GLASS 4.1: NOT A SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD
“We exist in a world of words. It is only due to this that my esteemed collaborators and rivals all see fit to say such things as: ‘in addition to providing the necessary service of anonymity, the mask reduces the mage to the symbol’ (rf. PoP pg. 228); ‘the human individuality is removed and replaced with a motionless display devoid of the fear and anger and hate such men and women must surely experience whether they be minions of the darkness or champions of the light’ (rf. EDG 2nd ed pg. 19). Thus, it is claimed, a socially-valuable projection is permitted on behalf of the third party onlooker – and on this the inexorable cult of personality which arises about these mages is to be blamed.”
– from ‘The Modern Mage’
“Well, step out.” Madame Sailor’s prim-and-proper tone brooked no argument. “I need to see you in it. You might well need adjustments, and such takes time, you know!”
I passed through the curtain in the fitting-room, and stopped in front of the full-length mirror on the wall so that we could both inspect the robe.
A dark forest-green made up the majority of the outer cloth, which was thin but tough, with greys and blues for the patches, dark purple for the hood and the triangular shoulder-pieces. Silver threads had been used for the grinning little mouths that covered the green parts of the exterior. The belts were corded black leather, fitted with thongs for the hanging of pouches.
“I’m impressed,” I said, ensuring my mask was settled before trying the hood. It had a slight peak, and looked suitably magician-y.
“A good fit,” the old woman admitted as she looked me over, getting me to turn on the spot with a flick of her blue-nailed fingers. “Stops you looking so scrawny.”
She wasn’t wrong. The belt kept the robe cinched firmly at my narrow waist, but she’d given room for a bigger chest than mine – yet I was tall enough that it pulled tight, and along with the pointed shoulder-pieces it made me look significantly bulkier than I was in actuality.
I studied myself. Intimidating, but too colourful and quirky for a darkmage. I loved it.
“It’s perfect, Madame Sailor.”
“Your old robe…”
I turned away from the mirror and saw her staring at the grey robe I’d left folded in the booth beyond the half-drawn curtain.
“Ah, yes. Damaged.” I went over to recover it, folded it across my arm.
“In the Incursion?”
I just nodded. She didn’t need to know the details.
“And it was you, in Overbrent?”
I nodded again. I’d since learned that Overbrent was the part of Oldtown where me and Em had fought our first thinfinaran.
“Then the day we met you saved the lives of no less than eight people I know, and last Waneday you saved my niece’s life, young man. My sister told me you and that nice magister lady killed the demons, and even left something to lift her spirits afterwards?”
I chuckled. “Is that how she put it?”
“Now what do you think she meant by that, young champion?”
I stepped backwards into the booth, imagining a green seam in the space I vacated; the glamour passed momentarily, leaving Avaelar standing between me and the woman.
“Well I never!” she gasped, backing up and even fanning her face a couple of times with a professionally-manicured hand.
“What do you think of him, Madame Sailor?”
She gave me a nice spot of spluttering in response. I could see the desk-boy gawping as he stared over at us in the corner.
“M- Feychilde,” the seven-foot, nearly-naked sylph said over his shoulder in a reproving tone. “Is this in truth an appropriate use of thy power?”
“Probably not,” I agreed, stepping back into him, masking the rejoining with another brief illusion. “Funny though.”
“I hath in my heart much room for humour, Feychilde, yet this doth not fill it.”
My apologies, noble sylph. I promise I shall summon thee for only the most serious endeavours from now on.
“Would that I might hold thee to it,” he grumbled.
“Well I’m not sure whether I’m glad I asked,” Madame Sailor muttered, “but I know now what she was getting at! Come on.” She bustled me along to the counter, looking down to hide her blush. “I’ll have that grey robe mended for free for you. So long as you tell your high-faluting friends where you got your new robe from, mind! Now will you be wanting a back-up?”
“A back-up?”
“In case you get –” she indicated the grey robe “– you know –“
In the end I paid for the mending-service and then some with my tip (on top of the already agreed-upon twenty percent for early completion). Still, there was no harm in rewarding fine work, and I had more money to spend than I knew what to do with. At first I’d saved, sequestering the platinum away, but the Incursion had meant another windfall of forty-five plat – an incredible sum. A portion of this was, as I promised in Upper Tivertain, earmarked for Neverwish and Starsight when I saw them again – and supposing Starsight was back up on his feet. The invisible magister who’d come knocking with my reward hadn’t had any information on his status, and Em had heard nothing either. I could always save his share, or put it towards his healing-bills if that was what he needed…
“You’re all settled up, Master Feychilde,” the desk-boy said, smiling brightly as he handed me a receipt. “I hope your have a good afternoon!” He eyed me, my mask and robe. “What does a champion get up to with his afternoon?” he added wistfully.
“Hopefully nothing too interesting.” I grinned. “Good means boring. I’m actually spending the day with my girlfriend’s family.”
“Oh-h-h.” He rolled his eyes. “Good choice, then. I wish you the boringest afternoon ever!”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I said dreamily.
He grinned.
I nodded to him before stepping out, closing the door behind me, and spreading my wings.
When I arrived I double-checked that I had my attire all in place. Linn merely grunted when he saw what I was wearing, and left the door open behind him when he exited the hallway – his implied permission for me to follow him. I stayed another minute to give an appropriately-dramatic twirl on the spot for Atar and Em. Both looked impressed with the robe, and Em took me to a corner and checked Zel wasn’t hanging around before kissing me rather passionately. I took the opportunity to hang a new heart-shaped healing potion about her neck.
While the ladies prepared the meal I carved a lightning-bolt for Em, standing up straight from its point embedded in the base – the shape I remembered from our dreadful trip into the infernal tower. I managed to hold off on carving ‘Stormchilde’ into it. That would’ve been pushing it, wouldn’t it? This would be reminder enough as it was.
The night you were a champion.
The result wasn’t exactly amazing-looking, but Linn held off on criticising me, and I could tell that Em liked it more than the random tree I’d carved last time.
The food was almost enjoyable – I was getting more used to it – and the music was even better now I could listen to it properly. I’d had more sleep lately, and the forecast was a hundred percent certain it was going to be an Incursion-less day.
What was more, no one questioned my ability to protect Em despite her dying a few days back: the benefit of applying only a judicious amount of truth to the problem of her parents.
The drawback was far worse – the way I had to endure Atar’s constant and delighted-looking smile, Linn’s infrequent (but nonetheless approving) stares. Knowing I didn’t live up to them, already. Feeling like everything might already be ruined.
I could get used to the food’s heat, but would I always have this coldness in my traitorous soul? I’d let them down. I’d failed them once already.
And why did I want to keep it secret? Em didn’t want them to know, but that only played into Henthae’s hands. Being an arch-magister who was going to be ordered to the front-lines over and over again was hardly any safer than being a champion. Why wasn’t Henthae out there fighting?
Or perhaps she had been. Perhaps I was being too hasty in my judgements. And in any case, I could hardly betray Em’s confidences. It just grated on me, and I didn’t want to bring it up with her, reopen the horrible memories. I had to bottle it down. It was just one tiny lie. I could swallow feeling this cold.
But no colder.
As evening fell the two of us sat under a blanket in the garden, watching the clouded sky, the looming, empty parapets of the wall of Mund.
“So you’re vorking tonight?” she asked, her head on my chest, my arm around her shoulder.
“Uh huh.” I sipped my beer – it would be impolite to throw it away, but there was no way to stop Atar putting one in my hand, and leaving it half-finished might’ve been almost as impolite as tipping it out. “Ciraya’s going to help out, if you can spare her. I won’t need her for long, hopefully.”
“Zis is one of Zel’s plans again?”
“Well, it was her intelligence that informed the plan. The tricks are all mine, though.”
“You champions…” There was a trace of bitterness in her voice that I hadn’t heard there before when she was joking around like this. “Oh, very vell – I vill let you have my sorceress.” She smiled. “So long as you promise to return her before three, and in one piece.”
“Cross my heart.”
“You have ze explosive daggers?”
I patted one of the innumerable pocket-pouches sewn into the robe’s folds. “All sheathed. Hopefully it won’t come to that, though.”
It’d been a pain, tracking down the core of the sheaths’ magic in the library. Most of the time was wasted, not realising that what I needed to look for was armour ensorcellment. With Xan’s help I’d carefully stitched fabrics into sleeves for my daggers, the interiors covered in carefully-traced symbols – runes that were imbued with essentially miniature shielding.
Holding the daggers’ forces in.
She grunted. “Hopefully! Ve could do viz another arrest. Zere’s so much more paperwork if you vaporise zem.”
I hadn’t even been thinking about using the weapons on a non-eldritch.
I shuddered, and she felt it.
“Hours of it,” she said, still smiling.
I shook my head, made myself smile back.
“Are you nervous?” she asked suddenly, turning her head on its side.
I laughed – and it sounded nervous to my own ear.
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I’m prepared, at least. That’s more than can be said… well, I hope that’s more than can be said for my enemy.”
She settled her head back down. “I’m glad you’re nervous. Zat vay you’ll be safer.” She drew shapeless shapes on my chest with her fingernail.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Should I trust you, Kas?”
I frowned. “Where’s this coming from?”
“You vouldn’t keep a secret from me, vould you?”
“A secret? What do you mean, a –”
“Forget about it.”
“No, Em! I mean, I can’t even think…”
Had I kept any secrets from her? Other than the names of my eldritches, I was drawing a blank. I’d explained my thoughts about the Srol, and what happened with Duskdown, and Tanra –
Em raised her face, looked into my eyes. “It’s okay. She said – said you didn’t really vont me to go…“
‘She’?
“Henthae,” I growled.
Em just nodded sombrely.
“She said, if you really vonted me to be a champion – you vould have told me about zis – zis ‘Gazzering of Champions’? And,” she continued on, her voice a little shaky, “I suppose zat is vot all of ze shenagin-… shenaginan-”
I supplied the word quietly: “Shenanigans.”
“– shenanigans vere about, viz Dustbringer in Henthae’s room, viz Killstop –“
“The Gathering,” I said softly, “wasn’t my secret to keep. For keeping you in the dark, I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I felt secure telling you about… not until I knew for sure they weren’t going to, you know, come after you or something just for knowing about it.”
“Once you found out zey veren’t going to execute me –“
“I have no idea what they’re going to do! Was Henthae supposed to tell you this? Em…”
“But how voz I supposed to become a champion vizzout zis Gazzering?“
“I only found out after we met! From Nighteye… You declare yourself a champion first, and then someone tells you – not the other way around! And, well, I doubt everyone who calls themselves champion actually attends… I don’t think it’s compulsory.”
“I…” Em faltered. “She made it sound like you vere…” Her eyes refocused on me. “So you’d never been to one before?”
“No! I still haven’t! It’s on the full moon, under the Tower of Mourning. That’s literally all I know.”
“Vhile everyone’s at ze cleansing… clever,” she murmured, lowering her head in thought. “Ze magisters already out in force…”
If Henthae was so worried about Em becoming a champion she’d broken the rules to feed her information, try to turn her against me… that probably meant there was a serious chance of her changing her allegiance…
“I didn’t want to pressure you, or keep harping on about the same subject all the time,” I said, running my hand up her back, “but it has been on my thoughts a lot – I was seriously tempted to carve ‘Stormchilde’ into the base of the lightning-bolt… I know you’ve only known me five minutes –“
“Zat voz ze case vhen you first said it.” She raised her face to mine again. “Not anymore.”
Now it was my turn to falter: “– and – and Henthae brought you into Mund, showed you your place here, taught you how to exist in this crazy place – but if you’ll think about it – not just ‘take it under advisement’ –“
“My place is viz you,” she spoke huskily, cutting through my jabbering.
She kissed me and I held her tight, imprinting upon my mind the memory of her body against mine.
Yes, I was nervous. But if this was going to be one of the last things I’d experience before I died, it would make a better last thought than the twins’ faces, lost in grief.
That fear was fading now. I’d put plenty of money aside, even invested a little. Their futures were secure. Even Xastur’s future.
And mine was my own to make.
* * *
The moonlight was clear, piercing cloud and smog to shed a thick mercury radiance across the streets and yards. I kept low to the ground, maintaining a relatively slow speed; my stomach was still rolling over whenever I went too high, at least without Em there to back me up.
It was okay, though. Tolerable. I had the mask and robe in place. A few people below looked up at me, from time to time – the fey wings didn’t glow brightly but they did glow, so I wasn’t exactly surreptitious as I made my way over Sticktown, barely skirting twenty feet above the highest rooftops.
Then the frosty moon was spilling its metallic pallor across the trees, the little paths, the reeds, the gravestones… the Blind Eye of Kaile, as it was known, its shining silver lens marred where the god’s mother clawed out its light: a warning, and a reminder of the purity, the glory which could still persist in a misshapen form. Midnight dew twinkled in the grass, myriad rainbow hues constantly shifting, as though the Lord of Light had taken down a star from the sky and ground it to dust above the shrine.
It was, all in all, a lovely evening to be out; the rains had stopped, and the night air was crisp and dry.
A lovely evening for a hunt.
The almost-full Moon, the Eye nearly open – it a reminder of what was to come. Today was the first of Illost and it was going into the second. The Gathering was just a couple of days away, and my anticipation was now heightened to new levels by the conversation I’d had with Em a few hours back. What would she do? Her enigmatic choice of words had left it all up in the air.
If she became a champion, we could duo any number of darkmage threats – yes, we would have to split the prizes, but we’d be splitting the workload too… If I could persuade her to sit tight within my shields, or even hang back and just help out with transporting the captives… whatever it took to convince Atar and Linn that I wasn’t leading her astray…
I didn’t quite settle to the ground; I descended, and used my lower pair of wings to hover above Morsus’s grave. I was in control of my emotions now, when it came to the necromancy at least – I wasn’t feeling any urges to start bringing revenants up out of the earth.
We’d buried him on Fullday, and the graveyard had been so busy that his death had been put into uncomfortable perspective. There were whole families of victims of the Incursion being interred – such a scythe of death had fallen upon certain neighbourhoods that no one remained to witness the burials. The half-sized coffins were too numerous to belong purely to gnomish corpses, and so many children had to have passed on that Xantaire spent half the ceremony clutching Xastur and staring off at the nearby activity, seeming to barely hear a word the junior minister said about her brother.
In other times and places, death might’ve been a stranger, grief a thing to take with you to the grave. But here in Mund we didn’t have that luxury. Death came swift, it came regularly, and you had to learn to let go of grief before the next time it came around – or it’d bury you along with them.
So I didn’t weep, or moan, or even frown. I smiled instead, and remembered Morsus the way he’d want to be remembered. The never-ending enthusiastic handshakes, the unceasing gratitude that we’d let him and his family into our home. The jokes, the way he’d looked after the twins… Trustworthy. Keen to please. Overly so.
I felt a touch of the sorrow returning to me, then, so I shrugged away my thoughts and spoke to him softly.
“I’m here, Morsus. It’s me. I just came to let you know, I’m going to look after them. Your sister, your grandfather, your nephew. You can count on me, Morsus. You can rest easy… I hope they deal you a hand full of Divinities, up there in Celestium, and you win more platinum than you know what to do with. If you’re allowed to gamble, up there. I hope you’re allowed to gamble… you should be, if Brondor’s people are right, but then it’s not like you’re going to need money in the Twelve Heavens, is it…”
“Kas; it’s almost time, you realise.”
I sighed.
I know, Zel. I know.
“Stop procrastinating, bring out Feychilde, and tell him to stay out of sight while he gets his backside two hundred yards north.”
Bring out Feychilde. Stop being Kas.
She was right – I had to get myself in the right frame of mind.
I fixed my grin, and that did it.
Time to take down Shadowcrafter.
* * *
I almost managed to pull off a smooth landing, dropping down out of the sky about twenty yards from them. Four tatty-looking gravediggers. Four velvet-robed sorcerers.
I kept my wings out, just in case I needed them. I wouldn’t, if things went to plan.
“Evening, gentlemen,” I called, stepping into the vacant space between the two groups and facing the magic-users. “Nice night to sorcerise, eh?”
Shafts of moonlight illuminated me in my dark-yet-colourful robe, all the better to make me a clear target, draw the eye – while they stood in the shadows under the branches wearing their black cowls and cloaks.
Still, I could make them out perfectly as their heads swung in my direction, as if to stare at me. I was aware of the gravediggers halting their work. I fixed all their locations in my mind, ready to lose my augmented senses.
I’m putting a lot of trust in you here, Zel.
“It’s going to be a piece of cake. Don’t worry about my bit. Focus on your shields, and buy me as much time as you can.”
I sighed, raised my hand to my face, and whispered in an inhuman voice: “You bear my enemies no ill will.”
One of the sorcerers stepped forwards, but the shields surrounding the group didn’t budge an inch. Either this one wasn’t Shadowcrafter, or the shields were locked in place. That didn’t necessarily mean there wouldn’t be other shields, however.
It didn’t sound as though the gravediggers were coming closer – the noises of their footfalls were decreasing in volume steadily. They were backing away.
Good.
“Who challenges the Shadowcrafters?” the mage at the front cried in a querulous voice.
“Who said anything about challenging you?” I asked, all innocent-sounding. “Truth is, I’m your biggest fan.” I put my hand up, using the motion and a touch of illusion to cover Zel’s flight. “Massive zombie enthusiast, me. Loved your work last night. Five awesome-looking revenants.” I cocked my head. “What do you do with them? Sell them? Use them as your house-slaves? I’d be interested in making a purchase.”
“How do you know about last night, druid? You’ve been watching us!”
He actually thinks these wings are druidry-things. Oh my.
“Well, hello! ‘I’m your biggest fan’… I thought you’d be pleased!” I injected just enough consternation, disappointment into my voice that he jerked his head to one side, looking back at his companions in perplexity.
“Enough,” said one of the sorcerers at the back as he stepped forwards, shoving the other speaker behind him.
This one’s voice wasn’t prickly – he sounded amused. Rich, too. You couldn’t buy your way into an accent like that – you had to be born with it.
And the shield moved with him.
He looked back over his shoulder, continuing smoothly, “You have the singular honour of addressing the latest sorcerer-champion of Mund. Trust me: if this boy wanted zombies, they’d be all over him… So…”
He turned back to face me, his visage inscrutable beneath the hood, behind the mask I thought I saw glinting there. “The late Feychilde.” He slowly raised an arm, as if to indicate his brethren. “The boy believes he is arresting the Shadowcrafters. He is sorely mistaken.”
“I can see your shields, man,” I said plainly. “You’re not fooling anyone, archmage.”
Shadowcrafter was still for a moment – then he bowed floridly, keeping his head upright, his eyes fixed onto me with a palpable intensity.
The sense of doom in the air was growing.
“As you say, Feychilde. You came to duel me, then?”
“I think you had it right before. I came to arrest you.” I grinned. “You. Not the three poor fools standing behind you.”
I noticed the discomfort in his stance at this, the way his arm shook as he lowered it.
“What do you do, Shadowcrafter? Train them up, but not so much they can wrap their heads around what you’re really getting them to do? Then you have them perform the undeath ritual? Just so that they turn into liches when you kill them, so you can bind them, then move onto the next group of patsies?”
He expanded his shields and they met my pentagon, crackling, each of our barriers pressing on the other’s, shapes distending as they bent under the inexorable, invisible strain.
Going off Redgate and Dustbringer, Shadowcrafter was probably at his limit for a basic shield.
“I don’t quite understand how it all works, of course,” I went on. “I’m just throwing ideas out there. The notion of passing as just one more mage in a group of mages is pretty damn genius, though, I must admit.”
I cocked my head the other way, as if to look around him at his would-be minions.
“I’d run, if I were you. And don’t play this game anymore. Not if you don’t fancy a few decades staring at the bars of a prison-cell.”
I half-spun, casting a glance in the direction of the gravediggers only to find that they’d already fled the field of battle. When I turned back to face my enemy the three ‘Shadowcrafters’ behind him had also abandoned their posts, sprinting away through the trees at top, terrified speed.
He didn’t need to bring any bodies up out of their coffins; he’d brought his own to the party. We were in the graveyard, so when he started summoning his undead eldritches the gates to Nethernum yawned wide open – and they poured through in droves.
As expected.
The fast-moving zombies – ghouls, and wights? – came first. Pale, purple-eyed people in all manner of garments, some without coverings whatsoever. There was a dwarf, his beard glowing white, arrayed in the grey funeral-robes of his people. All of them surged against my shield, clawing, thrusting against the barrier, their faces distorted into scowls of hatred.
Behind them came the walking dead, skeletons and zombies, some clad in armour, weapons in their grips –
And spread throughout their ranks lurked the true threats, gaunt creatures in their own black robes. Amethyst flames coalesced in the bony hands of some, while others began to spread their own defences – the ribbons of their wards glimmered a faint magenta on the air, rather than the azure of mortal sorcerers or the crimson of infernal shielding.
These were no spectres; they walked upon the earth of Materium. Undead sorcerers, capable of channelling the nether-energies into our world. These were his former pupils, his cadre of liches. Zel’s intelligence had been spot-on.
The less-advanced skeletons started adding their own pressure against my shields, flailing at my fortifications with mindless abandon. At the same time, the darkmage started adding his own touches – blades of force, spinning into my shield, slicing away at my protections.
“You’re a foolish boy,” Shadowcrafter said, laughter pouring from beneath the black cowl. “You have no idea, the mistake you’re making.“
The first bound lich had gathered the purple fire into a fully-formed bolt of energy and launched it – the spell flickered across the pentagon’s swell and died away.
It took way more out of Shield Four than I expected.
Never mind.
“A fool?” I called above the gibbering of ghouls and the clanking of skeletons. “Oh, of that I’m well aware. It’s great. Somehow all these old wise guys keep saying the same thing – I’m a fool, I’m a stupid little baby, I’m making the worst mistake of my life – and then they go ahead and drastically underestimate me. Thus allowing me to neatly kick – their – asses.”
He didn’t reply, and kept summoning more. An uncountable number of ghosts. Two vampires. Five banshees.
Yune’s fingers…
Their insubstantial forms couldn’t get through, and their sonic attacks didn’t penetrate – they couldn’t hypnotise me with their words or kill me with their screams, but it was only a matter of time. They’d already had almost thirty seconds.
The lich-fire was coming thicker and faster too.
My rotating pentagon wobbled, wavered –
I hope you’ve done it, Zel.
“Like, they never expect me to summon demons in their faces! That must suck for them, when they find out I can do that.”
He flinched as I brought the red flames of an infernal portal into existence just behind him, well within striking range.
Shadowcrafter turned, raked his hand through the fire, snarling, “Illusions –“
I took the opportunity to create two force-spears of my own, send them out and then rebounding back, striking at his barriers from opposite sides – pinning his shield in place, as if to pop it, like Dustbringer had pinned mine when we first met.
He turned back to me and spoke sneeringly, holding his shield firm.
“You’re going to need to do better than that, Feychilde. Where are your hordes of fey? I’m looking forward to claiming the allegiance of some of them once their bonds to you are broken – once your body, your will is broken. Once you are my plaything.”
“Ewwwww…” I let my revulsion out in the blandest, most irritating voice I could muster. “Seriously, do you guys know how disgusting you sound? Fine – fine.”
He seemed to stare at me. I rolled my shoulders. Shield Four was about to go down.
“Let’s do battle. Tell you what, I’m going to say two words, and you’re going to get rid of all your eldritches, okay?”
“You filthy lowborn drop. You will pay for your temerity!”
At least I was getting to him, finally.
I could see the way his shields were slowly bending under the influence of my unmoving blades of force. If only I could have kept it up I would’ve pierced his shield, I was sure, but mine would go down first just from the sheer amount of attacks falling upon it.
I felt it as Zel rejoined me – she must’ve been flitting through the grass, using her danger-sense to get through the army of undead assailing my defences, because she entered my body at the ankle beneath the robe.
“She’s ready, Feychilde. No idea what’s going on, of course, but she’s in place.”
Lovely, dear. Are you ready?
“Let’s do it.”
And you, Avaelar?
“Indeed, Feychilde.”
“You’ll understand me, right?” I called. “You’re like me, you speak Infernal. So if I say: ‘Grow, Feast!’ I think you’ll follow when –“
The eldritches and their shields all vanished, winking away in a storm of lilac and plum-coloured lights.
I stared into dinner-plate-sized eyes, glowing ruby red.
The huge yithandreng gazed coolly back at me from the spot in which Shadowcrafter had been standing, and rasped, “Zi kasond grel oroz, Dwazisen?”
“Very well done indeed, Fe. Assassin-class, undeniably. Now be a good girl, get off him.” As she scampered aside on her many massive legs I shrugged Avaelar out of my shell, then pointed at the half-squashed darkmage. “I think you’ve got your work cut out for you here, my friend.”
The sylph crouched by Shadowcrafter, peeling back the hood and shattered mask to reveal a bald-headed, full-featured man with a massive nose and a week’s growth of a wispy grey beard.
His jaw was broken, blood ran from his ears and his eyes were closed – but after just a few moments of blowing in his face, Avaelar turned and gave me a nod of confirmation.
“He is, as Zelurra disclosed, bearing within himself a number of nethernal essences. Though he would have survived without my help, I have placed him in stasis. He is safe to transport.”
“Fellow should’ve included more ghosts in his mix, I suppose.” I glanced over at the yithandreng. “Come on then, let’s be having you…”
I put Fe back in my pocket, and let Avvie carry the comatose form of Shadowcrafter. Fe’s mistress wasn’t expecting me for half an hour and it was, after all, a rather lovely evening to be taking a stroll.
* * *
On the corner two streets away, I found Ciraya eating a plate of charred salmon and greens outside a late-night barbecue-bar. It was your typical Sticktown place – the bar was surrounded by tall, chair-less tables spreading across the pavements and into the road, tables against which a crowd of drunks and hoodlums were lounging, stuffing their faces and talking loudly.
The skinny sorceress was standing there with the rest of them, sticking out in her magister’s robe, and the only deference she’d received from the crowd was that no one had joined her table. She clearly knew no one cared about her status – and she could well have been one of them, ripping into the fish viciously, shovelling grilled cabbage in on top of the mouthfuls…
I felt hungry.
I approached, trudging through the muck with the bronze fey following along obediently behind me. A few people stared, but even the drunks knew better than to stare for long or eavesdrop – at least not in an obvious manner.
She looked up and saw me when I was about twenty feet away.
“Twelbe Helbs,” Ciraya swore through her gob full of food, her eyes fixed over my shoulder, “where’d ‘ou get thab?” She swallowed. “That a sylph?”
“Where’d you get that?” I asked, eyeing her salmon as I halted.
“Help yourself,” she purred absently, wiping her sauce-coated hands on her already-grimy robe and stepping towards Avaelar. “You’re a fine specimen, aren’t you? Where in Aedervaen do you hail from?”
“The Everstill Isles,” he answered her stiffly, still holding the unconscious body of Shadowcrafter slumped between his arms.
I bit off a chunk of the fish-steak and sighed contentedly.
“Where are your wings? I thought sylphs had wings.”
“My wings are in Etherium, ma’am. My m- Feychilde has instructed me not to display them unnecessarily, for fear of rousing the ire of the general populace.”
“How’d you know he was a sylph, anyway?” I asked through my mouthful. “I mean, if he doesn’t have his wings –“
“I’ve read two textbooks that describe the denizens of the otherworld, and the first line in both texts for describing sylphs gives you something along the lines of,” she suddenly lost her foreign drawl, affecting a near-perfect highborn mannerism: “Ostensibly the mostappealing of the fey, despite their refined sense of propriety sylphs typically eschew clothing, having no need of it as protection against either the elements or the invariably–watchful eyes of onlookers…”
I chuckled. “Okay, okay, I get it.” I sucked my fingers and thumb clean rather than wiping my hand on my new robe, and checked the crowd out again – only a couple of the drunks were casting glances our way, but one was furtive in his movements, perhaps less drunk than his fellows. He had the stature of one of the Gentlemen.
“An interesting eldritch,” Ciraya said, moving back to the table; she tore her remaining fish in half and offered me the smaller of the two pieces. Her usual croaky voice was lifted with a certain musing quality as she went on, “They don’t let us summon fey very often. That’s more of a Circle Watchers thing, or even the Night’s Guardians.”
I’d just cleaned my fingers, but they eagerly accepted the chunk of steak all of their own accord.
Eating it, I decided to play along. If she was going to avoid talking about the obvious, that was fine by me. I wasn’t feeling tired, despite the advanced hour. Even more so than the magister, I now had the luxury of choosing my hours of work, and before heading out to pick up the robe I’d had a good early-afternoon nap in preparation for tonight’s activities.
Which had amounted to, what, five minutes of fighting? For more money than I’d have been able to imagine not long ago.
“You’re from the Seven-Star Swords? Or…” She nodded in response as she chewed, so I continued, “What’s that like? Henthae offered to have me ‘apprenticed’ to your organisation, if I agreed to take the Magisterium’s rune… and their orders.”
Ciraya offered a one-shoulder shrug. “Where I come from, it’s nothing like this.” She eyed the louts surrounding us. “The Swords took me in when I came here, gave me direction, purpose. You aren’t gonna get an objective perspective on them from me.”
I raised a hand, palm out. “I’m not even vaguely thinking of joining up.”
“Everyone always worries about the same thing…” she muttered with a sigh. Scowling, she wiped her hand on her robe again, then took mine by the wrist, moving it until our hands were side-by-side, palm upwards. “You see these?”
The whole of her hand was a framework of ink that webbed up her wrist, disappearing into the voluminous sleeve, but she was specifically indicating the tattoos that covered the ball of her hand – seven stars.
The dark blue triangles nearest to her fingers were elongated, like force-blades, while the others were stubby, cutting across them like hilts… They seemed to gleam faintly as I looked deeper and deeper into them, as though somehow the indigo patterns were threaded with silver.
“The Seven-Star Swords themselves are the first tattoos we receive, under the constellation of Ismethyl – the only ones that are required –“
I suddenly got what she’d meant. “I’m not worried about getting tattooed! I was just, you know, curious what it’s like for most sorcerers. My own experience has been abnormal from start to finish.”
“Oh. Fair enough, Feychilde.” Her voice lifted again in curiosity: “Do you have any tattoos?”
“I – no, actually.” I grinned to cover my embarrassment as she sighed again.
“Well… it is what it is. Every magister’s advised to sign up with one of the colleges. Free food and board, access to discounted resources and research texts, commission for jobs completed… It’s probably not for every archmage, but if you want to keep it out of Henthae’s nose I can arrange a private meeting with Mistress Arithos. Unless, of course, you’re afraid of a wittle needle…”
She jabbed my palm with one of her long fingernails, and smiled as I recoiled – I clutched my hand melodramatically and gave her a shocked look, as though she’d just gut-stabbed me.
“I forget, though. Archmages have no need of the usual deals and rituals, do they? Not a single drop of your blood’s been spilt to open gates, enact spells. Not a single moment of pain –“
“Now that’s not true.” Oddly enough, I wasn’t thinking about hitting the ground at about a thousand miles an hour or falling into Leafcloak’s talons – I’d had plenty of pain-relief for those, courtesy of druidry – but about opening the portal in Upper Tivertain. “I found out something about my own limits during the Incursion, like you said to me the night we went to the Maginox.”
“Oh, really?” She looked pointedly at the crumpled form of Shadowcrafter in my perfectly-still, perfectly-silent sylph’s arms. “Limits?”
“Well – I’m still exploring them. I wasn’t going to be afraid of one arch-sorcerer, though, was I? Not after that. It’s not like he’s… Dustbringer…”
“I worry that you might’ve learned the wrong lesson,” she drawled.
“I was prepared! I mean, sure, he’d have probably offered me a fair fight – even beat me.” I felt my face frowning, remembering the duel in my apartment with the deceased champion. “But I don’t have to fight fair. He’s a darkmage. If I could’ve just sucker-punched him, that would’ve been great.”
She grimaced in a peculiar way – it looked like she agreed with me.
“And Fe?”
I reached into my pocket, withdrawing her tiny familiar.
“Played her part perfectly.”
“I’ll make sure she gets a nice treat tonight. She’s partial to pig, whole.” The sorceress carefully placed her on the ground then straightened, smoothing down her robe as if she could make it presentable by that single action. “So he really was an archmage.” She approached Avaelar and our captive. “How mysterious. Special Investigations are gonna have a square-day with him.”
“He was likely using ‘the Shadowcrafters’ as a cover, and turning his students into liches…”
I briefly explained Zel’s conjecture and the evidence I’d witnessed tonight.
“I’ll relay it,” Ciraya replied when I was done. “I’m sure they’ll take your ideas under advisement.”
I chuckled. “I’m sure they will.”
“You realise this will probably mean less of a payout for you?”
I gave her a one-shoulder shrug back. “I’m not exactly starving anymore, you know? If they want to give me a quarter-pay for one Shadowcrafter instead of full pay for four, I’m not arguing. I saved the other three from becoming Nethernum-fodder. I’ll take that as a win.”
She smiled, and the smile looked disconcertingly pleasant.
“Are you okay?” I asked, puzzled.
The scowl instantly returned. “Okay?” She curled her lip. “I’m fine.” She looked aside, and raised her hand.
Feast grew to full-size, Ciraya rising with her, and I helped Avaelar manoeuvre Shadowcrafter into place across the yithandreng’s front-most shoulders. The sylph reported that the darkmage was going to be out of action for at least another two hours – plenty of time to get him to her superiors, according to the sorceress.
“If you’re feeling particularly flush with cash, you should be okay settling my tab,” she said once the prisoner was in place. “You should know that was my second plate.”
She stifled a burp, and probably not just for the humorous effect.
I tipped my non-existent hat at her. “I’ll probably pick up some for myself. Kultemeren knows I’ve eaten more than my share today, but I’m dog-hungry and I’m not even slightly tired.”
“The burdens of the newly-rich,” she said, almost sneering.
“Okay, you got me.” I held my hands up. “That was irritating.”
She cackled a bit, nodded her head, and then with a couple of snapped words in Infernal she set Fe off, heading south.
I took Ciraya’s dish back, then bought a couple of plates from the sullen-eyed late-night server, between which to sandwich the grilled pork and salmon I purchased. The staff at these kinds of food-bars weren’t used to having customers who wanted to carry the food farther than could be comfortably staggered while it was being wolfed-down. It would’ve been the perfect time to have a length of indestructible parchment I could use to fashion a bag of some kind – but my goblins were dust.
I flew home, bearing my late-night banquet sandwiched between the two wooden platters. The mighty Feychilde, Protector of Overbrent and Upper Tivertain, feller of the Cannibal Six and the Shadowcrafters… soaring low-enough to be seen, precariously balancing a midnight snack.
At least it’d give anyone who recognised Feychilde a good chuckle. I wasn’t supposed to be scary, for all that the guise could be intimidating. I was supposed to reassure those who weren’t committing nefarious deeds, not frighten them.
Flight (and an onboard fairy who could tell me if I was being watched) meant I did have advantages when it came to the end of my journey, of course – selecting a suitable time and place to change back into Kas. The Springwalk alleyways were usually clear, but not always. Sometimes I’d been forced to wait a few minutes, or even find another spot.
Mud Lane was changed a bit now. Not many of the apartment buildings had been completely levelled, and thankfully none of those were on our side of the street, despite the narrowness of the roadway. Perhaps half of the remaining apartments on the far side and a quarter of them on our side had been gutted by the flames and the minor demons, but overall we’d been lucky. The homeless had been housed in the floating tents now lining the street and the flattened areas, kept out of the mud by the wizardry-runes that had been ensorcelled into the canvas. They’d been expensive; they were a plaything of the rich, mostly, or those adventuring in dangerous acid-bogs and such like. But – so the rumour went – the champion ‘Feychilde’ (upon whose gold they’d been rented and erected) had plenty of spare cash lying around…
If there was something more I could do for them, I couldn’t think what.
The wizards hadn’t started work on rebuilding yet – we were quite literally the bottom of the list – but a number of very helpful brown-robed men and women from the reconstruction guild had been surveying the flattened sites yesterday (or the day before yesterday, by now…). It was only a matter of time before the scaffolding and the new builds started going up.
I landed in the alley around the corner, and headed home to see if any of the sleepy-heads wanted a share of the spoils of victory.
Who was I kidding? Of course they were all going to wake up at the smells, and of course they were all going to want some.
We might have been ‘newly-rich’; we might have had newfound access to the finer things in life that had forever seemed out of reach – but we were Sticktowners, damn it, and if someone brought hot food into the house in the middle of the night and it woke you up then they owed you a portion of it, no questions asked.
* * *
It was truly a beautiful night. The wind was cool but not cold; the clouds above Rivertown had parted, and I lay on the roof with a full belly, staring at the stars.
The gods, if the stories were true, had been depicted for all of time in the ever-changing constellations; the stars of the dark gods were in the blackness in between, invisible, it was said, to all but the eyes of the mad. And it was said that the dark gods were the greater, in the end. It was hard not to believe it, looking into the enormity of the night, the tiny dots of brightness twinkling fiercely – futilely…
Even if they were prophesied to dwindle away into nothingness in the end, that would only make their fierce battle against their encroaching doom the more virtuous, the more vital. Wouldn’t it?
Were they like us? We would fight. Even if we would lose, the fight would be worth it. It had to be. And as some stars fell, others would surely be born, new gods taking the place of the old. Just like champions.
Have you ever interacted with the gods, Zel?
“You’re kidding me, right? I’ve been around a while, let me tell you –“
Please do.
“– and I’ve never once seen a god in person. Their seneschals and servitors, sure. But a true avatar of a god? No one wants to meet something like that.”
How do you know, if you’ve never met one?
“Received wisdom – trust me, gods are more trouble than they’re worth. Don’t you think it’s just great that there are these vast unfathomable intelligences, laden with the power accumulated through millennia of worship, hanging around out there, playing with us like we’re puppets?”
Is that really what they do, though?
“By all accounts.”
But why?
“They need to mess with us, Kas. The way I understand it, Locus doesn’t get any power if people aren’t learning.”
So if people aren’t hopeful, Yune diminishes?
“If you don’t properly till the soil or let the crops rot in the fields Lynastra wilts, and Glaif crumbles when oaths are broken.”
That’s why you get guys like the Chainsmote Company, then?
“Who?”
These warriors in the Northlands, openly freeing slaves – rumour was they had a bunch of clerics in the ranks… I guess they’re working Nentheleme’s will?
“Well if people aren’t free she weakens, and Vaahn gains in strength. Of course, this tends to go one way then the other. Once people are free, they happen to stop invoking Nentheleme’s name in their prayers quite so often, which allows Vaahn to take the upper hand again… That’s why the shrines, the clergy, are so important to them.”
If you forget why you’re free, it’s easier to become a slave again.
“Something like that.”
So… they’re just greedy? Super-beings, stealing up the goodwill – or ill-will – of men and women, in order to make sure they themselves don’t get extinguished?
“Who knows if they believe their own rhetoric? Maybe Kultemeren’s in it for himself, maybe he truly believes in the pursuit of truth…”
The simple fact she could think of him like that shocked me to the core.
“Who cares? So long as they’re out there on their lofty thrones, it’s not like any of us will be any the wiser, is it? She’s coming, by the way.”
She…? My mind turned immediately to Nentheleme for some reason.
“Your magister friend! You told me to tell you –“
Right! You can take a nap now.
“My crucial work is done…?”
Zel.
“Alright, alright.”
My faerie passenger back on her own plane, I sprang down from the rooftop, weightless thanks to my wings, and went to meet Em as she strode up the street.
She tried not to fly all the way home, preferring to walk the last hundred yards. She was open about her status as a magister – which her neighbours seemed to respect – but she didn’t want those neighbours thinking she was spying on them, floating around their windows at night. We’d made an exception last Waneday, for obvious reasons… No one was going to think we were spying while an Incursion was going on.
I easily spotted her, a figure in pristine white approaching me.
“You’ve had a busy night.” Her whisper reached me on the night’s breeze, despite her being too far off for even my ears to pick up her words.
“I was feeling a bit restless,” I admitted.
“So it seems!”
She reached me and we embraced, kissed. The air around her was warm, sweet-scented, but she seemed a little stiff, distracted. I could see in her face that she was tired.
We walked towards her house, arms linked, and she looked up at me, putting a sly smirk on her lips. “So, first ze Shadowcrafters – Shadowcrafter, I should say – and zen ze fight on Funnel Mile –”
“That was hardly a fight. I just stopped a mugging.”
“Did you have to –”
“In my defence, Flood Boy was very drunk… I called it in on the glyphstone like a good champion. Zero explosive daggers used.”
She tutted, but she still had that hint of a devilish smile on her face, and I had to stop and kiss her again.
As we took off walking once more, I assumed a pained expression. “I take it that you don’t get reports from Rivertown?”
“Vot did you do?” she asked wearily.
“Probably an hour back – by the docks. Sent a few pirates for a nice night-time swim. They weren’t very appreciative, but the watchmen they’d been busy hacking at gave them a good round of applause.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Zose eyes of yours – you saw zis happening as you flew over?”
“Well, Zel pointed it out, got me to change course a bit. She’s got terrifying accuracy when it’s called for – I think it has something to do with her divination powers.”
Em drew closer to me, smiling. “I’m sure ze vatch vill be singing your praises.”
“How was your night?”
“Boring, until ze end of ze night,” she replied, biting her lip. “Papervork. Henthae told me it vould be a pain in ze ass but really… I had no idea vot being ze leader of a band vould be like.”
“She’s preparing you for a top position, though,” I mused aloud, carefully avoiding the word ‘grooming’ for all its connotations of malice. “Arch-magisters get fast tracked?”
“Under her, ve do.”
“Well maybe it’s not paperwork all the way up. There’s got to be a point when you get to put your feet up all day and let your underlings do the hard stuff.”
“I vish…” She looked aside.
I halted again – we were only ten yards from her front door now anyway.
“What is it?”
She met my eyes, and I could see that she really was troubled.
“Did I… Did I tell you about ze Undernight magister-band? Vot happened to zem?”
“Not specifically.” I broke eye contact, trying to recall her words. “You said there’d been an attack in Oldtown where a band was ambushed?”
She nodded. “Ve’ve had all ze reports in. Vampires. At least three. And zen just before two ve vere called to a place on ze south side. Haspophel said it voz zem. Seven bodies, dis- dismembered.”
I could tell only a portion of the difficulty she had with the word ‘dismembered’ came from forming the sounds – she had the images in her mind to deal with too. Fighting through an Incursion let you see terrible, haunting things, but they were boxed off neatly once the Bells stopped ringing. They had a beginning, middle and end. They were expected.
Finding seven bodies in pieces… that must’ve been… different, to say the least.
“It’s been handed over to Zakimel – he said he vill set his best diviners on it – but…”
“It’s worrying that they’ve crossed into Sticktown,” I said.
She nodded, then she sighed and placed her head on my shoulder.
“Do you want to, you know, talk about it?” I asked.
“I…” She turned her face up to mine. “Vill you stay vith me? Just until ze dawn?”
“Of- of course…” I felt my face flushing, and was glad the mask and the darkness would hide the worst of it.
This time she used a key, and she emitted a gentle light from her hands, just barely enough to illuminate our route. We made our way quietly to her room, the air redolent with her enticing scent.
We took off our outer layers and boots and bags and, still clothed, laid ourselves down on top of the quilt. She curled up under my arm, head on my shoulder, safe within my shield.
“Thank you,” she murmured after a couple of minutes of silence.
I didn’t quite know how to respond. After awhile, I just said, “Any time.”
I glanced across; she was already asleep.
I lay in the darkness, holding her, hating the things that had driven the girl I loved to such despondency. Dismembering Sticktowners…
I remembered the vampires Shadowcrafter had summoned, the fanged faces, pearly hair not too dissimilar to Em’s. Was it possible that he’d been responsible for some getting loose? Or was this the work of some other darkmage with a predilection for undead eldritches?
Zel.
“Kas?”
Add this to the list for tomorrow: find the vampires who killed the Undernight magisters. Find them and put an end to them.
“That’s all?”
That’s all. Thanks, Zel.
Feeling slightly better that I’d at least resolved myself on a way to help her, help the city, I settled my arm around her more comfortably and looked up at the ceiling, listening to her breathing and waiting for the dawn.
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