Part 10 (2/2)

Yet Sus.h.i.+n still didn't move, keeping his half of the Violet Keystone on the pyramid. Even as his last Sunstone vaporized and the Unraveling started to eat away at his clothes and exposed flesh, he did not look away or lower his hand.

Then the last band of color in the pyramid went out. All seven bands were dark.

Sus.h.i.+n moved swift as a cavernmouth, turning his part of the Keystone back to bathe himself in Violet light of a different shade from the Unraveling. They canceled each other out, in the very second that Tal and Milla attacked again.

Tal's Red Ray was the strongest he'd ever dared, a finger-thin beam of vicious light aimed directly at Sus.h.i.+n's head. But Sus.h.i.+n caught it on his Keystone, deflecting most of it to the ceiling, though his hand was burned.

Milla came in low, sweeping the lash of light from the Talon across Sus.h.i.+n's legs. With inhuman speed, Sus.h.i.+n countered with a s.h.i.+eld of Violet, but he was not quite fast enough and the lash cut deeply into his legs, just above his ankles.

As before, when Milla had thrown her Merwin-horn sword at him, no blood came out of these wounds. But Sus.h.i.+n did fall to the ground, his hamstrings cut. He wriggled like a Wormwalker around the pyramid, shrieking as he scuttled. ”No, it's not me! It's not me! Don't kill Sus.h.i.+n!”

Then another voice came from somewhere inside him, a deeper, stranger voice, louder and more horrible than anything that came from any human mouth.

”You have lost! The Veil is destroyed! The time of Sharrakor has come!”

Then it spoke a quick series of words, words that neither Tal nor Milla knew, but somehow still recognized.

”Nvarth! Ghesh gheshthil lurese!”

Then it spoke words they did know, words that hit them like physical blows.

”Adras eris Aenir! Odris eris Aenir!”

With those words, Adras and Odris disappeared. To Tal and Milla it was like having something torn out of their bodies, a pain so terrible that both of them were instantly felled, toppling to the floor like chopped trees.

Through a haze of crippling pain, Tal saw Sus.h.i.+n crawling back around the pyramid, crawling toward him. He tried to focus on his Sunstone, but everything was blurry and he could not make his hand do what he wanted.

Milla tried, too, and actually managed to drag herself closer to Tal and raise her hand with the Talon. But no light whip came, and she could not keep going. All her strength was gone.

They were dying, Tal realized, though he could not think clearly for the pain. This was what had happened to Ethar and the other Chosen outside the Audience Chamber. Sus.h.i.+n--or whatever was in Sus.h.i.+n--had sent their Spiritshadows back to Aenir and the sudden shock had killed them.

”I shall take that,” said Sus.h.i.+n in his normal voice, as he crawled up next to Tal. One blubbery hand reached across and slid the Violet Keystone from Tal's finger. The Chosen boy tried to resist, but it was no good. His arm just flopped and the pain stabbed through his eyes into his brain. ”I think this is best put back together.”

Sus.h.i.+n sat up and inspected the half Keystone he had taken. But before he could slip it on his own finger next to the half he already had, a beam of intense red light shot out and struck him full on the hand. The Keystone ring fell to the floor and bounced away.

The voice inside Sus.h.i.+n growled then, a sound that drove fear even through the pain in Tal.

Another Red Ray struck Sus.h.i.+n in the chest, smoke curling up as it drilled a hole right through him. He growled again and struggled to get to his feet, forgetting his hamstrings and bulk. He fell over again and started to slither along the ground like a snake or worm, toward the pyramid.

Through the deep cuts and rents in the Chosen's robe, Tal saw not flesh and blood, but shadow.

Tal rolled over, crying with the pain, and saw Crow standing near the entrance. The Freefolk boy was holding out his Sunstone in the approved manner taught in the Lectorium, his face wrinkled in concentration. Red light bathed his hand, growing in intensity as he prepared another Red Ray. A second later, it shot out, striking sparks as it cut through some metal on Sus.h.i.+n's robes.

But it still did not slow whatever Sus.h.i.+n was. He reached the pyramid and dragged himself up, using it as a prop so he could aim his Sunstone at Crow.

”Not! Not a man!” screamed Tal, the words interspersed with sobs. ”A shadow! Malen...”

He could say no more, his strength exhausted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

As Tal's words echoed in the chamber, Sus.h.i.+n fired a globe of s.h.i.+mmering Violet back at Crow and Male's voice filled the air. A quavering, uncertain voice, speaking the words of the Prayer to Asteyr.

Crow dived aside and the Violet globe sailed past him, struck the wall between two windows, and exploded straight through, out into the air beyond, followed by a great plume of stone chips and dust.

The effect of Malen's voice was equally spectacular. Sus.h.i.+n froze, his mouth open, his hand extended. Then his whole body blurred. There was his human form, and then there was a dark double that was separating out of him, stepping back from the human version.

It was a shadow leaving the flesh it had hidden in. As it came out, it changed and grew, growing larger and more menacing. Slowly it a.s.sumed the shape that only Tal had seen before.

A monster. A dragon. Sharrakor himself.

Fully out of his fleshly host, his reptilean body stretched from floor to ceiling. His head was long and spiked, his many-toothed mouth big enough to snap up Tal in a single bite. His wings were furled, as they would not fit in the chamber. His tail was long and ended in a bone shaped like a butcher's cleaver.

”Asteyr herself could not bind me alone,” roared Sharrakor. ”How could you succeed where she failed and died for her failure? I do not see Danir, Susir, and Grettir come to do her work!”

The shadowdragon's voice momentarily drowned out Malen's, and for a moment Tal thought she had stopped. But then her voice came back again. Quiet, slow, but unafraid. Whether her prayer could bind Sharrakor or not, he clearly didn't like it.

”Speak your spell!” he roared again. ”I shall not stay to hear it. But you I shall seek out, witch of the Ice, if you still live when I return. Go now and tell your peoples that the Veil is destroyed! That Sharrakor will soon finish the war your ancestors so foolishly began!”

With that, the shadowdragon's head flashed down and bit off Sus.h.i.+n's hand. It held it in its mighty jaws for an instant, then the Spiritshadow disappeared, and the hand fell to the floor--minus the Sunstone ring that had been there a moment before.

Malen kept reciting the Prayer to Asteyr, even though the object of it was no longer visible. Crow rushed over to where Tal and Milla were writhing on the ground.

”What happened?” he asked. ”Where are you hurt?”

”Spiritshadows,” said Tal. He could barely speak between sobs of pain. ”Sent back. Aenir. We... must... follow. Get Ebbitt. Get ring. Please... please...”

Tal watched Crow turn and pick up the ring. This is where it happens, his shocked brain thought. This is the betrayal. This is where Crow takes the ring and walks away. There, he is turning now. This is the end.

He was still thinking that when Crow slipped the half Keystone back on his finger.

”I know the Way to Aenir,” said Crow. ”Ebbitt showed me once. But I never went. Now seems the time.”

”Get Milla,” whispered Tal. He couldn't concentrate. ”You... reflect the light into our stones...”

Milla had already crawled a little closer. She did not speak or make any sound of pain when Crow grabbed her and dragged her next to Tal, rolling them both onto their backs and resting their Sunstones on their chests, their heads on his lap.

”Milla,” muttered Tal. ”Watch... Sunstone... follow... repeat...”

Crow began to visualize the colors and speak the Way to Aenir. His Sunstone flashed and he directed beams from it to the Sunstones clasped in Milla's and Tal's hands.

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