Tear Down Heaven: Urban Fantasy Action with Witches and Demons, page 20
Despite just asking him not to talk about it, Bex wanted to hear more. She wanted to talk to Adrian about all sorts of things, but there was no time. The chamber at the bottom of the scorched staircase was already coming into view.
Like everything she’d seen in Gilgamesh’s palace so far, it was enormous. Between the soaring ceiling and the long list of destinations carved into the floor, Bex felt like she was walking into a station from the grand age of railroads. The room’s circular walls were pierced with multiple doorways leading to hallways that were lined with even more doors, which Bex presumed were the entrances to all the various Anchors. But while she spotted plenty of good places for an ambush, she didn’t see any chains, or any people. Either the sorcerers Iggs mentioned earlier had already fled down to Earth or there was another level to this place. She was looking around for a second staircase when she finally spotted someone.
Bex had no idea how she hadn’t noticed him sooner. The man was directly ahead of them at the dead center of the giant circular room. He was kneeling on the ground with his head bowed all the way over so that his forehead was pressed flat against the marble. Between the humble position and his filthy clothes, Bex’s first thought was that he was a demon slave who’d been left behind when all the masters ran. Then she saw the white sword lying on the ground beside him.
Her boots squeaked to a stop on the slick-polished floor. Adrian froze a second later, his blue-gray eyes flying wide. Nemini was the only one who didn’t seem surprised. She simply moved a little closer to Bex, her snakes hissing protectively on her head as the bowing prince lifted his empty, dirty hands and said,
“I surrender.”
CHAPTER 12
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“WHAT DID YOU JUST say?” Bex demanded.
“I surrender,” the prince repeated, finally sitting up to show them his mirrored eyes, which weren’t even looking at Adrian yet but still managed to make his whole body tremble.
It was a natural reaction. Adrian had only spoken to this prince for less than a minute of real time, but he’d stared at his dirty face for what felt like hours during the Walking Memory. His armor was even dirtier than the last time Adrian had seen it, so coated in black dust that the ornate gold was no longer visible. He looked more like a coal miner than a son of Gilgamesh, but it was impossible for Adrian to forget the prince who’d almost killed him with a single flick to the forehead. That was definitely the man from the chain desert, the Prince of Envy.
“You’re surrendering?” Bex said, her voice deeply skeptical. “Why?”
“Because you are here,” the prince replied. “The Prince of Fear would die before he allowed the Coward Queen to enter the Palace of Heaven, so if you are standing before me, that must be what has happened.” He glanced at the white sword on the floor beside him, and then he bowed his head again. “My brother is a much better fighter than I am. If he couldn’t beat you, I have no hope. All I can do is put myself at your mercy and beg you not to cut the chains.”
Adrian let out a relieved breath. That was why the prince was acting this way. He still thought Bex was here to destroy the chains and bring back the gods. That idea was totally off the table now that Bex had told him what Ishtar had said about resetting the world, but the Prince of Envy didn’t know that. If the chains were still his primary concern, maybe he could be reasoned with. He certainly didn’t seem as fanatical as other sons of Gilgamesh Adrian had met. But before he could tell the Prince of Envy they weren’t here for the chains, so there was no reason to do anything extreme, Bex beat him to the punch.
“The chains are worth that much to you?”
“They are worth more than life itself,” the still-bowing prince replied. “Gilgamesh’s chains are the only protection this world has against the return of the divine tyrants. I know you think the gods will restore your kind to Paradise, but their rule was anything but paradise for humanity. The fact that Gilgamesh was able to free us from their hold once is the miracle of our race. I’m not so cocky as to think we’ll be so lucky twice.”
He pressed his head even harder against the floor. “Please, Queen of Wrath. I’ll do anything you say. Just please don’t cut the chains. Don’t bring the cruel gods back to trample everything humanity has built.”
“Anything, huh?” Bex said, pulling Drox into her hand and tapping his black blade against her shoulder as she made a show of thinking the prince’s words over. “All right. I’ll spare the chains, but in return, you have to call off the attack on the Blackwood.”
The bowing prince shook his head. “I cannot. Only the king himself can end an operation that’s already underway.”
“Then take me to Gilgamesh and I’ll tell him myself,” Bex offered with a smile. “Do it quick, or I’m chopping this whole place apart.”
It took every bit of Adrian’s self-control not to gape at her in wonder. That was the most bald-faced lie he’d ever heard Bex tell, but it wasn’t a half-bad one. If this prince really was the true-blue Gilgamesh believer he appeared to be, then he’d have no doubt that his king could easily defeat the Coward Queen, which meant he might actually do as she said.
Sure enough, the Prince of Envy nodded immediately and pushed up from his bow. “My father is a wise and civilized king,” he said with a relieved smile. “He despises war in all its wasteful forms, so I’m certain he’d be willing to negotiate if you came to him in good faith. Call off the demons who are ransacking his palace and send the witches back to their tree, and I’ll take you to King Gilgamesh.”
Bex shook her head. “That wasn’t part of the deal. You take me to Gilgamesh now—the actual Gilgamesh, not his throne room or his study or his Crown Prince stand-in, but the man himself—or I chop everything you just bowed your head to protect.”
The prince heaved a long sigh. “Very well,” he said, wiping the black grime from his gloved hands. “I’ll take you straight to him. Just put away your—”
“Don’t listen to him.”
The dirty prince stopped with a jolt, his grimy face—which had just been the picture of defeated resignation—twisting into a hateful scowl as Leander marched down the stairs.
“He’s lying to you,” Leander said as he stomped into the room. “That is Hector, Prince of Envy, and the chains aren’t the only realm he looks after. He’s the custodian of all of Gilgamesh’s sacred spaces. If you follow where he leads, he’ll strand you in an endless labyrinth between worlds until you die of starvation.”
“I see you’ve turned full traitor, Leander,” the Prince of Envy spat, snatching his arm down to grab his sword, only to come up empty. The white blade that had been lying on the floor beside him was now clutched in Nemini’s hands where she stood behind Bex, who no longer looked like she was bluffing about chopping everything apart.
“Gotta admit, you almost had me for a moment,” Bex said, pulling Drox off her shoulder to point his black blade at the scowling prince. “Was all that stuff about protecting the chains a lie as well?”
“Absolutely not,” the Prince of Envy insisted, pulling himself up straight and proud even though his hands were still empty. “The chains that hold the Wheel of Reincarnation are the greatest creation of Heaven and the only thing that protects humanity from being the playthings of the gods. Not that my demon-loving brother cares about that. Leander would sacrifice every human on the planet if his precious Mara asked him to, and he’ll do the same to you if you get in his way.”
“Big words from a liar,” Bex said as she stalked closer to the dirty prince. “But I don’t care about cutting chains anymore. I’m here to kill Gilgamesh, and while I’m sure he’s very hidden, I also know that the chains are how I get to him. You’re just the person standing in my way, so either you get out of it or…”
Her voice trailed off as she slammed Drox’s point into the floor. It didn’t look like she’d hit the marble that hard to Adrian, but either the stone was weak here or those six horns had boosted her strength even more than he’d realized, because the entire circular chamber cracked when her sword came down. She was about to hit it again when the Prince of Envy threw out his hands.
“Stop!” he cried. “Please, Queen of Wrath, you don’t know the calamity you’re courting! The Wheel has already been strengthened by the water and life the witches brought with them into Heaven. The chains are at their limit. If you jostle them now, the bound Cycle of Reincarnation could break free completely and all the gods will return, but not as your saviors. They hate what humanity has become and will use their power to reset the world and everyone in it. You, me, the Blackwoods, your demons—everyone will die if you let them rise!”
“I’m already aware,” Bex said, moving her sword back to her shoulder. “But what you don’t understand yet is that Gilgamesh is planning to do the same thing.”
For the first time since they’d arrived, the Prince of Envy looked genuinely surprised. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Gilgamesh is the Eternal King, humanity’s champion. More importantly, he already has all the power he could ever want. He would never throw away his throne.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Adrian said, stepping forward to stand beside Bex. “I’ve spent a lot of time with our father lately, and he’s anything but satisfied. You accuse Leander of being a slave to his princess, but Gilgamesh is the one who’d actually sacrifice the world to get what he wants, and you’re standing here fighting to let him.”
“Shut up,” the Prince of Envy snarled. “What do you know? You’re not even a real prince. You’re just the tool Father used to repair the Queen of Pride’s horns, which you then stole and put back on her head!”
He pointed at Nemini, who shrugged.
“You’ve always been in the demons’ pocket,” the prince went on. “You even became their queen’s lover! You’re no better than our harlot of a mother, but unlike the rest of you degenerates, I know what has to be done. You think I’m unaware of our father’s true nature? I’ve known he was a lying, despotic king from the day he first brought me here, but I still follow him because, for all his faults, Gilgamesh is the only one who can protect us from the gods. He’s the strongest human that’s ever lived, and unlike her”—he stabbed his finger at Bex—“he’s actually on our side. He dreams of ruling humanity, not destroying it. I’d bet our future on his greed any day, and I’ll never let you reach him!”
He yanked his arm back as he finished, and the white sword in Nemini’s hands exploded into a white-carved woman. She was the dirtiest princess Adrian had ever seen, with lines of black sin-iron dust caked into all the carved folds of her dress. Her body was cracked and battered like she’d been rolled down a mountain, but her golden eyes were calm and deadly as she kicked her way out of Nemini’s grasp and ran to her prince. She turned back into a sword the second he touched her, and the Prince of Envy lurched down to plunge his blade—which was long, thin, and tapered like a giant needle—into the stone Bex had already cracked.
The moment the Blade of Envy struck it, the floor beneath their feet vanished. Not broke, not gave out, vanished, leaving Adrian frantically waving his arms as he began to fall. The Prince of Envy smirked at his distress from his perch on the one remaining spot of solid ground, which looked like a circle of stone floating in the air. The rest of the giant arrival hall was gone, leaving everybody but the enemy prince falling into what appeared to be an enormous sandstone cavern with an ancient city nestled far, far at the bottom.
The change was so unexpected, it actually shocked Adrian out of his panic. He had no idea what had just happened, but the Prince of Envy was now high above them, left behind as Adrian, Bex, Nemini, and Leander plummeted down the cavern toward the city like coins tossed into a well. Adrian was kicking himself for leaving Bran behind with Boston when Leander grabbed him by his coat sleeve and yelled, “Fifty Steps of the Pilgrim!”
Adrian’s stomach lurched with the familiar swinging feeling of teleportation. Unlike all the times he’d moved himself, though, there was no ringing bell. This was simply a blip, like he’d been inside the eye of the world when it blinked, and then suddenly he and Leander were falling through the air above the Prince of Envy.
The filthy prince had just enough time to look up in surprise before they landed on top of him. The giant sandstone cavern vanished a second later, returning the arrivals room to its previous state as the three sons of Gilgamesh fell sprawling onto the cracked floor.
“You,” Envy snarled, shoving Leander off him as he raised his long, needle-sharp white sword again. “Sorcery won’t save you this—”
“Binding of Deepest Bedrock,” Leander replied, looking at his brother with a superior smile.
The sneer fell off the Prince of Envy’s face. Adrian was feeling pretty shocked as well, but he didn’t let that slow him down as he dived behind the brother who wasn’t actively trying to murder him.
“What does that spell do?” he whispered frantically.
“It prohibits movement,” Leander replied with the smuggest grin Adrian had ever seen. “Until I revoke it, no one who has heard my voice can walk more than ten paces from their original position. Just look at your feet.”
Adrian glanced down in alarm. Sure enough, his black boots were ringed with ghostly chains. He couldn’t feel them while he was standing still, but when he jumped back in surprise, the transparent chains tightened like a slipknot. He could still move if he pushed, but the binding pulled tighter with every step, and his face broke into a smile.
“Nice work,” he told his brother. “But why did you trap us as well? And why didn’t you teleport Bex or Nemini?”
“Because that’s how the Binding of Deepest Bedrock works,” Leander replied with a shrug. “And because you were the only person close enough for me to grab before we fell out of range. Trust me, I’d much rather have gotten one of the queens.”
Adrian felt the same. “Where did they go?” he asked nervously, reaching down to touch the now solid-seeming marble under his feet. “What was that place?”
“I’m not sure,” Leander said, keeping his mirrored eyes on the Prince of Envy, who was standing at the far edge of the binding, muttering his own sorcery under his breath. “As keeper of Gilgamesh’s private spaces, Envy has access to all manner of pockets and subworlds that our father created to house his projects over the years. The Hells, the chain desert, Limbo, even Heaven itself are all created spaces and thus technically part of Envy’s domain, but there are hundreds more, most of which are top secret. That cavern, for example, was nowhere I’ve ever seen before.”
“Well, we need to figure out how to get back to it,” Adrian said anxiously. “Bex and Nemini are trapped down there!”
“I’d love to,” Leander said. “But…”
His mirrored eyes flicked to the white sword in Envy’s hands, and Adrian sighed.
“Right then,” he muttered, moving closer to his brother. “What’s the plan?”
“Be very careful,” Leander whispered, never taking his eyes off his brother’s sword. “The Princess of Envy is a contrary creature. She always longs to be somewhere else, which is what allows her to move between so many different places. She can cut a path to any location her wielder is aware of, but her true power is jealousy.”
Adrian scowled. “How is being jealous a power?”
Before Leander could answer, the Prince of Envy whirled around. Whatever sorcery he’d been muttering must not have been able to beat Leander’s, because the prince lashed out at Adrian with his sword instead. Adrian instinctively tried to defend with his own sorcery before remembering he couldn’t do that anymore. He’d used up every drop of his white quintessence blood growing his new tree, which meant he was back to being just a witch.
Under any other circumstance, Adrian would’ve counted that as a major win. In the current situation, however, it was a serious problem. He’d grown his vines all the way around the palace by this point, but this room was made of solid stone with no windows or skylights. He’d loaded his coat with fresh spell reagents when he’d stopped by his cabin before the assault, but it was all raw materials. He hadn’t had time to prepare any throwable curses, and he didn’t think his brother would be polite enough to wait while he set one up. But just as Adrian was realizing that his lack of preparation was about to get him killed just like Boston had always said it would, Leander shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Ishtar’s Charging Bull!”
Sorcery leaped from his words, and a giant spectral bull appeared in front of Adrian, its curved horns already in position to knock the Blade of Envy away. The spell’s shape hadn’t even finished solidifying, though, when the needle-sharp Blade of Envy shimmered like a mirror, and a second sorcerous bull appeared, colliding with Leander’s in a blast of sorcerous power that knocked all three princes flat on their backs.
Adrian was the first to get back up. He scrambled to help Leander next, hauling the prince, who’d been lying at the edge of the glowing binding’s range like he’d just been run over by a truck, back to his feet.
“I see what you meant now about jealousy being Envy’s power,” he said as he steadied his brother’s weight. “She’s a mirror sword.”
“She’s much worse than that,” Leander warned, clinging hard to Adrian’s arm. “The Blade of Envy doesn’t just duplicate attacks. She adds her prince’s sorcery on top as well. As you just saw, any sorcery I throw will bounce back with the same strength I used plus the Prince of Envy’s.” He shook his head with a grimace. “We should call for help.”
“Help from whom?” Adrian demanded. “I’m the only Blackwood who can enter the palace, Iggs is injured, and the rest of the demons can’t stand up to a prince. Even if they could overwhelm him with numbers, he’d just teleport them all to Limbo or somewhere even worse.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Leander snapped. “Because unless you want to get blasted to the floor again, my sorcery is useless.”
