The Gates of Memory, стр. 103
Perhaps Regar felt the same, because after another failed attack he drew his sword and dashed at his father.
The charge didn’t last long. Stone assaulted Regar from all sides, and the focus required to keep himself safe prevented him from advancing more than a single slow step at a time.
But he did advance. Hanns increased his efforts, but through sheer determination, Regar continued to close. The advance cost him. Stones cut through his arms, and one appeared to embed itself in his stomach. But Regar didn’t falter.
When Regar closed to within four paces, Hanns unleashed a fire attack that put all the previous ones to shame. Regar, no doubt acting on instinct, raised his sword to block the blast and was then enveloped in fire.
Brandt thought it was over.
But Hanns didn’t stop. He took one step forward and then another, fire pouring from him. Stone cracked and shattered with every step.
The song of the fire brought Brandt to his knees. He’d been able to endure the previous attacks, but the sheer focus of this one was too much. His head felt as though it might explode, and he clutched his hands to the side of his head, holding it together.
Then Hanns stopped, leaving nothing but echoes pounding in Brandt’s skull.
Regar still stood, a feat of impossible strength. His clothes smoldered, wisps of smoke drifting into the sky. The fine sword he held in front of him had been slagged, little more now than a melted and misshapen piece of steel.
The prince looked at the sword in his hand in disbelief. Then he tossed it aside. Even that small motion looked as though it might throw him off balance. Somehow, he found his center once again, made two fists, and stumbled forward.
In one smooth motion Hanns was there. His hand chopped at Regar’s throat, and his son’s defense was too slow to block it. The prince collapsed to the ground, choking and gasping for air.
Brandt frowned. The strike had been debilitating, but with more force, it could have been fatal. A martial artist of Hanns’ quality knew that. The emperor could have finished the fight.
Hanns leaned over his son, who still gasped for air, his face red. “Don’t push this any further. Please. Don’t make me go any further.”
Regar just lay there, spasming as his body slowly recovered.
Brandt wasn’t sure what to do. For the moment they were safe, but he didn’t trust the moment to last forever. The vast energies had driven the Falari away, but how long would it take before they returned?
Perhaps he should finish what Hanns clearly did not want to.
He couldn’t bring himself to move, though. This was a battle for the empire, but it was also a fight for his son’s life. Brandt thought of his own child, yet unborn. Could he go as far as Hanns already had? He felt as though he had no place in what happened between those two.
Once Regar caught his breath, his first words made Brandt glad he had withheld his sword. The words were faint, the prince’s voice still weak. “I’m sorry, Father.”
The remorse in Regar’s voice signaled the end of the fight. Brandt heard the same remorse in the emperor’s voice as he responded, tears falling from his cheeks. “It’s all right. All will be forgiven.”
With surprising quickness, Regar drew a knife and stabbed it deep into his father’s stomach.
Brandt could do nothing but watch as a thin beam of fire erupted from his emperor’s back.
56
When Alena touched the gate, she entered another world.
As always, the initial rush of power threatened to pick her up and carry her away. This was the power of the gate, and she couldn’t imagine controlling it. She was certain that if she let so much as a trickle in, it would fill her past bursting in moments. Why Hanns thought controlling such power was wise was beyond her.
Alena relaxed and focused. She couldn’t control this power, but she could ride it. After a long heartbeat she broke free of the current and skipped across its surface.
She didn’t allow herself more than a few heartbeats to recover. Even if time passed differently here, every moment mattered. Brandt and the emperor would need every advantage she could give them.
When her mind was calm she dove deeper into the gate, deeper into the web that connected all life.
How long it took her to find the manifestation of the gate she was in contact with, she had no idea. This space left her bereft of time and distance, a sensation that disoriented her if she allowed herself to think about it for too long.
But eventually she found herself before the gate. It appeared as diamond, but if she focused, that latticework she’d discovered in Etar was present here, too. The gate was a weaving, albeit one of dizzying complexity.
She had worried that Regar’s control would be difficult to undo. Back in Etar, Zolene’s bond with the gate had taken her considerable time to remove, and that was without the added pressure of a battle to affect her concentration. From a distance, she hadn’t been able to sense more than the basics of Regar’s bond.
Up close, she was surprised to see how clumsy Regar’s control of the gate actually was. Where Zolene had woven her own soul closely to that of the gate, Regar’s bond looked more like a hasty lashing. His technique appeared like something she would have tried back before she had learned anything useful about soulwalking.
It always came back to Anders.
As Alena looked at the crude working, she thought she could feel history squeezing at her. She’d suspected Anders had learned soulwalking, but he’d had no instruction. Of course the techniques he’d passed on had been crude. And with