“You will learn more when you reach Ilithor,” Ilith, who had built the city, said. “From there, you must choose which way you will go. You have your instruction. Go forth from here as my herald, and my voice, and help steer the course of the other four blades to this refuge. There is no task more critical, no man better suited to it than you. I trust you to find your way.”
Jonik thought for a short while, wondering on which way that might be. The blades were scattered, and in some cases their whereabouts were unknown. A part of him had hoped that Ilith would give him guidance, but it appeared that would not be so. He wants to give me agency. To be my own man. To forge my own path. He nodded and asked no further questions.
“Good,” Ilith said. “But beware, Jaycob. What you learn one day may be different the next, and the blades may yet change hands. They will strive to remain apart, and grow increasingly corruptive. Use your words to convince, use the wisdom of your experience, but know that they may not be enough. There may come a time when trickery is needed, even force. You must be prepared to use them.”
A ripple of dread moved in Jonik’s heart. But he nodded. “I will do what I must.”
There was nothing else to say.
Ilith stepped toward the door, where a cloak hung on a peg. He drew it over his sweaty bare shoulders, and ran a hand across his forehead, moving aside strands of hair. Jonik donned his cloak as well, fixing it at the neck with a simple steel pin. He pulled on his leather boots, drew on his gloves, covering the armour, softening his tread.
They walked together to the portal door, moving quietly through the refuge. Ilith looked around as he went, observing the tall statues and fine carved cornices, the wide pillars and ribbed columns, the arched doorways and sculpted lintels through which they passed, chamber after chamber. Once or twice he walked to the wall and ran his hand upon the stone, feeling its age, or diverted his path so he might walk through a lance of daylight filtering down through a high window or ceiling shaft above. Motes of dust glittered, dancing, and he watched them for a moment as though seeing something Jonik did not. He seemed a man still awakening, coming out of a long undying dream. His memory of the world returning.
“Do you recall the days here, my lord? Building these halls?”
“A shadowed recollection,” Ilith said, smiling, still looking around. “It is as a gloomy sky, Jaycob, though the clouds are breaking up. The sun is coming through in shafts. Every day I remember more.”
But not how to reforge the Heart, Jonik knew. That secret still eluded him.
They came to the portal door a short while later, where the others were awaiting them. The chamber was plain stone, white-walled but for that door. Nothing had ever been so empty, so black, so unnerving to observe as that void.
Jonik scanned his companions, glad to see that Amilia had made it through the maze. “My lady,” he said, observing courtesy with a bow. Gerrin and Harden stood to either side of her in their armour, like a pair of old grizzled knights about to step forth into battle. Cabel less so. The young sellsword wore leathers and fur, his eyes glassy and blinking, skin as pale as milk, dark hair dishevelled and wisps of beard hanging off his cheeks and chin. He still wore a bandage on his head from where Borrus Kanabar had cracked his skull, an assault that had rendered the youth abed ever since, in and out of consciousness. He would go no further than Ilithor, Jonik knew. My company, my army…reduced to just two. “Is everything prepared?” he asked.
Gerrin answered with a nod. “Just waiting for you, Jonik.”
“Took your time.” Harden peered through Jonik’s woollen cloak, saw the jet black armour clinging to his skin. Recognition dawned. “That plate…”
“Later.” Jonik moved his eyes to what he had been trying not to look at. His mother, wrapped in white linen, lying on a wooden stretcher behind them. He drew a deep breath, closing his heart, his bridge to emotion drawn up. “I’ll carry her myself,” he said. “Harden, take Cabel. Gerrin, accompany the princess. When you reach the other side, stay in the tunnel. Don’t go wandering off.”
“And if we’re spat out into a wall of rock?” Harden squinted at the void like it had insulted his mother. “Lady Cecilia said the tunnels through there are unstable. Said they might have come down. The whole place might be caved in, then what?”
“Then we turn around and come back.”
“And if we can’t? If we get stuck?”
“We won’t.” Jonik didn’t want to hear it. The negativity and doubt. He had spoken to Ilith about this already, and been assured that the passage was safe. The part of him that was Tyrith had passed through the portal, after all. It had been an unpleasant experience for him. He had muttered of the things he’d seen in there, the floating shadows and glimpses of dead faces, the strange sounds that rang out through his head. But it was momentary only, a passing nightmare. My men are stronger than that. And Amilia…her as well.
“Enough talk,” Jonik said. “Gerrin, you take Cabel through. Leave him there and come back. Harden needs to know it’s safe.”
Gerrin set his slab of stubbled jaw and turned, grabbing Cabel by the arm. He pulled him into motion, drawing him toward the door. “It’ll be all right, boy. You’ll get the help you need on the other side.” The youth’s eyes were big and bright with fear, where once they’d been dark and devious, the eyes of a killer. It was sad to see him fallen so low.
The pair disappeared inside.
It happened so quickly, no more than a blink; one minute they were there, then they were not, swallowed up by the lightless, soundless, void. Harden sucked a breath. “Where…they just vanished.”
Ilith presented that smile. “The portal is no normal door, Harden. It moves matter through space almost instantaneously. It is too quick for the eyes to see.”
It did not help with Harden’s anxiety, try as he might to hide it. A rictus smile clung to his thin grey lips. “They’ll be there, then? In Ilithor, already?”
“It will only take a few moments,” Ilith confirmed. “To them it may seem slightly longer, but not to us. Sir Gerrin will return to us shortly.”
He was right. Once more, it happened in a blink, Gerrin reappearing as though from thin air, popping into existence before them. Harden stumbled back in surprise, gasping, and almost fell. Embarrassingly, it was Amilia who had to steady him.
Gerrin went to one knee, breathing hard. He shook his head, staring down at the stone, steadying himself, then stood. Several hard blinks and he was ready to speak. “Cabel’s through. Tunnel’s clear. Bit of fallen debris, but…” He took a further moment to compose himself, rubbing at his eyes, grimacing. A gnarled finger stabbed into his right ear, twisting. Then he went on. “But the tunnel looks clear, from the glance I got. Won’t know for sure until we start the trek, though.”
Harden was staring at him. “How was it?” Jonik had never seen him so tense, this grim spare sellsword who’d travelled half the world. It was almost enough to make him laugh. Harden glanced over at him, scowling, as though knowing. Then he looked back at Gerrin. “It’s not so bad, is it?”
“It’s fine. Strange, but fine. Best just get it over with, Harden. Like jumping into a lake. Sink or swim.”
“I can’t swim.”
Gerrin shrugged. “Just do it.”
“Fine.” Harden stepped forward, pausing as he stared into the shimmering nothingness, the empty space, shuddering. Jonik could almost smell the piss leaking down his leg. For a long moment he just stared, delaying. Jonik gave a silent sigh, met eyes with Gerrin, nodded, and the former Shadowmaster closed in behind Harden, quiet as a cat. One hard shove and the sellsword was tumbling forward, vanishing, his grunt of surprise abruptly cut short.
Ilith gave a chuckle. “That is one way of doing it.”
“Some men need a little push, my lord.” Gerrin grinned and reached out a hand, palm up. “Your Highness,” he said to Amilia. “There really is nothing to fear.”
The princess snorted. “Do I look frightened?” She strode forth, chin raised, her long lustrous brown hair bouncing at the small of her back. She brushed aside Gerrin’s hand, said, “I’ll see you in a moment,” to Jonik, with a side-glance, and was gone. Not so much as a look at Ilith in parting, which Jonik understood, though didn’t much like.
“Gerrin,” he said, “go after her. Make sure Harden didn’t land too awkwardly.”
There was a twist of Gerrin’s lips, and glint in his hard grey eyes, and into the void he went.
Then it was just the two of them. The demigod and his herald. “I will speak to her, my lord,” Jonik said. “I know you would like her to help.”
“She will. In time.”
