Dazen absorbed that for a few moments, then asked, “But what are they doing here? This doesn’t look like release. They’re still sea demons.”
“They serve, Dazen. Broken as they are. In gratitude to you, they asked that before they die, they might use what they’ve become for the good of the people they loved, and for you.”
Dazen was about to find that very touching, when he saw something atop the sea demon. A platform? “What’s that on her head?” He squinted against the distance, but he lost it.
Orholam was grinning. “That? You’re gonna love it. Do you want to know the last part of your penance, Promachos?”
There’s more? No, I do not want to know about any more penance! “Yes, please?” he said.
“There is no last part of your penance, but you will have opportunities to show that you’ve changed.”
“That sounds a lot like penance.”
“I know. Just like this next part could look a lot like a leap of faith, but it really isn’t.”
“What are you talking about? A leap? We are going to land together, right? I can suggest some really—”
“Not together, and we’re not landing. This is your part. I’m not getting out of the machina,” Orholam said. “Now, remember, the sea giants despise the bane, but they’re susceptible to their influence. In particular, Karris Atiriel is highly sensitive to the orange bane, even still. Do your best to destroy it before she arrives, would you?”
“Sure, but I still don’ t—”
“Good. Kip will really appreciate it. Put this on. Oh, and one last thing,” Orholam said. He handed Dazen a canopy-pack and the gun-sword.
“What?” Wrestling the pack on, strapping it tight with Orholam’s help, Dazen saw a fleet of ships and the bane like floating islands dotting the waves in the first gray light of the morning. The condor was closing fast. He felt disoriented. Why had all this waited until now?
Orholam embraced him, and at first, Dazen was too stunned to even return it. For all that Orholam looked like a reedy old man, His hug redoled of an unstinting strength that was unmistakably maternal: a mother gathering her hurt child into her arms, fierce in defense, gentle in encouragement.
“Never forget,” Orholam said softly. “I see you. I hold you in My eyes.”
Then He threw Dazen off the side of the condor.
Chapter 143
“Brother! I don’t want to kill you. But I will,” Karris shouted.
Her people were doing better against vastly superior numbers than they had any right to be doing. It helped that everyone on both sides had exhausted both luxin and gunpowder, which left her with her Blackguards—not to mention the Mighty, who’d now been joined by all two dozen prospective members, and Ferkudi, and Winsen (who’d apparently destroyed the green bane by himself).
Somehow they’d followed Karris, despite everything.
Or not Karris, she knew. Ferkudi and Winsen had come to fight for Big Leo and Ben-hadad. They fought for one another, like brothers do.
But not her brother.
Koios had lost patience and joined the fray himself.
He cut a swath through all of them, his own men first, heedless, murderous, then the Blackguards as well, battering them with jets of luxin, impaling men with great spikes, even blasting Gill Greyling far off to one side.
Coming finally in front of her, he threw one hand up, and a cage of blue luxin shot up around her from the ground at her feet. Then he threw his other hand up, and the ground beneath them shot into the sky, making a craggy blue-luxin tower only wide enough for the two of them. She would have expected orange, here on the orange bane, but Koios had always been most adept with blue.
Karris snapped off one of the bars imprisoning her, and then another. But there was a lethal drop on every side. There was nowhere to go.
“Give up now,” he said. He pulsed with every color, rivulets of light cascading from his head and down his body, his luxin armor now more like a carapace than a suit. “Your people die. But you don’t have to join them.”
“You’re losing,” she said.
“Am I?” he said, and she hated that she could still hear echoes of his old voice in this monstrosity. He shook his head. “I have a dozen seed crystals in reserve. I can grow new bane in a day, and the Ilytian pirate kings’ reinforcements will arrive tomorrow. I overextended today in my eagerness. But nothing you’ve done has accomplished anything. Not a thing. You’ve delayed me by one day. Tell me, do you think your people can fight again tomorrow as they did today?”
“You’re lying,” she said, heart sinking. “It’s all lies.”
“Let’s see about that,” he said. He pulled out a brilliant green jewel, holding it with a thumb and forefinger.
He waved his other hand, and the blue bars of Karris’s cage disappeared.
Karris darted forward, but she felt the green luxin inside her body suddenly stiffen.
She skidded on her knees. Against her will, her hand opened, and the scorpion tumbled out of it.
“Worship me,” he said. “The very immortals weary of your Chromeria’s tyranny. They fight for me! I am a god of gods!”
“You’re a slave and you don’t even see it,” Karris said.
He sighed. “They’ve brainwashed you. It’s so very sad. I loved you, sister. I loved you so much. I love you still, but not like this, sister. Not like this.” As he rolled the green jewel between his fingers in the first of dawn’s light, its color flashed like a green wink. Her hands came up, palms spread as in supplication. He smiled at her, but it was an ugly smile, and in his other hand, a blade sprouted, longer and longer.
“Say the word, sister, and live. Or . . . I’ll just to have to remember you as you were, before they corrupted you.”
* * *
Dazen was drifting downward beneath his canopy, trying to slow the thudding of his heart and choke down the tightness in his throat. Without drafting, he didn’t have the margin of error he used to have in everything.
But Orholam Himself threw me. It’s gotta be a perfect throw, right?
However, it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t going to land on Big Jasper at all. He was headed for the darkness of the ocean.
Surely there’s going to be a crosswind coming soon?
Any time now.
There was no crosswind.
But what he did see as he fell was a bane—orange? maybe red—and a flotilla of ships all lashed together, and then a battle of some sort. A circle of Blackguards and some others were holding off many, many more enemies.
All right, all right, maybe this is the right place after all. Good throw, old man.
He pulled out the Blinding Sword and pulled open the breech. There was no powder. Dazen started checking his pack to see if he had a powder horn somewhere.
Surely he had a powder horn somewhere.
The Blackguards were all in a circle around a narrow tower of some sort—and they all had their backs to it, making a last stand—and there she was atop the tower, his Karris, confronting a polychromatic wight.
And she was on her knees.
But Dazen was coming right down behind that big rainbow bastard. Dazen found the powder horn and tugged it clear of the canopystraps.
Cutting this close, Orholam old boy.