CHAPTER 12: The Black City
The smooth, black stone of the City gleamed brightly in the early morning sun. Sharp needle towers stabbed at the blue sky, and small, pointed houses squeezed together along neat roads. High walls surrounded them with only one opening: an empty doorway facing east. It all appeared to have been carved out of a single boulder just a day earlier, because no cracks or layers of dust scarred the shiny stone. It was completely perfect, from the tallest turret to the most intricate of carvings on the walls. Alanna tried hard to keep from looking at those carvings: they depicted irritating pictures of birds with sharp teeth and human heads and chests, winged horses with talons, and other distorted creatures. And, then, suddenly, she froze.
"Highness!" she breathed fervently. "Highness, I've seen this before!"
"What?" Jonathan asked, absent-minded as he traced his fingers over the carvings.
"In a fire—I was scrying—back in Corus, after Thom died, there was this black city. I didn't know it at the time, but this must be it—yes, it has to be—Highness, I'm supposed to be here!" The discovery both terrified and exhilarated her.
"Good. That means there's something here," he whispered.
Alanna blinked at him. "Well of course there's something here. So many children have been called here—"
"Alanna," he murmured slowly, "do you see any trace whatsoever of those children? They could have just run away to some city. But there's something powerful here. Can't you feel it?"
She had been trying not to notice that part of the City. Jonathan was right: a feeling—a strong and bad feeling—hummed in the air. Something dark hid among these houses, reeking of incredible power and savage danger.
Alanna swallowed. Suddenly, the Black City was more than just a part of a legend. Now, it was petrifying reality.
Slowly, they ventured forward, until, all of a sudden, they reached the town's central square, gigantic and made of stone that did not reflect light. At the center stood a towering black stone building with great pillars lining the walls and huge double doors wide open at the head of a massive staircase. The gold carving just below the slightly-slanted roof was the only color in the entire City. The building sang, beckoning.
Some part of Alanna that she couldn't control didn't care about the eeriness. She watched in horror as her feet stepped over the huge pit-like ground and then mounted the great stairs. She felt herself shrink with every step.
"A temple," Jonathan deducted calmly.
"Highness?" she murmured shakily.
"Is your sword in your hand, Alanna?" he replied without looking at her. He was already holding his own blade.
Shocked that it wasn't already, Alanna slammed her hand to her hilt, and gasped. "Highness," she whispered frantically.
"What?" He was only half concentrating on the conversation as he continued to climb, just a few stairs ahead of her.
"Lightning—my sword—she's humming!"
"What?"
"My sword. My blade, Highness. She's like a bee—she's humming!"
For a mere second, Jonathan paused to glance back at her, and then continued his journey up. "Get ready, Alanna. Whatever we're here to face, we're about to face it."
Without any windows, the temple should have been dark inside, but still a sickly green light emanated from a thin fog that, when inhaled, made Alanna's head spin. The light rippled along the glassy walls until a black shadow of an altar swallowed it at the end of the chamber.
Suddenly, a silent flash of lightening blinded Alanna. Blinking rapidly, she slowly made out ten men and women towering above her even as they relaxed in front of the altar. Their silence as they grinned uncannily was deafening. Alanna gulped. The smallest woman was twice her height, and they were all so terribly beautiful that it hurt to look at them for too long. The amount of yellow-green power that radiated around them would have left Jarinth cowering. One of them alone could easily crush Alanna and Jonathan.
Jonathan stepped stubbornly forward. "Who are you?" he demanded with such authority Alanna gaped at him.
The ten beings, though, just laughed. "It speaks!" mocked a woman in a long, red dress. "The princeling has no fear of us. His father's soldiers will protect him!"
"The 'princeling' has no fear because there's nothing to be scared of. I have no need of my father's soldiers. I'll leave on my own," Jonathan shot back regally.
"Oh, now, that's not very nice," another woman with long, red claws purred playfully. "In not inviting those great men, you would be denying us a great meal, you know. And princes are supposed to be hospitable."
"But don't worry!" a woman with hair a blinding white cried cheerfully. "You two will be feast enough."
As if on cue, all ten took a terrifying step forward. Alanna felt as if that one step had covered half the distance between them.
"Any ideas?" she hissed at Jonathan, squeezing Lightning's hilt with a white-knuckled fist.
"Yeah," he muttered back. "Get your sword out."
Alanna did not hesitate a moment and swept Lightning from her sheathe. Suddenly, a brilliant light flashed, and the Nameless Ones leapt back to their altar, cowering under the glare of her blade. They looked furious.
"So," the red-dressed one sneered. "You come with a weapon of the Old Ones. Well, it won't help you now. In case you haven't noticed, we've outlasted them. We are stronger than they are. We are Ysandir and will reign forever."
Alanna, glowering defiantly, had hardly opened her mouth to snap a response when the woman with red claws burst into laughter. The sound was like nails screeching across a blackboard. Alanna fought to keep from dropping her sword and covering her ears to block the earsplitting din out.
"Ylanda?" asked a broad-shouldered man with a handsome black beard who overshadowed even the other Ysandir.
"A girl!" she—Ylanda—choked out. "A girl! Not only does the princeling have a mortal sword, but the one with the weapon that could actually do something is a girl!"
As Alanna's face turned a deep red, the other Ysandir shrieked with laughter too, inattentive as Jonathan slipped his hand into Alanna's.
"Being a girl will make them less wary of you. That's an advantage. Now, as long as we're connected, our power is combined. Do not let go of my hand. And keep your sword up. Mine, apparently, won't be of any help against them."
Alanna swallowed and nodded shakily. By then, the Ysandir had stopped laughing, but Ylanda's lips were still curved in an evil smile.
"Your lives are very interesting, Alanna of Trebond. I particularly like the one where you trade places with your brother and manage to win your shield. That was most certainly the path you were supposed to take. Become the first lady knight of the realm in a century, kill the King's worst enemy, become the King's Champion. Tell me, girlie, did you truly make it through those years training in the palace on your own, or did your princeling do half the work for you? I wouldn't be surprised if he did. You spent enough time with him—in his bed!"
Alanna couldn't help but openly gape at them.
The woman in the red dress noticed. "But you don't know what Ylanda is talking about, do you?" she mocked. "It just goes to show, even when Her hand is on you, things don't go very well. Look at you. You should be a page right now, but instead, you're here, standing in a burnoose with your princeling."
"I don't understand," Alanna whispered. "Whose hand is on me?"
Ylanda threw her head back and shrieked with laughter. "You don't know!" she cried. "You don't know when your own goddess's hand leads you along a chosen path! Well, don't worry! You don't need to know. After today, you don't need anything."
And again the Ysandir swept towards them.
But Alanna would have none of it. Yelling in fury, she swung Lightning up in front of her, as if the small sword equaled a stone wall. "Getting us won't be as easy as you'd like. You'll have to go through Lightning first."
The broad-shouldered man smiled. "Fine. We'll start with the princeling. That way you will know you failed before you die."
"Alanna, we need a wall! They're going to attack us!" Jonathan hissed.
Alanna had not missed this detail. Already Ylira was raising an arm to throw her power at them. Alanna slammed up a shield of violet magic just in time to reflect a ball of yellow-green fire and send it ricocheting off the walls. It collided with a slender brunette, slammed her against the back wall, and burst. A light flashed and the brunette vanished, leaving only her anguished scream to echo through the air.
"Wow," Jonathan murmured, reinforcing the wall with his own magic. "I'm impressed."
Alanna, though, hardly heard him. She stared at the empty space where the brunette had been and then barked a laugh. "So you can die!" she cried triumphantly.
"Don't be so sure," Ylira, whose eyes blazed with fury, snapped.
Alanna's eyes widened as three others—two women and a man—linked hands and started chanting. In the middle of their triangle, another ball grew, already twice as large as the one Ylira had thrown.
"Highness, we'll never be strong enough to stop something that size."
"Hold on!" he whispered back. "I'm trying to remember what the Chaos the Ysandir hate. Ali said it yesterday but—"
"Ysandir are terrified of fire, but I don't know how to set flame to a spirit!"
Suddenly Jonathan bellowed a verse that sounded suspiciously like a child's rhyme. However, it seemed to work because the three Ysandir subsequently burst into flame like parchment dumped in a cackling fire. Their screams were louder, longer, and more painful than the brunette's, but, in seconds, they had vanished too.
"Four down, six to go," Jonathan gasped, wiping sweat from his face.
"Please don't say that," she begged.
Alanna stretched out the arm holding Lightning. Loosening her grip on the hilt, she steadied it with her thumb and shot her Gift out of the other four fingers. The violet fog swarmed around a red-headed woman's face; shocked, she opened her mouth to scream and choked as the fog seeped beyond her lips and down her throat. She suffocated silently, clawing in vain at her face until she died. A man beside her who had reached over to help was less quiet as the fog jumped onto him and consumed his body.
A glance at the remaining Ysandir came as a surprise: Ylira didn't even have time to shriek before her head was swept off by a sapphire blade floating in the air, wielded by an invisible hand. Ylanda and the broad-shouldered man stood back against the altar, watching with hatred blazing in their eyes as the others perished.
"I've only seen seven killed. Where's the other?" Alanna panted fearfully.
"I stabbed him in the heart," Jonathan told her matter-of-factly.
Alanna decided to accept that without questioning. "You have to teach me that sword thing. I like it."
"Actually, I just kind of came up with it a few seconds ago. I'm not entirely sure how I did it, and I'm not exactly as strong as I was before I did it."
"Oh, well, it was pretty nice."
"Thanks."
"Ak-hoft!"
Alanna and Jonathan both jumped as the wall around them vanished, and they stared at the two remaining Ysandir with wide eyes.
"You're talented," Ylanda said coolly. "You're powerful. It is clear. But you are also conceited. You are too sure of yourselves. You believe that because you have managed to kill the young and weak and greedy, you can kill us too. It isn't so. Ylon and I were here before any of them. We are the most powerful, the most prudent. When we are defied, we punish. And you have defied us. You mortals don't stand a chance. We are gods."
"No you're not," Alanna shot back tartly. "Gods don't die."
"Mortals," Ylon sneered. "All-knowing, you believe. It's not true. Even gods die when they weaken, but we are still in our full power. You are about to drop dead from sheer exhaustion. You don't fool us. You just wasted a great amount of power on a few nothings. You are weak and foolhardy. You have no chance against us."
He and Ylanda raised their linked hands into the air and began to chant in an old language that Alanna didn't understand at all. A bright sphere began to take shape before them. It grew faster than any power from the others. Outside, thunder boomed and, suddenly, the only light left in the temple came from the glowing ball of fire.
"You have abused your lifetime," Jonathan bellowed furiously. "You no longer belong here!" He glanced at Alanna. "We need help. We can't face them alone."
She stared at him. "Highness, what are you asking?"
"They say the hand of the Goddess is on you. They wouldn't tell you a thing like that unless it's true. Call the Mother for help. She can't abandon you at a time like this."
Alanna shuddered at the very idea. The Goddess?
It's the only chance we have, she thought wryly. It's either Her or death. She swallowed and closed her eyes. Jarinth had said that communication with the gods was possible even without the Gift, though magic made it easier. She glanced down at her and Jonathan's linked hands. They were glowing a soft mix of violet and blue. All she had to do was concentrate on it, allow it to fill her. Already it was growing, encircling her and Jonathan.
"Great Mother Goddess," a woman recited. Alanna's serenity with her Gift kept her from panicking at the adult voice that had just come from her mouth.
"Dark Lady," a deep-voiced man joined her. This voice sounded terribly familiar, though she was sure she had never heard it before.
"Open the way for us," the adults chorused.
White hot pains lanced through their hands and raked through their bodies as Ylanda and Ylon tried to separate them. However, Jonathan worked furiously at building a shield, and as it strengthened, it blocked more and more of the Ysandir's magic.
Suddenly, a voice broke into Alanna's mind, making her gasp. It was a painful, powerful voice that reflected the entire world. Babies screamed, animals howled, trees angrily thrashed their branches, and behind it all, a horrible wind shrieked like it would never stop...
Place your trust in the sword—and fight.
Alanna shuddered as the voice died away again, and then looked down at Lightning.
She glanced at Jonathan, who returned her gaze evenly. "I'm not going to let go of you, no matter how much I'm in the way. Good luck," he told her.
She nodded, swallowed again, and then thrust Lightning out of the globe. Ylon, armed with his own black, two-edged blade, roared and slammed his sword down. She skirted the strike and, before Ylon could get his sword up, swung for his head. He dodged, then charged in instantly afterwards. His blows fell hard and swiftly but with very little technique. Attacking him proved almost easier than fencing Persopolis' giants. Only Jonathan clinging to her hand kept her from moving about and sliding to a good place to strike. She could only be thankful that Ylon had the same disadvantage with Ylanda on his left hand.
Concentrating fully on the fight and leaving Jonathan to mutter incoherent words of magic, Alanna did not take long to find an opening. With a yell to add strength, she lunged in and up, slamming her sword against Ylon's just above the hilt. The two-edged blade shattered. She slashed at his and Ylanda's linked hands and then jumped back as Jonathan bellowed an indistinct, obviously powerful word. Suddenly, waves of blue and violet swept over the Ysandir, drowning them in magic. Their screams were the last thing Alanna heard before she hit the ground in complete darkness.