Chapter Fifty-One
The world shuddered, and Hell collapsed. The trees, charred, sprang from the dying earth. The ruin of Rae’s childhood home smoldered and smoked, but the material plane was otherwise intact. Dappled sunlight shone through the leaves. The storm was banished.
“What the hell is going on here?” Predi shouted. The lanky stonebinder loped through the forest, batting aside tree limbs with his flinty spiritblade, until he burst into the clearing that had once been Rae’s home. La and Mahk ran in after him, their eyes wide.
“He’s dead. I killed him,” Rae said simply, gesturing to Rassek’s body. Then his eyes fell on Caeris. “We killed him.”
“You killed them both,” Predi said with a snarl. He ran to Caeris, cradling her head in his hands.
“No, she’s still alive. Barely. That angel is a stubborn son of a bitch,” Rae said. He remembered what Estev had said about how rare lawbinders were, and wondered if Predi’s anger was more for Caeris’s near-death or the angel’s loss. “You need not worry about your precious warrior, Predi. She will live.”
“No thanks to you!”
“Is that it?” La asked. “Is it over?”
“No,” Predi said contemptuously. He laid Caeris down with less care than Rae thought was proper, then marched to Rassek’s body. “He’s dead. But he’ll come back. You’ve wasted our best opportunity, child. Whatever sway this place has over him, we’ve lost it.”
“Sway? What are you talking about?” Rae asked.
“We went back to the tower. Predi says he sensed Rassek’s return to the material plane. He believes the tower had something to do with it,” La said.
“I’m sure of it. The business with Hadroy, the eight masters, even that sword . . . it was all to ensure Rassek’s immortality. It had nothing to do with whatever promises he made to the baron, or those other fools!” Predi paced around the dead fiendbinder. “I was beginning to think we could trap him within the Eye, if we gathered the right spiritbinders. But now that he’s dead we must wait for him to reform, and gods know where that will happen.”
“Why not here?” Rae asked. “If the ritual took place in the tower, why wouldn’t he reform there as well?”
“Because the justicars have watched this place for ten years, and have seen no sign of him. Even the kind of scrubs who get assigned to garrison duty would have noticed that.”
“Do I need to remind you that houseguard of the Iron College are hunting us even now?” La asked. “There’s no telling how deep into Fulcrum this conspiracy goes. How many crooked justicars would it take for Rassek to escape? One, maybe two, turning a blind eye?”
“I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe the entire core is rotten. A few bad agents, yes, that is possible. Even inevitable, given the power Hell can offer. But someone would have noticed. No, he must return somewhere else. Heavens know how long it will be before we can get him back inside the Eye,” Predi said, then kicked Rassek’s corpse in frustration. “At least it gives us time to prepare.”
“Speaking of the houseguard,” Mahk said. He was facing the woods, in the direction of the manor house. Voices rang out in the distance.
“Damn it. They must have heard the commotion as well.” Predi glanced at Rae. “There’s a battle raging around the manor house, but I’m not sure who is whom. Both sides have spiritbinders, and enough muskets to fight off a small army.”
“What the hell have we stumbled into?” Rae muttered.
“I’m not sure what you’ve dragged us into, Raelle Kelthannis, but I don’t look forward to the paperwork,” Predi said. He rubbed a nervous hand across his face. “We’ll need to clear out of here before they arrive. Mahk, help me carry the girl. Leave the body. It’s nothing to us.”
“Wait,” Rae said. “I have a thought.”
“Well you better have it quick,” La said. “They’re coming.”
Rae brushed past Mahk and Predi to kneel at Caeris’s side. The girl’s eyes fluttered open. The whites were bloodshot. She coughed and spat out a slug of dark blood.
“Did we get him?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “And now we’re going to finish it. But I need a favor.”
“Whatever it takes,” she whispered. “Whatever you need.”
“It’s kind of a big request,” Rae said nervously.
Oblivion was waiting for him. Rae fell through the forest floor like a stone dropped into a pond. He flew with Caeris’s sword in his right hand, and the moonlit splinter of the wraithblade in his left. The lawbinder’s orderbound sword left a trail of sparks behind him, filling the shadows with a gentle rain of dim light. The shadowlands passed quickly. There weren’t a lot of memories in this place, not since Chaos scoured most of them away. Rae lingered in the ghost of his home long enough to stare at his father’s study, to see that whoever had taken the pattern from the real world had somehow rubbed it away from here, as well. Which meant it had been taken recently. Perhaps they had not known it was preserved here, hidden in the memories of a dead man. How had they discovered it, though, when Rae only learned today? That was a mystery for another day.
Rae bent his soul and dropped through the shadowlands, into the vast void that lay beneath. The whorls and peaks of Oblivion opened far below him, etched out in the startling white of bones and the luminous greens and blues of dead souls. Overhead, the underside of the shadowlands stretched out to the horizon. It looked like the silvery surface of a great body of water seen by a drowning man. Dozens of souls fell slowly through the space between shadow and Oblivion. The recently dead, Rae thought. Each soul was still connected to the shadowlands, and the material plane beyond, by a silvery rope. Rae was reminded of the Pearlescent, corkscrewing slowly out of the sky, trailing flames.
—many new souls in oblivion today. seems our visitors are no longer alone.
“The justicars?” Rae asked. “Do you think they’ve finally shown up to help?”
—i am not sure i would accept their help. not today. they are quick to kill, and quicker to judge. no one escapes their view.
“Except Rassek Brant, apparently.”
—and we are here to do something about that.
Rae grinned at that. Yes. Yes we are, he thought. But first we have to find whatever’s left of him.
He slowed his descent, to watch the recently dead fall through the shadows. Most were mundane souls. The justicars stood out, because those souls were still attached to their bound spirits. Rae watched as a water elemental curled free of a dying soul to snake up the silver rope leading back to the material plane. The spirit left a void in the justicar’s soul, like a thread pulled free of a tapestry, leaving the pattern behind it frayed and lacking. Rae pressed a hand to his chest.
“Is that what it’s like? My soul half-formed without you?”
—there is a reason mages fear the justicar’s sear. come, you are wasting time. if rassek is here, he will start the climb back to life soon.
Rae scanned the morbid rain without really knowing what he was looking for. Caeris had believed that Rassek wouldn’t leave a wraith behind, that he was just an empty shell, more demon than man. But surely he still had a soul. The demon had to be bound to something, after all. Whatever magic the frozen sword and Rassek’s ritual had performed, there must be some sign of his corrupted nature.
He flew to the nearest spirit and looked it over. One of the houseguard, clearly. The man looked up at the underside of the shadowlands, his eyes filled with fear as he slowly grasped what was happening to him. A savage wound punctured the man’s chest. The silver rope that connected him to the material plane disintegrated. Ghostly fingers grabbed at the shreds of the broken link, but they came apart in the soldier’s fingers. As Rae floated past, the dying man looked at him, desperation on his face. Rae turned away.
There were too many falling spirits to give an honest account of each one. A large cluster of the recently dead broke through the shadow, tumbling down in a tangle of silver thread and writhing bodies. A vicious fight. Hope the good guys are winning, whoever they are. As he watched, a green light twisted down through the shadow, reeling in one of the falling spirits. The others grabbed at the rescued soul, trying to follow it up. A lifebinder, reclaiming the dead. That must be the key. Some force has to draw Rassek back into the material plane. All he needed to do was keep an eye out for that force. But what would it be? An infernal, because Rassek was a flamebinder, or Chaos, driven by the demon in his soul? I can’t imagine Chaos rebuilding something, Rae thought. Then again, a little while ago I couldn’t imagine any of this.
The shadowy vault overhead swirled with a dozen different spikes of power, mostly spirits freed from their mortal bindings returning briefly to the material plane, before fleeing to their native realms. Rae watched as spikes of Air and Earth, even the golden pillar of a lawbinder releasing their angel, and the mournful whorl of green leaves as a lifebinder, slipped into enemy territory for the last time.
Still too many. How was he possibly going to find one soul amid all this dying? Why couldn’t they have killed Rassek in isolation? Why did it have to be in the middle of a battle in the Heretic’s Eye?
A beam of red light pierced the shadows overhead, irising open to a gate. Rae could see the shadowlands and, beyond the flat gray of the memories of the dead, a silvery passage into the material plane. Cinders spun out from the portal, like sparks from a blacksmith’s forge. Black and red tendrils shot through the gate. That was it!
Rae followed the beam of light to where it engulfed the bare remnants of a soul. Rassek’s spirit was threadbare and frayed inside and out. Tattered strands of spirit stretched thin over two massive entities, a demon and an infernal. The demon reached out and grabbed one of the red tendrils, pulling hand over hand, dragging the dying man back to the material plane. Rae couldn’t tell where the portal emerged, but it must be well outside the Eye. The wraith had warned him that distances were strange in the shadowlands. That gate could lead anywhere in the Ordered World.
Rae moved like mist over a frozen lake, skittering between a dozen other souls, dodging past the fragile ropes that connected them to their bodies, staying as close to the silvered surface of the shadowlands as he could. He didn’t want Rassek getting past him, but he also didn’t want whoever or whatever had opened that portal to see him until it was too late.
There was no hiding from the demon, though. As Rae’s misty form closed with the portal, the demon’s blunt face followed his flight. At first the fiend hesitated, unsure what Rae planned, or what he could possibly do to stop them. Then it started climbing faster. Rassek’s dying soul dangled beneath the demon’s shoulders. The mage’s eyes opened and locked with Rae’s. Rassek laughed.
“You have come far, just to fail, wraithbinder! I have made this trip a hundred times, and will make it a hundred more, before they release me from my vows!” Rassek yelled. His words echoed like hollow thunder across the expanse between shadow and Oblivion. “You would be better served digging through the dead. Maybe you can find your parents? Maybe you can save them? But no, you’ve already failed at that, as well. Pathetic.”
Rae didn’t answer. He was too focused on reaching the gate before the demon. With only a short span to go, the demon realized he wasn’t going to beat Rae and released the crimson rope. It still ascended, though much slower. Rassek’s tattered wraith rotated, so that he hung just below the demon’s heart. Rae pulled up just short of the portal. He glanced up at it. The empty grove, and the crooked chimney that was all that remained of Rae’s old home, hovered just out of sight. He wasn’t emerging somewhere else. Rassek was returning to his body, right there in the field.
His curiosity would have to wait. The demon was nearly on him. Its night-black eyes leered at him, and those hooked talons curled in anticipation of tearing Rae’s spirit to pieces. Rassek smirked.
“Are we going to fight, child? Do you think you command that wraith well enough to destroy me? Are you that foolish?” Rassek taunted.
“No,” Rae said. He slid into a guard position, wraithblade ahead of him, Caeris’s golden sword at his hip. Rassek’s eyes fell on it and lit up.
“Ah, I see your plan now. Do you honestly think an orderbound sword is enough to end me? You aren’t even a lawbinder! It’s just a pretty blade and a promise you can’t fulfill.”
“It’s more than that,” Rae said. He gave the portal one last look and prayed that whatever was pulling Rassek up wouldn’t realize what was happening and stop. It was now or never. He dove forward.
The demon reacted so quickly, Rae barely saw it move. Its claws swiped at Rae, tearing at his soul, sending shocks of pain through his spirit. Rae slashed at it with the wraithblade, threatening with the orderbound blade. Despite Rassek’s mockery, the demon did fear the golden edge, and jerked out of the way, putting up defenses that Rae would never be able to penetrate.
No matter. The demon wasn’t Rae’s target. The infernal was all he cared about.
The flame elemental trailed behind Rassek’s threadbare wraith, half-forgotten by its master, but still bound to Rassek’s soul. Rae plunged Caeris’s sword into the conflagration’s swirling form, then released the spirit it held.
Because the sword was not just a sword. It held Caeris’s angel, unbound from her spirit at Rae’s request and forced into the runes along the blade. When he released it, the angel sprang full and furious into the shadowlands.
Already tangled with the infernal, the angel quickly wove itself into the elemental’s swirling pattern, threading its spirit into that of Fire, creating a single braid, Flame and Order, angel and infernal, inseparable.
Rassek’s eyes went wide, and then he was through the portal. Rae dropped the wraith and fled into the material plane.
Rae shot into the world like a thunderbolt. Frost formed across his coa, flaking off as he slid across the field of trampled sunflowers. His sister waited nearby, pistol in hand. Predi and Mahk stood over Rassek’s motionless body. The justicar’s bitter eyes barely flicked in Rae’s direction as he reappeared. Mahk swung a pipe, apparently recovered from the broken home, smacking it against his palm. Caeris lay where she had been when she surrendered her angel into the sword. Her hands lay folded across her chest. She wasn’t breathing.
“Did you do it?” La asked.
“Yeah. It’s done,” Rae said. He tried to lock eyes with the justicar, but Predi refused to look at him. “It was her choice, Predi. She knew the cost.”
“But do you?” Predi growled. But then Rassek’s body stirred, and they all took a step back.
“Get away from him,” Rae said. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen here.”
“You’re not sure? We wagered everything on this, Rae,” Mahk said. “If you weren’t sure—”
“I’m sure of what’s going to happen. I’m just not sure how,” Rae said. “But I know I don’t want to be anywhere near him when it does.”
La and Mahk exchanged a look, then backed away.
Rassek’s body knit itself back together. The massive wound in his chest swelled shut, the bright bone of his skull closing like the teeth of a bloody mouth, before skin melted together to hide it once again. The various scars and deep cuts that Rae and Caeris had given him flowed back together, leaving new scars in their wake. Crimson light stitched its way through his scars, old and new, then settled into a warm glow over Rassek’s heart. A tower of cinders twisted into the air. Rassek’s eyes flew open, and he coughed out blood and glowing sparks.
The fiendbinder rolled onto his side, glaring at Rae. The others kept backing up, but Rae held his ground, as Rassek slowly rose to his elbow, then one knee, and finally his feet. Rassek looked down at his outstretched hands, then up at Rae. He laughed.
“Your fool plan didn’t work!” Rassek said. “A hundred deaths, and one more to the tally! Now, let’s see if you’re half as clever when—” He took half a step forward, faltered, then went to one knee. His eyes went wide with pain. “No! No, it can’t be! You can’t—”
“I did,” Rae said. Unknowingly, he had drawn the wraith, and realized he was hovering several inches off the ground, ready to fly if Rassek struck out. He dropped heavily to the ground. “One thing I learned from my father: You can’t bind opposing spirits. Goes badly for the elementals, and worse for the ’binder.”
Rassek grabbed at his chest, digging at his flesh with bloody fingers, as though he could tear the offending spirits out of his body. But there was no hope for him. By binding the angel to the air elemental in Rassek’s soul, Rae had effectively bound the angel to Rassek. And when one soul is bound to both an angel and a demon, all three are destroyed.
Starting at his heart, skeins of golden light traveled along Rassek’s scars. That light grew brighter and brighter, until it was impossible to look at the dying mage’s kneeling form. It was like the sun breaking through the moon, as sudden and dazzling as lightning, swallowing everything. Rae threw his arm across his face, peering out from around his hood, determined to watch his parents’ murderer suffer his final death. The empty grove and the crooked ruin of his childhood home were bathed in brilliance. The sound of Rassek’s scream pierced the air, joined by a high-pitched whine, as the forces tearing his body apart crashed together in a roar. The ground shook, and Rae was thrown to his knees. Still, he watched as Rassek’s body came apart. The blinding lines of the mage’s scars turned to pure gold. The jigsaw of flesh that was left turned black along the edges, crumbling, falling into ash. Rassek’s voice cut out just as suddenly. There was only the scream of Heaven and Hell grinding together, destroying everything they touched.
Rassek Brant collapsed into ash. A wave of force rolled out from his shattered soul, scattering the remnants of the fiendbinder, leaving nothing of the man’s body. Nothing but a golden sword, balanced on its point. The sword fell forward, hitting the floor with a metallic clang that sounded like Heaven’s final bell, the death knell of a generation.
Predi walked slowly past Rae’s stunned form. He bent and picked up the sword. Its blade was cracked and burned, the edge a ragged ruin, the point looking more like tattered cloth than Heaven-forged steel. The golden runes were gone. The justicar placed the forte of the blade against his forehead, eyes closed, mouth moving in silent prayer.
That was when the justicars arrived, by windship and spirit portal, crashing through the forest like an army. But through it all, Predi stared at Rae, his face twisted in rage.