Chapter Twenty-Four
The gray-cloaked man summoned his spiritblade with a snap of his fingers, as though he were trying to get the attention of his lax butler. The sword formed from a cloud of slate chips, each one shuffling out of the air to clatter into place like a card trick. As magical swords went, it was unimpressive. Just a length of gray slate, its edge scalloped and rough, the hilt and pommel all the same piece of rough-worked stone. Runes ran the length of the fuller in the blocky sigils of the earth realm. But it would still kill him, if Rae let it get too close.
The stonebinder stalked toward him. Rae stumbled away, lame leg giving out with each step. He tried to keep his lightning blade at the guard, but the sword seemed to have a mind of its own, and kept shuddering and jumping in his hand. Ragged flesh throbbed with mind-numbing pain, and it was all Rae could do to get breath into his lungs, but none of that registered in Rae’s mind. His eyes were locked on the slowly settling plume of debris beyond the makeshift wall. His sister’s scream echoed through his head.
La, La, what is happening? First Mom and Dad, now you . . .
Everyone’s dying. Everyone except me.
“There’s nowhere left to hide, boy,” the stonebinder growled. Even his voice sounded like gravel. “Your family. Your friends, all dead, and all because you had the audacity to run.”
“Fall apart, you damned monster!”
“Stubborn child,” the stonebinder hissed. He closed his fist, gesturing toward Rae. There was a burning sensation in the jagged rash of his leg, and then the gravel embedded in his flesh started to squirm. The pain was incredible. Rae screamed and grabbed at the wound, finding hot stone and boiling flesh. With a yank, the stonebinder ripped the pebbles from Rae’s body, drawing blood and sending Rae to his knees, howling. He stayed kneeling, leaning on the strange silver sword as pain racked his body.
“This is always the choice people like you make. Brave, until the blood starts. Stubborn. In need of breaking. Well, I am happy to break you.”
“What do you want with us? With me?” Rae gasped. That brought the stonebinder up short. Rae sensed amusement in the way the man tilted his head. “What did we do to you?”
“To me? Nothing. But I have obligations, you understand. Vows I have sworn to very powerful people.” The stonebinder walked with his left hand tucked firmly behind his back, the slate sword held loosely in his right. He looked like a duelist. Rae kept backing up, dragging his lame foot. “The sort of people who send their servants out in the middle of the night to murder a child, for example.”
“You’re a monster,” Rae spat.
“The world is full of monsters. Now, are you going to lift that sword, or is it just for show?” the mage asked. Rae grimaced, but held the crackling spiritblade in both hands, the hilt close to his waist, tip wavering uncertainly the space between them. “Very good. Your form could use a lot of work, but it’s nice to see you putting in the effort.”
The stonebinder sprang forward, the slate blade whipping forward, as light as a feather, and sharp as death. Rae tried to block, but the jab was a feint. His crackling, half-formed spiritblade met empty air, then hot pain slashed across his chest. Coat and tunic fell open in tatters as a thin line of blood poured from a fresh wound on his chest. Rae stumbled back, but the stonebinder pressed, batting aside Rae’s feeble counterstrike and slapping the flat of his blade into Rae’s knee. Furious with pain, Rae swept his sword overhead and, screaming, hammered down on the mage. The man slid sideways, his feet barely moving as the ground beneath him rumbled, as though he were riding an earthquake. Rae’s sweeping blade grounded with a shimmering burst of electrical energy. The force of his own blow sent Rae to one knee. He jerked to his feet, twisting to the side in anticipation of the stonebinder’s follow-up, but the man simply watched him.
“This is the problem with ferals,” the man said. “No integration of blade and spirit. You fight with the sword as if it were just steel and blood, while your bound spirit sits in the background. Gods, boy, you are a mage! Start dying like one!”
“I have no intention of dying here,” Rae said.
“A pity. You have little say in the matter.” The stonebinder gestured dismissively to the wall behind him. “As did they. At least you have a little sword training. Some disgraced ’binder’s whelp, I assume? Trying to make your dead mother proud?”
“You don’t talk about my parents.” Rae circled wearily. He tried the stonebinder’s trick, pulling the storm mote out of his soul to aid his movements, but the zephyr clung stubbornly to his ribs. Frustrated, Rae focused on the sword. At least I was able to summon my own spiritblade. That’s something. Probably not enough, though.
“How a child like you drew the master’s attention . . . it doesn’t matter. What must be done shall be done.” The mage beckoned, and his elemental grew up out of the ground with a rumble. It was a blackened pillar of volcanic rock, laced through with skeins of fire, in a roughly humanoid shape. A cluster of burning magma eyes glared at Rae.
“Bring me the pieces when you’re done,” the stonebinder said. “Break his flesh. But see that the soul is unharmed.”
The elemental lurched forward, its limbs grinding loudly as it moved. Rae turned to run, but the golem stomped hard on the ground, sending a wave across the road that threw him down. The earth shook under the elemental’s tread. The zephyr in Rae’s heart finally answered, lifting him up in a whirl of thick air and spattering rain. Rae landed with his feet firmly planted. The golem was on him. He tried to bring the spiritblade up, but a scalding backhand knocked the sword from his grasp. The spiritblade fell apart like a stormcloud crashing against the mountains, bright shards of false steel and lightning dissipating into a thin mist. Rae stared up at the monster’s constellation of burning eyes.
I have to do something. It can’t end like this!
The elemental loomed over him, fist drawn back. Rae called desperately to the storm mote, for flight, for battle. For anything.
Something else answered him. The dark spirit, the same one that had seized him in the camp, and wound itself around him as he fled Hammerwall, reached through the misty veil of his soul. Its icy touch shocked Rae. A flash of pain shot through his left eye, and then the ground opened up beneath him.
The golem’s stony fist plummeted down at him. Rae sucked in a horrified breath, and found the air in his lungs turned to ice. The stonebinder’s soul appeared in Rae’s vision once again: lightning frozen in place, twisted around the blocky sigils of earth. Beyond the wall three more clusters of light and life, flickering dimly. The implications of those souls still living dawned on Rae’s mind, a sliver of hope for his sister.
The elemental struck. The stony fist passed through his chest like an arrow through water, cratering the ground under his feet and turning the gravel of the road into dust. The impact shook the earth. It washed through Rae’s soul, but at a great distance, as though his bones were wind, and his flesh nothing but mist. The golem’s smoldering eyes widened in shock.
“More than an accident that you survived the crash, then,” the stonebinder purred. “Not some mere child. They were right to shake me from my nest. Very good.”
Rae scrambled to his feet as the stone elemental withdrew its fist, and found that his body was light, almost weightless. He kicked against the ground and floated back, rising into the air. With a little effort he was able to direct his flight, though it was slow, like a cloud drifting in the breeze. He tried to resummon his spiritblade, but felt a void, as though part of his soul had been amputated. The stonebinder tracked his movement, black slate blade stirring the air. The golem slid back, putting itself between Rae and the mage.
“What have you done to me?” Rae screamed. His voice echoed like a bell. He looked down and saw that his body was translucent, the hems of his long coat whipping around him like a cloud, as though he was at the center of a tornado. Deep shadows pooled in the folds of his clothes, while ghostly light shimmered along the edges. A veil dropped over his eyes, turning the world a frosty gray.
“Drawn the monster through the skin, it would appear,” the stonebinder answered. “Very good. Let’s see what sort of nightmare you command.”
The golem erupted from the ground, swallowing Rae’s shadowed body. The light cut out, and the world, eclipsed by the spirit’s rocky skin. Silence entombed him. He was trapped inside the elemental, in a narrow channel of air between slabs of rock and molten stone. Rae couldn’t see anything, not even the flickering light of the stonebinder’s soul. His own hands still gave off their ghostly illumination, but even that started to fade.
—dying again. i can’t die again. the grave has had me once. not again.
“I don’t think—”
—silence!
Heavy stones squeezed the last breath out of Rae’s lungs. The sound of rocks grinding together filled the air. Rae hammered ghostly hands against the closing walls, but though his fists sank into stone, he was unable to stop their progress. He was being crushed, in spirit as well as flesh.
—this is futile. you hold on to life. i cannot help you if you won’t surrender.
“I don’t want to die!” Rae shouted.
—neither did i. but he killed me.
“Then do something!”
—i am doing what I can. but you fight me. you cling to life, like a stubborn rash. until you surrender, there is nothing more I can do to help. The stone walls crept closer, crossing the barrier of Rae’s body, squeezing down into his soul. soon enough, you will fall into the shadows, child. better to leap than be thrown.
Rae’s lungs froze against his ribs. His guts shoved into his spine, and the hollow shell of his skull creaked like ice being crushed. He struggled to breathe, but there was nothing but frost in his lungs. He tried to scream, but the sound of his terror only echoed through his heart, silent, buried in stone.
He could feel the wraith pulling him down, down, straight into the earth. Or was he dying, giving up on life, and his soul was simply dropping into the plane of death, to dissolve among the wraiths? Rae wasn’t ready to die. Or maybe he was. His parents, his sister . . . they were there, weren’t they? Waiting for him? But no, Lalette was alive. He had seen the flicker of her soul, still alive, somewhere in the wreckage. He couldn’t leave her here to face the stonebinder alone.
But what choice did he have? Surrender to the wraith, or die? How were they different?
Rae let go, and immediately his soul dropped through a hole in the world. He saw the earth from below, as though the ground were etched glass, the trees delicate crystal spindles, reaching into the sky. There was a reverse image of the world, forged in shadows, a reflection seen in a pond. He saw the filaments of countless souls: the stonebinder at first, then the clustered trio of his sister, Estev, and Mahk, then hundreds more as he fell away, distant pinpricks as bright as stars in an icy sky.
He hung in the void, pinned in place, motionless. A line of shivering light ran through his chest, connecting him to the distant landscape of the material plane. The line passed through him. He turned, and saw it anchored to another spirit, looming close.
The wraith was wrapped in gray robes, broad shoulders and a ghastly head, a wispy veil hiding its face. A line of pulsing light slashed vertically across its left eye. Its body tapered to a point, legs disappearing into streamers of fog and glowing mist. Bony arms reached toward him.
—you have chosen well. we will save each other. death is the sharpest servant. The wraith wrapped spindly fingers around Rae’s skull, then drew a sigil on his forehead. Rae felt the spirit’s finger pierce his skin, drawing directly on his skull. The sound of it scratched through him like a howling wind. He shivered, and frost filled his blood. now we rise, once more into the light.
Rae slammed back into his body. There was a moment of pain, then the wraith rose through him, twining through his flesh, filling him with power. He shot through the golem like a lightning bolt. The earth spirit peeled apart around him. The stonebinder’s soul hummed with the impact, dragging down into the elemental plane of stone as his spirit dissolved. For a brief second, the mage sank into the ground, struggling to stay on the material plane. Finally he stood and stared up at Rae’s hovering form.
“Very well,” he said. “I have fought masters and angels. I will not fall to a feral, no matter whose wraith you have bound.”
The wraith in Rae’s body didn’t answer. Rae struggled to strike a blow, to gather the incredible power coursing through him and direct it at the stonebinder, but the wraith pierced him through, and refused to act. Deep in his soul, Rae pushed against the spirit. It was like trying to swim up a waterfall.
Slowly, the wraith lifted Rae into the air. His body hung like a fish on the line, limp arms flopping in the unseen winds of the shadowlands, his head lolling back, mouth open. The stonebinder was trying to draw the wraith down, bringing the heavier gravity of the realm of earth into the material plane, dragging on Rae’s body. Rae could feel this enhanced weight, could feel it tearing at his skin and crushing the air out of his lungs. The wraith didn’t care. What need did it have of flesh, or breath, or blood?
Rae recognized his mistake. The wraith didn’t want to save him. It wanted to control him. He remembered the soulslave in Dwehlling, the mortal soul snuffed out, replaced by a wraith. He didn’t want the same thing to happen to him.
The wraith brought him forty feet off the road and stopped. The stonebinder was hurling bolts of stone in their direction, but each time a dart got close, the wraith just dragged them into the shadowlands. To Rae’s paralyzed eyes, this manifested as a flicker of darkness, the world reversed in color and light, and a stab of freezing air in his face. His eyes dried out, and his face started to turn blue. He had to wrest control from the wraith soon, or he would be dead. Would the wraith even notice that its anchor of meat and bone had stopped breathing? Would it care?
If you kill me, what will become of you? Rae could only hope the wraith was listening. The spirit seemed confused, searching the land for something. You said you feared dying again.
—are you still here? The wraith twitched through Rae’s body, and his lungs sucked in breath. The spirit’s manipulations of Rae’s body were clumsy, like a puppetmaster long away from the strings, forgetful of how such minor things as lungs and veins worked. i had almost forgotten about breathing. death will do that to a man.
You’re going to need to do better than that, Rae answered. I’m not—
Icy fingers closed around Rae’s throat, and a bottomless malevolence filled his head.
—i will not serve you, child. my flesh is in danger. be still.
Rae thrashed, gaining just enough control of his body to fight, if not enough to win. Flashes of frustration filled Rae’s mind, as he and the wraith grappled for control. But whatever soul the dead man was, he had been too long from the flesh. Warmth flooded back into Rae’s arms as he took control back from the wraith.
—what are you doing? i saved you!
Rae’s head snapped forward, and his eyes blinked. The world was blurry, but he could just make out the wall, and the wreckage of the carriage. There was something strange there. The carriage looked like it had driven through a bramble. Twisting vines sprouted through the windows, and out of the broken planks of the wagon’s main body. The bench seat was a corkscrewed mess of blossoming vines, with one long strand corkscrewing into the air. Lalette hung among the branches. Her soul flickered like a candle in a draft, threatening to go out.
“La!” Rae shouted. But he was too far away, and his throat was still half-numb from the wraith’s grasp. The sight of his sister, still alive and breathing, invigorated him. He pushed hard on the wraith, reeling the spirit back into his soul. The dead man fought back, digging into Rae’s spirit, as though he was fighting against being dragged back into the grave. Rae felt ruts of cold void tear across the tapestry of his soul as the wraith dug in with dead fingers and grim determination.
“Whoever you are, whatever you are, this is my body, and my life! You can’t have them! Not now, and not ever!”
—that is no longer true. as you will learn.
The lights shifted, and Rae’s blood burned like molten lead in his veins. Silver mist surrounded him, wrapping him in a cloak of moonlight. The pain in his eye spiked, and Rae gasped in agony. His hands curled into claws. Bone-white talons boiled out of his fingers, and a mask of bone and glowing light settled over his face. His body slid to the ground. The stonebinder stared at him, then took a step back.
“They didn’t warn me,” the man said. “They should have warned me!”
“Consider this your warning,” Rae said, though it was the wraith speaking through him. The spirit’s voice cut like ice through his lungs. “Though it will come too late to save you.”
Rae felt like he was riding his body, his brain disconnected from his flesh. In the space of a breath, he flashed across the road, roaring past the stonebinder in a blink. His claws raked through warm flesh, and then he was past, still flying, still moving. Blood boiled over his claws like drops of water on a hot oven. The feel of it thrilled him. The stonebinder’s screams filled the air, but Rae was already turning around, taking great bounding strides that had him flying. His cloak of mist and frost fluttered behind him as he turned again on the stonebinder. The man drew his golem into shape, clothing himself in stony flesh, chips of shale clattering together as he sealed himself inside the elemental. The slate sword grew and grew, until it was a blade as long as Rae was tall, gripped by the golem’s stony fist. Primal stone would turn most blades, but Rae was more than a blade. He was death. He cut like no other knife.
Diving at the stonebinder, Rae drew his talons back, ready to strike. As he approached the golem-crowned mage, Rae felt the wraith pulling him deeper and deeper into the realm of the dead. The light changed again, became indistinct. Distantly, Rae was aware that he could no longer see the wispy constellation of Lalette’s soul, or the stone wall, or even the road. All that was before him was the stonebinder, and the knife that was his own body.
Rae cut through the golem, turning to mist as he passed through the elemental’s stone body, flickering briefly back into the world as his talons passed through the stonebinder’s heart, then mist again. Blood streamed behind him, more blood than Rae had ever seen in one place. He struck the ground, and the wraith released him.
The stonebinder stood frozen in place, staring down at his chest. Slowly his voice rose, a ragged scream that sounded more confused than terrified. Blood leaked between the shingles of his golem-bound armor, a drip at first, quickly becoming a river. The golem fell apart. It calved into pieces that shattered when they hit the ground. The stonebinder’s frail body hung at the core, more blood than flesh. He took a half step forward, turning to look at Rae with terrified eyes. Then he fell, and died, and was silent.
Rae started to hyperventilate. The world was normal again, late afternoon light filtering through the trees, cold wind blowing across the road, and the sound of birds in the distance. What happened? What did I do?
He looked up and saw Estev on top of the wall, staring at him. The man held his pistol in one chubby fist, aiming at the dead stonebinder.
No, Rae realized. Aiming it at me.
—now you understand what you are. what we are.
—death.