“She betrayed me,” he said with a barely perceptible whisper.
“You betrayed yourself,” I shot back. His eyes flared. He didn’t budge, but his eyes sparkled with rage.
“It took me a while to realize this, but you know what? You never had a chance.”
“I control Halla,” he hissed.
“Controlled. Past tense. Big difference.”
“There are millions throughout Halla who would dispute that,” he muttered.
“For now. It won’t last. It can’t last.”
I definitely had his attention. The fact was, I wasn’t bluffing. I believed what I was saying. It took me a very long time to come to the truth, but now that I had it, I was confident. As I spoke, I stayed at the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t want to get any closer to him than I had to. Just in case.
“From the beginning this has been a battle about destiny. Free will versus control. Domination versus tolerance. How many times have you told me that all you’ve done is give the people of Halla what they want? You said they were selfish and shortsighted and couldn’t be trusted to guide their own future. So you stepped in to show them the way. You elevated the elite and crushed the weak-all in the name of creating Utopia. Or, your idea of Utopia.”
“And they followed me like lambs because that’s what they are,” he spat at me. “Stupid lambs. Everything they did, they did to themselves.”
“But they didn’t!” I shot back. “And you knew they wouldn’t. You didn’t hold true to your own vision.”
He cocked his head like a curious dog.
“Whether you can admit it or not, even to yourself, you didn’t believe that the people of Halla were truly weak. You didn’t trust in your own philosophy. Sure, it sounded good to say they were only getting what they wanted, but when it came down to it, you didn’t think that would be enough for you to deplete their spirit, did you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snarled.
“Sure you do. If you truly believed in your vision-if you thought that all you needed to do was influence a little here, push a little there, play to people’s worst instincts and all of Halla would crumble at your feet-why did you need to create the dados?”
“I didn’t,” he snickered. “They were the creation of your friend. Of a being from Halla.”
“Give me a break!” I shouted. “Getting Mark to create the dados was your plan from the start. Why else would you have done that if you didn’t need help? I think you knew that, in spite of all you did to influence and tempt the people of Halla to make wrong choices, eventually they would bounce back, because that’s what they’ve always done. People make mistakes all the time, big and small, but they’re resilient. They survive. They cope. They correct their mistakes. But you didn’t want them to bounce back this time, and for that you needed insurance. So you created an army to intimidate those who didn’t follow you.”
“You’re grasping,” he chuckled.
“Really? I’ve seen it all over Halla. Blok used the dados on Quillan to enforce their rule. Ibara was nearly destroyed by dados once, and now Veego has brought them back. The Ravinians rose to power on Second Earth and Eelong by using dados as intimidation. Dados are now on Cloral and Denduron. They are your power. You can’t make clear choices when you’re being threatened with violence. Who are you trying to kid? I’ve seen it all. Do you think for a second if you took the dados out of the equation that Ravinia would have risen to power so easily?”
“The dados are a tool, nothing more,” he said, his eyes flickering away from me nervously.
“A tool for what?” I cried. “You know what I think? All this talk about guiding the people of Halla may have been how this began. Maybe you actually had noble intentions at one time, but they gave way to your own ego. Saying you wanted to guide destiny and save the people from themselves was just an excuse. You were a spirit from Solara, and what has your noble quest led to? A palace! A throne! You’ve surrounded yourself with the greatest artwork and architecture from this world. I’ll bet you’ve got palaces like this on every territory, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“You’re no longer satisfied with pulling strings from behind the scenes. No more disguises. No more role-playing. Look at you! You’ve put yourself out there front and center, wearing king’s clothes and playing to the masses. I think the truth is that you envy the people of Halla. You want to be their king. You want to be their god. But you know what? Even with the dados, it wasn’t meant to be. The positive spirit of Solara is returning. It was inevitable. If it wasn’t the exiles and the gars, it would have been someone else. The Batu from Zadaa or the poverty-stricken from Quillan. People somewhere would rise up and fight back, just as they have here. What you don’t understand is that the true power of Halla rests with its people. The spirit of the people created Solara. Guess what? They’re about to tOTcreate you.”
Saint Dane leaped without warning. He sprang from the throne and launched himself at me. I didn’t have time to react, that’s how sudden the move was. He hit me dead-on, knocking me backward. I braced myself for what was sure to be a violent fall. When I hit the floor, I looked up to realize that I was no longer in the Taj Mahal. The sky had gone dark. Wind howled. Saint Dane had literally knocked me out of Third Earth to a place I had never seen before.
“You think you know me?” he shouted angrily. “I have eons on you!”
He hauled off and kicked me square in the ribs. I was right. He wasn’t done. I rolled away and tried to get to my feet, but he tackled me from behind. I went crashing down onto what looked like a rocky surface. Whatever it was, it was hard and it hurt. I barely had the chance to see where we were. It was so dark, though the sky was alive with lightning. I sensed huge, dark shapes all around us that could have been buildings or rocks. I couldn’t tell. I had my hands full.
I whipped my elbow back and felt a satisfying crunch as I nailed Saint Dane in the nose. I landed a solid shot. That meant he wasn’t using his power to transform himself. Was he able to do that anymore? Or was he choosing to fight me like a human? I pulled away from him. He sprang to his feet, blood spurting from what looked like a broken nose. I had no sympathy. I ran at him and tackled him dead-on. He grunted and fell back. When we hit the ground…
We were back in the Taj Mahal. Saint Dane jumped to his feet and grabbed a silver weapon that was lying at the foot of his stairs. He waved it at me, swiping the air back and forth, laughing. Taunting.
“You’re just pathetic,” I snarled. “You still need help to fight your fights.”
He screamed in anger, dropped the wand, and lunged at me. I danced out of the way, but he reared back and lifted a kick right to my chest. He drilled me good. I fell back…
Into the dark, ominous territory. Lightning flashed, illuminating some of the shapes around us. I thought I saw a Lifelight pyramid and a templelike structure that could have come from Faar. In that one moment I realized where we were. This was Solara. Saint Dane’s Solara. This was where he was gathering his dark spirit. From the looks of things, the place was in turmoil.
Saint Dane wasn’t there, and then he was. He appeared out of nowhere and threw a punch that nailed me right in the head. I reeled back. He threw another punch to my gut. He was beating the crap out of me. With each punch it seemed as if a lightning bolt flashed. Or maybe it was just that I was seeing stars… the kind you see when you’re getting pummeled. Images jumped out at me from everywhere. I saw the stairs of the New York Public Library with the lions on either side; the massive Hindenburg sailed by overhead; in the distance I saw the shadow of a giant pyramid from Zadaa. It was like seeing those images that floated in space outside the flume as the Convergence drew nearer. Only this time, the images seemed real. With substance. Saint Dane had created a world that was a dark reflection of Halla. These were all twisted, nightmare visions of the originals.