Inhumans, p.31
Inhumans, page 31
“Is that the gate?” Orrin asked. “Rather, was it?”
I drew in a breath. As we approached, what I had thought was just some rubble from the Walls became the remains of Cartha’s eastern gate, torn to shreds like it was paper. Even the heavy iron brackets had been ripped from the stone, leaving an empty, soulless arch in the wall for anyone and anything to walk through.
Not home anymore, I repeated to myself. This place can’t ever be home again.
“Monsters must have gotten to it,” I murmured, blinking. “If they moved on to the gates, then the rest of the city must already be…”
“Titheu is in there,” Atell said. “It knows we’re close. We have to go. Now or never.”
“Yeah.” I resisted the urge to pull out my daggers, despite a fresh wave of desire to plunge them both into Titheu’s eyes. We would come back with allies and with better weapons, and then that monster would feel some of the pain that I felt. Personally delivered by me.
The two wrecked piles of wood and iron had a semblance of path between them. We stepped around the sharp parts, and we walked through the gate and into Cartha.
Chapter Sixty-Two
The first thing I noticed was the emptiness. The remaining sunlight lit all of Cartha easily, because there were no buildings standing. I was staring at a miles-wide ring devoid of any sign of life ever having been lived inside of it. The sight put a pit into my stomach.
But what was here was far worse.
“Titheu,” Atell breathed.
It was here.
Of course it would be. We had followed it. But I didn’t expect it to already have Cam and Hider in its grasp. I didn’t expect to be so far behind our own intentions. And I didn’t expect to feel the way that I did.
Afraid.
Titheu stood in the grass of Cartha’s northeast field. The creature was just as I remembered it. Tall, with long, white hair, and a strange skin of black-and-white that might have resembled a formal suit, if it didn’t quickly become apparent that the black was armored plating and the white was unblemished and unworldly.
It looked human, yet it was anything but.
My mouth was dry. The oppressive nature of Titheu’s presence was stronger than ever, and just seeing the monster made me feel like I had been defeated.
I thought that we’d have a chance to get to them. I really did. But now…
Even far away, Titheu seemed large. Like a fixture; an immutable part of human history and future. It held the power to kill in its hands. It commanded an army that spanned the continent, with just a few walls of stone between its horde and our utter destruction. It boasted magic far more powerful than what Orrin and I had to offer. Magic that could build castles and craft monsters from human life. Magic that made me. Magic that could kill me.
The sun itself was setting, shying away from the sight of this creature. And I stood here on the same grass, thinking that I might get between Titheu and something that it wanted. I hated how it made me feel. Small; shrunken. Weak. I couldn’t help but think about how easily it had overpowered me before, even when I’d had the element of surprise and the strength of my own righteous fury.
I still felt those things, but more than anything else, I was afraid. Afraid of what this creature could do—both now, and once it got its hands on the rest of the Carthan magic. Afraid of what would happen to the friend I’d come here to try to save.
“It’s got Hider,” I said dully.
The two of them were standing before Titheu. Cam had her hand on Hider’s shoulder, holding him there.
Titheu towered over them, a god.
So that was why my gem had taken us this way—it guided us around Titheu, but on the trail of Cam and Hider. That wreckage of the gate had been fresh. Cam’s work. Had it been trying to help us achieve our goal, or was it simply on the hunt of interesting magic like Hider’s, or whatever made Cam so powerful?
We’re not really too late, right? I thought to myself, though it was more of a prayer. He can still get away. And between the four of us, we just might barely be able to put up enough of a fight to escape.
But could he? Could we?
“I can’t believe it looks like a human,” Orrin said, his voice brimming with barely-contained rage. “What an…insult to all of us.”
“It doesn’t have its castle here,” I said. “It’s going to be missing a lot of its power. That might be our saving grace. Our only chance to get Hider out of here alive with the rest of us.”
Titheu looked at us then, as we advanced across the field towards where it stood with its other creations. I couldn’t read the expression on its face, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I could. If this monster did experience emotion at all, it wouldn’t give that knowledge away so plainly.
“Hider!” I yelled across the field, some fifty yards to where their group stood. “Come on!”
I started to run, and that was when the Prowlers came through the northern gate.
There were three of them, all just as massive and powerful as the ones we had encountered out in the maze. They clutched their arms to their chests and they moved with long, steady steps, heading right to Titheu.
So Titheu had three alongside it on this journey. There’s no castle here to bolster its strength, but it brought the strongest monsters it has.
They were fast. They would reach Titheu before we would.
Orrin tore ahead. The ripped flaps of his cloak rippled on his shoulder, showing the blood that had soaked through his bandage.
“Let him go!” he commanded, speaking to Cam, who still had her hand on Hider’s shoulder. “He’s coming with us!”
Orrin pulled his sword free. I saw that it was glowing, and in fact there was some odd luminescence around Orrin himself.
Some aspect of his magic I don’t know about? He’s in a rage. Like seeing Hider pulled some kind of lever in his brain.
“Stop!” Hider called. “It’s too dangerous!”
We were twenty yards away now, but the Prowlers were close enough for Titheu’s long-fingered hands to reach out and touch. I could see Cam’s face because she had turned to look at us. I expected the same cocky expression she’d worn in Umbroke, but it wasn’t there. Uncertainty? She wasn’t clutching at Hider’s shoulder like I had thought—her hand was just resting there.
But at the same time, Hider wasn’t making a move to run away.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered.
“Hider, we have to go!” Atell called. She, too, held her sword aloft, ready to fight.
“Don’t!” Hider screamed. “Don’t move!”
The panic in his voice stopped even Orrin, whose curved blade shone with an unnatural blue tinge in the yellow-and-orange light of the fading sun.
“Hider…” Orrin started to say, lowering his blade.
“There must be a trap,” Atell said, catching Orrin’s eye. “Something Hider saw when they got here.”
Maybe. Or maybe Hider just saw the same thing that we saw: this was impossible. Hider stood unbelievably puny next to the silent form of Cam, bracing the powerful and mystic figure of Titheu, flanked by the murderous bulk of three Prowlers. It took dozens of Umbroke soldiers and Vera’s poisonous sword to kill just one of those huge monsters, and that victory came with extreme casualties.
Forget rescuing Hider. It would be a miracle if any of us made it back into the labyrinth alive.
Titheu spoke.
“You have them,” Titheu said, keeping its eyes on us. On me. “I would…see.”
The Prowlers moved, and I twitched, bringing my daggers an inch higher. But they didn’t come to us; they moved around Titheu, putting themselves in its vision. They lowered their arms, and from their chests and bellies there came a fierce glow, yellow and steady. There, looking so small in their huge hands, were…
“Gems,” I whispered.
Two…no, three. Three little yellow orbs just like mine that the Prowlers must have secured from the rest of Cartha’s perimeter. Titheu had sent its dogs out ahead to sniff out the magic and bring it back here.
We really were too late to do anything about anything.
“Yes…” Titheu’s face was expressionless, but its voice radiated glee—as much as anything that sounded like tearing paper could express happiness. It took the gems into its long-fingered hands one by one until it held all three, its Prowlers taking a step back once their spoils had been delivered.
The sunlight glinted off Titheu’s white hair. It looked to Hider, lowering its gaze to meet that of its favorite inhuman.
“Hider,” Titheu said, elongating the name with its breath. It closed its fingers around the gems, tucking them close together. “What have you obtained?”
Hider’s lips were thin, pressed together. “What do you mean?”
“This one is unbonded…” Titheu spoke of Cam without gesturing toward her. “Though in a way she…has brought me my first…as directed.”
Its first. Me, the first inhuman. I watched a glow come over Cam, her face lighting up in adoration as she received what might be construed as praise from Titheu.
I clenched my jaw. When could we make a move? All of us were practically frozen, unable to move forward or back. Hider was the only one giving directions—he must have had something planned. Some signal we had to wait for.
If not, we go soon, and we go fast, I thought. Strike Cam down, grab Hider, and run. Whatever it takes. I’ll toss my gem as a distraction if I have to. What’s it matter? Titheu has all those other ones now, anyway.
“Have you succeeded…?” Titheu inquired. “You know your purpose.”
“My purpose,” Hider repeated. “You mean finding the magic.”
Titheu didn’t give him an answer. It instead said, “Your aptitude for this…bonding is ideal. It makes you valuable. You understand…this.”
“What are you going to do?” Hider asked Titheu.
“Insolent!” Cam gave Hider a shove, enough to make him stumble. He righted himself, glaring at Cam, but quickly brought his attention back to Titheu.
“With the magic,” Hider said. “If I’m your most important child, then I should know.”
“A pointless question,” Titheu hissed. “That…magic will be mine. Such is your nature and my…destiny.”
“So you’ll take it,” Hider said. He was calm; not worried about Titheu’s retaliation nor Cam’s anger as he questioned her master. “You’ll take the magic and leave me with nothing. All your children, left with nothing.”
Titheu opened its palm, displaying the gems before Hider. “It is not your place…to know. You would not exist without me. Your…life is my will. Its beginning and its end.”
Hider nodded, one single motion. “You can’t take our magic away without killing us. I know that. And if I know that, then you must know it, too.”
Hider looked at the gems. He said, “But there’s things about magic you’ll never know.”
The small boy moved fast. Too fast for even Cam to react. He reached up and put his hand on the gems Titheu held. Immediately there was a flash of bright yellow light—and just as quickly, Hider retracted. He pulled his hand away and moved backward before Titheu could do anything.
“Master!” Cam called, but Titheu shoved her away with its other hand, reeling backward. Cam flew through the air and fell to the ground, rolling, leaving Hider staring at Titheu from outside the One’s reach.
“Traitors,” it breathed, “all of you…”
But it didn’t move toward Hider, nor toward us. The light in Titheu’s hand grew, taking shape. It began to look like a fire, stretching upwards like it was alive.
A hand grabbed me around my upper arm—Orrin. He grabbed Atell, too, and pulled us backward.
“Away,” he said, and his strength was insistent. “Now!”
There was no uncertainty in his words. He knew that whatever was happening was dangerous; deadly. He wanted us all out of here.
“But Hider—” Atell started.
Orrin shook his head and looked back over his shoulder as he pulled us with him. I barely heard the words he choked out.
“It’s—too late.”
Behind us, Hider stood very still, watching what was happening to his creator. I could see the smile on his face. His wide eyes, and his smile. It wasn’t a look of happiness. It was a glimpse of long-awaited fulfillment. It was a sliver of insanity.
It wasn’t the face I knew.
Before him, Titheu stepped backward. No—it stumbled backward, while the light of the gems began to overtake its form. Soon its black-and-white skin disappeared behind a crackling pillar of yellow light that grew taller and taller.
The yellow light swept over Titheu, engulfing its entire body, and then pulled back, rearing upward and separating, rising into the sky like an angry, shifting cloud. I could see the sky through parts of it; I could see Cartha’s wall through parts of it, as though it were a swarm of insects that pulsed with life, thinning and thickening all throughout itself. Was I staring at the true, wild form of the magic contained within the gems? The little yellow spheres were nowhere to be seen. Not in Titheu’s hands, nor on the ground.
“Orrin,” I said, “what the hell is going on?”
We had retreated toward the eastern gate, and Orrin had stopped pulling at us. I didn’t know if that meant we were far enough away to be safe, or if Orrin was just having second thoughts. But I stopped anyway, because I knew that I needed to see this.
“Hider broke a bond,” Orrin said, his breath low and shallow, his torn cloak dropping off one shoulder.
“Broken bond,” Atell said. She held her sword in one hand, the point brushing against the grass. “I read about that in Fire’s book.”
“What, his own bond?” I questioned. “You can do that?”
“No,” Orrin said. “The gems. His touch—it was enough to start a bond, somehow, with all three at once. But he was able to get away…I can’t believe that. And now the magic is released and searching for a bond. The closest target is…”
Hider’s hands were clasped in front of him, his shoulders relaxed. He never took his eyes off Titheu.
Titheu, meanwhile, was collapsing. It fell to one knee, and from its form rose a shimmering light of white and silvery-gray. It struggled, like it was being peeled away from Titheu’s body. The creature’s skin grew patchy and cracked. Large segments began to slough off, dropping to the grass and leaving dust in their wake.
Titheu reached one long arm upward, stretching its fingers toward the cloud. More of the magical essence pulled free of its body, yanked like a bloody hide from muscle and bone. Around Titheu were scattered long, white strands and clumps. Its hair, fallen off its head.
It was dying, while its favorite creation watched patiently just a few feet away.
Chapter Sixty-Three (Atell)
Watching Titheu’s body fall apart, Atell was struck by a passage from Fire’s story. The part that, Atell believed, was the last thing that Fire wrote before the magic took her over entirely.
We…I had gained sudden interest in drawing a map.
I took some paper and started outlining, pulling knowledge from somewhere other than myself. I soon had the shape of the land before me, and I knew upon it where I stood.
I knew upon it where we had tread, and what we had left behind in our wake.
When I slept now, I didn’t dream. I was thankful for it. The last dreams I had were fitful hellscapes reminiscent of my village burning down around me, so long ago.
Our path on this map was chosen in most part by the Whisper. It spoke to me with the weight of reason and destiny. I felt it in the very fibers of my being and in the folds of my mind. Rare was the time where its ideation did not become a compulsion of my physical body and an obsession in my thoughts.
Now, kneeling in the dirt of a sparse forest, I felt pine needles scraping at my knees. I looked down at this map we had created and saw shapes that I knew and colorings that meant little.
I asked inside myself, What does this show?
The answer came to me as though I were responding, like I was a book, reading myself and simply arriving at the right page.
It was a map of timeless experience. The places in the land where magical accruals were not solely most dense, but most powerful.
“Is this the land today?” I asked.
The Whisper could not answer. It was the land it knew, and time meant little to its existence. The map did not show the water around the continent, nor the small islands that would have been within distance of the shore. There was no detail of mountains nor forests nor even towns. Just blotches of dark color marking large areas, and a desire to seek them out.
I stood, holding the map in one hand. My legs wished to move, but I felt the tiredness in them. We had walked for so long. I hadn’t been able to climb on a horse since I had bonded with the Whisper. The animals feared me. They kicked at me. I was so tired.
“Rest,” I cried, and I let the map fall from my fingers.
There’s no time for rest, we thought. Rest is a waste. Rest is for the humans and the animals.
“Stop,” I pleaded. “I am a human. My name is…”
I lied down on the ground. My skin tingled and burned like I was being bitten by a swarm of ants. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore it, but it grew worse. Tears slid out from under my eyelids and crawled down the sides of my face. I was so tired. But there was so much pain.
It was the Whisper, torturing me. A compromise of our wills was no longer enough. It had grown fat and lustful on the swells of life and patches of magic our journey had secured. By the time I could feel its burgeoned strength, it was too late.
And now, with my hands clutching at the forest floor beneath me, stung by pricking pine needles and the Whisper’s torture of my flesh, I put forth impassioned resistance. Something I had not felt necessary to do until this moment, when my aching body craved nothing more than this dirty bed, but I couldn’t have it.
