Sondassan fixed his gaze upon me, but it was not I who would first face the half-dead king’s wrath. As Hamilcar and his crew entered the room, they descended upon the priests, knocking them down and silencing their chanting. Soon, only the sound of the heaving earth and the clashing of steel remained in the room. I recognized Halvor and Kelebek, both armed with curved swords and small round shields. With them were Issa and Adama, a pair of brothers from the southlands, Issa with his dark pate shaved bald and Adama’s hair twisted into a mane of tiny braids. Their swords came in matched pairs, one in each hand. Halvor also carried my harpoon on his back. Languishing in the dungeon, I had thought I would never see it, nor any of my companions, again.
Hamilcar reached Sondassan first. He hesitated, seeing the king’s withered form, but Sondassan stood up as straight as a young warrior. Hamilcar raised his fine pointed sword, standing with his weight upon his right foot. Even as withered as he was, the king was head and shoulders above Hamilcar, and his walking stick as long as a sword.
Sondassan raised a hand, and light flashed through the chamber.
It seared my eyes with a blue-white fire. Blindly, I pushed against one of the soldiers in my path and knocked him down. Another grasped my arm with both of his, his sword forgotten. With strength borne of battle-fury, I lifted him up, found his belt with my other hand, and threw him into one of his companions. The others struck me with blades and fists, but I felt nothing. The air trembled with magic, and the earth shuddered as if from a bad dream.
When I could see again, Hamilcar was on his knees before the king, one hand gripping his sword and the other clutched at his abdomen. His breath came in gasps, as though he had just escaped drowning. His face was a mask of pain.
An evil light shone in Sondassan’s eyes. Though his face was still a withered skull and his arms shook under the weight of his robes, he looked as though he might live another year under the power of whatever he had done to Hamilcar. Even Ucasta’s blood had not given him such vitality. Behind him, the pool had drained, blood flowing away to somewhere deep below, where the ancient god of the island was slowly waking.
The bedrock lurched beneath my feet, throwing me to the ground. My hands caught my weight, and a shock traveled up to my shoulders, but the pain would come later. On my either side, the soldiers I had not yet bested fell upon the quaking earth. The island gave a groan of pressure and agony, almost human but for its depth and volume. In one small corner of my mind, I feared that its foundation would crack and the sea would swallow it up before I could get the chance to warn the people in the city above, but I could not dwell on it. I had a sword in my hand and four men staggering to their feet around me, preparing to take my life.
I was not about to let them have it, and neither would I allow the dying king to continue tormenting Hamilcar. I took the sword in both hands and crashed it into the first soldier. His own blade fell from his hands and disappeared into the shadows.
I struck again. The rings of his mail burst and fell to the ground in a shower of metal fragments. Blood bloomed like a flower on the white coat beneath. He inhaled once and dropped to his knees.
Kelebek clashed with another guard, her golden bangles glittering in the chamber’s unearthly light and her shield knocking aside her opponent’s blade. Issa and Adama, back to back, defended against two more. I had lost track of Halvor.
Despite Sondassan’s strange magic, Hamilcar still lived—he put his boots beneath him and stood, his arms wheeling for balance. He was so pale as to be almost ice-blue, and his unfocused eyes blinked and strained against the dark. Kelebek stepped in to cover his undefended side with her shield.
Another soldier came up to my left, his sword unsheathed and as unmarred as the day it was forged. He might have been younger even than Ajan. With a snarl, he charged forward, slashing at my ribs.
I stepped back, avoiding the first blow. The second I met with the sword I had taken from his fellow. He had his own battle-fury, a volatile mix of panic and rage, and it gave him a burst of inhuman strength. My sword wrenched from my hand and clattered away into the unnatural, violet gloaming.
I was stronger than the young watchman, and my fury was greater than his. His next strike came down at my head, and I grasped the blade in one hand, seeing blood run black but feeling no pain. I threw his sword aside. With my uninjured hand, I picked him up by the collar of his tabard, feeling chainmail links shift and stretch with the pull of his weight, and threw him. He landed somewhere out of sight.
Mara’s mace felled another guard, and I found myself between her and Halvor, who handed me my harpoon without a word. It was like the taut string of a bow in my hand, vibrating with the song of battle.
When I threw it, it leapt from my hand like a hunting hawk given the order to pursue a rabbit. It found its roost in the chest of the last soldier, bursting his mail and throwing him backward to the ground.
Sondassan turned to me, his eyes furious and glowing with two points of blue-violet light. His mouth twisted into a snarl, or perhaps a triumphant smile; his bloodless lips and decaying teeth showed no human emotion. He raised his hand again, and the light in his eyes erupted into fire. A voice like the grinding of stone shook his throat just as the stone beneath our feet answered him with a crash and the rush of surging water.
I clenched my jaw and prepared to withstand his magic, but it was Mara who received it when the light flashed. Her mace hit the ground with a metallic ring, and she fell, both hands holding her chest as she gasped for breath. A gray pallor covered her face, and veins stood out from her neck, her pulse struggling through them. She tried to get to her feet, but her arms collapsed under her, and her face hit the dusty floor.
King Sondassan laughed. It was a sound like wind through dead, dry branches. He raised his hand again, this time toward me.
Without thinking, I reached for another harpoon. Just as I remembered that I only possessed one, and my quiver of javelins had not been returned to me, my hand met cold metal and the jagged edge of a dragon’s-tooth blade.
I threw my harpoon a second time.
It struck King Sondassan just below his heart. At first, there was no sound, and a pool of darkness formed where the point entered his chest and spread like black fire to drain all the light form the chamber. A thunderclap shattered the silence, and a flash of lightning followed. I covered my face, but the light blinded me even through my hands.
In darkness I waited for the killing blow to come, for one of the few soldiers who remained to drive his blade into my back, or for Sondassan to cast his evil magic upon me and finish what he set out to do. Failing that, I waited for the earth to open up and swallow me whole, taking me down into the crushing, airless dark and the roar of the encroaching ocean.
All was still.
My vision returned in patches and spots. A few torches lit the chamber, casting small pools of dim, soft orange on the now-solid floor. Where King Sondassan had stood, there was only a fine cloud of dust. The air held the last echo of his rasping breath. He may have been truly dead at last, but he had not gone from this place. I could not say if he ever would.
Mara picked herself up, and with a shaking hand she recovered her mace. Sweat and stone dust streaked her face and neck. “Seize Ucasta’s priests,” she ordered. “The king is dead.”
One by one, the soldiers moved to obey: first Mara’s women and Ajan, and then the few other men who remained, turning from where they faced each other toward the cowering priests.
I held out my hand. Once more, my fingers curled around the shaft of my harpoon. It was heavy now, solid and content to lie still. It had done what it had been created to do—it had slain the tyrant and freed the people of Salmacha.
It is right for mortals to defy their gods from time to time, the dragon of the temple had told me. This weapon might have been her creation—I could feel in its battle-song a fraction of the power I had felt in her presence. I was weeks of travel and hundreds of miles from being able to petition an audience with her on her mountain to ask.
I took the harpoon in both hands and touched it to my brow in thanks. Now I had a weapon equal to the Sword of Heaven or my friend Jin’s enchanted blade. It was as precious to me as my life.
“It’s good to see you alive, Eske,” Hamilcar said. Some of his ruddy color had returned to his face, but he still swayed a little on his feet, and his breath was ragged. “I was worried we’d lost you.”
“I would have borne you no ill will for saving the crew and leaving me behind,” I said, “but I am grateful beyond words.”
Hamilcar waved a hand, dismissing me, before gathering it into a fist to still its tremors. “Nonsense. I wouldn’t have hired you on if I thought you weren’t worth keeping.”
Kelebek approached the body of High Priest Ucasta and nudged his fine red robe with her foot. “I don’t like this place,” she said. “When can we leave?”
“We can leave when the distinguished lady in command allocates some of the palace treasury to us as payment for our help,” Hamilcar announced, favoring Mara with a winsome smile and a tip of his hat.
She did not acknowledge him. “Up to the palace,” she said. “Place these men in the same cells as those they sacrificed. Make sure they are under guard.”
My rage had left me, and exhaustion took its place. With heavy steps, I left the hollow chamber, now as solid and unmoving as the earth should have been. The god beneath the island had, at least for the time being, returned to its deathlike slumber.
As morning came, bathing the sea and the island of Salmacha in pale golden light, I found myself in the throne room. A vaulted ceiling of cold gray stone stretched out far over my head, and pillars carved with the figures of warriors and ships supported it on two sides. The throne, standing on a dais at one end, was as tall as a tree; a chair fit for a giant. It would have dwarfed King Sondassan’s withered form, but he had not sat here in some time. Two of Mara’s soldiers opened the heavy wooden doors opposite the throne, and fresh air stirred the dust for the first time in months.
At the base of the dais sat Salmacha’s twin princesses, now joint queens of the island. Their ceremonial paint had smeared, and their gowns were gray with dust. They stared wordlessly at the bedraggled crowd gathering before them, their hands clasped to each other and their eyes wide with fear.
Back to Chapter XVII: The Hollow Chamber
Forward to Chapter XIX: The Palace, Still Standing
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