MARBLE 6.1: LIBERATED
“Delved they deep neath Din Dalor
Birthed fire-rubies, mithril ore
Fathers linger there no more
Quiet meres of Din Dalor
Cold in fathoms never found
Leagues in darkness underground
On the lonely hammer sounds
Yet my kin cannot be found
Ever-burning diamonds die
Bones and dust my forebears lie
Silent water slithers by
Under stars we do not die
Listen well and pay the price
Pay it once and pay it twice
All Mund’s gold will not suffice
Blood so bright we name the price
Hands unbound my axe will slice
Humans sore in last lost cry
Under ice red gold abounds
Rest thereby dark Din Dalor”
– from The Chant of the Winterdwarf Insurrection (903 NE), ‘Banned Texts’ 22nd collection
Grassland. It was strange.
I’d spent my entire life inside the walls of Mund. Reading books about the great outdoors was one thing, but actually being here was something else entirely. It wasn’t a feeling even the vast, fey-infested wilderness of Etherium could compete with. That place was surreal, formed out of expectation and bliss, psychic impressions – this, this was reality. Reality came with cowpats and buzzing flies, even as the world entered winter, not starlit sap and fruit-scented wind. Reality was the farms, redolent with the stench and snorts of livestock, stretching away down the rolling incline towards the sea – and Mund only got something like two percent of its food from local sources. Shearing through the landscape went the dark line of the Greywater, leading down to Salnifast, its marble arches and wharves, lighthouses and trade-halls glittering in the distance, almost as vivid as the walls of Mund behind us.
I’d spoilt them by flying them here, but we could hardly walk the whole way, struggle through the camps outside the walls with the wagons, could we? Considering my giddiness with extreme heights it went smoothly. The griffon-mounted watchmen on the battlements had waved me over for a quick identity check, but once they realised who I was they fell all over themselves in apologising and I was left to go about my business.
To be honest I’d been glad of the break, the chance to stand atop the wall near the Treetown Gate and look down on the surroundings without feeling ill. The frosted meadows leading down to the distant harbour were exquisite but it was pretty high-up and I couldn’t call on my wraith while carrying my brother and sister – I didn’t want their first flying session to be a boring, low-to-the-ground experience. Neither did I want them thinking I was actually scared of heights. I’d told them about my… fall in Tivertain, but I hadn’t exactly gone into detail on the ramifications.
Teeth gritted, eyes raised to the sky, I’d brought them out over the eastern walls and been glad of the chance to sink back to an elevation of fifty feet or so, once the guards were done questioning me and we were on the outside. We drew some exclamations from the crowds of the camps, but, of the thousands of immigrants we passed, those I overheard also seemed to be speaking positively of me.
It seemed being heralded the ‘Liberator of Zadhal’, thanks to the machinations of a certain arch-diviner, had its advantages. Even if I felt the title was too bit much, I was hardly going to deny myself the accolades – there simply was no way to do so. And I had worked pretty hard for it, to be fair… though I hadn’t realised at the time that I was going to make the history books.
The platinum the Magisterium provided in payment didn’t exactly go amiss either – a hundred plat, easily enough to be an obvious attempt at buying my silence.
The ‘Diamond War’, as it turned out they called it in those few library texts where it was mentioned, was shadowed in mystery, named but never explained. The fall of Zadhal, the Magisterium’s part in creating thousands of undead…
Yeah, right. It’d take a million plat to buy my silence on something like this. Not that I’d return the hundred, mind… I felt facing down a god-fragment and dozens of liches simultaneously was worth it, somehow.
Magisterium dropheads.
I was almost in a good mood as I descended to the ground, sylph-wings spread to slow our fall. I’d chosen a wild, untamed field on the slope of a hill, shortish grass all beautifully frosted over, bristling with with sparkling starthyme and surprisingly-resilient dandelions. I could probably have carried them another ten, fifteen minutes without too much hassle – Avaelar’s wings still weren’t quite as wonderful as wizard-flight, but at least they didn’t come with as strict of a weight-restriction. However, there was no need to go any further; this spot would be perfect.
“It’s so big,” Jaroan murmured, looking out towards the sea, held fast in my satyr-augmented right arm.
“I know, right?” Jaid’s voice was muffled by the scarf which she’d wrapped around her face to keep her nose warm, but I could tell she was more than a little nauseous. It was the first time she’d spoken since we left the wall – clearly she was feeling better now we were lower-down.
“Look, a rabbit,” I said as I set their feet to the ground.
“Where?” Jaid almost screamed in delight, suddenly perking up.
I pointed, and she instantly started sidling up to it.
“You’re not trying to assassinate it,” Jaroan snorted, then looked at her curiously, “are you?”
“I brought lunch…” I said.
“Just walk up to it!” my brother said, taking a step –
He didn’t even get halfway to Jaid before the rabbit was gone. I could track its movements, but the twins were casting about, Jaid berating Jaroan for his intrusion, Jaroan doing his best ‘it was going to happen anyway’ explanation of what had occurred; Jaid was too frustrated to listen to me or look where I directed her, certain it’d gone the way she went, and Jaroan simply scared it further by raising his voice, stamping his feet.
Sighing, I parked my cart on the grass and pulled a water-vial from my demiskin. If this carried on for much longer, I’d have to resort to Flood Boy and have a spot of wine…
“Come on, Jaid,” I called after a minute. She was almost in tears at her brother’s carelessness. “Remember Gilaela?”
“I don’t – the rabbit – I…”
Protests melted under the scintillating light of a glittering horn. Within a minute she was on the unicorn’s neck, trotting here and there – ‘Princess’ had reassured me there was no way she could let my sister be thrown. She seemed the type to take that kind of thing seriously, so I let it go, though I had a sneaky suspicion she was just worried if she didn’t say that I’d try to saddle her.
“Pick up any powerful new fey?” Jaroan asked, coming over and sitting beside me.
His jealousy of his sister was so obvious it almost made me smile.
“You mean aside from the unicorn?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Powerful?”
I nodded vehemently. “You have no idea. Without her…”
I didn’t even want to think about it.
“’Without her’ what?”
“Well, I’d have had a darn sight more trouble splashing through a river of deathknights and scaring off archliches without her help, so…”
I looked into his sceptical face, and sighed again. I could hardly tell him the details, could I? He had to see me as the champion, untouchable, not the bag of organs that had been split apart by a volley of nethernal fire despite my eldritch reinforcements.
Not the brother. Not really, anymore. The last few weeks had changed something between the three of us – put us on a different footing.
Then I remembered I did have an eldritch that would interest him. “Erm – yeah, actually – check this out.”
I produced a little green spark on my outstretched palm.
“Iliel,” I commanded, tossing the tiny scorpion aside into the grass to let it grow.
Soon the twins were chasing each other round on their eldritch mounts, everyone under strict orders not to cause anyone, human or fey or rabbit, any harm. I watched them for a few minutes, bundled in well-made winter clothing for the first time, riding a unicorn and a giant scorpion… How things had changed.
I sat back, fished out my book and started to read again, picking up where I’d left off. I ran my fingers along the spine, the little runes imprinted there which protected it from incidental harm, as I delved with my mind back into the tortured, torturous words of a pre-vampire arch-diviner, the words whose implications had so-worried the city’s greatest champion…
We hadn’t been there more than ten minutes when she arrived.
“Behind you,” Em whispered in my ear.
I jerked my head around, saw Stormsword arrowing down, still half a mile or so away.
“You’re getting better control,” I murmured.
She laughed lightly in response, then moments later settled down a few feet from me.
Jaid trotted over to say hi, but Jaroan was pursuing her fiercely – the scorpion didn’t seem half as quick off the mark as the unicorn, and soon Jaid was prancing away again, teasing him as she went, a strand of her long blonde hair coming free of her woolly hat and trailing in the wind.
“So, learning much?” Em asked, smoothing down and drying the grass with a quick funnel of hot wind before sitting beside me.
I chuckled, closed the book, and looked down at its cover. The rune of Vaahn, the tall, spiked crown – like that worn by the champion who’d helped me win my newfound status.
“Why, if he uses demons,” I mused, “does Direcrown wear the symbol of the Lord of the Undead on his head, do you think?”
“Perhaps he uses zem too?”
“He didn’t on Fullday. Not once, that I could tell…”
“You are avoiding ze question, Kas.”
“Careful – there might be a dark druid in the grass, just listening out for our names, Stormsword.”
She regarded me with an increasingly-icy demeanour.
“Okay, okay, fine,” I relented, sitting up and gathering my wits. “I – there’s a lot of it you don’t want to hear, and even more of it you really don’t want to hear. But I’ll let you be the judge of that,” I added quickly, worried she was about to draw in a frostbolt. “It’s about – the Magisterium. Zadhal – it seems it wasn’t the dark elves we needed to blame after all.”
She waited patiently, so I continued, “You remember, before you left for work, in the library? None of the books wanted to come to me? I had to coax down that one that I knew wanted to come but couldn’t?”
“Zis makes even less sense vhen you describe vot happened,” she complained.
“Well, I can explain it now… I think I know enough.”
I related what I’d managed to uncover, and did my best not to watch her body language while I spoke, for fear of being put off when she started to get upset. When one of my imps popped in with a report on Nighteye and its failure to find a trace of him, I waved it away instantly. Em wanted to hear it – she could damn well hear all of it, no distractions.
Ilthelor, and perhaps his twin brother too – the notes were unclear – had started the whole thing. A prophecy had been created, a vision foretelling Mund’s destruction. And at the heart of it, there we were – archmages, ‘of a common, uncouth brogue’, lowborn coming in to wreck everything. That was how the highborn of Zadhal had chosen to interpret it, anyway. Their ruler (King Keltoros, whose last act in this world had birthed a manifestation of a dark god) went to Mund to debate what had been witnessed.
The so-called ‘Chosen Lord of Mund’ – I assumed that’s what they were calling the First Lord back then – had been a kind-spoken, soft-hearted chap by all accounts. He’d open doors for others and always be the first to stretch out his hand in greeting, his biographers had been at pains to point out. (It very much sounded as though Aidel had detested him, from the way she wrote of him.) Yet on this one thing he had been unbending; he was not about to issue an edict preventing the nobles marrying whom they pleased.
The pre-vampires, the Isromalle brothers, thought the Chosen Lord of Mund was weak as well as soft – that he feared losing support amongst the lesser lords and ladies, whose own votes might remove him if he started pretending to be a king. But it had Aidel and Graima confused – why would any noble want a son or daughter free to make their own minds up in matters of love, when the tradition of generations decreed the best match ought be selected for them by wiser hands?
They suspected enchantment, and the day Graima entered Mund to investigate was the day the war began.
Whilst I would’ve loved to have disagreed with them, would’ve been overjoyed to think the best of the highborn who had ruled the Mundic Realm in those times – I couldn’t find it in myself. The rulers of Mund should’ve taken the whole thing more seriously – if they’d been able to predict the way the archmages would increasingly come from the ranks of the lowborn, they’d have been falling all over each other to stand behind King Keltoros and his delegates.
But enchantment? That seemed far-fetched, if Henthae had been right about the nature of defence versus attack in terms of mind-control. It had intrigued Zel, but even she, with her paranoia about enchanters, didn’t think it possible someone could put the whole Arrealbord under their power. That was the kind of feat you’d expect only from the legends – sure, Nimmenvyl Olteron, the Enchantress Founder, pulled off things like that in the rhymes, claiming the hearts of entire kingdoms with a single softly-spoken word and all that malarkey. There were stories behind the whole ‘Queen of Souls’ deal, if you were inclined to believe them…
I was not so inclined.
In any case, as was often the way of events in the early histories, one thing led to another and another thing led to war. As was not so-often the case, this had been suppressed, all mention of the Diamond War expunged save for a scant few passages of illegible text that might’ve had the casual, contextless reader thinking it were myth rather than fact under discussion.
A war, between two states, the hearts of which were joined by portals across the vastness of the world.
A war, between two states, one of which was a nexus for others, rich beyond calculation, diverse and populous and expansive; the other, a small, regressive backwater with little other than its mineral wealth as a claim to fame.
The results of the first battle had been predictable. The Magisterium took the initiative, and annexed the Zadhal-side plaza around the Winter Door in the first four hours of fighting.
Aidel’s notes from this time were difficult to read, not only because of their incoherency but because of the clear distress that accompanied them. The archmages of Zadhal saw Ilthelor’s vision writ large, looming in their near future.
Within two weeks they got desperate. King Keltoros was the first to raise the dead, and their friend Lord Saphalar, chief sorcerer of the city, convened even the merchant-sorcerers to aid in the deed. Overnight the Mundians were stymied by waves of zombies, blocked and locked into the areas they’d reinforced. Control of the skies was wrested from them. For a time, it looked to Aidel as though they might actually attain victory, or at least independence. If they could just take back the Winter Door and somehow bring it down –
None of these ancient archmages had known for sure whether the destruction of one of the Doors might entail the destruction of the city. But their speculations were in vain anyway. They never came close to removing the Mundians’ foothold in their city. Huge shields contested zones of the district, sometimes with one side of a street populated by Zadhalite shopkeepers and skeleton patrols, the other bristling with Magisterium eldritches and explosive wards…
It was only after three years of incessant, seemingly pointless fighting that the Magisterium played their hand. The book in the library at the Maginox had been lacking in detail – it wasn’t like the Magisterium-approved authors had anything concrete to say on the topic – but the upshot was that if the Zadhalites were so keen to transform their subjects into undead minions, they could all take a spoonful of the same medicine. From a secret corner of the hotly-contested network of tunnels beneath Zadhal, the Mundian wizards broke through into one of the ancient caverns beneath the city-centre. The Candle of Retribution was created – apparently this was Lord Saphalar’s term for the fountain of undeath we’d destroyed with his custom-designed sphere.
The magistry withdrew from Zadhal – even as King Keltoros and his subjects were transformed, cursed never again to leave it.
“Until you vent,” Em said warmly, taking my hand and nestling in to me.
I hadn’t expected such a placid response, so I mumbled, “Until we went, I suppose… Anyway, that’s as far as I’ve got. I think, maybe, Dustbringer knew something too. There was something Direcrown said, and I – his power…”
When I’d held the book in my hands in the library yesterday, I’d gotten a feeling, a sense of his energies still wreathed there – energies I’d more than just sampled when we’d fought in the main room of my apartment. He too had once coaxed the book down. The traces of the man, the simple magic he’d used just like me to call the book to him, remained on our plane.
I drew a shuddering breath. “But he didn’t have access to this.” I tilted the Vaahn-stamped book. “To the notes of Aidel on the prophecy of Ilthelor. The ravings of two original rebels, heretics of centuries long-gone.”
She drew patternless patterns on the back of my hand with her fingernail. “His death shocked you, didn’t it, Kas? Is…”
She hushed. She could feel my response, the coiled tension.
“Well – yeah. More than any of the others who’ve died. I keep thinking – I keep feeling – invincible. But we aren’t. Being reminded of it…”
I hadn’t told her I’d charged an avatar with the power of death-touch, and every time I remembered this fact I prayed Shallowlie kept it to herself. Asking the sorceress to keep it to herself could be worse. Better to forget about it, hope she did the same, trust to her tact.
“I think it’s – Dustbringer was a sorcerer. More powerful than me. And he didn’t make any mistakes, didn’t do anything wrong. He was just – he was used to being able to solve his problems by chopping them in half, and when it backfired –“
The sapphire blade, shearing him in two –
“– it’s still the worst thing I’ve seen, I think.”
I licked my lips. That wasn’t quite true. My empty apartment, the night of the Incursion. And –
Not as bad as seeing you lying there in the healing-tent…
But I couldn’t say that, so I continued haltingly: “Dustbringer… It affected me worse than the bodies in that vampire cellar, you know? Worse than anything in Zadhal, or… after… Lightblind… I guess it was when Dustbringer died that it hit home, we aren’t anything special. I thought we weren’t supposed to die, not really. Definitely not – not him. He was supposed to teach me… He was supposed to be my Henthae, you know? My own incredibly-badass Henthae. Heh.”
I looked out towards the sea, and thought: Here’s to you, Endren Solosto, wherever you are.
Her hand had settled upon my own. “I understand.”
We sat together like that for a few minutes, and I basked in the warmth of her body, her aura… until I finally plucked up the courage.
“You – you don’t mind, then? It’s all the same to you?”
I saw through her mask’s slits that her eyes narrowed in bewilderment.
“No, not Dustbringer – I mean – what I was talking about before. The prophecy, the war…”
She sat up.
“So, zey thought ve archmages vould be to blame for ze downfall of Mund. So vot? Zey are just heretics, as you said.”
“But the Magisterium…”
“Ze Magisterium do not think ze same – ozzervise zey vouldn’t have continued viz ze policy, allowing ze bloodlines to mix…”
“Diviners can be wrong,” I admitted, feeling a little confused. “But…”
Doesn’t she understand my problem? Is she going to make me say it out loud?
“Zey can be wrong, and zey can mis- how do you say, misinterpret?”
I nodded, smiled tightly.
“Zey can misinterpret ze signs,” she continued. “Ze destruction of Mund may be, you know… ze symbolic downfall. Or just a… a time of changes.”
“Ah, well,” I patted Aidel’s memoirs, “it looks like the vision was a little more specific. Flames and ash. Mund an uninhabited wasteland, a battleground. You know, typical apocalyptic stuff. Chadoath mark two.”
“Zat doesn’t mean zey interpreted it correctly, zough.”
“Sure, sure.” I could tell what she meant. The destruction of Mund could be ten thousand years off yet, and even if the presence of lowborn archmages was going to contribute to that destruction, they would be needed just to help the city survive that long. A high proportion of champions were lowborn, and possibly a decent proportion of arch-magisters too. It was only due to the sacrifices of champions and the other archmages willing to put their lives on the line that Mund got through each Incursion…
“Without us, they wouldn’t even get that far,” I pondered aloud.
Em was nodding. “So ve are agreed, zen.”
I met her eyes.
“On ze Magisterium being in ze right.”
“Being… in the…”
I couldn’t even repeat the word. That was the very last word I’d have chosen.
“I know, zis viz ze undead, zis is troubling.” She looked down at the grass. “I understand zat. It is unforgivable. I see vhy zey have worked so hard to hide ze truth from us all…”
“I can’t believe you’re still willing to be one of them!” I exploded. “It’s unforgivable, yet you’re willing to forgive –”
“No, Feychilde, but I am villing to forget. Vot vould you have zem do? Go put it right? Zey tried! Zey vent, viz you! And –“
“They went – Zakimel – he went to dispose of us,” I almost spat the words.
“If he vonted to dispose of you, you vould be dead!” she retorted, the air around us suddenly turning cold once more.
“Rosedawn and Leafcloak did die –“
“Duskdown’s vife! Timesnatcher slew her, did he not?”
There was something to her voice when she said ‘did he not?’ that brought the worst of Stormsword’s highborn accent into her tone, a sneering presumptuousness that slid into my brain like a razor-blade.
I knew I shouldn’t have told them. It was a risk. Timesnatcher hadn’t made me take a vow of silence or anything, but he’d spoken in confidence. They had both sworn they wouldn’t reveal what they knew – but while I could trust Em’s loyalty, could I trust her restraint?
Either way – it wasn’t like Killstop had chosen to shut me up before I’d spoken with the two of them yesterday. Timesnatcher had to know I’d tell the ladies – unless Killstop’s very presence there could’ve interfered… But she wasn’t powerful-enough to contend with Timesnatcher’s sight, was she?
Divination – and enchantment – confused everything.
I looked away. “She was planning the destruction of the Maginox – Timesnatcher saw her, heard her voice!”
“So he killed her.”
I looked back, her cool steel eyes pulling mine inexorably to meet them.
“And he voz right to do so,” she went on dismissively. “Dark enchanters – zey are almost as bad as ze diviners.”
I closed my eyes drew in a deep breath. We were so alike – and so different.
“Then how does that explain Leafcloak? What does Zakimel have to gain from the death of Leafcloak? She wasn’t the bride of the most-wanted darkmage in the world, was she?”
“I don’t know – zis, zis avatar –“
She suddenly sounded troubled, on the back-foot, some of her vehemence giving way to confusion, so I pressed my advantage:
“You’ve got to admit there’s a difference! Whatever his ulterior motives, Zakimel wanted some of us to die! You – your test – you said it yourself, it seemed off, coming out of nowhere like that. You wanted to go – and they knew what you’d see, what you’d hear, if you came with me. They did what they did three hundred years ago and they never changed. They…” My voice weakened. “They knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Believe you?” she whispered. “I – I believe you, Kas. I –“
Then, between one moment and the next, something changed inside my mind. I couldn’t do it to her any longer. I couldn’t be the cause of the doubt, the concern warping her features.
Couldn’t resist the thrust-out lower lip…
I kissed her, and the angry words running through my mind were drowned out by the frantic drumming of my blood in my ears.
Within ten seconds she was sliding her hand inside the neck of my robe, lightly scratching my chest with her nails –
I jolted backwards, regarding her coyly. “The twins!” I waved a hand at the frolicking nine-year-olds.
“Ah.” She followed my gaze and I saw the devious smile touch her irresistible lips. “I have… an idea. Tell me – do you fancy a svim?”
* * *
Every Sticktown kid had been down to the banks of the Blackrush from time to time, but wading in the river and swimming in the sea were as different as walking and flying. The answer to her question was no – I couldn’t swim, just like I couldn’t fly. Not until she came along to teach me.
Okay, so the perpetual-warmth, buoyancy-removal and water-breathing spells surely had something to do with it, but within a few minutes me and the twins were basically fish. The hardest part was remembering not to swallow when breathing it in – apparently the wizardry didn’t extend to letting us drink saltwater. The fact that it didn’t taste very nice certainly helped. I couldn’t actually feel any water in my mouth – so long as I acted as though I were still on the surface breathing air, everything worked smoothly.
As Em locked her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck, I set shields on the twins then let them swim off and have their fun, paddling through the darkness chasing after rocks and shells along the seabed, feeling their way along. They were being nice to each other again in the wake of this newfound awesomeness, treating the mysterious depths of the bay as their playground. With the shields I could track them, ensure they were safe… ensure they didn’t return too soon…
We spent almost an hour under the water. Unlike everyone else here, I could see with almost perfect vision – Em could surely sense fluctuations in the currents, sense when she was close to an obstacle and divert her course, but my sight easily pierced the silent, peaceful gloom of the sea. Crabs, teeming by the hundreds, strode like armies in formation across the sea floor, sidestepping across the rocky sand in their typical directionally-challenged fashion. Eels slipped across the distance, faint lines, like dark hairs being drawn through the water. There were even hostile creatures – two jellyfish, transparent mushrooms trailing fibres of snotty-looking material – that haplessly tried to pierce our shield, only to find themselves being repelled by my barriers. I was reassured by the fact that the shield protected us from them, but also a bit surprised to find they were actively aggressive like that. Floating snot-mushrooms, that wanted to eat you? Mekesta was surely responsible for more than demons.
I added jellyfish next to cats on my list.
“We should get the twins,” I said after a while. I didn’t even try to understand how she was capable of moving my words to her ears through the dark water. “I’m on duty in a bit, and I could do with getting dry –“
Then I realised how stupid I sounded; she regarded me with her ‘You didn’t seriously just say that, did you?’ look.
“Riiiiight. And ve are so far from Mund – if only ve had a vay to fly back! Oh dear –“
I crushed her to me, stealing a final kiss to shut her up.
I could still sense Jaid and Jaroan, moving around a hundred or so yards away, and we made our way over to the pair.
“Okay, stop torturing that poor little crab,” I commanded, relaxing my limbs and coming to a stop.
Jaid stopped humming the Blackrush Blues, a jaunty theme that everyone kid of the lane knew from being knee-high, and looked up at us.
“But – but – but waaaatch.” Jaid was giggling uncontrollably – she’d got hold of a big shell and was moving it to either side of the poor fellow, blocking his path – whenever he changed direction she moved it again, forcing him to continue his dance… “Can we take him home, Kas? Oh can we – please…?”
I opened my mouth in shock. “Don’t use my name! The crab could be a dark druid in disguise, just waiting down here for us to approach! We’ll have to take him home just in case.” I grinned at Em. “He’d go nice with some of that green sauce stuff.”
While I dealt with the unavoidable outburst that resulted from my joke and Em did her best to explain that the crab would die on the surface after a couple of days, Jaroan floated away; he plunged his hand down into the rocks, feeling around –
“Wait, Jharoan – zere is something down zere.” If we were fish, Em was a… far faster fish. Not only was she a practised swimmer, she used her power to push herself along; I could feel thin rivulets of water streaming towards her, congealing behind her, thrusting her on.
She was at my brother’s side in a second, and as I followed in her wake I looked down and I could see what she was referring to. The critter was no bigger than a ball that a child could hold in their hand but it was covered in long reddish spines that looked decidedly nasty.
She extended her own hand, letting radiance pour from it and drift on the currents, illuminating the sea floor.
“Zey call zat ze sea urchin. Ze spikes can be venomous. Stay back.”
He peered down at it as the spiny creature slowly started to back away from the wizard-light. “Now that’s cool. What does it eat? Does it even eat?”
But before Em could reply, Jaid arrived, kicking with her feet as she carried her crab in her cupped hands.
“See,” she said sweetly to her brother, “if you were a druid you could turn into one of them, and find out for yourself…”
“If I was a diviner I could just, I don’t know – diviners know everything –“
“About sea surgeons?”
“Sea urchins,” he growled. Growls sounded silly, tinny, underwater.
“Urchins?” Jaid asked in some perplexity. “It’s… poor? Surgeon makes much more sense, it’s got all those little scalpels –“
Em caught my eye-roll, then decided to move things along.
“Jhaid – Jharoan – I think it’s time ve vere going.” She waited out the inevitable sighs and mutters of dissent, then continued, “Unless you don’t vont to go on ze greatest ride of your lives?”
“We’ve already tried flying,” Jaroan grumbled.
“Flying? Ah, zat is not vot I speak of… Perhaps it vould be better if I showed you.”
With no warning, in almost absolute silence, the incredible wall of water struck us, scooped us up and carried us away. The sheer invisible rush of it paralysed every part of my body at first, then after a couple of seconds I let myself go slack, spread out my arms and just enjoyed the sensation. The kids’ tongues definitely weren’t paralysed – they whooped and wailed as we were pulled around at frightening, exhilarating speeds.
If she’d thought by this show that she was getting us both out of a load of moaning, Em was to find she had underestimated the resourcefulness of the enemy. Half an hour later, as we sat on the wizardry-warmed rocks listening to the waves and Em dried and braided my sister’s hair, Jaid was still harping on about wanting another go, and about the crab she’d left behind but would hope to see again next time we went – because we were going to go again weren’t we Em? weren’t we? – and by the time I caught Em eye-rolling, the argument we’d had earlier on was buried for good, never to rear its ugly head again. How could I look on her, and see anything but a member of my family? Someone I wanted to be with, for as long as she wanted to be with me.
She might’ve wanted to carry on being a magister. She might’ve decided to allow them to get away with what they’d done to the poor citizens of Zadhal, most of whom would be lowborn, people like us with no stake in the games played by the rich and powerful. She said she would let herself forget, because the perpetrators were long-dead. She might defend Zakimel till she was blue in the face, because he was a part of the system she needed, to be who she was right now.
I knew none of it mattered. The truth would out in the end. She would give up her trust in them one day soon. It wasn’t like she’d been raised here, or raised rich, dreaming of being a high-ranking magister from a young age. She was a magister out of convenience, but she was a champion at heart – I’d known it from the moment we met, when she looked at me, the intensity, the almost-jealousy which my situation as Feychilde had stirred in her.
Perhaps I was being stupid. I was young, and real life wasn’t much like the stories – people usually didn’t find the person they were meant to be with just like that. Yet, how could I deny what I felt?
I watched her, the breeze blowing heated air through her own hair, the long strands of platinum not yet tied back or braided, just streaming loose in the wind.
I watched her and I knew, in my own champion’s heart, that this was love.
* * *
We dropped the twins off with Xantaire while clad in our civilian attire, and then ate our glazed bagels from Hontor and Sons as we flew towards Treetown, back in our masks.
She was coming with me to Timesnatcher’s. Did that indicate some slight shift in her attitude following our conversation? Was she willing to hear his side of the story?
I cast my gaze over to my left, stared at her chomping away.
She met my eyes. “Zis is actually as good as you said.” Her words were garbled, her mouth full of pastry and sugar.
“I know, right?” I replied, doing my best to avoid spraying bits of food into the air. I swallowed, and sighed. “Everything looks so tiny from up here, doesn’t it?”
“You’re flying better zan – than before,” she noted.
“Struggling to get into character?” I licked my teeth then grinned over at her.
“I mean, I cannot see this wraith you say you’re… wearing.”
I chuckled. “I’ve just got better at modulating it. Ah – you know – controlling the power. I’m still weird-feeling – have a go.”
I tried taking her hand, and hers went through mine – not quite like air, but still, like sand. She could only take the lightest touch without the flesh giving way beneath her fingers. I just smiled. It wasn’t painful. And somehow it affected my bagel just like it did my clothing, letting me cram it in my mouth without any physical ill-effects. Bonus.
She nodded in understanding, then gazed down and around. We’d crossed the Blackrush and were now coursing over Oldtown, back the way we’d come earlier. Oldtown’s winding, cramped streets, less smog-ridden than Sticktown had been, displayed the bobbing heads of thousands of people going about their business. Dead-ends avoided by most but clearly visible from up here, the moss-covered monuments and shrines from ancient days, surrounded by ruined walls that looked far older than anything Zadhal had to offer.
She looked back up and faced ahead at the forests on the other side of the Whiteflood, our destination, before responding to my initial question: “This gives us… perspective. We are tiny. Everything we make.”
Except your Maginox, I thought, looking out at the distant line piercing the heavens on the horizon.
I wouldn’t mention it.
As we approached the thick bank of trees beyond the Whiteflood something strange came to my senses. I’d been getting used to the subtleties of my eldritch-perception for some time now, and this struck me as odd.
“Hold on a sec,” I said, slowing and stopping; she halted in front of me.
“What is it?” She looked at me, then back at Treetown. “We’re going to be late soon.”
“Just a… an unbound undead. Ghost.” I pointed down at a house beneath us, just three roads into Oldtown from the Treetown bridge. A neat, small building, brick-built, well-tended yards to the front and back both filled with flowers. “There.”
She smiled. “How long will it take, do you think?”
I started sinking down through the air. “Less than a minute.”
“One.” Her smile was still on her face. “Two. Three…”
I used the wings to nudge me faster, and came to a stomach-churning halt two feet from the ground that I wouldn’t have been able to even conceive of trying without the wraith-form at my beck and call.
I manifested a little less of its power, and knocked on the door.
When there was no immediate response, I ignored the slack-jawed stare of the neighbour a few houses down and just floated through the wooden barrier.
The hallway was a cold, windowless space. Muddy boots by the door. A threadbare coat on the bannister of the stairs. I ignored the steep narrow steps and went up, through the wooden boards and beams and rug, into the bedroom above me in which I could sense the nethernal presence.
I came through the floor no more than two feet from the resident, who quite understandably freaked out and backed away to the wall – a chinless fat woman, mid-fifties, hair and homespun clothes looking more than a bit bedraggled. Freaked out more might’ve been a better way of putting it. With her panic-widened eyes and worry-lined brow, she looked like she’d sailed past freaking out days back and was soon to dock at the shores of insanity.
The thing on the bed opposite her – that would be the cause of it, I supposed.
Just going off the similarity in body shape, attire, I guessed this was her husband, perhaps her brother. Missing the key feature, though, of course: a corporeal form. This tubby, balding chap was purple-grey in colour, and lacking mass for all the pounds he appeared to be carrying. I could see the patterned quilt on which he sat through him.
I heard Em’s voice in my ear: “Twenty… Twenty-one…” The window wasn’t open, but its frame was broken.
She was getting really good.
In the five seconds it must’ve took me to take in the scene, the woman seemed to have come to her senses.
“F-Feychilde?” she breathed.
I looped a diamond about the ghost, pinning it there on the edge of my circle, before answering: “The very same, ma’am.”
“The – the L-Liberator of Zadhal, here?”
She sounded shocked, but I kept my eyes on the ghost. Something about it felt a little off. The balding man certainly looked macabre-enough. Ghostlike. But there was something more to it. Something… in the essence. It wasn’t bound, or unbound. It was…
“’Scuse me, but that’s mine,” came a girlish voice from behind me, almost so shrill that the North Lowtown accent didn’t come through.
I whirled, and looped another diamond out around her immediately.
She stood in the doorway to the bedroom. She was tiny – four foot ten, tops – and was swathed in a silvery robe, hood cast back to reveal short brown curls. The mask of polished steel and black iron portrayed a huge, elongated mouth full of huge, elongated teeth, wide open as if to emit a jolly chortle, stretched across her lower face – it was almost as though she had the missing part to my mask. Above its rim, I could see her hazel eyes, her youthful brow – not furrowed in anger or fear, but regarding me warmly.
“It’s yours?” I said. “It’s not even a ghost, is it?”
She just tilted her head at me, maintaining eye contact.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…?”
“Then pleased to meet you, Liberator,” she chirped, tossing her head back upright, as happy as a pig in mud. She stuck out a hand, but stopped short of touching the diamond, as though she knew full-well it was there. “I’m Dreamlaughter. How’s it goin’?”
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