Twenty-Two
“Get to the edge of the circle,” Raithe ordered, backing swiftly away from the center of the chamber. “Hurry, we can’t be
caught in the open. Go, Sparrow!”
I obeyed, sprinting with him toward the edge of the sands and one of the sheer vertical walls that surrounded us. Meeka sprang
ahead of us, his long leaps carrying him swiftly over the sand. Fearfully, I stole a glance back and saw the abomination half
fall, half slither through the opening and land with a resounding boom in the center of the chamber.
“Spaaaaaaaarrow.”
The wailing roar lanced through my head, bringing tears to my eyes. The sands trembled violently, shaking and tumbling over
each other as the abomination surged toward us.
I hit the vertical wall and leaped up, grasping at the shiny black surface, trying to find whatever handholds I could. But
there was nothing to be found in the slick walls, and the obsidian sliced my fingers open as I scrabbled at the surface, ultimately
falling back to the sand.
“Raithe!” I spun, facing the massive undead creature plowing through the sand toward us. “What do we do? It’s too steep to
climb!”
Raithe drew his sword and stepped in front of me, facing down the abomination. “Move when I move,” he said as the rotting creature loomed closer. “Meeka,” he went on without taking his eyes from the abomination, “get out of here. Find a place to hide.”
“Meeka not afraid! Meeka not abandon Fateless!”
The drone of beetle wings buzzed in my ears as the insects swarmed us, landing in my hair and clothes. I flinched, slapping
one off my arm, feeling several more land on me. Meeka let out a surprisingly fierce snarl and pounced on a beetle that landed
close to him, driving his sharp incisors through its carapace and biting it in half.
He blinked, pricking his ears and staring down at the insect he’d just killed. For a moment, he looked surprised, but then
he whirled and pinned another insect to the sand, biting through it as he had before.
“Spaaaaaaaaaaaaarrow.”
The ground trembled, and my attention was drawn to the massive abomination who was almost upon us.
“I hear you now,” the monster that was Vahn moaned. It slouched through the sand, dragging itself forward. The cloud of droning beetles around
him, crawling over and through his flesh, made his image slightly blurry. “I hear your heartbeat. I smell your fear. Yours and . . . the other.”
His muzzle curled back from his teeth, those flat white eyes suddenly fixed on Raithe. Worms and grubs dripped from his gums
and fell, wriggling, to the sand. “The one who took you from me. Who was always in the way. Now he will die. I will take great pleasure in feeling his body
shatter in my jaws.”
Raithe stepped forward, staring the monster down with narrowed eyes. “Come and get me, then.”
With a howl, the abomination lunged, huge jaws gaping as it bore down on us. Raithe, Meeka, and I dove aside, and I heard
the boom as the monster slammed into the unyielding obsidian wall. Flesh contorted, bones snapped, and the abomination screamed, making
my blood curdle. We backed toward the center of the chamber, and the creature slid down the cliff wall. Its neck was bent
at an odd angle, but as we watched, horrified, the body shifted and sloughed off the wall, bones grinding as it shook its
head.
A raspy huffing sound filled my ears. A chilling moment later, I realized that it was laughter. Mad, panting laughter.
“You cannot kill what is already dead.” The abomination turned, sand and insects falling around it, to stare at us. “This body is a cage. I cannot die, but I feel every living thing that consumes it. The jaws and the legs and the bodies that
burrow. They are in my flesh, in my skull and veins and mind—I can feel them crawling through my senses.” He shook his head again, spraying beetles and worms everywhere. “There is only one release from this torment.”
The terrible skull turned and found me with those eerie white eyes. For just a moment, the madness in them lifted, and it
was only Vahn staring out at me. “I’m sorry, Sparrow. I wish it didn’t have to end this way. Why couldn’t you have just come home?”
My throat closed, and the abomination dove into the sand, vanishing beneath the dunes. I watched in horror as the sand swelled,
then came right at me.
Fear flooded my veins, and I ran, heading for the cliff wall once again. I didn’t know where Raithe was, or Meeka. I could hear the rumble of the approaching abomination and didn’t dare look back, knowing I would see a massive swell of sand about to consume me.
Once more, I hit the wall, scraping my hands on the sharp black surface as I crashed into it. Heart pounding, I spun just
as a massive maw rose out of the sand, a black hole lined with teeth filling my vision.
In that heartbeat between life and death, the world flickered. I saw the gaping mouth of the abomination coming at me through
a maze of threads, passing through them like they weren’t there. For just a moment, I saw a shimmering strand wrapped around
the abomination, knotted through the creature’s flesh and tangled in its bones. The rest of the monster glowed a sickly green,
threads of putrid magic woven throughout its body, stitching it together. But the shining strand at the center . . . that
was Vahn. His fate. His soul. Tied to a body that wasn’t his.
Involuntarily, my hand rose, reaching out even as the abomination came forward to destroy me.
“Fateless!”
Meeka suddenly appeared on my shoulder. He didn’t leap up, he didn’t land on me; he was simply there. I jumped as his tail
wrapped around my neck, his beady eyes locked on the gaping jaws a second away from crushing us.
“Mee—”
And I was somewhere else.
“—ka.”
Another resounding boom echoed through the chamber as the abomination crashed full force into the wall again. The ground shook, and I stumbled on
the sand, gazing around in astonishment. I was back in the center of the chamber with Meeka clinging to my shoulder, his tiny
body shaking against me.
“Meeka!” I gasped. “You can use magic again?”
The jair’oa curled his tiny claws into my tunic. “Meeka not sure,” he said, his voice sounding weak and breathless. “Strange
grubs not give much magic. Why human spinning?”
With a rumble, the abomination drew back from the wall. Though part of the wall had crumbled where it had struck, leaving
behind a massive hole, the monster seemed unfazed as it turned, searching the sands for us.
Raithe appeared, grabbing my arm and pulling me, jair’oa and all, to him. “Are you both all right?” he asked, his own heart
racing beneath my hand. I nodded, and he glared up at the top of the cliffs, an impossible distance away. “We have to get
out of here. Meeka . . .” He looked at the jair’oa. “I saw you blink Sparrow away from the abomination. Would you be able
to get us back to the top?”
“Meeka try.” The jair’oa’s voice was shaky. “Need to kill more grubs, though.” A shudder suddenly racked his small body. “Meeka . . .
not . . .”
He tumbled from my shoulder. I caught him as he fell, my heart constricting in my chest. His heartbeat fluttered like a frantic
bird under my fingers.
“You cannot run forever.”
I looked up. The abomination was coming forward, its steps slow and deliberate now. As if it realized we couldn’t escape.
“Stop resisting, Sparrow.” Vahn’s stern, familiar voice made my stomach turn. “For once in your life, stop fighting so hard to survive. You owe this to me. For all the years I trained you, guided you,
taught you everything you know. I molded you into the person you are today. And now, I . . . am begging you . . .”
His voice faltered, the shadow of the old Vahn shining through. The Vahn who never begged, bribed, cajoled, or pleaded for
anything. In that moment, I saw how much pain he was truly in. How horror and desperation had twisted him into something he’d
never wanted to become. And how much he wanted to die, to stop existing, if only for the suffering to end.
“Please.” Vahn took another step, the soulless white eyes of the abomination staring into mine. “This is the last thing I will ever ask of you, Sparrow. No more pain. No more lies, or betrayal, or suffering. We can meet
the Weaver together, finally free of everything that holds us here.”
“And what of those left behind?” I asked shakily, Meeka’s heartbeat still racing under my fingertips. I felt Raithe’s steady
presence beside me and shook my head. “What about everyone who has to deal with the Deathless King that you unleashed? What about all the other threads that are in danger when the Deathless King decides that he is going to become
the new god of Fate? No one will be safe then, Vahn. Not even those that have yet to be woven into the Tapestry.”
“And you think you can stop it?”
The world flickered again, images of reality overlaying each other.
I saw the glimmer of threads all around me, and within the core of the abomination, the tangled knot of Vahn’s soul, pulsing weakly within its prison of flesh.
Again, I was filled with that sudden urge to reach out, take hold of that thread, and pull it away.
The abomination clawed at its head, raking skin and rotten flesh from its skull, and the image faded. Worms wriggled out of
the gashes, falling to the sand, making my stomach churn. “Vahn,” I whispered, as those dead eyes stared at me, madness and
resignation shining from their depths. “Let me help you,” I said. “I can make the pain stop. We can end this right here. Just
let me send you on to the Weaver, and you can finally be free.”
For a timeless moment, the abomination that was Vahn stood there, silent. I hesitated, heart pounding, then turned and handed
Meeka to Raithe, putting the small body into his hands. He gazed at me, eyes questioning, but didn’t protest or ask what I
was doing.
“I know you’re in pain,” I said, taking a few steps toward the hulking mound of flesh and bone. “I know that we’ve been enemies
in the past, and that you blame me for not submitting to the Deathless King, but that isn’t important now.” I took another