The Emperor of Uurz lives! Ianthe’s plan has worked.
The time for devouring had come.
Now, my children! Now! Ianthe’s voice resounded in the heads of the High Seraphim. Zyung is salted! Feast! Feast! His power and his empire are yours! Take it!
They swarmed from the sky like a plague of silver locusts.
Sungui joined them gladly. The coven had grown by at least two hundred.
All of them unbound.
All of them hungry.
A blast of viridian light spears the sky, and the Rebel Seraphim descend upon the salted God-King by the hundreds. Their mouths open impossibly wide to bite off great chunks of his brittle substance. They cover his massive body like ants upon a pile of sugar, devouring, devouring. Consuming both form and essence. There is Ianthe, and Gammir, along with the rest of them, imbibing Zyung’s eternal spirit through his salt.
Vireon and Alua step from nowhere to join Lyrilan and me. Khama floats close behind them. A soft hand takes my own, and Sharadza is there. We watch the long-enslaved Old Breed feed upon the God-King’s crystallized soul. They take his diluted power into themselves, spreading it among their hundreds as a legion of warriors shares a keg of ale.
“This is gruesome,” Sharadza says. “Must it be this way?”
I cannot tell her what I must do next.
“Yes,” I say. “The only way to destroy Zyung’s immortal being is to divide it among the others. If not for Ianthe’s rebels, we would have to consume him ourselves.”
Sharadza shivers. “I would not devour anyone so.”
“Then thank our enemy,” I say.
“And the envoy who brought her scroll,” says Lyrilan. “Sungui the Venomous.”
Even as Ianthe’s swarm devours the salted colossus, it shrinks to the size of an Uduru. This must have been Zyung’s customary size. The Seraphim move quick as spiders, stuffing their mouths and bellies, streaming light from their eyes and throats. Soon there will be nothing left of Zyung.
Vireon turns toward the blazing Uurz. “What of the city?” he asks. There is confusion among the dreadnoughts and the Manslayers peering from their decks. The silver hordes are ready to storm the dying city. The Men and Giants are finished, the golden towers toppled to dust, the orchards and walls aflame.
“Tell Vaazhia that the time for phantoms has passed,” I say. The Feathered Serpent flies off to find the lizardess. I face Sharadza and take both her hands in mine. “I must leave you now, before this devouring is complete. Trust me when I say that this must be done. Wait for me on the island. If you will…”
She cries my name as I move away from her, but I do not respond. I cannot.
Vireon grabs her shoulders to keep her from rushing after me.
Floating above the dwindling hill of Zyung’s salt, I remain unnoticed by the Seraphim who lick, chew, and swallow their way to his last grain. I close my eyes and begin the most important spell I will ever cast.
The Flame of Intellect on my chest gutters and fades. My hand plunges into my breast, sharp as a blade. It clutches the pulsing jewel that is my heart. With the last of my strength and a shout of agony, I tear it out through the bleeding hole in my chest. It pulses redly in my hand, no larger than a pomegranate, dripping crimson across the salt-mound below. Some of it falls upon the heads of the devouring Seraphim, yet they take no notice.
Only Ianthe senses it. Her weakness for blood aroused, she watches me with eyes of jet. The heart turns to a white rock in my hand, and I drop it into the midst of the salt-mound that is the last of Zyung. Instantly the heart-stone dissolves and merges with the existing grains. My own salt is indistinguishable now from that of Zyung. Ianthe has already returned to devouring him like the rest of her conspirators.
I hover for a moment longer above them, heartless and fading. Then I glide back to Sharadza, streaming blood from my opened chest. I fall into her arms, and she weeps over me. Still I fade, yet the last thing I see is her sweet face close to mine.
I hear her calling my name. I hope she understands.
I die in her arms, at peace with what I have done.
18
Phantoms
Uurz was a great circle of flame and rubble. The bodies of Men and Giants were cinders scattered across its blackened interior. A host of winged lizards spiraled above the flames like black vultures, searching for the wounded and dying. Above the flocking Trills the ranks of dreadnoughts floated among columns of black smoke.
North of the inferno Zyung the Conqueror lay salted and dwindling, sinking swiftly into the stomachs and souls of his most powerful slaves. Yet they were slaves no more. Word of the High Seraphim’s betrayal had not yet reached the armada, but like the rising smokes it would soon engulf the dreadnoughts.