“Now you have enough to begin,” the old woman said.
Lord Sixx absently noted that beneath their hoods each of the acolytes was a perfect duplicate of the elderly woman. He lowered the box to the floor and commanded Zeal and the guardsmen to leave the spacious veranda. In moments he was alone at the center of the gathering.
Sixx knelt on the floor, the box before him. His hands shook as he reached for the clasp on its side. He was unaware that as he did this, Imperator Zeal stepped behind two other creatures in the crowd that had gathered on the dock to witness the apparatus’s unveiling and the Ceremony of Renewal’s beginning. The sweat that had suddenly burst out upon his flesh was washed away by the chilling rain. Steam slowly rose from his skin as the droplets of water hissed upon contact with him. His task was difficult, requiring total concentration so that the call of flames would not overcome him and force him to reveal his guilt once Lord Sixx was dead.
The dark man with many eyes fingered the clasp and nearly leapt back in surprise as he heard his name shouted from the creatures gathered in the rain, before the temple.
“Lord Sixx!” the voice called again.
From his place in the crowd, Imperator Zeal looked over to see a shambling creature, its body arched like’ a bow, approach with a child in its arms.
“I have another one!” it called.
Zeal shuddered as he tried to force down the rising heat within his breast. He had to maintain control.
On the veranda, Lord Sixx exhaled in disgust. He had been frightened enough at the prospect of opening the box and revealing the apparatus. The interruption had not been appreciated. “Mistress,” he said, his voice wavering more than he would have liked, “deal with this.”
A new acolyte sprung into existence, took the child, then hurried to join the circle.
“Soon,” Zeal whispered, stunned that he had spoken the word aloud.
“I doubt it,” a voice sounded before him.
Before Zeal could turn, he felt a slight breeze and saw a blur of movement. A figure raced past him and appeared on the veranda, before the leader of the Night Parade.
“Dymas,” Lord Sixx said dryly. “Magistrate, if you do not wish a return to that frozen hell I exiled you to—”
“Lord Sixx, please,” Dymas said, clutching at the wound Krystin had carved into his chest. Although his body’s healing mechanisms were ultimately much faster and more efficient than those of a human, he was not immortal. The strain he had placed on himself to arrive at this place and remain conscious long enough to issue his warning was now beginning to show. Sixx could see the genuine desire to serve and protect in the flayed man’s eyes. He straightened and ordered the man to speak.
Zeal watched from the crowd, impatient with the delays. He did not know what knowledge Dymas had gained; if he had, he would have boiled the man’s blood before he could have spoken, or drained the moisture from his body. Dymas would have fallen over, apparently succumbing to his wounds. The fiery-haired man did not expect the words that followed:
“There’s a conspiracy to kill you,” Dymas said. “Zeal and his bitch want you dead. He planned to—”
“That’s a lie!” Zeal shouted.
Sixx suddenly noticed the way the rain hissed and dissolved into steam as it struck him. Zeal had answered the call of flames. He was preparing to strike.
“The second you opened the box, he was gonna burn you,” Dymas said, “then say it was the magic of the apparatus that done it, like you’d been unworthy. He’d have fried you, then taken your place. No one would’ve known it was murder.”
The creatures to either side of Zeal moved away. The red-haired man stepped forward, his hands outstretched. Steam flooded from his body, wreathing him in fog.
“Lord Sixx, I have served you faithfully,” Zeal said, the flesh of his palms dissolving as the burning gateways suddenly appeared in his hands. “Would you believe the word of a man who killed one of his own?”
“And said that it was because the man was a threat to you, that he planned to usurp you,” the old woman said.
“A claim I did not believe at the time,” Lord Sixx admitted. “Perhaps I should have.”
“I’m tellin’ you the truth,” Dymas pleaded. “Look there. His woman waits on that rooftop, watching us!”
Lord Sixx saw the form of the woman-spider on the roof of a nearby warehouse and knew suddenly that it was true. Zeal and Tamara had betrayed him. Tearing off his breastplate, Lord Sixx revealed the Eyes of Domination. With these eyes Sixx could enslave the will of others and force them onto a landscape of the mind, where their battle to the death would be slanted in the dark man’s favor. Zeal was too powerful to engage in any other manner. The Eyes of Domination flared in the darkness and captured Zeal’s gaze.
The fire lord’s will was incredibly strong. Sixx knew he would not be able to pull Zeal into the psychic battlefield he favored unless he could weaken the man. In seconds he would lose his hold on the fire lord, but those seconds would prove to be all that were necessary.
Surrender to the flames, Sixx urged. Let them overwhelm you.
The fiery-haired man shuddered. His arms were engulfed in flames so intense that the rain was burned away before it came within six feet of him.
Turn and release them! Sixx commanded silently.
Zeal felt his body pivot as the flames struck from his hands, reaching across the distance that separated him from his wife. He screamed in horror as he saw the tongues of flame strike Tamara, sending her shrieking form backward, into the darkness.
“No, I couldn’t have. I couldn’t have—” Zeal began, stopping suddenly as he spun around and caught sight of Sixx’s eyes for a second time. This time, Zeal had little defense against the Eyes of Domination. He stiffened, and his own eyes became blank, though his flames continued to burn.
For long moments, Lord Sixx and Imperator Zeal remained motionless as the crowd watched. Their duel was being enacted in a private place that only Zeal and Sixx could experience, a dimension solely of mind.
Lord Sixx broke from his trance and smiled. He raised his hands as if he were conducting a symphony. Zeal jerked and trembled in time with Sixx’s motions, then fell to his knees as his power became novalike. The fire lord had been the first of his so called Inextinguishables. Only one being among the Night Parade possessed the power to destroy him: Zeal himself.
Suddenly, the fire lord turned his flames upon himself. He threw his head back in a silent scream as the fires that had always been his allies choked his breath and incinerated him. In moments, all that remained was a smoldering corpse.
Lord Sixx turned to Dymas. “It seems I owe you my life.”
“My duty’s to protect you,” Dymas said.
Sixx nodded, searching the other man’s eyes for ambition. He saw nothing, but Zeal had fooled him also. When this night was done, he would enter Dymas’s mind. If he found a trace of duplicity, he would kill the sleeping man. For tonight, he felt better with Dymas alive.
Across the docks, Myrmeen and Krystin had been trying to locate Lord Sixx and the apparatus. They knew that somehow they had to find a way to stop the ceremonies. A torrent of flame had struck a rooftop a block away. Moments later, a second burst of light reached up and touched the sky. They ran to the warehouse, unaware that it had been the one upon which Tamara had crouched, and came upon the woman-spider’s smoldering remains. They watched in fascination as Tamara quickly became human once again, though she had been horribly burned, most of her hair singed away.
“Myrmeen,” Tamara said weakly. “I’m glad you came.”
“We saw the light on the roof, decided to see what had caused it,” Krystin said distractedly, her gaze fixed on the item around Tamara’s neck, which had been burned but was still recognizable. “You saved my locket.”