The Spirit Thief Part 17

He shifted, turning toward Karon's light, and Miranda's eyes went wide. The enslaver's arms were buried in the pillar. Not just buried, eaten, up to his elbow. Where they met its surface, the pillar had corroded, leaving a black, gaping hole that glistened in the firelight like a rotten wound. As she watched, the pillar made a soft, wet sound, and another inch of Renaud's arms disappeared inside. Miranda covered her mouth, fighting not to be sick.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Renaud sighed, gazing lovingly at the pillar's rotten surface. "Gregorn's greatest accomplishment lies just beneath this sh.e.l.l. Even now, the lineage of Gregorn in my flesh and blood is eating away at his barriers. When it is finished, Gregorn's legacy will be mine at last."

"You're mad," Miranda said, regaining her composure. "Anything Gregorn conquered as a wizard died with him long ago. What treasure could he have left you?"

"The only kind that matters," Renaud said calmly. "A spirit."

"Nonsense," Miranda scoffed. "No bond between human and spirit, not even an enslavement, can last past the wizard's death."

"Ah, but you see," Renaud said as the pillar ate another inch of him, "Gregorn's not dead."

It took Miranda a few moments to find her voice after that p.r.o.nouncement. Fortunately, Eli spoke for both of them.

"What do you mean 'not dead'? It's been four hundred years. You're kidding yourself if you think anything human can hold on that long."

"The human will is the greatest force in this world," Renaud said. "It can conquer any spirit, any natural force, even time, if only the wizard can master himself. Gregorn's will conquered a spirit powerful enough to raise Mellinor from the inland sea. A spirit so strong, so dangerous, that nations trembled at Gregorn's feet for three months before the strain of controlling the spirit finally destroyed his body."

"As it should," Miranda spat. "I hope that spirit crushed-"

"His body," Renaud said, cutting her off, "not his will. Our bodies, our sh.e.l.ls are fragile. They age and die, but while we have will, we have life. Gregorn understood this in a way your Spirit Court, with all its self-censorship in the name of arbitrary balance balance, never could. When his flesh began to fail him, my ancestor used the last of his power to enslave the only human soul a wizard can control, his own."

"Impossible," Miranda said grimly. "You can't enslave yourself any more than you could lift yourself off the ground by grabbing your own shoulders."

"That is the blindness of your discipline," Renaud sneered. "You Spiritualists are so quick to dismiss things, aren't you? So quick to say this is impossible, or that is impossible, and so, when the impossible happens in front of you, you're as blind and deaf as any human." He looked up at the pillar triumphantly. "Gregorn mastered himself and turned his own dying body into a pillar of salt, binding his spirit to this world. He left only one decree to his followers: form a kingdom around him and never let another wizard within its borders so that their spirits could not interfere with the delicate balance of his control."

Renaud leaned into the gaping, black blot that had now consumed over half of the pillar's surface, caressing it like a lover. "That's the real reason behind Mellinor's wizard ban," he whispered. "The reason why I was forced to grow up as a stranger in my own home, the reason I was banished, and the reason I returned. Everything in Mellinor grew from that one purpose: to protect Gregorn's control. Everything in this kingdom still serves her first king. Everything here exists so that this spirit who raised kingdoms and frightened nations, the spirit Gregorn gave up rebirth to gain, could never, ever escape him.

"That, Spiritualist," Renaud said, grinning cruelly, "is the true power of the human spirit, which you, with your rings and your self-limitations, will never reach."

Miranda trembled with rage, but before she could speak, Eli stepped forward.

"If you're so impressed by all this," he said casually, "why are you even here? If everything in Mellinor is in service to Gregorn, what are you doing to that pillar except undermining a greater wizard's work?"

"Taking what is mine," Renaud hissed. "I am Gregorn's heir, the first wizard in the Allaze family since Gregorn himself." He thrust his hands deeper into the pillar, which shuddered and ate. "It is time for a new wizard king in Mellinor. Time for me to receive at last what my ancestor has held in trust for me for all these years. Together, we shall finish what Gregorn started. We will crush the trembling world into submission until every spirit waits on my demands and every wizard depends on my whim."

"Don't fool yourself!" Miranda cried, her voice shaking with barely restrained anger. "Gregorn isn't holding anything for you. A man who was willing to give up rebirth and sleep in a salt pillar for eternity just to keep a stranglehold on a spirit isn't the type to quietly pa.s.s on his legacy to a new generation. Even if that pillar eats you whole, Gregorn will never give that spirit to you!"

"Any other time you would be right, Spiritualist," Renaud said. "But what you don't realize is that, at this point, he doesn't have a choice." The enslaver looked at the place where his arms met the pillar, and his haughty smile became a mad grin. "After four hundred years, his soul has degraded so far past human, he's no better than the salt he's trapped in."

As he spoke, the black surface of the pillar began to bubble and hiss. Renaud laughed and plunged his hands in deeper. Then, with a sickening thrust, he threw open his spirit, and Miranda gasped as the black, sickening weight of his triumph-drunk will rolled over her.

The pillar groaned as Renaud's spirit crashed against it, stabbing into the black wound where his arms were buried and pressing down, forcing the hole wider. The black taint on the pillar's surface bubbled and hissed as Renaud forced himself in, using his spirit as a wedge. The harder he pressed, the faster the dark stain spread, eating what was left of the pillar's k.n.o.bby gray surface as rot from an infected wound devours a limb. With a final, triumphant stab of his spirit, Renaud's arms disappeared into the sucking maw. His head followed, then his chest and his legs until, finally, he vanished completely. The pressure of his opened soul still pounded through the room, but the man himself was gone, eaten by the pillar, which was now entirely covered in the slick, black rot.

The second the last inch of his heel disappeared into the pillar, a wailing scream cut through the air. Miranda slapped her hands over her ears, but it was no use. The spirit scream cut straight to the well of her soul. It was worse than the sound the sandstorm had made, for that had been many small voices and the effect had been broken up. This scream was one enormous, anguished cry that set her teeth on edge and brought tears to her eyes, but worst of all, worse than anything, was the ghost of a human voice behind it.

Black sludge began to pour off the pillar's surface, oozing from the hole Renaud left behind him and pouring onto the marble floor. It eroded the stone where it touched, hissing loudly as it washed down the dais steps, and the smell almost made Miranda vomit. The liquid stank of rotten meat, like open sewage on a hot day. The stench filled the room to bursting, until Miranda could feel it eating her skin.

"What is it?" she choked out, looking frantically at Eli.

"Gregorn," Eli said, his voice m.u.f.fled by the handkerchief he'd covered his nose and mouth with. "Or what's left of him. Renaud's forcing him out."

The ooze from the pillar showed no sign of stopping. It flowed down the dais to pool on the floor. The stone floor hissed and cracked as the acid spread across it with frightening speed, and yet the pillar showed no signs of slowing. Above it all, Renaud's spirit hung like an iron weight, and the fearsome spirit wail went on and on-almost human, yet never stopping for breath. When the black pool reached the center of the throne room, Renaud's spirit jerked and the pool froze, quivering like a caught leaf.

"Gregorn," the enslavement boomed through Renaud's voice, sending enormous ripples through the black liquid. "Kill them."

The wailing scream spiked, and the black sludge began to boil. No, Miranda took several steps back; not just boil, grow. The pool was rising, bubbling up into an enormous mound of black slime between them and the pillar on the dais. It grew and grew, and as it grew, its screaming deepened, until there was nothing human in it at all.

Eli looked up at the quivering, putrid, acidic sludge that was all that remained of the world's greatest enslaver, and his face paled. "Well," he whispered, glancing sideways at Miranda. "You're the Spiritualist, how do we stop it?"

"I have no idea," she confessed. "I've never even heard of something like this."

High above them, the peak of the mountain of ooze had reached the highest point of the vaulted ceiling. When it touched the stone, it wailed again, sending a rain of acidic globs down on top of them.

"Wonderful," Eli said, dodging the spray. "Just bleeding wonderful." He sighed deeply, though Miranda couldn't imagine how he managed it, considering the stench, and he looked over his shoulder at the lava spirit, still waiting in the hall. "It's never easy, is it?"

"Easy is boring," Karon rumbled, stepping through the ruined doorway.

"I hoped that was what you'd say." Eli smiled. "Well," he said and turned back to the blob, "let's have some fun, then."

Miranda felt the lava spirit's answering laugh deep in her stomach. The castle shook to its foundation as Karon charged forward, his glowing stone feet cracking the floor with every step, and his flaming fist aimed straight at the center of the quivering pile of black liquid. The blob that had been Gregorn surged forward to meet Karon midway, and Eli, Miranda, and Nico dove for cover as the two spirits collided in an explosion of black steam.

CHAPTER 24.

Miranda hunched over, gasping for breath. For once, Nico and Eli were right down on the floor with her, coughing and choking as the black steam burned their lungs. Eyes watering, Miranda looked up in time to see the thick, acidic clouds swirling off Karon's molten fist as the lava spirit prepared to swing again.

"Wait!" Miranda choked out, but the lava spirit didn't hear her. His fist slammed into the slick mound that had been Gregorn, but the blob barely flinched. Instead, it sucked in the blow, sending tarry tendrils up Karon's glowing arm, trapping the spirits together. Black steam churned around them as the spirits screamed together. Karon struggled against Gregorn's grip, but the more he fought, the tighter the black tar adhered. Finally, with a great, rumbling cry, the lava giant opened his enormous mouth and breathed a column of white-hot fire over both of them. The blob shrieked and pulled away, showering acid that immediately evaporated in the shimmering heat. A fresh wave of black steam surged across the room, covering everything in a stinging, inky cloud.

"You have to stop him!" Miranda wheezed in the direction she'd last seen Eli. "If he keeps evaporating the liquid like that, we're going to suffocate before he can make a dent!"

Somewhere in the black clouds, Eli coughed a few words, and the roaring of Karon's fires stopped. Almost instantly, the clouds began to clear. Wiping her eyes furiously, Miranda squinted up to see Karon frozen in midswing. Eli coughed again, and the lava spirit nodded. Karon brandished his smoking fist one last time at the black blob and vanished in a great puff of ash, which blew back to Eli.

"What are you doing?" Miranda shouted, struggling to her feet as Eli closed his shirt over the reemerging burn. "I didn't mean get rid of him entirely!"

"Can't have it both ways!" Eli shouted back. "Watch out!"

Denied its target, the acid blob screamed louder than ever, sending a rain of black sludge showering down. Miranda, Eli, and Nico ducked as the fist-sized globs struck the wall behind them, and sank deep in the dissolving rock.

"He'll melt the palace into slag at this rate!" Eli shouted over the spirit's wail.

"We have to do something!" Miranda cried.

"You tell me!" Eli cowered as more acid spattered around them. "I'm out of good ideas!"

"I'd take a bad one, at this point!"

Still screaming madly, the mound of sludge shivered from base to tip. Suddenly, with a sickening, liquid snap, a torrent of black water began to pour out of its base. It was as if a dam inside the sludge had burst, sending a river of foamy, black liquid roaring across the floor straight toward them. It happened so quickly, Miranda couldn't do anything except watch in horror as the wave rushed at her. Only when the black tide washed over the piles of discarded treasure, dissolving the carved mahogany and precious metals in the time it took to catch her breath, did Miranda's instincts gain the upper hand on her fear. She spun around and dashed for the far wall, her feet skidding across the marble. As soon as she was close enough, she launched herself at the wall, and her grasping fingers caught the edge of a decorative niche. She hauled herself up, tossing over the stone bust of some Mellinorian king or other to make room, and pressed her body as far back into the crevice as she would fit. Eli followed her lead, climbing into the alcove next to hers.

"Nico," he shouted, "there's a shelf a bit higher up you could jump to."

But Nico didn't answer. Miranda peered over the lip of his hiding place. Several feet below, the girl was standing at the base of the wall, stoically watching the black tide as it rushed toward her.

"Nico," Eli said more urgently, leaning out of his crevice and thrusting out his arm. "Take my hand!"

"Josef told me to protect you," Nico said, not even looking at him.

"Don't be an-" He gasped and ducked as a black wave crashed against the wall, sending burning spray up the walls around them. Miranda turned away in horror as the black surge covered Nico's lower body, and waited for the scream.

But there was no scream, not even a pained gasp. Miranda turned back. Nico was standing in inky liquid up to her knees. Smoke rose in white plumes where the acid touched her, yet her posture was as calm as ever. She might have been wading in a warm river for all the attention she paid the black water eating at her legs.

At the center of the room, the black blob quivered, and the tide of black sludge receded with a sucking hiss. Miranda watched in spellbound horror as the girl's legs came back into view, bracing for the worst. However, while Nico's trousers, boots, and the hem of her coat were completely dissolved where the acid had submerged them, her pale skin was untouched, as were the heavy silver manacles she wore on her ankles.

Gregorn screamed in angry confusion as Nico took a step forward, her bare, uninjured feet moving through the sludge of the dissolved treasure in quick, light steps. As she walked, a soft, dry sound cut through the spirit's wailing. It sounded like dust blowing through gra.s.s, and it took Miranda a few seconds to realize that Nico was laughing. The girl hopped clear of the treasure detritus and stood before the screaming sludge spirit, tilting her head back so she could see all of him at once. When she spoke, her voice was full of that horrible, dry dust laughter.

"You think you can beat us with that?"

The black sludge froze in midshriek and hung there, quivering. Nico watched for a moment, and then she raised one bony hand to her throat, and the temperature in the room plummetted.

In one smooth motion, Nico tossed her coat to the ground. Without its bulk to hide her, she was skeletally thin. Her threadbare shirt was sleeveless, and her bony arms hung like cracked branches from a crooked trunk. Her silver manacles glowed with their own light, casting weird shadows across the acid-etched floor as she reached up to take off her hat.

"Nico..." Eli's voice held a warning, but if the girl heard him, she ignored it. "That stupid girl," he whispered.

Miranda didn't have to ask what he meant. Without the coat to hide her, the girl's aura was inescapable. Predatory menace rolled off her in waves, stirring Miranda's deepest instincts to run, to get out. But she could not move. Deep, irrational, primordial fear had turned the air to glue, snaring her soul like a rabbit under a wolf's paw. She could do nothing except cower in her alcove and watch, gasping in the acidic air and waiting for the threat to kill her or pa.s.s by. For the first time, she understood why all spirits fear a demonseed, and why Gin had been so adamant about killing the girl, no matter how small or controlled she seemed.

"Can't you stop her?" Miranda whispered through gritted teeth.

"Only Josef can stop her when she gets like this." Eli was pressed so far back in his alcove Miranda couldn't see him anymore. "You might want to get down," he whispered.

Nico stretched her arms out, flexing her shoulders. One by one, the thick manacles at her wrists, ankles, and neck popped open with a hard, metallic snap. Each time, the silver clung to her for a moment, screaming angrily, but even fully awakened metal can't fight gravity. The manacles. .h.i.t the floor with a crash, cursing Nico all the way down. As soon as she was free of their touch, the small girl's posture changed completely.

The Nico who stood at the center of the circle of cast-off clothes and silver restraints was an entirely different creature than the Nico who had entered the throne room with them. Her thinness was no longer awkward, but deadly and cutting, like garrote wire. Her movements were languid as she dropped lazily into a stance, her newly freed hands flourished in front of her.

With a thin smile Nico stared up at the enormous sludge. Then the dim moonlight seemed to bend around her, and she vanished.

The sludge roared as shadows, blacker than any simple darkness, streaked across its surface, appearing and vanishing in an instant, like black heat lightning. It was nauseating to watch, but Miranda could no more look away than she could sprout wings and escape. Everywhere the shadow touched, a large section of acidic sludge vanished. It wasn't that it got knocked away, or that the creature was pulling it back. Where the darkness landed, that piece of the blob was simply gone. Within a few seconds, the acid spirit looked like a mouse-nibbled biscuit, and the fear in the room was suffocating. The stones were screaming, the unlit lamps were screaming, the gold-plated decorations, the remaining contents of the treasury, the gla.s.s windows, the air itself, everything everything in the throne room was screaming nonsense in a state of full panic. The voices stabbed Miranda's ears, filling them to bursting, but all she could do was press herself tighter against the screeching wall and watch wide-eyed as Nico winked into view, landing neatly at the center of the throne room. in the throne room was screaming nonsense in a state of full panic. The voices stabbed Miranda's ears, filling them to bursting, but all she could do was press herself tighter against the screeching wall and watch wide-eyed as Nico winked into view, landing neatly at the center of the throne room.

Gregorn's sludge was about half the size it had been. It lay at the far end of the room, whimpering pathetically, but still protecting the dais as it had been commanded to do. Nico, on the other hand, looked healthier than Miranda had ever seen her. Her pale skin was flushed and glowing. Her body was no longer skeletal, but strong and supple. Her legs were longer and her torso more filled out. She also looked taller, a suspicion confirmed by the new gap between the hem of her shirt and the waist of her trousers. It was as if she'd aged ten happy, healthy years, and yet the freezing, predatory menace rolling off her was stronger than ever. She glided across the corroded stone, and the acidic sludge shrank back, but it would not give up its position in front of the dais, not even when Nico stopped a foot away from its trembling base.

"Nico!" Eli's voice was thin and strained, but the fact that he could speak at all was a miracle. "Don't do it, Nico!"

The girl ignored him. With a triumphant cry, Nico plunged her bare hand deep into the acid's center. If Miranda had named the spirit's scream a wail before, the cry it gave now reduced its earlier sounds to whimpers. Gregorn's spirit thrashed on the end of Nico's arm like a speared fish, slinging acid in huge arcs. But, despite its struggles, the spirit was shrinking. It was now not more than double the height of the dais. Then it was no taller than Gin, and still it was shrinking, its cries growing smaller and smaller. When the sludge was no larger than Nico herself, a new shape began to emerge. The black tar narrowed and separated, revealing long appendages. Ribs appeared at its center, and its peaked top became a rounded head. Two legs, barely more than tar over bone, appeared at the base, and shoulders like knives led to twiglike arms. Finally, the last of the sludge disappeared altogether, and Nico stood over the kneeling, black form of an old, skeletal man.

Wisps of hair still sprouted from his head, plastered down by black tar, and his face, his face was still human. Sunken eyes grayed over with cataracts looked pleadingly up at his conqueror. His cracked, black lips moved pathetically, but no sound came out. Black tears pooled in the hollows of the ancient enslaver king's cheeks as he looked up at her, his ruined hands rising slowly to grasp Nico's wrist where her hand was buried deep in his hollow chest.

With a final, cruel smile, Nico yanked her hand free, and what was left of Gregorn toppled to the ground. He made no sound as he fell, the last of his human features crumbling to dust even before they struck the pitted stone. Nico shook the dust off her fingers, and Miranda knew as surely as if she'd been standing over him herself that Gregorn's spirit was dead.

"Nico." Eli's soft voice made Miranda jump. She hadn't seen him leap down from his alcove, but the thief was standing a dozen feet behind the demonseed. Cautiously, he held out his hand, the largest of Nico's manacles, her neck piece, dangling from his fingers. "You did well," he said. "You did as Josef asked. Now it's time to come back to us."

The girl turned slowly, regarding him through slitted eyes that flashed in the darkness with their own flickering light. The room was deafeningly silent. Everything seemed to be holding its breath as Nico considered him.

"Come back?"

Her voice was different. The dry dust sc.r.a.pe that had been just a whisper before now completely overwhelmed her natural sound. It was so alien, so strange, that if Miranda had not seen Nico's lips moving, she would not have been able to name the speaker as human. Nico took a step forward, moving with unnatural grace toward the thief until she was only a few inches from Eli's outstretched hand. Then, with casual cruelty, she reeled back and punched him.

Eli didn't try to dodge. He took the blow full in the chest, and it sent him flying backward. He landed with a bone-snapping crunch on the scarred marble, the silver manacle clattering off into the dark. The second he hit the floor, Nico was on top of him again with another of her gut-wrenching, light-bending jumps. She kicked the manacle out of his hand and grabbed the thief around the neck, lifting him off the floor. "Come back?" she hissed, glaring at him with eyes that opened wider than human eyes should. "To what? I see how you treat the girl. A weapon, a servant servant. Our kind do not serve, thief!"

"I'm talking to Nico, not you," Eli said coldly. "You're just an interloper, a deadbeat tenant. We treat Nico as a partner, which is far more than I can say for you, bug."

She roared at that, drawing her fist to hit him again, but before she could strike, there was a silver flash in the thin s.p.a.ce between them. Nico screamed and flailed backward, dropping Eli on the ground. Breathing hard, the girl reached down and wrenched something out of her chest. She tossed it to the ground where it landed with a clatter, and Miranda recognized one of Josef's knives. Eli grunted and rolled over, another knife ready in his hands.

But Nico's white skin was knitting itself back together as Miranda watched, and she crept toward Eli like a hunting spider. "You treacherous thief," she hissed. "How dare you take his blades!"

"Ah-ha," Eli said, coughing as he sat up slowly. "So there is some Nico left in there." He tucked the second knife back into his sleeve. "Listen to me, Nico. This isn't the real you. You're human, Nico. Still human, even now. Josef didn't nearly die five times over rescuing you just to have it end like this, in this nowhere kingdom." He held out his hand, his face kind and pleading. "Come back to us."

Nico paused and stared at his hand, and for a moment, the inhuman light in her eyes flickered out. Then it was back brighter than before. She lifted her clenched fist, ready to bring it down on the thief's unguarded head, but before she could swing, a tremendous crash stopped everything. Gla.s.s exploded above them, and Nico looked up just in time to see the swirling ma.s.s of gray fur and knife-sharp claws crash through the high window right before it landed on top of her.

Miranda pressed her hands to her mouth. The relief mixed with fear was almost more than she could bear. "Gin!"

Gin had Nico in his mouth. He shook her fiercely before flinging her as hard as he could against the stone wall. Her impact cracked the marble, and she slumped to the floor, her limbs bent under her at unnatural angles. Gin bounded to one side, putting himself between the crumpled girl and Miranda.

"I came as soon as I felt her," he growled, never taking his eyes off Nico's motionless body. "I told you, didn't I? Demons can't be trusted."

Miranda jumped down from her alcove and ran to him, flinging herself face down into his swirling fur.

"The king?"

"Still hiding and safe enough," he said quietly. "Not that any of us are 'safe' at this point." He voice thickened to a snarl as Nico stirred. "Get the thief."

Miranda nodded and looked around for Eli. The thief was still on his back where he had fallen, coughing painfully.

She ran to help him. "Can you stand?"

Eli nodded and took her offered hand, groaning as she pulled him to his feet.

Gin gave a warning growl. Nico was stirring, her cracked limbs righting themselves as they watched.

"What do we do now?" Miranda said.

"We do what we should have done when this mess started," Gin said. "We kill her."

"The dog might be right," Eli whispered, his voice thin and pained. "At this point, without Josef, I don't know anything else to do. Every moment she spends like this, our Nico goes further away. But whatever we do, let's do it quickly, otherwise"-he tapped his foot on the acid damaged stone-"the castle will do it for us."

Miranda froze. Now that he'd pointed it out, she didn't know how she'd missed it. Now that Gin had injured the demon and broken the spell of fear, every spirit in earshot was awake and calling for blood. Every piece of the throne room, from the broken gla.s.s to the stones under their feet, rumbled with desperate anger. Showers of dust cascaded from the ceiling as the marble strained against its mortar. Even the support pillars were edging closer, preparing to break free and let gravity do the rest, even if it cost them their lives, if that's what it took to kill the demon.