The Harpers - The Night Parade Part 26

"She lied," Tamara said bitterly. "I had been born sickly, and the physicians gave me only a few hours to live. The slavers came and offered our parents a fortune for a child that would die soon anyway.

They looked to their other child, to you, Myrmeen, who was starving because they could not provide for her, and accepted the slavers' gold."

"You should have come to me," Myrmeen said. "You should have told me."

Tamara shook her head. "I tracked you. I watched you with envy, my human sister who could go where she wished, do as she liked, and experience this world as a native creature, not a predator. As much as I wanted to be human, I had needs and appet.i.tes that were not."

Myrmeen's lips curled slightly in disgust.

The muscles in Tamara's face tightened. "I did not think I would be able to> bear seeing your revulsion. It's strange, sister. Somehow it doesn't bother me."

Covering her face with her hands, Myrmeen said, "I'm sorry."

"You can't help it," Tamara said. "I understand. Besides, would you have believed me if I had told you the truth then?"

"I don't know," Myrmeen said honestly. "Why did you try to kill me at Shandower's retreat?"

Tamara shook her head. "I thought you had been party to the sale of your child. All my life I had convinced myself that you were n.o.ble and decent. When Dak sold the baby I thought you were party to the deal, that you had done to this innocent what our parents had done to me. I thought you had chosen to abandon her."

"I never would have done that," Myrmeen said.

Tamara glanced at Krystin, then back at her sister. "I know that now."

Hardness returned to Myrmeen's eyes, the golden slivers within the deep, troubled sea of her pupils shining like avenging swords. "What happened to my child?"

"Zeal and I wanted a baby," Tamara said. "We purchased yours."

"No, please," Myrmeen said. "My baby can't be like you, it can't be, please-"

"It's not," Tamara said. "I wanted to raise your daughter myself. Her place was arranged for at the Draw, but then it all came to me, the horrors I had witnessed and the evil inside me. Sanity overwhelmed me. Somehow I was able to be merciful. I told Zeal to give the baby to a human. He chose one from the Council of Mages in Suldolphor who could not have children. He and his wife have provided the child with the life of a princess. Your daughter is royalty."

Krystin took Myrmeen's hand and squeezed it as Tamara gave Myrmeen the name of the man who had raised her child.

Tamara whispered, "I was angry with you for giving up your baby, Myrmeen. If I had known you had been deceived, that you wanted the child, I would have taken you to her long ago. I thought you came back to Calimport only to cover up your dirty secret. But when I saw you with this one," she said, pointing weakly at Krystin, "I began to wonder if I was wrong. And later I came to know I was. I'msorry, Myrmeen."

"Why did you want to kill Lord Sixx?" Myrmeen asked.

"For the children," she croaked. "With Sixx dead, it would be decades before another rose to power and made the journey to our homeland to learn the secrets of the apparatus and the Draw-decades of life for children that would have suffered my fate."

Tamara shuddered. Death was close. Suddenly the images she had glimpsed in the emerald made sense; they had been of her life after death, had revealed her soul's destination. She was pleasantly surprised to learn that she did not face the dark G.o.ds of the Night Parade's world, but instead the peaceful kingdoms, the afterlife to which humans aspired. In that moment, she knew where she belonged.

She knew she had always been human, despite the evil that had been pumped into her veins, the darkness imposed over her soul.

"Take care of your daughters," Tamara said urgently, then surrendered to death, leaving Myrmeen to question the nature of her final statement.

Light flared from the docks, an explosion of blue-white flame racing high into the air.

"Come on," Myrmeen said, taking Krystin's hand.

"We can't just leave her," the girl said, gesturing at Tamara's body. "She's your sister."

"We'll be back for her," Myrmeen said as she saw bright green strands of lightning lick the sky.

She followed the length of the warehouse and peered around the corner to witness a sight that her mind could not at first a.s.similate. When the shock subsided and she understood what she was looking at, Myrmeen finally began to cry.

Twenty-Three.

Throughout the city, the human resistance grew stronger. The members of the Night Parade had not been prepared to fight a war. They had been lazy, confident in their abilities. Bel-lophat's music had made them drunk with thoughts of their own power. They had never dreamt that the humans' sheer numbers would prove to be their doom.

Human parents fought like wild animals to save their children's lives. The rich battled alongside the poor to destroy the nightmare people. The militia rallied the citizens into troops of fighting men and woman. Petty squabbles were put aside as they faced their common enemy. Buildings where the monsters had been trapped were set to the torch without a second thought. The streets filled with people whose fear had caused them to turn away from the day-to-day horrors of life in Calim-port, people who refused to allow fear to control their lives any longer.

There were losses, of course. Some members of the Night Parade proved to be vulnerable to steel, and they died as easily as their human prey. Other creatures took a dozen or more human lives before they surrendered to death, while still others could be hacked into a dozen pieces, then rise to escape or slaughter their tormentors.

Despite the high cost of victory, the humans fought and won against the nightmare people. Each time one of the monsters was killed, the humans cheered and howled in triumph. They had no idea that near the docks, a drama was being played out that would decide all their fates.

Myrmeen and Krystin stared in horror from the mouth of the alley as they saw that the temple of Sharess had vanished. In place of the temple stood an edifice that appeared to be in a constant state of transition. Although each of the building's complex configurations lasted no more than a few seconds, every incarnation bore common aspects: The support structures were made of searing blue-white energy. Emerald lightning snaked parallel to the ground to create various tiers within the rapidly shifting structure. The building itself had no walls to speak of and was always at least three stories high. Stairways led between the tiers, odd blood-red stretches of linkage that were either too far apart or too close together to easily accommodate humans.

Standing before the structure were Lord Sixx and a ring of hooded women in black. In the dark man's hands was a glowing blue-white object that also reconfigured itself in motions identical to the largerstructure. Lord Sixx was sweating, chanting loudly enough to be heard over the rain. The black-robed women chimed in at appropriate moments, adding a chorus to his strangely beautiful song of yearning and loneliness.

Myrmeen realized she was not looking at a building at all. This was the apparatus. The object created a whirlwind of shapes, each configuration more unusual than the last. Suddenly she became aware of the children in the acolytes' arms. She felt her body shake as revulsion coursed through her. She was witnessing the opening procedures in the ceremony that once had been enacted to metamorphose her sister into the progeny of darkness. She finally understood the true purpose of the apparatus: it was a machine for conjuration, a creation that evoked spells too complex for humans to manage.

Myrmeen did not want to know what the spells would bring into existence. She only knew that somehow she had to stop the ceremony before it reached its conclusion and the infants' humanity was sacrificed. The beautiful fighter studied the situation as calmly and rationally as she could under the circ.u.mstances. Getting to Lord Sixx was her first problem; directly before him lay the structures created by the apparatus, and close behind him was a gathering of monsters, including the flayed man whom Krystin had described, Ord's murderer. To make her task more difficult, the dark man was wreathed by the circle of robed women. At their backs lay the churning waters of the Shining Sea. From above, the endless daggers of rain created a shimmering curtain that lent a dreamlike quality to the proceedings.

This was not a dream, she reminded herself. People were dying, and if she did not develop a plan quickly, the children born in Calimport this night would become monsters.

"Don't jump," a voice called.

Myrmeen felt her heart stop as she spun and stumbled back. Krystin's movements echoed her own. They both were stunned to see the rain-drenched, swarthy-skinned face of the man they had sent away to find help.

"Reisz," Myrmeen said as she launched herself at him and threw her arms around his neck. He tensed, placing one hand on her shoulder to hold her back. "What's wrong?"

Reisz stepped back and proffered a small bundle to them, a child wrapped in blankets. "I didn't want you to crush the little one."

Staring in wonder, Myrmeen saw that the baby was asleep. "What happened?"

"My boat capsized while I wasn't far from sh.o.r.e. I swam back, then fell victim to that strange music. When it ended and I regained my senses, I started to scour the docks looking for you. I'd have missed you completely if not for that flash of light on the roof. I thought of the fire lord and feared you might have engaged him. I hunted until I found you."

"What about the baby?" Krystin asked.

Reisz hunched over slightly to protect the infant from the rain. "I found a monster carrying the child and had to persuade the thing to part with the little darling-and its life, of course."

Krystin stood beside Myrmeen, watching the tiny baby's movements as it slept. Sadness overcame her as she said, "Myrmeen, there is a way for you to get close to Lord Sixx, but I don't think you're going to like it."

A quarter of an hour later, Myrmeen was walking in the direction of the conclave of monsters.

She tried desperately to force back her fear of the creatures, her fear of dying, and her revulsion at her own decision to go along with Krystin's plan. Although the child she carried in her arms was very light, she strode as if she were weighed down by the burden of a lifetime spent with guilt.

Don't do it, she thought, don't give them the child. If you fail, it is a life that might have been spared, and your soul will be plagued for all eternity.

But she knew there was no other way. She steeled herself for her confrontation with the monsters. The heavy winds accompanying the rain licked at the hood she had procured from the creature Reisz had slain and threatened to pull it back and expose her humanity. She had disguised her features by covering her face in the gore of the city's gutters. The weapons she had looted from a shop two blocksaway slapped against her waist and thigh.

Reisz had positioned himself on the rooftop where Tamara had been struck by Zeal's flames.

Krystin had promised to remain in the alley and wait for Myrmeen. If she was killed, Krystin had been made to swear that she would turn and run, never looking back. Reisz was fairly certain that once he performed his task, the night people would not allow him to escape alive. He told Krystin that he would draw them away from her so that she could escape.

"It is my duty as a Harper to die if necessary in the task of protecting others," Reisz had said. "If you try to take vengeance on the Night Parade, you'll end up dead, too, and no one will be left to tell the tale. You must get back to Arabel and warn Elyn-she will tell the other Harpers, and they can rally an army to ferret out these killers."

Krystin solemnly had agreed, then held her mother and kissed Reisz lightly on his cheek, which had been softer and more inviting than she ever would have guessed. She even had made a comment to this effect when she had been left alone with Myrmeen.

Myrmeen had touched the girl's hair lightly as she said, "My father told me he wanted to make the monsters go away. He didn't know about the Night Parade. That isn't what he meant. There are things in our hearts that only we can dispel. If I don't come back to you, it's not because I don't love you. It's not because I don't want to come back. This is something I have to do, something I have to try to stop, or the nightmares that I've had will seem like pleasant dreams compared to what dreams may come after this night. I pray they don't come for you, Krystin. You don't deserve them."

"Neither did you," the girl had replied.

Myrmeen had smiled sadly and kissed Krystin's forehead, then gathered the baby to her and raced from the alley. Now she was yards from the gathering, trying to divorce her thoughts from the horror of what was about to occur.

"Another one," a bilious creature more smoke and mist than flesh and blood shouted.

The crowd parted to let Myrmeen through. She trained her gaze downward and registered that the baby was awake, squirming madly in her arms, but it was not crying. A strange sucking noise came from the child, competing with the heavy winds, the shouts of Lord Sixx and his acolytes, and the steady drizzle engulfing them. She parted the folds of the soggy blanket obscuring the child and saw two small marks on the infant's neck.

Her vocal chords, Myrmeen registered in dull, throbbing waves of shock. The child's vocal chords had been severed or pinched to prevent the little girl from screaming.

I can't do this, Myrmeen suddenly decided, but then she understood that it was too late, and that she had committed herself. If she tried to turn back now, she would be captured and killed with no chance to redeem the children like the one who now depended on her.

She walked past the gathering of monsters, pa.s.sing directly before the flayed man. She was about to lay a single boot upon the slight rise where Lord Sixx and the acolytes had gathered when a glob of darkness burned the fabric of reality before her and stretched itself into a perfect replica of the first acolyte.

"She's hurt," Myrmeen said. "She may not be worthy-"

"The Draw will heal her," the acolyte said, reaching out with her pale, withered hands.

You know what to do! Burke's voice raged in her head. You have no choice. You have to save the children. Go ahead!

Myrmeen lifted the baby slightly and hesitated. Suddenly she felt as if she had been returned to the quarters she had shared with Dak fourteen years ago. She once again was turning away, taking the easy way out: Our child is dead. You don't want to see. Close your eyes. Close them.

Lifting her head so that the hood fell back slightly, Myrmeen felt her mind suddenly disconnect from her actions. Her face was set with determination as she slipped into the role she had agreed to play and handed the baby over with open eyes and an unfeeling heart. Now it was a matter of timing, skill, precision, and luck.

Lightning struck at the edge of the docks, causing shouts of surprise from the gathering. The new acolyte had turned for just an instant to glance in the direction of the lightning strike. Sixx had squeezedhis eyes shut as he chanted. The flash of light made him look out to the dock. Myrmeen knew he would see her face, which was illuminated from the apparatus's brilliance, when he looked back. Her opening would last for only a second or two.

Thought and action merged as she pulled back the folds of her cape, lifted the twin loaded crossbows that had been tied to her waist sash, and fired both weapons. The first shaft plunged into the cl.u.s.ter of eyes in Lord Sixx's chest; the second struck the apparatus, knocking it from his hands. The smaller blue-white construct hit the marble at their feet. Its counterpart wavered slightly, the palace of lightning shuddering, then regaining its form and brilliance.

For a moment, Lord Sixx teetered in shock, his words of evocation halted in midsentence.

Myrmeen heard a slight whistle of air and prayed that the shaft Reisz had fired from his perch would strike true. She felt a sudden rush of wind at her side and saw a blur of motion as Lord Sixx was thrust out of the way of the shaft and Dymas suddenly appeared with a grunt of agony and surprise, Reisz's arrow buried in his skull. The flayed man went down, his lifeless body falling upon his master's wounded form.

"This one dies for your crime," said the acolyte.

Myrmeen turned to see the old woman to whom she had handed the infant. The woman's charred black nails suddenly extended into claws that were positioned to descend and tear the infant into b.l.o.o.d.y ribbons. Before Myrmeen could act, a sword arced through the air and severed the head of the old woman. Myrmeen rushed forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the baby as the headless body fell.

Krystin stood before her, chest heaving, the sword she had used to kill the acolyte sc.r.a.ping the docks' wooden surface. She was trembling, covered in blood. Although they knew they were dead, that no one would rescue them from the angry mob of creatures that was just now a.s.similating the shocking events of the last few moments, Myrmeen and Krystin smiled. A strange, insane look pa.s.sed between them.

"You really should have been my daughter," Myrmeen said with a laugh as barren as the giggle of a man being led to the executioner's blade. "You're as arrogant and stupid as I ever was."

"I love you, too, Mom," Krystin whispered.

Before them, Lord Sixx was being helped to his knees by the remaining acolytes. The woman with the splash of red upon her black cloak had retrieved the apparatus. Another acolyte was dragging away Magistrate Dymas's body. Myrmeen had no time to react as Lord Sixx produced the edged weapon he had displayed in Pieraccinni's lair, the one Alden had described to her. He pressed the center gem of three rubies on the jagged blade's hilt, and the two knives that had been squeezed together sprang apart, revealing a strand of razor-sharp wire that stretched between them.

Myrmeen knew she could not leap out of the way with the baby in her hands. The fighter clutched the child and turned her back on Lord Sixx as he threw the knife. Krystin screamed her mother's name.

Pain suddenly exploded in Myrmeen's shoulder. Her left arm went limp, forcing her to hold the baby with one arm. She fell to her knees as she pressed the child to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, determined to shield it with her own body. A single thought raced through her: Reisz, shoot them! d.a.m.n you, Reisz, where are you?

Lightning struck, and from the sudden illumination she saw that the rooftop where he had been perched was empty. From his vantage it must have appeared that Sixx had been struck, and Reisz was scrambling down to help her, not realizing that he had left her to die.

Her entire back was soaked with blood and she quickly became light-headed and dizzy. A moment later it occurred to her that she had not been engulfed by the creatures gathered on the dock.

She looked up to see that the monsters had come as close as they could with any degree of safety.

The magic of the apparatus is fatal to them upon contact, Myrmeen thought. Only Sixx and the old woman were safe because they had recited spells of protection against the energies. Dymas had gone to Sixx's side even when he knew it would mean his death; Reisz's arrow had been unnecessary.

"Take her," Myrmeen said, a.s.suming that Krystin was close. The girl appeared before the fighter and took the child from her arms. Myrmeen dragged herself to her feet and turned to confront Lord Sixx.Behind them, the structures formed by the apparatus suddenly revealed an open center. In that void, a large, rolling cloud of nebulous energy appeared. At the center of the sphere that was forming Myrmeen could see a second round patch of darkness and understood that she was not merely looking at the absence of light, but at entropy, the unraveling of all physical principles known to humanity. The black dot at the ball's core grew until it resembled a pupil.

An eye, Myrmeen thought in shock. She realized that she was staring at the detached eye of something large enough to dwarf the docks, a creature that looked out with eyes of darkness and absorbed reality in its wake, changing the laws of reason to suit its own desires.

"Lord Sixx, it is time!" the first acolyte screamed.

"No," he hissed. "This one dies first."

Myrmeen drew her stolen sword, which she had taken from the shop they had looted, and advanced on the man, her legs nearly giving out with the exertion.

"Not that way," Lord Sixx said as he yanked her crossbow shaft from the cl.u.s.ter of eyes in his exposed chest. The Eyes of Domination flared. "Watch closely."

The five remaining eyes on his chest suddenly locked their gazes with Myrmeen's and changed color. All five suddenly took on the cast of her own eyes-deep blue with golden slivers-and suddenly she was no longer on the docks. The rain had stopped, and her wound had vanished. Darkness surrounded her.

She wondered briefly if she were dead. She knew that it could happen very quickly: an explosion so instant and devastating that she would have no time to become aware of her moment of death. In her mind she ran through a catalogue of other ways in which she could have been dispatched that would explain her presence in this noiseless, formless void.

"What's happening?" she cried. "Where am I?"

She recalled the eyes of Lord Sixx, the eyes she had seen in a nightmare. Suddenly she understood. He had used those eyes to transport her to another place, a land of the mind. None of this was real.

But how could that be? she wondered. It felt real. It tasted real. The sounds were very real.

Music slowly drifted in her direction. Bellophat? No, that was impossible. He had been destroyed, his music stopped forever. She recognized the lullaby, played on a lute, one of her father's compositions.