voice like a mountain's. ”Is this your doing, Elysian Traveler?”

Tamara screamed his name, shouting for him to run away.

Alin called all the golden power of Elysia, ignoring his exhaustion, summoning from his Territory until his brain felt ready to tear itself apart.

Run away? She should know him better than that.

With orange light, Alin launched himself in the air, streaking for the Incarnation's face. He slammed into the creature with the force of a catapult stone, halting his momentum by s.h.i.+elding himself with the green at the last second.

In midair, he turned, summoning his golden sword to slice off the Naraka Incarnation's hand at the wrist.

The Incarnation howled its misery in a terrible voice, every Naraka creature in town howling along with it, but its hand tumbled to the ground. With a last-second effort of will, Alin managed to catch Tamara in a cus.h.i.+on of orange light before she hit the ground.

Alin landed gently beside her, beginning to summon rose-pink light for her injuries. At least he had managed to save one of his family members today.

Tamara looked behind him and her eyes widened.

”Watch*” she began.

Then the Incarnation's flame-headed hammer caught her in the ribs.

It had swung one-handed, missing Alin by inches, but hitting Tamara square in the gut. She flew backwards, tumbling head over heels, before smacking into the walls of a brick house fifteen paces away.

Her neck was twisted almost all the way around.

No, Alin thought. Wait. That's not right. That's not supposed to happen.

I got here in time.

He looked from Tamara's body to Ilana's. Where was Shai? Surely she should be around here somewhere, unlessa aunless there was no body. Unless a monster had eaten her whole, because there was no one around to defend her.

The Naraka Incarnation loomed over him, its orange eyes glowing the color of embers. Its severed hand dissolved into ash, blowing on the wind in a solid cloud that drifted up to the end of its stump, grafting itself back on. In seconds, it had two hands again.

”I smell guilt on you, Elysian Traveler,” the Incarnation rumbled. ”I smell death, and arrogance like a river. Let me punish you. There can be no justice without recompense.”

Alin just stared up at the hideous monster, unable to speak.

Why did it feel like his eyes were burning?

”So be it,” the Incarnation said. It took its hammer in a two-handed grip and swung down onto Alin's head.

Alin raised one hand and caught it.

His hand blazed green, in an interlocking swirl of green plates ten layers thick.

He glanced down at his body, surprised to see blood-red light swirling around all his limbs, filling his body with power. He hadn't opened the door to the Red District.

The ground around his feet cracked under the impact of the Incarnation's blow, but he barely felt anything.

Lights and colors swarmed his mind, where his Elysian power normally rested, as though a dozen dams had burst within him at once. So much that had once eluded him became clear. Simple. He had the answer to all the world's problems, and he had to share them.

No, he didn't have the answer. He was the answer.

Alin shouted, releasing a torrent of power.

Behind him, a Gate to Elysia opened. Not just the usual Gate*six feet tall, barely wide enough to walk through*but an enormous portal the length and breadth of the City of Light itself.

The Gate glowed gold, bringing with it light like a sunrise.

The creatures of Elysia heard his call, and they came.

By the thousands, they came.

Armies of white and gold marched from the Gold District, wielding blades the color of sunlight and spears like frozen lightning.

Across the village, far beyond the reach of Alin's eyes, another Gate opened. The Green District poured out: emerald t.i.tans, s.h.i.+eld-backed turtles the size of horses, armored figures carrying hammers and s.h.i.+elds. There was no way Alin should be able to see them coming, not from so far away, but for some reason he could picture each detail with absolute clarity, as though part of his mind drifted freely through the city.

From the Blue District came lizards with three tails, scampering along the ground. Ethereal fish drifted through the air, and nameless tentacled creatures lurched down the streets. They latched on to the nearest Naraka monster with their sticky, twisting arms, draining life and heat from their victims. Narakan corpses fell to the ground, cold and empty.

On and on, the City of Light hurled its residents forth in a fury of power. They clashed with the burning creatures of Naraka in a dozen different armies, their battles echoing in bursts of flame throughout the village of Myria.

Alin's senses expanded, drifting out on winds of silver light. He had been confused when Rhalia had first described silver light to him*how could light be the color of silver? But now he could see it, he could feel it drifting in the air around him. It looked like shards of metal drifting on the wind, each shard just a spark of the Silver District's light.

The particles blew out, touching every corner of the city, searching according to his will.

In seconds, he knew that Shai wasn't in the village at all. There was no living person of Shai's description in range, or his silver light would have detected her. He had lost her after all*the silver light could only find the living.

Her death was his fault. It was not a matter for guilt, but for responsibility. He would have to find a way to atone.

He learned something else as well: Ilana was still alive. Barely.