Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) Read online

  Xander brooded in silence. At last he spoke. “I respect what this offer means to you Father, but you know I cannot accept. I’m not like you. I do not wish my future laid out for me. I want to find my own way; to build my own life. Like you did.”

  Altor shook his head. “I see. Somehow I knew your answer.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “As a mercy,” Altor said. “God made the land. Those whom he calls may walk it unafraid. That is the Nesshin way, and it saved us when the cities became tombs. Better to eke out a living in the wasteland than to die in the old world’s shattered remains.

  “I know, my son, how you long for a place in the clan. But you have always sought something nameless; intangible. That’s why our customs chafe you so. It pains me to do this, but it is my duty as a father.”

  “To do what?”

  Altor swallowed; then looked at his son. “You cannot stay with us, Xander. For your own sake, and for the love of God, you must leave the Nesshin.”

  Xander gaped. He’d expected criticism, rebuke, even punishment, but not exile! The choice between banishment and an offer that his father knew he could not take seemed monstrously unjust.

  “We will reach Medvia in six days,” Altor said. “Once our goods are sold, we’ll decamp for the harvest in Vale. You will remain. You’ll get along with the townsfolk, unless they find out your secret.”

  Xander stared wide-eyed at his father. The old man knew about his hidden gift?

  Altor’s mouth curved in a sad smile. “You keep no secrets from me, my son. Your mother called it God’s touch. This world is coming back to life, but too late for me.” Moisture rimmed his eyes. “I hope and pray son, that one day a woman will bless you with her love. Your mother gave me my most precious gift before she left us.”

  Xander sat stunned, incredulous at what his father had said. His mother’s death was an open wound that time had never healed.

  Tilting his grey head to peer at his son, Altor gave his final advice. “I thought that God’s wrath had stripped me of love,” he said. “Then He sent my Sarel, and we taught each other to survive. Do not grow cold, my son. Perhaps you need no one else, but you may find someone who needs you.”

  Xander had entered the lead wagon as a favored son. Now he stumbled out as an exile. How dare he invoke the memory of my mother? Would he stoop so low to have the last word?

  He didn't realize that he’d strayed from the caravan’s path until he heard the guards’ cries. Their voices became thin and strained as if emanating from a great distance, but distorted and stretched like the call of a rider on a speeding mount.

  Xander strained to see what was going on, but all he could make out were the dim figures of the caravan guards, who gestured frantically at the sky. A deep hum pounded in his head as the world dimmed and went black. Then blazing white. Then black again.

  2

  Xander slowly became aware of cold coarse sand stinging his face as he ran. His memory of how he came to be running faded like the remnants of a nightmare. He recalled only harsh whiteness; a deep hum jarring his teeth and rippling up his spine.

  The darkness. The light. There are shapes in the light. Shadows crowding over me!

  The sound of his own scream brought Xander fully awake. He fled alone through a trough between dunes. The moon had waned to blackness, but stars glinted in the cloudless sky.

  Xander shivered. He was still dressed for midday guard duty; not night in the deep desert. He consulted the stars and found the red dot of Keth hanging low in the western sky.

  “Six hours,” he muttered as he stopped to catch his heaving breath. Six missing hours. Fear, fatigue, and the nightmarish yet vivid memory of the light conspired to shake his sanity.

  Xander thought back. Reeling from his father’s harsh decree, he had wandered off…and then what? I must have gone heat-mad. Yes, guarding the wagons in the hot sun had left him vulnerable to delirium. Unless he really was mad, it was the only explanation.

  Perhaps Altor Sykes had judged rightly. The admission brought rueful heat to Xander’s face and an old saying to his mind: A Nesshin never turns his back on a foe, and the desert is our greatest adversary. Deep knowledge of that enemy’s treachery, learned over centuries in Mithgar’s smaller, pre-Cataclysm wastes, begat the first maxim’s twin: No Nesshin fights alone. If a single tribesman went missing, eldest tradition bound the whole caravan to cease its journey for his sake.

  A grim revelation dawned. “No one came to find me,” Xander said in a guarded whisper. Then, with a shout that pealed across the dunes, he cried, “Thera emitte sherrad—all of you!”

  Something shifted above, sending a rill of sand flowing down the dune face.

  Xander paused. He heard nothing, but the shifting wind carried a gamey musk that reminded him of a dog that Azil had once put down.

  Xander took a cautious step away from the source of the smell. He kept his eyes on the crest of the dune, where a dark form rose and loped toward him. The sound of deep, panting breath passing through a fanged maw alerted him to the presence of another beast on the opposite hilltop.

  Xander broke into a run. His own breath poured from his mouth in gouts of steam as he struggled to gain speed on the deep sand. None of the frantic glances he cast back over his shoulder revealed signs of pursuit, but there was a new sound that froze his blood—the beating of leathery wings.

  Desert life had acquainted Xander with wonders to make men praise God’s glory and perils to make them beg His mercy. Rabid wolves were not unheard-of, but the alien dread hunting on unseen wings drove Xander to double his pace.

  Not the homecoming I’d expected, Sulaiman mused. Like himself, Mithgar had changed beyond recognition in his millennia-long absence.

  Yet his change had brought advantages.

  Sulaiman vaulted to the crest of a dune. Invisible eyes watched him, but he paid his keeper no mind. Highest purpose bid him cross Mithgar’s new desert. Luckily he’d grown used to deserts, and the moonless night seemed a bright spring day compared to the darkness that had lately bound him.

  A sudden weight pressed upon Sulaiman’s heart. Time had so estranged him from emotion that he had to pause and consider the feeling. Was it nostalgia? The alienation of a prisoner returned from distant wars to find his home destroyed?

  How else should I have found it? Imprisoned in perhaps the one corner of the cosmos that the fire hadn’t touched, he had weathered the Cataclysm unaware. Yet his liberators’ warnings had ill prepared him for Thera’s desecration of his former world.

  One more sin to avenge upon her.

  Sulaiman’s wrath flared like a remnant spark of the Cataclysm. He imagined the heat and pressure forging his heart into a sun, but dismissed the presumption. No prophet foretold my coming. I seek not to save, but to render justice long denied.

  The flame quenched, Sulaiman pulled his green cloak tight against the cold and slid down the windward slope. Haste was needful. Much remained to be done before he could exact vengeance from the murderess who styled herself a god. And others sought her life for vicious ends, including—as the loathsome scent in the air attested—his most ancient foe.

  A smile creased Sulaiman’s bearded face as he thanked whatever power had set Hazeroth in his path.

  Xander struggled up the leeward side of a tall dune as dawn broke. Though a hundred unseen daggers stabbed his limbs with each step, thoughts of the vicious pack urged him on. He never saw his pursuers clearly, but the little he had seen of them—along with their cruel habit of feigning retreat only to alert him to their presence with a brief sight, sound, or scent—convinced him that he wasn’t being hunted by normal wolves.

  What sort of creatures hunt not to feed, Xander thought, but to torment their prey? Only Thera’s demons, and the wicked men she inspired, indulged in such wanton cruelty.

  The last sign of pursuit had come hours ago, and Xander thanked God for the blessed—though likely temporary—reprieve. But the steadily brightening eastern
sky confronted him with a new dilemma. The warming air would soon turn the desert into a vast furnace sapping him of moisture and strength.

  He could still hear his father's rebuke, yet his mother’s parable had sunk deeper roots in his heart. The clan had deemed Xander unfit to live among them? He would prove them wrong. Abandoning me was their choice. I choose to survive.

  Xander adjusted his shoes, wrappings, and cloak with the care of a soldier donning his uniform. He took stock of his resources. The results weren’t comforting. He’d lost his spear, and worse, the water skin and high energy cake that his people carried for such emergencies. Besides his clothes, he had only a canvas bag of small sundries. He tried to pick out signs of human presence like smoke from morning cook fires or birds circling over trash piles.

  The barren sands extended in all directions, their golden surface pristine.

  Weary from flight and thirst, Xander let himself fall backward onto the sandy slope. He stared skyward, ignoring his parched throat and pondering what to do next. Without food or water, reaching town was his only chance. The caravan had been within days of the pass that led to Medvia, but he had only a vague notion of how far he lagged behind.

  The mountains should be near. He could find wild game there, or even a spring. But now, scanning the empty horizon, Xander saw no sign of the weathered peaks that divided the Desert of Penance from the Desert of Immolation.

  Xander sat up on the dune face with a grunt. He wrapped his arms around his legs and laid his stubbly head on his knees. A growing sense of dread told him that even if he reached the mountains, he would lack the strength to find food and water.

  How can there be hope in such desolation?

  Xander didn't immediately notice that his movements had caused a minor sand slide. He lay back and allowed himself to be carried down the gentle slope into the trough between dunes. Fine sandy streams poured over his shoulders and covered him to the neck.

  Lying motionless at the dune’s base, Xander decided that this place was as good as any to wait out the worst of the heat. Resting until early afternoon would conserve his strength and leave enough daylight to cover a respectable distance. Recent experience warned him against traveling by night.

  The weight of his fatigue had just closed Xander’s eyes when shrill chittering pierced his brain like a baling hook scraped over slate. He bolted to his feet, shedding a torrent of golden dust. That unholy sound had echoed overhead last night, driving on the frenzied pack. A chorus of howls joined the savage music. In the narrow trough between dunes, it seemed to emanate from all directions.

  Though weaponless, Xander readied himself as best he could. He was too spent to run. His only chance was to remain still and hope that the threat passed him by. Almost unconsciously, he called upon his power to affect motion, wrapping himself in subtle layers of invisible protection. The act mainly served to ease his panic. Turning a clumsy spear thrust was simple; surviving now would be a miracle.

  A lupine head leered down from the crest. It signaled to the pack with a howl that shook Xander’s bones. Black eyes studied him with calculating menace that banished all doubt of the wolf’s depraved intelligence. Xander lay transfixed like a mouse before a serpent, but the beast’s gaze proved less captivating than the three raw slashes that traversed the orbit of its right eye from brow ridge to cheekbone.

  The time for stealth had passed. Xander struggled to free his legs from the sucking sand as the wolf charged toward him with slavering bloodlust.

  Xander was sure that the man bounding down the opposite dune was an illusion born of thirst. The green-cloaked stranger hurtled down the slope, touching the sand only once to channel his momentum into a rolling leap that landed him before the wolf.

  The beast sprang. Something like a mirror catching a red sunset flickered in the stranger’s hand. The stench of burned hair stung Xander’s nose. He watched in awe as black blood gushed from the wolf’s thick neck and shoulders. It belted an awful, despairing roar.

  Xander’s amazement turned to shock as the wolf became a man wearing leather and furs. The two-skinned beast contorted ghoulishly in midair, slammed into the far dune, and lay still.

  Staccato screeching filled the sky. The stranger leapt up the dune face toward the hideous cry’s source and vanished over the crest. He never looked back.

  Xander gaped in disbelief. Was that a malakh? Does God protect me though his people cast me out?

  A second wolf came galloping along the valley floor. It lunged at Xander, gnashing its snaggled maw.

  The monster’s sudden charge left Xander too startled to do more than will the wolf away. The creature balked, checked by an unseen force that made the air before it thick as rock.

  Xander’s shock yielded to deep-seated fear. His power had slipped the bonds he’d carefully laid upon it for years. I must control it, he thought, knowing the risks of failure.

  The wolf raged against the pounding force that kept it from its prey. Xander watched in dismay as first one; then another forepaw twisted itself into a clawed arm that lurched forward and planted itself in the sand. With growing speed, the beast dragged itself toward him.

  Mortal terror gripped the young Nesshin. The power begged to slip its leash, but he dared not let go. He fell to his knees, and the beast’s rank breath stung his gasping lungs.

  Xander threw the last ounce of will not needed to contain his gift at the maddened wolf. The blow sent the monster skidding back, but it was an empty victory. With his strength gone, his foe would finally devour him.

  Tribal lore held that God called to those near death. Xander just heard distant chittering followed howling—multiple savage voices raised in alarm.

  The wolf’s conical ears perked up while its dark eyes held Xander in a timeless Void. Its tongue brushed across black lips. Then it turned and raced up the dune, once again on four legs.

  Xander felt as if he were underwater. His eyes lolled heavily in a head packed with mud. Shaking, he tried to stand, and his muscles cried out in protest. Somehow he gained his feet and fled.

  3

  Damus Greystone woke in his suite at the Date Palm, Medvia's best attempt a hostelry. He squinted at the plain wall clock and saw that it was noon—high time he made another escape attempt. Instead he sighed in resignation, burrowed under the clean-scented sheets, and went back to bed.

  But unwanted thoughts kept him awake. She could still be out there somewhere in the ruins of this world, yet here you lie abed. Warm sunlight poured through the windows and set the whitewashed walls aglare. Damus squeezed his eyes shut, but to no avail.

  Damus rolled onto his back and cast his half-lidded gaze about the room. Besides the vigilantly ticking clock, an austere ceramic jug on a small shelf was the only ornament. The furnishings were equally sparse—just the bed, a full-length mirror in a wrought-iron frame, and a table with a ladderback chair. Lacking storage space, he’d draped his once fine coat over the chair and propped his rapier and bamboo flute against its arm.

  Damus lay wondering what in the Nine Circles an enlightened Gen such as he was doing in such a stultifying town. Ah yes. Our guides abandoned us. Their cowardice rankled him worse than the superstition that had thwarted his bid to reach Ostrith from Vale.

  At that moment Damus should have been mere days from Highwater. Instead, miles of desert lay between him and anywhere remotely promising. The likelihood of finding Guild artifacts in a backwater like Medvia approached zero. As for Guild prisoners, he’d do just as well searching back in Avalon.

  Queen and country call, Damus thought, and blood makes even sterner demands. The meticulous gears of his mind began turning, seeking a means of escape from his predicament. If we could reach a Guild House on foot, and if the gate still worked…

  “Damus!”

  Shaken from his reverie by the gruff invocation of his name, Damus reflexively jerked his head toward the doorway. He parted the silver hair that had whipped across his eyes and saw an imposing humanoid figure. Red-gold
fur covered the canine head and burly arms. A cuirass and sturdy leather breeches concealed the rest of the short but otherwise human form.

  “Nahel,” Damus reproached his visitor, “didn't I tell you not to bother me unless it was important?”

  Nahel’s gravelly voice complemented his doglike muzzle. “Yeah, you did. But it's—”

  “Nothing you could say justifies invading my private quarters,” Damus interrupted. “I was contemplating the serenity of this fine afternoon until you shattered it.”

  “Sorry,” Nahel began again, “but the queen wanted me to—”

  “I know. Her Majesty charged you to guard her envoy on his errand. And God forbid we invite her displeasure. But would it vex you too sorely to knock?”

  Nahel frowned. His spade-shaped ears swept back against his head, and the full weight of his amber gaze fell upon Damus. “I did knock. First soft; then hard.”

  A recent memory broke into Damus’ racing train of thought. “Oh. That's right. I set a sleeping Mystery on myself when I retired last night.”

  Nahel’s frown hardened into a grimace.

  Damus met his companion's indignant stare, swept off his bed sheet, and sat up. “What? Sufficient rest is vital to my art. Inspiration often comes to me in dreams, and you know how raucous the late night crowd is. I may as well be sleeping in the bar!”

  Nahel sighed and rolled his eyes. “Sorry. I'll know better next time.”

  “No apology necessary. A little courtesy is all I ask.”

  “Can I tell you why I’m here?”

  Damus stood up and stretched. “If you must.”

  “You know,” Nahel snorted, “time was a Gen could pray his whole life and never get a visit from a malakh.”

  Damus clapped his furry friend's muscled shoulder. “I do appreciate your company, but it's natural that a sophisticate like me and a provincial such as yourself should sometimes be at odds.”