Bone lord 2, p.29
Bone Lord 2, page 29
“Not necessarily,” Isu said, her voice urgent. “Not if you act quickly, very quickly.”
“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“The only way to bring her back now,” Isu said, “is to merge what’s left of her soul with a body and soul that is already alive.” She blazed a piercing look into Rami’s eyes. “You are the Wind Goddess’ devotee, but are you willing to make this kind of sacrifice for your chosen deity?”
“Yes.”
Rami’s answer was simple and resolute. She had no qualms about doing this and didn’t even ask what would be involved.
“Hold on,” I said. “If I resurrect Xayon into Rami’s body, and merge their souls together, what happens to Rami?”
“She will still be there, in a sense,” Isu answered. “But she will not be the same as she was. You will not be killing Rami, if that’s what you’re asking, but you will be irrevocably changing who she is and what she is.”
“What she is?”
“Well, she will be a living goddess, just as you are a living god. And Rami’s mind and memories will be fused with those of a goddess who is thousands of years old. Beyond this, I cannot say what other changes will occur. I can only tell you that she will never be the same.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Rami.
“If it means saving Xayon, then yes. I’ve always been ready to lay down my life for her, and I still am.”
“No more questions,” Isu said, her tone urgent. “You need to act right now, Vance. Every second that passes makes Xayon’s fade into oblivion more irreversible.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Here goes nothing.”
I dropped my kusarigama—it wasn’t important for the time being—and picked up Xayon’s skull in my right hand. I focused my thoughts and will on finding Xayon’s soul, and Grave Oath jumped and danced in my hand, spinning like an out of control compass needle. The dagger went on spinning for a lot longer than it ever had before, and I got the sense that even Grave Oath was having trouble finding Xayon’s soul. I hoped that these last few minutes of talking hadn’t made it too late.
Hope began fading, trickling like sand through my fingers as Grave Oath kept spinning. Every second that passed brought a greater sense of despair into my mind. This was taking forever, and it was beginning to seem as if it wouldn’t work at all. Fuck, we’d come all this way and expended all this effort for nothing. And I’d had the chance to resurrect a goddess but had frittered it away by talking. Now, she really was gone for—
Suddenly, Grave Oath stopped spinning and jumped up onto the palm of my hand, pointing directly upward. I saw a terribly faint but perfectly straight line of light stretching from the point of the dagger up into what I now knew was the Sea of Souls. I didn’t hesitate for even a second. As if launched from a catapult, I rocketed up into the cosmic ocean, leaving the earth behind me and shooting through blackness, ripping past billions of drifting souls as I followed the almost invisible line of light to its end.
And there I found her: Xayon. I don’t know how I knew it was her, because she’d become so transparent that I couldn’t even see whether she was a man or a woman, let alone make out any of her features. Her outline was like a ghost of a ghost, one degree away from pure invisibility and fading into oblivion.
I grabbed her, and like the snapping back of a taut bowstring, I was yanked back into my body, carrying the soul of Xayon with me.
When I’d killed and resurrected Isu, I’d had to use a piece of my own life energy to bring her dead body to life and insert her soul into it, but this would be different. I’d still have to use my own life energy, of course—that was just how resurrections worked—but I couldn’t stuff a soul into a living body, a body that already had a soul in it. I had to kill the body, but then, before the soul left it, I would cram the other soul into it. They would merge, sharing the same resurrected body, but my timing had to be perfect. If it wasn’t, I would end up sending Rami’s soul to the Sea of Souls, essentially killing her.
No one spoke as I prepared my mind for the switchover, keeping a grip on Xayon’s soul while reaching into my own heart to pull out some of my life energy. Everything was in place. There was only one last thing to do.
I opened my eyes and looked at Rami.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“For this.”
I slammed Grave Oath between her ribs, right into her heart. Her eyes bulged with shock and disbelief for a second. Then, she transfixed me with a look of such crushing sadness that I felt I’d committed the ultimate betrayal, and guilt consumed me.
There was no time for such feelings though. I plucked Grave Oath out of Rami’s side, and she collapsed forward into my arms. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and she breathed her last. The instant she died, I closed my eyes and launched my mind, gripping my life force in one hand and Xayon’s soul in the other, into Rami’s body.
As soon as I was coursing through her veins, shrunk to a thousandth of my usual size, it seemed, I could sense her soul leaving her body, like rain falling in reverse, getting sucked back into the sky and drying out the land. I had to get to her heart before her soul left her body completely,
I raced through her veins and arteries, and then, there it was, her heart, gushing blood from the wound I’d given it. Her soul was almost gone now, and I had to act immediately. I dove into her heart, cramming both Xayon’s soul and my life force into it, and then felt a surge of energy as Rami’s soul was sucked back into her body. The wound in her heart closed up and disappeared, as if it had never been there in the first place, and then that beautiful organ began to pump again.
I opened my eyes, gasping as I returned to my physical self. I dropped onto my knees, retching and shaking. It felt as if Rollar and Drok had just spent the last hour kicking the shit out of me after I’d drunk a barrel of ankheg acid. This whole resurrection thing really took it out of me.
“You did it, Vance, you did it!”
Groaning with pain and exhaustion, I looked up and saw Rami looking down at me, her eyes bright with life. It was her voice that was speaking, but I knew it was Xayon talking too.
“Thank,” I paused. “Well, thank me, I guess.” I managed a grin as I nursed my aching head. “Someone get me an ale. I need a drink after that.”
“It’s amazing to be alive again after so long,” Rami said, and I knew it was Xayon talking.
“Rami, are you still in there?” I asked, worried that the merging had gone awry.
“Yes, I’m here, Vance. But I’m not just me anymore. I’m her, Xayon, and me, Rami. We’re one person now. It’s, wonderful! I feel amazing. I can’t explain it, but I finally feel... complete. Whole, as if something I’ve been desperately seeking my whole life has finally been returned to me. You did it, you brought me back.”
Rami looked up at Isu, and her expression was like she was seeing her for the first time in a very long time.
“You!” she hissed. “Traitor! Vile traitor!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked Rami.
“Nothing,” Isu said hastily, before Rami—or Xayon—could say anything. “She’s bound to be confused for a long time, while she—this new Rami—becomes accustomed to being merged with an entirely different soul. Ignore her nonsensical babbling.”
“I haven’t forgotten what you did, Isu,” Rami said. “And you will pay. For now, though, I have something for my savior. Vance, stand up.”
“I would if I could,” I groaned, “but I feel like an army of northern barbarians just went to town on me.”
“Then you need the Wind That Lifts Your Wings.” She dropped down onto her knees and gently pressed her lips onto mine, but instead of kissing me, she blew air into my mouth. It didn’t feel like any ordinary breath of air, though. Instead, it felt like a powerful gale rushing through my body. And as the potent gusts of wind raced through me, they whipped away all traces of tiredness and pain, and in a few seconds, I felt as good as new. I sprang up onto my feet, grinning.
“Awesome! Xayon, or uh, Rami, I’m not sure what I should call you now, but that felt great!”
“Call me both, call me either. I do not mind which. All that I care about is the fact that I’m alive again! Give me the kusarigama. I can regenerate its Wind magic now that my powers have been restored.”
This was just getting better and better. I gave Rami-Xayon the weapon, and she held it in both of her hands and closed her eyes. The still air of the vault suddenly howled and swirled as a powerful gust of wind appeared out of nowhere and tore through the space. But it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and the air was calm again. Rami-Xayon handed me back the kusarigama, and the moment my hand touched it, I knew it was different.
“What can it do now?” I asked.
“Before, only the Death magic in the chain section was active, while the Wind magic in the blade section was dormant. Now, the Wind magic is active again, and you can shoot out minor tornados with the blade end, and use them to pick up and throw your enemies.”
“I like the sound of that, and I have just the little worm to test it on.”
We all turned and stared at Shymmin, who was cowering and whimpering.
“No, Lord Chauzec, please, please don’t, please,” he pleaded.
“I bet the girls my uncle sacrificed pleaded for their lives too, before he and his oblates slit their throats and drained them of their blood,” I said coldly. “And you knew all about it. Did you really think I’d let you get away with that?”
I grabbed him by one of his ears, twisting it so sharply that he gasped with pain, and dragged him out of the vaults. Now that I had the key, I had no further use for this evil schemer, and he was about to get what had been coming to him for a long time. I marched him up the stairs and through the castle until we got to a window that overlooked all of Brakith.
“Stand by the window, asshole,” I said.
“No, Lord Chauzec, please, please,” he whined.
“You can either stand by the window and accept your fate like a man, or I can have you tortured to death over a period of days, motherfucker. Days. Your choice.”
Shymmin, weeping pathetically, nodded and shuffled over to the window. He understood now that there was no way out of this. A dark, wet stain spread across his crotch, and his hands started to tremble violently.
I aimed the blade end of the kusarigama at him and felt a new magic building in the black metal, like immense pressure just begging to be released, so I released it.
A howling, madly spinning tornado the size of a man shot out of the blade. I realized I could control it, and I aimed it at Shymmin. It rocketed through the air toward him and slammed into him with the force of a stone golem’s fist. It caught and gripped the screaming little man like a fist of air and hurled him through the huge window as broken glass shattered and cascaded around him. I directed the tornado, with the shrieking Shymmin inside, up through the air, carrying him higher and higher, until he was way up in the clouds, directly above the tall, sharp spire of Brakith’s Cathedral of Light.
Then, I released him.
Shymmin fell screaming through the air, plummeting earthward ever faster, and the people of Brakith pointed up and gasped as they saw him falling from the sky.
With a sickening, wet splat, he hit the spire. The point impaled him and cut his fall abruptly short. His body jerked once, then went limp, his blood running down the spire and dripping out of the drain pipes of the cathedral.
“Justice has finally returned to Brakith,” I said as I sheathed the weapon, “and my uncle’s reign of terror is over. I’ve finally taken back what is rightfully mine, but this is only the beginning.”
A much fiercer battle was yet to be fought, and a far larger war was coming, but I was ready.
I was ready.
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About the Author
Dante King is an author of Men’s Adventure fiction in various flavors. His books involve strong male protagonists who know what they want and do what’s required to get it.
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Dante King, Bone Lord 2
