Disintegration: The Todor Trilogy, Book Two Page 4

  Madness. Was that the reason Gemynd had turned on his home and loved ones? Numa swallowed hard as she thought about it. It would almost be a relief to know that madness was the cause. Either way, the husband she knew was gone, but there would be some consolation in being able to blame the madness rather than the man.

  “I am thirsty,” Numa managed to say to the woman as she sat up.

  The woman put her hand in the air and a wooden cup from the table floated across the room. “Iturtian water,” she said and handed the cup to Numa. “The best you’ll ever drink.”

  Numa took a sip and discovered that the woman was right. The water was cold and pure with the tiniest hint of sweetness. “Thank you,” Numa said and looked at the woman’s face. She had a large nose that came to a severe point and small, thin lips that looked pinched together when she wasn’t speaking. Her dark eyes were set too far apart and were so small they looked like tiny raisins resting upon a mass of unbaked dough; the effect made all the more pronounced by the fact that her hairline started clear back in the middle of her head. And, of course, she had scars. Scars that pocked and twisted her cheeks into hardened shells rather than pliant flesh.

  “I’m Hildegaard,” the woman said, clearly noting Numa’s study of her. “I have some clean clothing if you wish to change out of your torn dress.”

  Numa looked down, only then noticing that the dress she wore was, indeed, torn. The apron portion was practically shredded, and it was caked with a mixture of ash, dirt and blood. She knew she could simply create a new one for herself, but she graciously accepted the clothing from Hildegaard instead. “Thank you,” she said as she took the bundle.

  “Everyone wears the same thing in Iturtia, men and women alike,” Hildegaard explained. “Tunics and full-length leggings.”

  Numa discarded her torn clothing in the corner of the room and pulled the long, cloth breeches up her legs, noticing that they were very tight, like a second skin. The tunic was loose, but came down only as far as Numa’s waist, leaving her feeling like her backside was completely exposed. She eyed Hildegaard’s version of the same outfit and couldn’t help but notice that her tunic was much longer and covered everything it needed to cover. “I am grateful for the clean clothes,” Numa said. “I wonder if it might be possible for me to have a longer tunic?”

  “We don’t choose the size. We get what we get,” Hildegaard replied and shrugged.

  Numa sat back down on the bedsack, realizing then that her tight pants were actually quite comfortable. If she could get beyond the awkward feeling of having her bottom on display, she might come to like them.

  “By the way, my name is Numa,” she said as she pulled on the pair of short boots that Hildegaard handed her.

  “I know who you are. Gemynd told me all about you when he sent me in here to look after you.”

  Numa inhaled. “Gemynd sent you?” she asked. The mere act of saying his name brought a stirring deep in her belly. How she wanted to despise him! She could not still love him after what he’d done, could she? Even if it was just for a moment, he had become a wicked monster before her eyes. He had killed and destroyed; and he had used Soman in the worst way.

  Numa wished for nothing more than to vanish into Turiya and blissfully forget the name Gemynd for all eternity. But every time she had ventured to open her eyes, she saw the thread of Lifeforce connecting her heart to Gemynd’s. It had not disappeared. It had not unraveled. It had not even faded. In fact, it was stronger and more vibrant than ever. Numa could not deny that she still loved him. But she was unable to understand why. Even if she did love him, could she ever forgive him? Was love enough to heal all wounds?

  Since she’d arrived in Iturtia, Numa had spoken to Gemynd only once, and that was merely to insist that she be given a place to lie down. She had been escorted into this chamber and had not seen Gemynd since.

  “He sent me to look after you,” Hildegaard repeated.

  “Am I your prisoner, then?” Numa asked.

  Hildegaard cackled. “I admit to knowing very little about Empyreans, but I know enough to realize that you are no one’s prisoner. I would be surprised if there is anything that happens that is against your will.”

  Now it was Numa’s turn to laugh. “Then I am not nearly so powerful as you’ve been led to believe,” she said. “Everything that happened to Aerie was very much against my will.”

  Hildegaard shrugged again. “Regardless, it was necessary,” she said.

  “Necessary!” Numa shrieked, using all of her willpower to stop herself from slapping the woman.

  A sinister sounding laugh escaped from Hildegaard’s lips. “Aerie’s wealth was the true cause of suffering in Todor. It had to be destroyed,” she explained in a tone so matter-of-fact it was as though she was discussing what would be served for breakfast.

  “Was that Gemynd’s reason for destroying it?” Numa asked.

  “I don’t presume to know the Pit Warden’s motivations,” Hildegaard said, lifting her chin defensively. “You will have to ask him that directly.”

  “For an Iturtian, you seem to know very little,” Numa sneered.

  “Perhaps that is no less strange than an Empyrean who believes she is a prisoner,” Hildegaard retorted without hesitation.

  “It certainly feels like a prison,” Numa replied, mostly to herself.

  Hildegaard narrowed her eyes until they all but disappeared. “But you could leave here at any time if you so desired. Isn’t that right?”

  Numa looked down at the floor and sighed. Hildegaard was right. Numa could leave at any time. With just a thought, she could be in Turiya. She could be surrounded by sunlight and flowers and music. She could create for herself a world of Joy and laughter; a world with no pain, no fear. She could heal from the heartbreak of losing Aerie in the loving comfort of her mothers’ arms. She had the power to do all these things and more. But the one thing she could not seem to do was leave Gemynd. Even now.

  “Where is Gemynd?” she asked, thinking that perhaps it was time to speak with him. Maybe by seeing him, she could reach a decision. Maybe if she laid eyes upon his face, her heart would overflow with love and forgiveness. Or maybe the sight of him would ignite her fury enough to leave him as she should.

  “He is with The Director in his office, just next door,” Hildegaard replied.

  “They are still planning their war, then?” Numa asked, disappointed that the very idea of war had not somehow ceased to exist.

  “Of course,” Hildegaard said, scrunching up her nose. “They would not lead an army of Iturtians into battle without a proper strategy. You clearly do not know The Director at all.”

  Numa shook her head. “No, I do not,” she said and leaned back against the wall. “He puzzles me.”

  “He is not a puzzle to be solved,” Hildegaard said, her words tight and clipped. “He is The Director of Iturtia and soon to be King of Todor.”

  Numa pressed her lips together, a heaviness settling over her heart. “You sound so certain. If Golath is to be King, he must take the crown by force. Is war truly inevitable now?”

  Hildegaard smiled at her as though she were a small child. “It is the only option that makes sense,” she said.

  “Is it what you want?” Numa asked, hoping against hope that there might be one other person in Iturtia who was as afraid of war as she.

  Hildegaard arched one pointy eyebrow. “What I want is to serve my Director,” she said and although her mouth continued to move, Numa no longer heard her words. Hildegaard’s face appeared to move further and further away until it was but a tiny point of light against a black void of nothingness. Then the void rippled as though a pebble had been dropped onto it and suddenly Numa stood in the midst of a vast desert of red sand. The Iturtian desert. To her left was Gemynd, and Golath stood to her right.

  “Why have you brought me up here?” she asked, annoyed to be moved against her will. But then she realized they wouldn’t have had that power. Someone or something else must have
moved her up to the surface. An Empyrean perhaps. “Mothers? Is this your doing? Radine?”

  Numa turned around, expecting to see the wispy outline of one of her fellow Empyreans coming into form. Instead she saw row after row of people dressed in Iturtian clothing, staring blankly ahead.

  “What is going on here?” she asked, turning back to face Gemynd, but he made no response at all.

  “Gemynd?” Numa asked and stood directly in front of him. She noticed then that he and Golath wore plates of dark armor that seemed to shimmer in the stifling desert heat. The air was nearly too hot to breathe, and Numa felt the burning sand through the soles of her boots. The smell of sweat hung thick in the air.

  “Gemynd?” she asked again and grabbed his arm. But he did not register her touch. He was unaware of her presence.

  A great thunder rolled into the valley from over the sand hills to the west. The rumble grew louder and louder, and soon Numa could feel its vibrations in the sand beneath her and in the air around her. As she looked across the desert, flashes of light beamed from the tops of the hills. In an instant, Numa knew what she saw. It was sunlight shining off of polished suits of armor. Zobanite armor.

  Numa gasped. “This is war,” she said, feeling a chill move through her despite the heat. “We must leave at once.”

  Numa had to stop this. She could not let it happen. There had already been too much death and destruction. She turned to Golath. “Director, your Iturtian army stands behind you,” she said. “Undoubtedly, they will do as you command. Tell them to stand down at once.” But Golath was unresponsive.

  Numa looked across the Iturtian army. It was paltry compared to the great Zobanites. Surely they would all die. Gemynd and Golath were the only two who wore armor, yet even they wielded no weapons or shields. Regardless, the two of them looked proud in their dark-armored splendor and wore smug expressions upon their faces. It was as though they believed they had already won.

  “Please don’t do this,” she whispered, her shoulders sagging as she turned again to watch the Zobanites march ever onward.

  Numa could now clearly see their forward ranks. Their suits of armor resembled the ancient felitaurs—winged beasts that were half lion, half bull—and were staggering in their visual beauty. No detail had been overlooked in their creation, from the folds of the cat’s lips on the helmets as they bared their pointed teeth, to the lines etched on every single feather of the enormous wings. And within the Zobanites’ hands was every sort of weapon imaginable: longknives, shortknives, hammers, axes, spears and longbows.

  And they continued to come. Wave after wave of them crested the hills in the distance until the red sand of Iturtia was covered by a sea of gleaming metal.

  “They must outnumber you twenty to one,” Numa said to Gemynd, still hoping he could hear her. “Your army is pitiful in comparison. You cannot win! You will all die!”

  The Zobanite soldiers were now less than one hundred hands away, and Numa thought she could see some of the soldiers’ eyes. Was Soman in one of those suits?

  Suddenly the Zobanites began banging their weapons together rhythmically and moving their wings up and down. The noise was overpowering. Numa’s teeth and bones rattled with every rumble and she wanted desperately to run away.

  But she couldn’t leave Gemynd there to die without her.

  Then, from within the center of the Zobanite pack, a thunderous voice shouted the single word, “Fight!”

  Roaring like the lions they appeared to be, the Zobanites rushed forward, their weapons at the ready. Numa pinched her eyes closed, waiting to feel the inevitable piercing of a blade through her body. But it never came.

  Instead Numa heard the unmistakable sound of swords hitting swords. She opened her eyes and was stunned to see that the Zobanites had begun fighting one another. The soldier directly in front of her spun in a circle, his arm outstretched and in his fist he clutched the handle of an enormous hammer. With a sickening crunch the hammer rammed the abdomen of the next soldier. The force of the blow was so strong that the hammer went through armor, body, and more armor before emerging from the back of the soldier, dripping with blood. Before the attacker could retrieve his hammer, another Zobanite came up behind him and, in with a single slash of his sword, cut through both of his legs with seemingly no effort at all.

  Numa covered her face with her hands and dropped into a tight ball on the ground. She could sense Gemynd and Golath standing on either side of her and she felt sheltered, protected. She peeked through her fingers at Gemynd’s face and saw a look of deep concentration there. “You’re controlling them,” she said, putting the pieces together. The Iturtians controlled the minds of the Zobanites. That was why they looked so smug before. And why the Zobanites were slashing each other to pieces.

  Numa felt a strange surge of pride in her heart. That was her husband overpowering men twice his size with just his mind. “No,” she said to herself, her eyes widening. “I am not proud of this!”

  Numa let herself look again at the battlefield from her vantage point on the ground. The sand had turned to mud, moistened by an ever-growing pool of blood. The shiny armored Zobanite boots were now slick and red, many of them having bits of bone and flesh stuck to them. She saw the remnants of the Zobanite whose body had been skewered by the hammer, entrails snagged and torn on the rough edges of the hole in the armor. The foul reek of blood laced with rot was thick in her nostrils. As she looked at it all, Numa’s mind went blank and she felt herself gag.

  This was war. Blood and mangled bodies. Noise more rending than screams.

  Then suddenly the skewered Zobanite rolled to his side and stood up.

  Numa gasped. “You’re alive,” she said and remembered that Zobanites had the glinting power to heal.

  The soldier groaned as he bent over to pick up his sword. When he lifted it, he brought the point towards his face as though he was examining it, marveling at the way it was streaked with blood.

  “Look out,” Numa said as she watched another soldier run towards him. Although she’d only first laid eyes on the man moments ago, there was something about seeing the inside of his body, then watching him recover, that made Numa feel a sort of kinship with him. She wanted him to survive.

  But it was not to be.

  The soldier who rushed him carried his sword in both hands and never even broke stride when he sliced off his head. Numa thought she might be screaming as she watched the helmeted head roll towards her, but she could hear nothing over the onslaught of battle.

  Then the sky grew suddenly dark.

  Numa looked up to see that the air was filled with Zobanite archers, their bows drawn tight. With a single snap, a volley of arrows rained down on the Iturtians. Numa felt her eyes widen and she ceased her breathing as a hundred thousand points fell at her from the sky.

  Then, just as quickly, every arrow flipped around and flew back towards the Zobanite who’d loosed it. All the arrows but one.

  One single arrow held its path, and it was headed straight for Gemynd’s head. Numa screamed his name. She called for Golath. She shouted for any Iturtian to change the direction of the one errant arrow. But they could not hear her.

  As it fell closer and closer to Gemynd, Numa knew she could no longer merely watch the battle before her. She had to interfere. She could not stand by and watch her husband die. She had to do something.

  Numa jumped to her feet and stretched her arm up, her palm open above Gemynd’s head. She closed her eyes and willed the arrow to change. When she opened them, she watched a feather fall into the palm of her hand.

  Then the scene before her rippled once more and she was back in the tiny bedchamber, Hildegaard still speaking. “Truly, it is an inevitable result of thousands of years of history,” Hildegaard said, undoubtedly still on the topic of war.

  “We must get back up there,” Numa said, standing up. “I have to make sure he survives the battle.”

  “What battle?” Hildegaard asked, her nose wrinkled up. “I a
sk you again, ‘are you ill?’”

  “There is a battle waging above us right now!” Numa exclaimed. “Zobanites and Iturtians. Gemynd is in danger.”

  Hildegaard arched a brow. “I assure you there is no battle. The Director and the Pit Warden are in the next room as they have been for days,” she said. “I know when the war will begin and it is not today. The Director has it planned to the very minute and he does not change plans lightly.”

  Numa shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose with her left hand. “Perhaps I am ill,” she said. “I was just standing in the midst of a great battle. It seemed the Iturtians would win until a single Zobanite arrow nearly killed Gemynd. But I stopped it.”

  Numa opened her right hand, expecting to see the feather still clutched within it. There was nothing in her palm but the four red lines left by her grasping fingernails.

  “Was it the future?” Hildegaard asked, riveted. “Are you able to move through time?”

  “Perhaps,” Numa answered slowly, feeling very disoriented. “Or maybe I fell asleep and it was but a dream.”

  “You did not appear to be sleeping,” Hildegaard replied. “If you did see the battle in the future, we must go at once and tell the Director of it. He will need to know exactly how it happened. He has planned this war for twenty years and must know if it goes according to his plan.”

  “Twenty years?” Numa asked.

  “Oh, yes. He began making his plans the moment he was banished from Aerie,” Hildegaard replied and straightened her shoulders. “Usurping the throne takes time, but he has told me all of his plans. He has left nothing to chance.”

  Numa leaned forward, nearly falling into Hildegaard’s lap. “Golath has been planning to take the throne for twenty years?” she asked and Hildegaard nodded. “That was well before the death of Queen Helen.” And just like that, the truth crashed down upon her.

  Numa ran out of the room and down the small hallway to Golath’s office. She tore through the doorway as furiously as she could manage, but neither Gemynd nor Golath looked up from the maps they had spread out on the desk before them. Part of her was relieved to see them there, confirmation that there truly was not a battle waging overhead, but the rest of her was filled with rage.