AMETHYST 5.3: TWOSHOES
“I am the realisation of boundless choice. I am the pleasure that art brings the soul. I am the ankle and wrist too hot for any shackle. I am Lady Freedom.”
– from the Nenthelemic Creed
You were a good find, Gilaela, I thought as I followed my squirrels over the roof’s edge.
“Thank you,” my fairy and unicorn replied in unison – I got the impression this amused Gilaela, but I could sense Zelurra’s bristling. She didn’t like having other eldritches awake with her in here.
“She may just have to get used to sharing the space,” Gilaela thought jovially.
Zel muttered something I fancied neither of us could make out; I had too much on my mind now, as we crashed into the seven deathknights we’d been pursuing.
They didn’t take it very well. To be fair to them, a large number of golden-furred giant squirrels were probably the last thing they were expecting. The skeletal men doubtless would’ve taken my eldritches apart in seconds, had I not been there, hurtling down into their midst, flinging them all from their saddles and swallowing away the nethermist that supported their steeds.
I worked on their lances as it devolved into a melee in the street, stealing away their energies; this way, even if the squirrels were slain they wouldn’t be destroyed so completely that it’d take generations for them to return.
Such was my hope, at least.
It was pretty awesome to watch a fuzzy, angry-looking rodent the size of a small horse slap an imposing undead noble through a half-crumbled wall. The deathknights recovered quickly enough, but by the time the first squirrel was run-through I was done adjusting their lances, and turned my attention instead towards focussing the anger that was welling up once more, spilling out of my spiralled horn.
I emitted a wave of light, doing nothing to the squirrels but splooshing two of the deathknights into empty suits of armour that dropped instantly, clattering on the ground.
On the roof above me, our two tremendous zombie-birds were keeping watch – they hadn’t been fashioned by an undead-lord, and we’d taken their fealty. I could sense that Shallowlie was now stripping the bone-chariot that had pursued us into its constituent parts, reassembling them into bone-golems with a speed that showed she’d had practice.
I have to have a go at that, I thought, sparing a quick glance up to admire the host of roughly-humanoid bone-men she was making. Only roughly-humanoid, as they were festooned with extra arms, bladed appendages; some even had multiple skulls atop their shoulders…
Then I lowered my head again, bent my horn at another deathknight.
Before Shallowlie was done, Fangmoon descended and helped me wrap up the last enemies and their now-useless mounts.
“Where’s the magister?” I shouted to her, casting about.
“He was right there with me,” she replied, snapping the spear of the deathknight she fought with a giant paw as she raked through his breastplate with the other.
“I can’t sense him, Feychilde,” Zel said.
“I’ve got nothing – you?” I called.
Fangmoon raised her face to the wind for a moment, then turned to me and shook her head.
“Damn it,” I muttered, increasing my elevation and moving to the edges of the street, looking down the adjoining roads and alleys…
Nothing.
“I’d have sensed it if something attacked him,” my faerie advisor mused, “so we can rule that out.”
A diviner’s involved, I guessed.
“You’re probably right. I should be able to see him, one way or another, if it had nothing to do with a diviner.”
“He has fled, craven coward,” Gilaela sniffed. “I sensed this within him all along.”
Be nice, I told her. It looked like this was his first time dealing with something like this. I didn’t see him at the Incursion.
“You didn’t look like that during the Incursion,” Zel said. “At least, I think… And you never ran away.”
“Our master is of noble bearing,” the unicorn replied, “is he not?”
I sighed, then returned to the others to report that he was nowhere to be found. The magisters were retreating – was this why the weave around the Door had failed? Had Valorin left Zadhal? Or had something happened to Direcrown? There was no way to say for certain, and I had no idea how long our blessings would last, keeping us warm, letting us fly… The flying wasn’t such a big problem for two arch-sorcerers and an arch-druid – the exposure to sub-zero temperatures would be far worse. I had little doubt Fangmoon could keep us alive, but temperature-control wasn’t something she could just wave a hand at like a wizard.
We continued our halting journey westwards, and two minutes and one large pack of undead dogs later, we finally came upon some of our compatriots.
“Spiritwhisper! Glancefall!” Fangmoon cried softly, streaming towards the pair of enchanters. “You’re alive?”
She said it like it was a question – because she wanted them to explain how? – or was she expressing doubt as to whether they were undead?
I looked them over with both my sorcerer’s-eye and ordinary sight; there was no sign of anything wrong with either of them. Both were breathing heavily, as evidenced by the amount of fog on the air in front of their faces. Spiritwhisper had removed his blue swirly mask, and his eyes were downcast; Glancefall’s jester’s mask was still in place but I could see the set of his jaw…
Something’s wrong.
“Wheh is Rosedon?” Min blurted.
The enchanters shifted uncomfortably in the air, and it wasn’t from the cold. Spiritwhisper in particular looked distraught, and Fangmoon returned to her human shape to embrace him, which didn’t make him look any more happier at first, as if he were resisting; then he relented, returning the hug and sinking his head down into her shoulder. Meanwhile, Glancefall explained what had happened in soft tones, not taking his eyes off our huge pet vultures or Shallowlie’s thirty-or-so skeletal abominations.
Rosedawn sacrificed herself to try to find Timesnatcher and help us regroup. They were on their way back to her when she was ripped apart by the chariot – repulsed and grieving, fearing for their lives, they had no choice but to flee, and had been running for almost ten minutes now. They knew that using the link had brought devastating consequences on her, and, at a loss for how to contact the others without putting themselves in danger, they’d done what we’d done and moved slowly towards the west, keeping their eyes peeled for danger or aid.
While he brought out a miniature illusion of the city and displayed our location, Shallowlie was hanging her head, frozen in the air. The ghosts surrounding her had stopped moving, and I could feel the sorceress’s grief.
After a minute poring over the details, I could see we still had a lot of ground to cover and we weren’t far from the edge of the city; we had to get closer to the centre…
“We don’t have a wizard,” I pointed out, “so we’re going to have to find the others sooner rather than later. Can you set the links back up again?”
“It’s going to tell them we’re here, Feychilde,” Glancefall unnecessarily reminded me. “If we go ahead with –“
“You’ve got shields now.” I waved a hand at our new pets. “I don’t think one of these contraptions is going to be a problem if another decides to pay us a visit, and if deathknights just rush here in random groups that’s great – we can handle them in small numbers.”
He cocked his head, considering it –
“Danger!” Zel hissed.
Before I could do anything there was a hollow, rushing sound that snapped away back into silence, like a single wave of wind ripping past us.
“Where’s Fangmoon?” Spiritwhisper said, voice empty of emotion, too scared to sound frightened.
He’d split apart from her at some point while Glancefall was speaking and she’d drifted out of my line of sight, to my left, towards a relatively-intact house…
“It’s taken her!”
What has?
“I… Wraith, I think!”
“A wraith!” I reported immediately to the others.
“Oh, Twelve Hells,” Glancefall snarled, then thought at us: “Fine, let’s do it this way. Spread out, quickly!”
The others started searching the ruins as I cast about; even Shallowlie, whose remaining cheerfulness had seemingly evaporated upon hearing of Rosedawn’s demise, started to perk up now there was something she could do to help, someone needing saving.
Is there any chance this is what happened to the magister? I asked Zel, frantically throwing my senses over the environment.
“No, Feychilde, I think I was pretty clearly aware that something was happening to Fangmoon – remember what I said about the magister? I didn’t –“
I sense it, then, louder: “I sense it!”
An invisible presence, on the fourth floor of a decimated six-storey tenement block. Not fifty yards away. A swirl even more-pronounced than the banshee.
“In here,” I called to Shallowlie, propelling myself towards the property and entering a yawning window feet-first.
The room was decayed timber and broken furniture, the reek of damp and nothing much else. I could imagine how someone might’ve lived in here, when the walls were covered with hangings, glass in the windows; this had been a bedroom, once, but the bed had fallen in on itself and been eaten by time, dying alongside its previous owners. The dresser was a pile of eroded wooden boards and smashed trifles. I was lucky I didn’t have to walk, because half the floor was missing, and half the ceiling was strewn across the room.
I floated through the former doorway, penetrating the building, trying to keep myself aware of my target. I felt it as Shallowlie joined me, floating ten feet behind me to back me up, sensing her presence more by the plethora of ghosts she surrounded herself with than by anything else.
It was almost pitch black, but not so dark that we had any issues. Within seconds we found the room in which Fangmoon was being held captive: a bedroom, much like the one I’d first entered but with one crucial difference.
The druidess, suspended and spinning, fake silver hair streaming in a vortex of nethernal wind. Her screams weren’t even penetrating the deadly thing surrounding her, bathing her in its essence.
Killing her – slowly. By the looks of it, killing her in a way that even an arch-druid couldn’t counteract.
“Tinshalemm ban o sol menverka, zathuun!”
I spat the words that declared myself its new master; he released the druidess before I’d even fully focussed my eye, before I could see the purple tint to the wraith’s manifestation. A huge shadow of a man, naked to my sight, always moving, dancing as if to an unending drum only he could hear.
“They do a good job keeping themselves hidden,” Zel observed.
“May we not burn it, Feychilde?” Gilaela used an almost-chiding tone.
Not this time, I replied, a touch apologetically. I’m going to set it on its friends, don’t worry.
“Just so long as you don’t force me to share this space with a creature of its ilk, I shall be satisfied,” the unicorn commented.
I reported in to Glancefall, who called Spiritwhisper back then started reaching out for the other champions, repeating various names, Timesnatcher’s most prominently. Shallowlie soared over to Fangmoon and assisted her as I brought my wraith out of the apartment ahead of us, a coursing of dark wind I was still having trouble even seeing with my mortal eyes.
“Couldn’t breathe…” Fangmoon was muttering, leaning on the sorceress as they slowly coursed together down the corridor. “Couldn’t even think. So… so cold…”
Her breath was producing less fog on the air, I noticed.
“Is the wizardry leaving us?” I asked, then, remembering the link, repeated my concerns telepathically.
By the time the five of us were gathered again in the centre of the street I could feel it on my skin. The interior of my mask, the end of my nose, my ears, my hands, my feet. All of us were reporting the same thing. Fangmoon did what she could to regulate our internal temperatures, but it was never going to replace the spells that were beginning to falter. And the worst of it was the chill of the wind slicing through my ethereal wings – unfortunately it seemed the druid could do nothing for my otherworldly manifestations. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to them for my flying, really.
As we gathered on the ground, I called my white messenger-imp to me. He reported that he’d managed to enter my apartment unnoticed and everything had gone smoothly once he deigned to show himself, crawling out from under the bench in the main room to shock everyone.
I smiled. It was good to think of them back there, waiting for me.
“So how are we going to do this?” Glancefall thought at us. “We can’t walk the whole way, and I don’t fancy being turned into a bird, no offence.”
“It’d take awhile for you to learn how to use wings,” Fangmoon replied, “no offence…”
“I can only carry one,” I said, and looked a little guiltily up at the undead vultures we’d taken into our service. “Could you ride?” I asked Glancefall and Spiritwhisper.
Both of them tilted their faces to look up at the great beasts. I didn’t need to be an enchanter to know before I asked that they weren’t going to mount one of the creatures that’d been responsible for their friend’s death.
But Min came to my rescue.
“Dere is no nee’, Feychile. I can carry dem both.”
She didn’t ask permission, and I watched, fascinated, as a swarm of ghosts instantly separated from those glimmering shapes surrounding her, descending on the enchanters.
Glancefall started to protest but got no further than the first syllable before it was over, and both of them were being hoisted by a group of nethernal figures. They were almost transparent and quite clearly insubstantial but they nonetheless possessed weight, strength enough to lift humans and soar with them.
No weirder than my wings, I supposed.
Fangmoon shuddered into bird-form, a silvery, raven-looking thing that was nonetheless equipped with the wingspan of an albatross – I had little doubt she could’ve swelled up to the size of the vultures if she had a mind to –
Watching her failing to fly in the freezing breeze, I understood. She had to shrink down almost to the size of a normal bird in order to find purchase on the air, which was thankfully not something I was having a problem with. I was just having trouble with the actual feeling of the wind. When it blew through the wings, it cut me to my spiritual core in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
“You should be glad you’ve got me in here,” Zel pointed out. “You might be uncomfortable, but look at the enchanters. They’re the only ones not at least partially protected by something under their own power… They’re going to be the first to die.”
She was right. Despite having recently received a treatment from Fangmoon, they were shivering all over the place already.
We shouldn’t have been so cavalier. We should’ve been better prepared. I’m sure they sell cloaks of warmth…
It needed a solution, fast.
“Shallowlie,” I said, “can you carry Fangmoon too?” The sorceress nodded but cocked her head at me curiously. I went on: “Sorry, Fang, it’s not that I think you can’t fly, but, let’s face it, it’s not the easiest – and Glancefall and Spiritwhisper are going to need to hold your hands, I think.”
“Aww,” she replied, changing back into the silver-black tiger-shape she’d used earlier. “They can hold my paws. I’m warmer this way.”
“No s-scratchin’,” Spiritwhisper said, then tried a cheeky smile and added the words, “not th-this time, anyw-way.”
Fangmoon snarled a little, but playfully I thought, and accepted the swarm of ghosts Shallowlie sent in her direction.
As I led the way west we built a weave. I kept my shields and squirrel eldritches at the ready, using all my various senses on the route ahead, while behind me the sorceress towed our druidess and our enchanters on a bed of seething phantoms. Giant dead birds and reconfigured bone-men brought up the rear-guard. Glancefall and Spiritwhisper kept us on-track while continuing to call out to our allies, seeking the minds of the friends we hoped were still numbered amongst the living.
What if it’s just us? I couldn’t keep myself from thinking. What if we’re the only ones who escaped?
To keep my mind off the increasing cold I consulted the inner directory that was constantly open to my consciousness, the list of eldritches I could summon.
Aside from those within me – Zel, Avvie, Zab, Gilaela, one of the satyrs – I had the other satyr, Xiatan the dryad, the inflatable scorpion – and not forgetting Flood Boy, whom I hadn’t called upon in some time… One vampire, one ghoul, one wraith… My four bintaborax – the wounded one hadn’t died, then, not yet at least; the razor-fiend kinkalaman and the doll-demon mekkustremin; the surviving ikistadreng, Khikiriaz… a rolling ball of hair and nails… over three dozen imps, more than I thought I ought to have…
My obbolomin dog-men and folkababil birds, gone. All my epheldegrim horses, perished. My atiimogrix…
Alive?
He didn’t just feel alive. He felt…
He’s still on the Material Plane? But I sent him against the deathknights! And I passed out!
I wanted to summon him, but suddenly my fingers didn’t seem to know how to make the red fire rise up –
“Now’s as good a time as any for the lesson, I suppose,” Zel piped up. “You remember what I said about not being able to summon your fey while you’re in the otherworld?”
Sure. You said it was for an advanced class…
“Here we go. You don’t know where he is, so you can’t summon him from the same plane. You’re going to have to reach through Infernum.”
I’m going to have to what?
“Open a seam to Infernum, connect it to a seam to Materium. You can do the same from there – say, you’re in Nethernum, you want to summon your vampire to you –“
Open a gate to Materium, then back to Nethernum. Got it. And this won’t, you know, give me a zombie hand?
“It’s not a full gateway. Just a seam. You’re not going anywhere – don’t think of it as two seams, though –”
Okay, okay.
Getting it was different to getting it, though. My fingers weren’t able to conjure up the magic this time. I had to wrap my head around it.
“… connection to the plane of your origin will let you…”
Zel, not really helping here.
“On the contrary,” Gilaela interrupted, “you ought to listen, young sorcerer.”
I silenced my thoughts, reducing my awareness right down to the point where all that existed of me was a frozen nose and two frozen wings being eroded by the wind – and after a moment Zel started over.
“Don’t think of it as two seams. It’s one seam. The reason you use Materium from Nethernum rather than, say, putting your hand through Infernum instead, is that a connection to the plane of your origin will cement the two. One seam, Feychilde.”
One seam…
They were right. I saw it.
Red flames couldn’t call him. He was still on Materium. Yet I could move my demons using the red flames when I knew where they were. The disconnect was only in my mind. What I could do intuitively when I could locate them I had to replicate without that crucial knowledge.
There was no difference. If I pretended I saw him here –
There was no difference, but the gesture was different. I knew that now, even as I performed it. The knowledge was ingrained, and I could never lose it again.
“He’s quick, this one,” Gilaela noted.
“You’ve no idea,” Zel replied, sounding, if anything, a little perturbed.
Red flames, painfully heat-free, birthed a putrid laughing man who gibbered at me and threw a new imp out of his entrails.
Ah. That’s how I’ve got some extra.
“Khalor,” I huffed at him; and then once he was keeping up I quizzed him in Infernal for some time. ‘Draped ‘em in me pretties’ I took to mean tying the deathknights in his intestines – the rest was worse than the gibberish I’d expected. He seemed to think he was doing his prey a favour by dressing them up in his innards, and came across almost guilty that he hadn’t managed to keep them strung together for long. He strongly implied that he thought his would-be-killers had rejected his intestines, not because they wanted to be free of a constricting net that spawned imps every now-and-again, but because they somehow weren’t ‘pretty’ enough?
Whatever it was, it made me shudder. Now I was engaging him in conversation, I noted the way his laughter was a kind of sobbing, the way his bright eyes were wild with desperate sorrow, not delight.
Feeling a bit guilty myself, I sent him home again. Perhaps I’d just let him live out his existence in ‘peace’…
“I’m not sure he’d prefer being on that side, you know,” Zel said. “Just because they’re native to Infernum doesn’t mean demons enjoy the place. Many of them like being here.”
I shivered, not just from the winter’s chill, thinking what would come to pass if I just let him stay on Materium. After awhile he’d spawn too many imps for me to command, and they’d be brought into the plane unbound, kick-starting an Infernal Incursion…
Would it be so easy? Couldn’t you summon a summoner and just unbind it?
“Definitely – but why would you want to do that?” Zel asked sharply.
Not me! But, well, why don’t the darkmages –
“Well, what would they even have to gain from it?”
I don’t mean regular darkmages – I mean, the mad ones, like the Srol…?
She didn’t interrupt me like I’d been anticipating.
As I dropped back to Fangmoon for a quick bit of restorative relief, I was ignoring the telepathic calls of the enchanters, still going over the problem in my mind.
There must be something stopping them, Zel… If they want the destruction of Mund, the death of the population so badly, why aren’t they just doing it all the time? You could have an Incursion every day, and everyone would just up and leave, wouldn’t they? Oh, perhaps that’s the problem – you don’t want them to leave, you want them all to die… But couldn’t you make, like, a mega-Incursion?
It wasn’t until I’d resumed my position at the front of the group that Zel next spoke, almost at the exact same time as Glancefall, and I was so ready for her to undercut my argument that what she said surprised me – not just because of the content of her words but because I felt that, for once, I’d won an argument.
I flexed my sorcerous muscles, testing the weave.
“Something coming, Feychilde. Heading right for us. Hard to read. Fast. Get ready.”
* * *
It got easier once Dimdweller found us. The dwarf was taking the chill in his stride, quite literally, as he was being forced to walk until Shallowlie came along with a ghost-palanquin for him. Even with the arch-diviner’s assistance it was another five minutes and three deathknight-encounters before we grabbed ourselves a wizard. By the time the larger band including Winterprince in its ranks approached our flagging group with the promise of warmth Glancefall looked like he was about to faint, and keeping us all in fighting-condition was clearly taking its toll on Fangmoon.
The ice-bound wizard’s magic coursed through my body as he soared over me, and I heard the sound of his chuckle grinding out once more.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s alright for some,” Spiritwhisper thought scornfully at him, testing out the flight he’d been newly imbued-with. “Just you remember who it is stops you gettin’ lost in a place like this.”
“I know where the Door is,” the wizard’s voice snapped and cracked. “Good luck getting there, without my spells.”
For a split-second the flight Spiritwhisper was using seemed to dip in effectiveness, and the arch-enchanter bobbed up and down in the air nervously.
“Don’t do that, alright!” he muttered, matching Winterprince in speaking out-loud.
The arch-wizard just chuckled again, and moved back to Dimdweller as we all started heading west again at improved speed.
“I thought they were all dead,” the dwarven diviner was saying to Leafcloak, “thought it was some trickery. Too many diviners here… When I heard Rosedawn, I thought she was dead already… We’re lucky you were more trusting.”
“I told you years ago it’s simply the worst disadvantage of divination,” the white-haired druidess said in fond tones, “that you can’t –“
“Trust your instincts,” the dwarf finished for her, a bit gloomily. “Yeah, I remember: that’s another disadvantage.”
She smiled sweetly at him.
Dimdweller appraised her. “You were younger then –“
“You weren’t.”
The two of them laughed.
“I was going to say, ‘yet no less wise’,” the dwarf continued, “but if you –“
“Glancefall?”
All conversation, physical and psychic, halted at the sound of Timesnatcher’s voice, then crows of jubilation filled the telepathic landscape.
“Aha!” Glimmermere exulted. “We knew you would make it. No one would even take a bet…”
“And Lightblind?” Starsight asked.
“She’s… she went home,” the arch-diviner replied, then before anyone could comment went on, “I’ve got Mountainslide here with me…”
“Of course he found himself a wizard,” I snarked in a low voice, and a few of the others nodded appreciatively.
It quickly became apparent once we all regrouped that every champion left alive in Mund was accounted for, except two… Timesnatcher, Dimdweller and Starsight; Mountainslide and Winterprince; Spiritwhisper and Glancefall; Leafcloak, Glimmermere and Fangmoon; me and Shallowlie…
Every champion left alive in Mund was accounted for… except Direcrown and Shadowcloud. The wizard’s spells had stayed active until they expired, which presumably meant he was still alive, at least, but for the sorcerer we had no such indication.
And even setting aside the issue of the dead and absent champions, we were low in numbers now. As Timesnatcher related while we flew, every single magister had gone missing or, more likely, fled back to the Winter Door, back to the safety of Mund.
After Zakimel led Zadhal’s aerial forces right to us.
“How convenient,” Glimmermere murmured.
“They have plausible deniability, and that’s all they’ve ever had, or needed,” Timesnatcher replied. “You can forget any dreams of taking revenge on them for this. We all had the option of retreat.” He didn’t sound best-pleased himself, but he mind-sighed then went on: “Did anyone see Shadowcloud or Direcrown after the rout?”
“I can’t see them now,” Starsight offered. “Doesn’t that mean they went with Zakimel?”
“Not necessarily,” Leafcloak replied. “It could be the death-lord, couldn’t it?”
Something occurred to me.
Zel, do I have any of those imps that teleport? I need fast answers.
“I can’t feel them the way you can, Feychilde.”
I held their images in my mind, flicked through them.
“That one. That’s a gungrelafor.”
Gungrelafor? It had two red horns atop its head that curled near the base then pointed straight down at its little cloven hooves; its short, fat tail had a cruel barb on the tip. Isn’t that one of those obsidian-tower spider-things?
“That’s gaumgalamar.” She said it in such an exasperated tone it was almost as though she couldn’t hear the fact the two words were almost gods-damned identical. “Gungrelafor aren’t really in any one place at a given time – that’s why it’s such a mess if you join with them. Not saying you couldn’t give it a go, though.”
The fairy just wasn’t going to give it up –
“Grr!” Zel said – actually said, rather than growling, which was incredibly cute –
Now she was growling –
And, feeling rather pleased with myself, I summoned the imp she’d indicated into the air beside me.
It looked rather surprised to be summoned into motion, licking its teeth nervously, and did its best with its two pairs of wings to keep up. Timesnatcher got everyone to slow while I gave it instructions, and with a bit of direction from the arch-diviner and some literal directions from Glancefall, I sent it on its way to the Winter Door.
In under two minutes it returned in a flash of crimson flame, and we halted in the shadow of a jagged, rubble-skirted spire to listen to its words.
I started by asking, “Grel nissag Mrundi?”
“I speak it,” it hissed, flicking its forked, pink tongue from its bat-like face as it hung in the air. It eyed my companions warily before continuing: “I met the one you called the Zakimel, Master. He said to me only this, and no more, with malice in his eyes: ‘Bid Feychilde and the others our best wishes, and tell them not to get themselves killed on a madman’s whim.’”
I grinned, and some actually chuckled. I glanced at Timesnatcher; below the mask I could see his stony expression, his lips fixed in a tight line. He seemed to be holding himself very still, suddenly, as though he didn’t realise none of us took Zakimel seriously. It was his fault we were in this mess, not Timesnatcher’s.
“And what didn’t he say to you?” I asked.
The imp took its turn to grin. “I saw one of those ones you mentioned. The lilac-clad magister, he was present. Many magisters, there were.”
“But not Shadowcloud? Direcrown?”
“Not that I could see, Master. I did not leave immediately, but looked around the place. It is strange. The Shadowcloud and the Direcrown, no. They were not there.”
“Thanks,” I said, perhaps a bit coldly, and waved him away. I looked up at the others. “This doesn’t mean they didn’t go that way then head off to –“
“They did not leave Zadhal,” Timesnatcher said with such confidence he could’ve been quoting the Book of Kultemeren. “They are still here – somewhere.”
“This is an opaque night in which we find ourselves,” Starsight said, “and it’s only by blindly grasping that we’ll find them, if they are still alive. We must continue.”
“I concur,” Dimdweller intoned.
“Well, who’s going to gainsay that?” Leafcloak murmured. “Let’s get on with it.”
* * *
“Con-tac!”
Shallowlie was ascending to catch the bone-chariot that was otherwise about to drop into the flank of our group – I stayed in the centre, maintaining focus on the weave. Mountainslide followed her to back her up, and we sent our vultures to intercept and harass the as-yet-unbound vultures pulling the chariot.
We left it as a chariot this time – there was no opportunity to stop and transform it into a bony army like last time, so we kept it leashed to the vultures, let them pull it trundling through the air behind us. Glimmermere, who’d been unusually-quiet since realising that Shadowcloud was missing, seemed disturbed by the rolling pile of skulls atop the chariot. She moved away from the rear of the weave so as to not have to see the abomination right behind her, as though it were pursuing her through the empty city.
The streets were changing. Most of the roads we’d traversed since coming through the Door had been lined with relatively-tall buildings, the majority housing and business units of one kind or another. Now we’d reached a broad estate of low-to-the-ground, more sumptuously-appointed structures – you could tell by looking through the shattered roofs into the frozen, faded interiors. This was the rich, suburban sprawl of Zadhal. This was their Hightown, and ahead of us, stretching up into the sky, were dozens of towers. I could see that there had once been many more, but most had crumbled or been torn down in some violent display of power, standing no higher than a third of their former stature.
We were open to any purple eyes gazing our direction, now, but it didn’t seem they had anything left to throw at us. We made our way towards the centre of Zadhal unimpeded.
The sun was climbing behind us – the pale disc that warmed nothing was barely discernible in the brightest part of the frozen white sky – and I could tell we’d only been in this miserable place for an hour and a half or so. A grey mass of cloud was gathered on the horizon, and it had hardly moved since we’d arrived.
I hadn’t anticipated that things might go so badly but, despite the danger and the loss of champions, I found I was still excited to be here, my blood still full of the strange mixture that overtook me in such times and left me feeling thrilled, eager… Not all of it was the druids’ work, I knew. I almost felt a touch of what Netherhame had described. No responsibilities. I was riding a wave of time as much as a wave of wind, and it was going to deposit me on that future shore no matter how I tried. Better to accept it than fight it. Better to ride time than drown in it.
We halted all telepathic communication well before we passed the first tower, and changed direction a few times to throw off potential pursuit or ambush. The place really was like Hightown’s long-dead twin, a dark mirror of the heights of mortal civilisation. But this wasn’t a city, not really – a city required life, light, laughter. This was a brick swamp, a man-made forest of leafless stony trees. We soared between spires missing windows and walls, ceilings and floors – the interiors were mostly bare, the wind and perhaps previous expeditions having picked them clean. The odd exposed altar or bookshelf twinkled with the promise of unexplored mysteries, but such escapades would have to wait.
Have to wait until we won.
Suddenly Timesnatcher halted, and waved us in close to him, almost clinging to the side of a big cuboid building that was riddled with cracks.
“There are a large number of creatures ahead,” he said quietly. “Shallowlie, Feychilde… I wish there was some way to dress this up for you –“
“We ah ready, Tamsnatcher.” She floated there serenely before him, just like one of the ghosts surrounding her.
I drew a deep breath and nodded, getting ready to summon. I could feel them – undead shapes, needles in my brain.
He led us down one last street, and then –
The plaza containing the idol of Vaahn was like nothing I’d ever seen before – or would see again, I hoped.
“Nentheleme save us,” Glimmermere said.
“We are going to do this,” our leader breathed, plunging ahead, green blades flickering in his hands. “I can see it… I can see it! Destroy as many as you can before the clock tower rings!”
More rough effigy than sculpted statue, the focal point of the place was a distorted, distended humanoid shape, created not from ancient carven stone but from flesh and bone, strapped together with strings of sinew, riveted with rusty nails. It was gigantic – forty feet or more from base to apex – and loomed over the surrounding courtyard. Within the vast figure’s lengths of black hair – ropes fashioned from scorched, flayed skins – a sphere of melted-together skulls formed the head. The tall crown atop it was insectlike iron, its prongs thin and elongated, randomly-arranged.
Its many eye-sockets did not move to follow us as we arrived, charging over the boundaries of the courtyard; it didn’t move to inspect us as we inspected it. Despite this, clearly the Prince of Chains had accepted the offering. The statue had obviously been standing longer than any such construction of vile materials ought to have done were it unhallowed; I could sense nothing overtly sorcerous from it.
In short, I could see why someone would peg this monstrosity as the source of the woes of Zadhal.
Especially given the worshippers assembled in the courtyard.
They stood as one, swaying, heads bowed. Ten thousand – twenty? The citizens, the Zadhalites, were deep in prayer, but unlike their idol they had senses.
A small fraction of them on the edge nearest us – hundreds of them – turned to face us as we charged. Burning purple eyes widened as they, at least, inspected us; they snarled sharp words in Netheric to their fellows.
The kind of invisibility that let us see each other didn’t work brilliantly on the undead. Not undead like these, anyway. The foes before us were no mere zombies.
They saw us coming.
Then Timesnatcher was there, and they saw no more.
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