Ritual
The wall of energy vanished, replaced even as it fell by a giant column of scintillating light that shot up into the sky, large enough to encompass all of the palace. Math was blown backward. In the total whiteout of that light, he lost sight of Sanistral. He lost sight of Kaiataris.
Somewhere in the distance, simultaneously in his mind, Math both heard and felt the Queen of Oaks scream.
He tried to cushion the damage, save her from the fires of wild magic, but he realized too late that she was pushing him away. She had been the whole fight—throwing all of her resources into protecting him and leaving nothing for herself.
She had never planned to survive this fight, to be left with godlike power in a world without a single sister, with no family, with no people of her own. No people except for a single adopted child, whom she knew she would never really ever understand, but had decided to fiercely love.
Math fell to his knees on the roof as he felt her mind go quiet and still. The city trembled as, somewhere out in the city, the giant form of a dragon collapsed to the ground, dead. Math fought not to scream as the power that had seared through her leaped into him.
It wasn’t fire, though. It felt like sunlight in his veins, at once hot and bright and powerful enough to light the whole world.
He closed his eyes, lowered his head to rest against the roof, and took a moment to mourn a mother he wished he could have known.
Then Math stood and faced Sanistral.
If the ritual had worked the way Kaiataris thought it might, then they had a problem, because although they’d kept Sanistral from becoming the all-powerful personification of both Order and Chaos, he’d still held on to Order.
That was not insignificant, even assuming the current celestial alignment had left him weakened.
If they fought, they could cause inconceivable damage. So Math would have to make sure that if they did fight, it wasn’t here in the city, or near any population center.
The grim lord still stood in the same place he’d been when Math had last seen him.
He still looked exactly the same. Now, however, he stared at his own hand with what Math could only describe as a deeply bemused expression.
He seemed to sense Math approaching, because the man murmured, “I thought it would feel different.”
“Don’t tell me it’s not everything you wanted?” Math didn’t bother hiding his contempt.
The fighting hadn’t stopped, but its rhythm had changed. Wild magic burst in the distance like fireworks, pulsing like music through his blood.
Behind Sanistral, Kaiataris was still there, also standing where Math had last seen her. She looked …
She looked beautiful. Perfect and radiant and as cold as frozen stone. Underneath the surface, though, he felt the quiet blaze of her triumph.
In her hand, she clutched the bracelet that she’d taken back from him. As power sources went, its strength would have been insignificant for a fight like this, so why had she been using it?
That bracelet had two powers, didn’t it? She’d said Math would only need the battery, because its second power, the ability to create or erase gravings, was unlikely to be any use to a wild mage.
Math glanced down at the ritual circle, still legible, if slightly melted. He had no idea how to read or understand the remarkably intricate markings.
Kai could, though. And now he saw it: she hadn’t been fueling the ritual—she’d been rewriting it.
Math felt like laughing. He felt a surge of joy well up in him.
“Apologies, Kai. I’m a little slow, sometimes.”
She inclined her head gracefully and smiled.
That smile made his heart sing, because at least she wasn’t looking at him like he was a monster.
Sanistral’s head snapped up. “Wait. Since when can you talk?”
Math dropped the illusion and had the roots and vines gently lower him to the ground. “I’ve always been able to talk. Many would argue I talk far too much.”
Sanistral narrowed his eyes. “Who are you? And what happened to the Queen of Oaks?”
Standing behind Sanistral, Kai rolled her eyes.
“Aw, Sanis, don’t you recognize me?” Math grinned impishly.
Math wasn’t surprised. He probably wouldn’t have recognized the plant version of Huraiik, either, if he hadn’t grown up alongside the man.
“Who—Mathaiik Kaven?” Sanistral had finally made the connection. He frowned as he examined the newest and last Parnathi. “You did it? You joined the Queen’s forest?” His frown deepened. “Where is she?”
“Dead.”
Sanistral studied him. “She transferred her power to you.”
“She did, indeed.”
“Very well.” Sanistral sniffed in a manner that suggested a metaphorical rolling up of his sleeves. “I’ve accomplished half my goals. Now I must simply deal with you.”
Kaiataris’s voice was even. “Sanistral, you’ll do no such thing. It’s over, and you are not the Avatar of Order.”
The wizard turned back to her in surprise. “But the spell worked.”
“Perfectly,” she said as she stepped down from the ritual stone. “You made one mistake.”
Sanistral’s eyes narrowed. “And what would that be?”
“You left me alive,” she explained. “You really should not have. I can only assume out of sentimentality, since I was willingly helping you, unlike the other, unfortunate members of our order.” Kaiataris glanced at the gently writhing mass of undead wizards surrounding the stone. “That reminds me.”
She didn’t do anything, say anything, make any definitive motion. The cursed graven wizards stopped moving, anyway. Math knew that this time, they were finally at peace.
Math sat down on the edge of a rooftop planter that had been pushed to the side.
In the distance, Kaliri weapons misfired.
Closer, people gathered the wounded and the dead.
There was no sign of the undead amalgam that Sanistral had created.
The dragon form of the Queen of Oaks was already decaying at a decidedly unnatural rate, decomposing into a rich loamy soil, which would soon put forth bright green shoots of trees, weeds, and flowers.
Roses. He would definitely make sure there were roses.
He rested his chin on a raised knee. He’d meant to kill Sanistral, but …
Kai had it covered. It was her moment, anyway, considering everything that Sanistral had meant to her, versus what he’d become.
“How dare you,” Sanistral sneered. He raised his hands, no doubt to trigger some graving.
Nothing happened.
Kai tilted her head to the side. “Is there a problem?”
“What did you do to my magic?” A hint of panic threaded through Sanistral’s voice.
“Why would I allow you to have magic? That would be foolish of me … and I am not a fool.”
The graven wizard turned grim lord gaped at her. “You usurped my ritual.”
“Easily.” She looked positively radiant in her serenity.
“You have spent so long alone in a prison of your own making that you forgot you’re not the only one who can grave.
” She glanced down at the pattern contemptuously.
“All I had to do was add the metaphysical equivalent of a hyphen to the definition of ‘recipient.’ Not undead, but un-dead. And as I was the only living person connected to this side of the ritual…”
“How thoughtful of you,” Sanistral growled, “to critique my work.”
“You always said one should be magnanimous in victory.”
Sanistral searched the rooftop for some last ploy, some way out of the situation. There was nothing to find. Even the ritual stone was now blank. All the gravings had vanished. Probably all the gravings in the entire palace had vanished.
Kai didn’t need them.
“What will you do?” Sanistral finally said. “If you destroy me, all you’ll do is prove that you’re no better than me. That power is just as corrupting for you.”
She raised a single, perfectly arched eyebrow. “I want to know why.”
“Why?”
“Yes. Why? What reason have you for all that you’ve done?
I do not refer to this ritual. I understand your motives in that, even if I don’t agree with your methods or what you would have done with such power.
I mean, why kill your fellow wizards, who trusted you.
Why become a grim lord—if my suspicions are correct, the first grim lord, the one who convinced all others that this folly was rational. Why?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Sanistral admitted after an awkward pause. “I overreached, triggered enervation. I thought your plan was cowardice. That it would be better to dull the edge of the solstice’s blade than go into hiding. I thought I had figured out a way. I was wrong.”
Sanistral’s eyes narrowed, and he swung out an arm to take in the entire city, probably the entire world.
“You’ve seen them. They’re nothing but animals, lacking all direction or wisdom, slaves to their emotions.
The celestial polarities aren’t a mistake, they are a test. A way of cleaning house of any race that doesn’t deserve to pass.
Leave them like this, and they’ll destroy themselves. ”
“I understand,” Kaiataris said gently. “One more question: Why did you keep me alive?”
“How could I destroy my greatest creation?” Sanistral said, sounding genuinely confused about the question. “I made you, and you were the only one who could ever keep up with me. You are a work of art.”
“I am not a possession,” Kai corrected. “And I would protest, too, that you did not create me, but I suspect you are incapable of reason on this subject, so I will simply say this: your hubris, arrogance, and megalomania have killed millions. You would have killed millions more. You are not capable of regret, only revision. The difference between us is that what you’ve done was atrocity and murder, whereas what I am doing is fixing a mistake.
” Kai let the hand fall, a curtain plummeting to the stage.
Sanistral dropped to the ground.
He never moved again.
Math didn’t bother to check; he felt safe in assuming that the wizard was dead. For real, this time. Kai had stripped Sanistral of the magic that had kept him animate. In fact, every undead, anywhere, had just been stripped of the magic keeping them animate.
Math grinned at her. “Part of me wants to raise him from the dead just so I can watch you kill him again.”
She threw him a dirty look. “I’d rather he stays where he is, thank you. The death knights were never meant to be eternal. Truthfully, he died fourteen hundred years ago.” Her gaze then transformed into something softer … and sadder.
Oh. Right.
Math glanced at one of his hands. Distinctly green, and with a surface texture that seemed more like leaf than skin.
“It was the only way,” he said, swallowing. “I had to become Parnathi. I guess this just makes my nonhuman status official.”
“You’re the Avatar of Chaos,” she said, putting a hand to his cheek. “Of wild magic.”
“Yeah.”
She leaned over and whispered, “Then you can take whatever form you desire, my love.”
Math felt a jolt of shock arc through him, from hair to toes. He laughed. “Don’t I feel silly? One second.” He concentrated on his hand, watched with pleasure as it shifted back to his normal brown color, with a more comfortably human skin texture.
Kai smiled at him and bounced her forefinger off the tip of his nose. “You gave yourself green eyes.”
“Seemed only appropriate,” Math admitted.
“I like it. You also removed your armor.”
“It was starting to chafe.”
She paused again, and he could feel her at the edges of his mind, filled with laughter and fierce bubbling joy no matter how even her expression looked on the outside.
“We’re still linked.” Kai’s voice was full of wonder.
“I’m sure we could break it if we really wanted to, but—” He pulled her into his arms. “I admit I don’t really want to.”
Math kissed her. When they parted, Kai looked up at him. “He wasn’t wrong about power, though. It is the worst sort of trap. Do you want to be a god?”
He chewed on his lip and thought it over.
“Not really?” Math frowned. “Besides seeming like a ton of work, I think I’d also be expected to let go of immediate worries and focus on the big picture.
You know. All of a country, all of humanity, that sort of thing.
I just want…” He swept out his arm in a more gentle mimicry of Sanistral’s all-encompassing gesture, before bringing that arm in to caress Kai’s cheek.
“You,” he answered. “I want to be with you, and I want to raise a dozen plus one children, and I want to travel and do fun things and read a lot of books. So many books. And keep everyone from going insane and mutating into terrible things during the next magical solstice.”
“Or dying during the one after that,” Kai agreed. “I think we can manage that. We are much less likely to be worshipped as gods if no one knows that we’re gods in the first place.”
He started to protest that they weren’t gods … and stopped.
Sanistral’s ritual had worked. It had worked perfectly.
If Math wanted, he could feel every single life form on the planet.
He could change entire ecosystems, weather patterns, cause untold modifications in ways both small and profound.
If he wasn’t completely omnipotent, it was only because he shared the other half of that totality with Kai.
So maybe it was entirely possible—assuming one overlooked the lack of followers and tenets and anything resembling a moral system—that he might meet the definition of god. Demigod?
Ascended hero, at the very least.
So instead, he said: “You are right, as usual. So, what are you suggesting we do next, just walk downstairs, tell everyone we slew the big, evil villain, and get on with our lives?”
Kai pondered that. “Yes.”
“Sure, why not? Keep things simple.” He tilted his head to the side and made a face. “I’ll give Commander Talu one thing: he is a survivor. He lives. And he’s escaped.”
“Has he escaped, though? Truly?” Her expression was innocent.
Math squeezed her hand. “Now that you mention it, no, I don’t think he has. We’ll add him to the list.” He grinned. “After that … wanna fix magic?”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“I meant a celestial realignment of magical poles, but I like your idea better.”
“I do believe if we do it right, it will make the heavens move.”
He threw back his head and laughed.