chapter THIRTY-SIX
Avery screamed. “What was that?”
“A powder keg with a long fuse.”
“He fired on the city?”
Corin heaved a weary sigh. “We locked the gates and he wants in. Perhaps he hopes in the panic, some of our people will open the gates. Or…gods’ blood, he might have done it for fun. He wants to break Oberon’s dominion, and killing off a lot of people should accomplish just that.”
The explosions’ thunder was long since gone, but a new roar was rising. It came with the wall of thick black smoke and the heat haze heavy in the air.
“It’s working,” Avery said. “Age of reason, the fire will take the whole city soon.”
“No,” Corin said. “Oberon already raised the fire brigades. Maurelle’s coordinating them.”
“Even so, they aren’t here yet, and there are people in those buildings.”
Avery darted for the street, but Corin caught his shoulder and spun him back around. “Where are you going?”
Avery frowned, looking confused. “There are people in those buildings.”
“Let someone else see to them. We have a higher calling.”
“Killing Ephitel? There will be time enough for that later.”
Corin licked his lips. “Maybe not. There is not much time at all.”
“Then I would spend it on my friends before my foes.”
“This is for your friends. This is for Kellen.”
Avery sucked a deep breath, then met Corin’s eyes. “Kellen’s dead. These people aren’t.”
“You’re not a hero. You’re a thief.”
“I am a hero. Oberon himself said so. But that is not what matters. The important thing is that I am not a monster.”
He tried to leave, but Corin would not let go. “Those people do not matter!”
Avery’s eyes went cold. Corin tried to stammer an explanation, but the gentleman thief—the mayor of Gesoelig—shrugged out of Corin’s grip and turned away. He called back over his shoulder, “I am sorry, Corin, but this is what I must do.”
Corin nodded, watching him go. Of course. His hands were bound by history. Corin took a deep breath and released it as a string of curses.
Oberon was right. This was a memory, a temporary shard. Corin had proved it with his step across the city. Nothing done here really mattered. He would have been much better served to grab a warm meal and a cool beer and wait to be sent home. He might have shared a pleasant hour with his hero instead of leaving him on such unhappy terms.
Leaving Oberon had not been any better. The king seemed critically weak. From ten paces distant he’d asked Corin to come closer to the throne, to be sent home. What chance that he could accomplish that from across the city? Corin had been a fool to leave.
What chance had he alone to cut down Ephitel, even if he had the sword? He could have chosen to go home. He should have chosen that, with the fate of all reality trapped inside his head.
He shuddered at the thought. Reality deserved a better keeper. It hardly mattered if he came back from the dream. He couldn’t live a century. Truth be told, he’d be lucky to live a decade, and then the world was over.
The only difference it could make was for Iryana. Ah, he’d used her poorly in every way. For her, he should have stayed with Oberon. For her, he should have taken the sword and run. For her, he should have been more cautious of Ethan Blake. At every step he’d failed her, and now he’d sacrificed his only chance of making it right in this mad-hearted attempt at impossible revenge. And an ephemeral revenge at that! He’d sacrificed the world for the idle daydream of a hollow victory.
Even as he cursed himself, he felt that hungry fire in his heart. Ephitel was not an idle threat. He was a monster that needed slaying. His crimes rang out in Corin’s heart, not least the fires raging now to the east and west of Moneylender’s Lane. Corin hated Ephitel. But revenge would gain him nothing. He clenched his empty hand into a fist and repeated those words in his head. Revenge would gain him nothing. Revenge, however sweet, would gain him nothing.
So he would not fight Ephitel. It was the choice he should have made all along. As much as he longed to kill the beast, he closed his eyes and strove to put the bastard from his mind. He fixed his thoughts on Oberon’s grand throne room. He would leave this dream to its sad fate and take its tragic memory to a world where Ephitel was god. He focused on the king and turned away, shifting himself within the dream. And when he looked again, he’d left Moneylender’s Lane behind.
But not far enough behind.
He stood upon the battlefield, just at the edge, beneath the great arch of the closed gates. And Ephitel was there. Alone. His regiment still stood arrayed a quarter mile distant, but Ephitel stood ten paces out with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Anger flaring in his eyes, the wicked prince leveled his gun at Corin and said, “I believe you have my sword.”
Corin met his eyes and growled. He had tried to use the dream to return to Oberon, but as Oberon had warned, every dream could become nightmare. Dreams were unpredictable creatures. Corin had tried to do the right thing, the noble thing, the practical thing, but the dream had not cooperated. So here and now, he decided, staring into Ephitel’s dark eyes, it was time to kill a rabid god.
If the world hung in the balance…well, it could hang.
He swung the legendary sword, rolling it in a long arc, and grinned up at the prince. “Come and get it.”
Ephitel fired his pistol, but Corin was already diving aside. He hit the ground and rolled and came up four paces closer to the prince. There was no fancy revolver this time, so Ephitel threw his gun aside and raised his sword.
Corin stalked toward him.
“This is a clever trick,” Ephitel called. “How did you bring me here against my will?”
“The sheer power of my hatred bent reality.”
“You bear such hate for me? But I don’t even know you.”
Corin didn’t answer. He closed and lunged a feint, then slashed down hard toward the prince’s neck. Ephitel tried to riposte the feint and had to stumble back from the true strike.
Corin pressed after him, a slash, a stab, a lunge, and then he nicked the prince’s wrist even as Ephitel brought his guard around. Ephitel cried out, in surprise as much as pain, and Corin flashed a shark’s cold grin.
“You are Ephitel of the High Moor, but I will make you bleed.”
The prince shrank away, but Corin stomped after him. “You were a lord of war and prince of all Hurope,” he screamed while raining blows upon the prince’s frantic defenses. “But I will make you a memory, a stain on history. You will mar my world no more!”
As Corin screamed this last, the prince attempted a stand. Ephitel braced himself and raised his sword two-handed in an overhand block. Corin might have undercut him—he saw the opportunity—but burning as he was with rage, he brought the ancient longsword smashing down on Ephitel’s light rapier. Godslayer smashed the prince’s sword to pieces and carved a long, deep gash down his lovely face, from eye socket to jaw.
Ephitel threw away his ruined weapon and turned to run. His regiment was waiting some way off, in evident disorder at the sudden disappearance of their commander. The prince sprinted for them now, but Corin dragged Ogden’s pistol from beneath his cloak, took aim, and fired his final shot through the prince’s back.
Ephitel went sprawling. Corin stalked up after him. The hatred in his heart was now a bonfire, and it warmed him to the bone. Corin jabbed Godslayer through the prince’s right shoulder, and the legendary blade parted flesh and bone like water. Corin crippled the other shoulder, too, but he saved the killing stroke. He locked one hand around the prince’s ankle and dragged him backward through the dirt toward the city gate. The fires were raging now, the townsfolk caught in panic. Corin knotted a fist in the back of Ephitel’s shirt and heaved him to his feet.
He hurled the prince against the city gates and pressed his face into the bars. Skin sizzled on the fire-scorched steel. Corin held him in place and shouted, “Look what you have wrought! This is your villainy.”
Then Corin heaved him back, flinging Ephitel to the ground beneath the gates. The pirate stepped over the fallen prince and flourished the legendary blade. “And I am your punishment. For Kellen. For Maurelle and Avery. For Oberon.” He raised the blade to strike. “For Iryana.”
And then the sun went out.