The Crimson Vault Part 42

"Come along," she hissed.

Alin turned around to see the Gate to the Crimson Vault fully open, with the Enosh Travelers filing inside. It looked like a huge cave, with two red-burning torches to either side of a silver door. The ancient, bearded king carved into the doors seemed to glare straight at Alin.

For just a moment, Alin stood, torn between going to help Simon and walking into Ragnarus. He agonized over the decision for what seemed like much longer than just a second or two before he realized that there was no decision at all.

He had left Simon behind once.

He wasn't about to do it again.

Alin shook off Grandmaster Naraka and jogged through the trees, their branches sc.r.a.ping his armor. He wasn't sure what help he would be against the full power of an Incarnation, but he knew he could do something.

In the distance, he heard a woman's voice. He couldn't make out the words, but she spoke with such absolute authority that he was sure whatever she said was of the utmost importance. It sounded almost like Leah's voice, but that was impossible; he had left Leah back in Enosh, safe in the Grandmasters' palace.

A wave of crimson light washed over the entire scene, and Alin almost fell to his knees. The sheer power he sensed in that light, the total overwhelming sense of force, made him want to collapse.

The Incarnation, he saw, felt the brunt of the attack. Chains of red light erupted from the ground around him, grabbing his arms and legs, pulling him down.

And only an instant later, Simon fell on Valin sword-first.

Inwardly, Alin cheered, even as he fought against the crimson light. It felt like pus.h.i.+ng his way up a hill underwater, but he managed to put one foot in front of the other. Simon needed his help.

An instant later, a young woman*perhaps Alin's age*with long brown hair and a red-and-gold dress came to kneel beside Simon. She didn't say anything, and for a moment Alin wondered if she had come to help Simon or the Incarnation.

Then Alin saw the ruby circlet gleaming on her head, and he hurried forward. He had never seen royalty before, but he wasn't a fool: he knew what a crowned woman in the Damascan royal colors meant, especially here, among the camp of the royal army.

The woman stood and gestured to the side. Two soldiers ran up, grabbing Simon under the shoulders, beginning to carry him off.

Alin waited for Simon to resist, but he remained as limp as a corpse. If Alin hadn't seen his head twitching, he would have thought Simon dead or unconscious.

Maybe Simon had used too much power. Whenever Alin drew too much from Elysia, he felt ready to pa.s.s out; maybe it was the same for Simon with Valinhall.

No matter what, he wasn't about to let Simon be kidnapped by Damasca. He walked up behind the soldiers and summoned a globe of gold.

He opened his mouth to demand Simon's return, but then remembered that Simon was fighting against the Incarnation. Maybe he had friends in the Damascan army. Only Simon could confirm that for sure, so Alin changed what he was about to say.

"Simon?" he asked. "What's going on here?"

He didn't know if Simon would have the strength to answer him, but if he didn't, Alin was more than willing to take a chance and forcibly rescue him. If it turned out later that Simon didn't need rescuing, well, he would have to explain that to Alin when he woke up.

One of the soldiers dropped Simon's right side to draw his sword, but Alin just stood there, holding the glowing golden orb. This man ought to know Traveler business when he saw it. If he couldn't keep his weapon to himself, Alin would teach him better.

Simon's arm flopped weakly in the air, and he somehow managed to get the remaining soldier to turn him around.

"Alina" he said, in a voice that was all but a whisper. "Whatawhy?"

"I saw you fighting against that thing," Alin said, nodding to the Incarnation's corpse. "I came to help, though I see you didn't need me. Come with me, and I'll take you home."

Simon's head twitched, and Alin wondered if he was trying to shake his head. "Don't worry. NeedaValinhall. You go. Not safe."

The store of words seemed to have exhausted Simon, because his chin drooped down to rest on his chest.

Alin looked at him there, carried by a Damascan soldier. He was almost a full head shorter than Alin, and he seemed so powerless.

Well, if he felt safe in Damasca, then Alin supposed he could leave him there. He would have to find out the story later, though.

Alin looked around, searching for the n.o.blewoman. He finally saw her standing behind the soldier with the drawn sword, gesturing insistently to her attendants behind a nearby tent.

Summoning up his best king's face, Alin fixed her with a glare. "This man is a friend and ally of mine. You should treat him well, for I will be back for him."

She turned back and met him with an even, blue-eyed gaze.

Wearing a crown of Damasca and a silk dress, Leah looked back at him with the poise of a queen.

Alin jerked back as if struck. He lost his concentration, and the gold light in his hand evaporated. He felt like someone had stabbed him in the gut.

Now that he was paying attention, he could see Leah's crystal bracelet at the end of her sleeve, her long hair, her skin that was slightly too dark for a normal Damascan.

"Leah, youawho are you?"

Leah stared at him and didn't say a word.

He saw it, now. She hadn't grown up in the village. She had been there almost three years. She had come into town on her own, with nothing more than the clothes on her back, yet somehow with enough self-a.s.surance to talk her way inside. She claimed to be related to another villager*conveniently dead*and had been adopted into the ranks of her *extended family.'

It fit. It all fit. He couldn't think of a reason why Damascan royalty would want to infiltrate an ordinary village, but she had done it. Maker, how she must have been laughing at his attempts to save her. To protect her.

She must have been laughing at them for years.

Laughing at him.

Something cold and hard grew in Alin's chest, and he threw up two walls of intersecting green plates, one on either side of Leah, trapping them in a corridor. The Damascan soldiers outside dumped Simon to the ground, shouting and pounding on the walls of green light. He didn't hear them.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't drag you to the Grandmasters right now."

Leah just looked at him. She didn't seem scared. She gave him a one-handed shrug, as if to say, What can I say?

Rage and shame flared up, searing cold and smoldering hot. He seized her by the shoulders, wanting to shake her.

"Talk to me!" he demanded.

Her blue eyes went cold, and she raised one hand, snapping her fingers once.

A tanned, muscled forearm wrapped around Alin's neck, keeping him in a loose chokehold.

"Release the Heiress," a man behind him said. He sounded calm, almost pleasant. His arm showed a tattoo wrapping up the wrist, like a black chain.

Alin took a deep breath and removed his hands from Leah's shoulders. He shouldn't have gotten violent with her anyway.

Why not? A voice whispered in his head. She's the enemy.

"Release me," Alin said. The arm around his neck didn't move.

And Leah still didn't say anything. She just watched.

"Fine." Alin touched the golden power of Elysia, tapping into the force just beyond sight, and blasted a gold light behind him.

The man behind him staggered back, and Alin turned to walk past him. He had been gone from the Grandmasters too long.

The man with the chain-wrapped arms looked to be in his forties, with dark hair and tan skin that made him look like a villager. He wore a dark cloak like Simon's, but underneath, his s.h.i.+rtsleeves had been cut off to show his tattoos.

He smiled broadly, rubbing his chest. "You really got me there!" he said. "Good shot. But I'm afraid I can't let you leave until Her Highness gives the signal."

Alin wasn't feeling very tolerant just then. He summoned a globe of gold energy and blasted the man, intending to knock him over backwards.

The energy shattered on a pale green breastplate, splas.h.i.+ng harmlessly in the air several inches from his chest.

Maker, Alin thought. Not another Valinhall.

The Valinhall Traveler stuck his hand out, summoning a long, curved sword that was chipped and pitted as though it was one or two good cuts from breaking.

Alin extended his hand, ready to summon his own gold sword. It wouldn't do him much good against Valinhall, but there were other things he could summon, just as long as he survived the first round of combat.

The Traveler looked behind Alin and abruptly relaxed, letting his sword vanish. "That's all I needed," he said pleasantly. "Have a nice day. Next time you deal with a member of the royal family, though, try to have some better manners."

Alin glanced back, where Leah stood, impa.s.sively staring at him. Had she commanded the Valinhall Traveler to back off?

That's the least she should have done, seeing as she set him on me in the first place, Alin thought.

He swept past the black-cloaked Traveler, ignoring him.

All the way back to the Enosh Travelers, he all but shook with rage. She had humiliated him. He had considered her a friend, had even risked his life to save hers, and nowa Wait. Did Simon know?

He must. That would explain why he was fighting for Damasca in the first place.

Had he known all along?

The idea of the two of them with their secret, laughing together at his ignorance, felt like a knife twisting in his guts.

But as painful as the thought was, he couldn't believe it. Simon was almost foolishly straightforward; he wouldn't have kept a secret for any longer than he had to. And he couldn't imagine Leah keeping a secret from him and then sharing it with Simon, of all people.

Simon must have learned her ident.i.ty recently, just as he had. But if that was true, then why was he fighting for her?

It was clear that Alin and Simon needed to have a long talk, fairly soon.

First, Alin would break into the royal palace in Cana, burning the Hanging Tree and setting an Incarnation loose on the city.

On Leah's home.

A dark, ugly part of himself took a measure of satisfaction from that thought.

When he pushed his way back through the trees to see the Ragnarus Gate still hanging there, he knew something was wrong. The silver doors inside had been thrown open, and the screams, shouts, and explosions of a battle between Travelers sounded within.

They had gone ahead without him, and they had found enemies within the Vault.

Good, Alin thought. He needed something to fight.

Alin stepped through the Gate and into the Crimson Vault.

The air grew immediately cooler, like a deep cave, and it carried the tang of metal. Roars and flickers of light came from within the Vault itself, past the silver doors, which had been thrown wide.

He hurried inside, his golden boots ringing on the stone with every step. On either side of him, the wall was carved with shelves. Each shelf held something new, gleaming in the light from crimson torches: tentacles reached up out of clay jars, staves twisted in their racks, swords whispered secrets to him as he pa.s.sed.

Each shelf had a label in gold beneath it, but he didn't slow to read any of them. The battle had pressed on, deeper into the Vault, and he couldn't afford to delay any more than he already had.

As he ran deeper, he began to step over the occasional body. A girl in the buckskin uniform of an Avernus Traveler had a gaping hole in her chest. There was no hope for her. A few feet later he almost tripped over an old man in Naraka robes. He was still breathing, though unconscious, so Alin gave him a quick dose of rose light. It might not make any difference, but it might be the difference that kept the man alive.

He saw two or three more bodies, each one from Enosh, without a single enemy corpse among them.

That worried him. But even worse were the glimpses he caught of the fight at the end of the Vault.

The hall to either side of him was wide enough, as it could easily fit five people walking side by side, but after about a hundred paces of walking it opened into a huge round room, easily hundreds of paces from wall to opposite wall. The weapons displayed on these shelves were ma.s.sive*entire statues, spears the size of pine trees, mirrors big enough to reflect a cathedral*and on the far wall, another portrait of the one-eyed king from the doorway glared down on everyone.

In the vast s.p.a.ce at the center of the Crimson Vault, the half a dozen Travelers remaining from the Enosh a.s.sault team did battle.

Gilad hurled pale orange screaming fireb.a.l.l.s with one hand as, with his other hand, he directed a t.i.tan of living ice that had three hearts visible through its translucent rib cage.

Grandmaster Naraka put her hand out in front of her and nearly collapsed from obvious pain as a glowing orange claw tore itself from midair, pulling the rest of its monstrous body straight from Naraka. The creature appeared to be made entirely from smoke and orange flames, and it hunched under its own weight, the backs of its shoulders sc.r.a.ping the ceiling. It looked like a man merged with a dragon, of all things, and as Alin watched it leaned forward and roared its defiance at someone Alin couldn't see.

Grandmaster Avernus was all but invisible in a swarm of birds flying around her in a black tornado, and the mental screams they emitted gave Alin a headache even from fifty paces away.

The rest of the Travelers summoned glowing mists, floating blue skulls, living thornbushes of ravenous obsidian, or even more exotic things that he couldn't name.

And it all seemed centered on one man.

Before Alin could join the other Enosh Travelers, a spear blasted through the ice giant's head like a ballista bolt cras.h.i.+ng through a gla.s.s-paned window. The resulting avalanche of ice buried Gilad, who barely had time to throw up his hands before he was entombed beneath his own summoned creature.

Grandmaster Naraka's flaming giant took that opportunity to bring both of its clawed hands down on the lone enemy, but it seemed unable to penetrate the figure's raised s.h.i.+eld. The s.h.i.+eld was broad and black, with a gold rim around the edge, but it seemed to be made of wood. Alin would have thought the creature of flame and fury would shred it like so much paper, but it just hammered away, roaring impotently.

A second later, the spear blasted through the fire-beast's chest, and then immediately again at Grandmaster Avernus.

Not surprisingly, her birds did her no good. The spear hit her with such force that it carried her body all the way across the room, pinning her to the stone wall only a few feet from Alin.

Alin stared at her for a second or two, horrified, before he forced himself to move. Unlikely as it was, maybe some quick healing could save the Grandmaster's life.

The spear moved, sc.r.a.ping against the stone wall, before it pulled itself free and hurtled back into the fight of its own accord.

Grandmaster Avernus flopped to the ground. Her long, gray hair was in disarray, and for the first time she didn't look like she had everything under control. She seemed lost. She opened her mouth to speak, but her strength left her, and she died before he could do anything more than summon some rose light.