GLASS 4.2: THE TOWER OF MOURNING
“The Arch-Enchanter represents communication. The openness that precedes the transit of ideas. Reversed, she represents a pyramid of power that obfuscates all meaning. Bureaucracy above all.”
– from ‘Tarot for Beginners’
“E-N-D-E-A-V-O-U-R.”
“Very good, Jaroan. And…”
“It’s what an old guy says when he’s going to try something.”
“Can you put it in a sentence?”
“Er – ‘I… shall endeavour… to find thee a sentence of worth’…?”
I laughed. “Aha! Go on, it’ll do.”
Jaid had looked a little frustrated while Jaroan was struggling, and suddenly sat forwards. “Ooh, choose me, Kas, I’ve got a good one –“
“Jaid, endeavour’s not just a doing word. It’s a thing – give me a thing sentence.”
“Er –“
Jaroan pulled a pouting face at her, which only caused her to flounder more.
“Stop it! Oh – er –“
“She hasn’t got one,” our brother said smugly.
“I so have! Okay – ‘Everything the princess did… during her endeavour to… find the princess-pegasus! just brought her… further under the witch’s spell’?”
I clapped. “Very good!”
It was Jaroan’s turn to look a bit sulky. “You’re giving her a ‘very good’ even though she was going on about princess-pegasuses –“
“Pegasi,” Jaid said.
“– for like the fifty thousand hundredth time today –“
“Jaroan, I happened to think it was very inventive. I for one would like to know what happens to the princess on her quest.”
Jaid squealed, got to her feet and kissed me, then ran off to grab the new paper-book, crushed-bug ink and quill, so that she could scrawl down her ideas. We were all still getting used to writing with proper implements, and she’d taken to it much more quickly than either of her brothers.
I looked at Jaroan. “Card game?”
His eyes brightened instantly. “Squire of Slime?”
“Ladders.”
And then he was instantly sitting back again, moody once more. He hated Ladders – it had more arithmetic.
“Come on, accept your punishment – one game of Ladders, then we can play Squire.”
“Punishment? For what!”
“Misspeaking your numbers for, like, oh I don’t know – the fifty thousand hundredth time today…?”
“But the numbers in the game don’t even go nearly that high!” he protested. “It’s not going to teach me anything!”
“I agree, it’s not the best way to teach you a lesson – but I can hardly back down now can I? Come on, go get them.”
“Fine…”
It wouldn’t matter in two minutes anyway. My brother was damn good at the game; once he was beating me he’d have a smile back on his face. I didn’t know how he did it – it was a game of almost pure luck, but I couldn’t argue with the facts.
Xantaire came in with the washing-up bucket. “Do you feel like getting us a servant any time soon?” she asked with a tired smile on her face.
“It was your turn,” I said.
“It’d help you out too,” she cajoled, a devilish light in her eye.
“A serbant, mummy!” Xastur piped up. He was sitting with his new toys scattered around him on the amazingly-comfortable mattress Orstrum now used for his bed. (The old man had continued to refuse my request that he take mine, so we’d settled on this compromise.)
I chuckled. “I don’t think I could ever have a servant, you know – it’d be weird. I couldn’t pay someone to just… do what I wanted them to do.”
“Oh, I so could,” Xantaire said, throwing herself down on the bench opposite me, leaving space for Jaroan who was returning with the card-box. “Rub my feet… wash the dishes…”
I screwed up my face. “There’s a few hundred extra homeless out there tonight who would do almost anything for five copper, but I don’t think anyone’s going to rub your feet for less than a plat, and…”
I deftly evaded the kick she launched at me.
“Eww!” I remarked.
She glowered.
“More seriously – is there anything else I can do to help the people who lost their homes, Xan? You’ve been down there too, and –”
“You mean other than feeding them, sheltering them – giving them hope for the future, keeping their kids out of the drop? Seriously, Kas, the Incursion wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to shoulder all the burden. Let the guilds do their thing.”
“But… I’m rich, now. I’m sitting on some considerable wealth and…” Ciraya’s accusation from a couple of nights back had prickled me. I picked up the hand of cards Jaroan had dealt me. “And I don’t think that I should just be doing nothing with it. I mean –“
“You’ve got enough on your plate,” Xan replied.
“Yeah,” Jaroan joined in as he played some cards. “Just focus on kicking ass.”
“Jaroan Mortenn!” Xan chided him. “Less of the bad language, please.”
I nodded in support of her words and he ducked his head, his way of confirming he’d heard. Paying lip-service to the notion of contrition.
“Anyway, it’s not like, spend money, or kick butt. I can do both.”
“Are you going to play, or not?” he grumbled.
I looked at the face-up stack – he’d played a one-five-six combination of Merchants. I rifled through my cards, looking for a suit-matched group of cards that gave an even number exceeding twelve, or an odd number that undershot it – if I couldn’t, I’d permanently lose a card from my hand.
“Maybe you can go down there as Feychilde some time,” Xan suggested. “Actually ask them what they want, ask them how you can help.”
“I suppose,” I grunted. “Feels a bit… inelegant.”
“Just do it,” she said with a sigh. “You’ll feel better afterwards.”
I placed down a three-four-seven of Mages and refilled my hand.
“What if someone recognises my voice?”
She snorted. “Change it, you clod.”
“Yeah, you could do this awesome booming voice…” Jaroan started giving it his best attempt in his unbroken voice, virtually growling in order to achieve the deep register: “‘I am Feychilde, demon-slayer, defender of Sticktown! Can I get you some gravy with that?’”
This made us all chuckle but it particularly tickled Jaid, who then started whinging because he’d caused her to spill some ink-dots on her magnum opus.
By the time we finished Ladders the sun was setting, and after Squire it had set. I barely had time to skim Jaid’s still-dripping-wet story while I was packing my satchel and daubing some stinger lotion on my freshly-shaven cheeks, but it was a really good little tale. There was little-to-no structure, of course, and the princess found the princess-pegasus too easily for my taste, but it dripped with character as much as it did ink. The centaur-jester, clearly based on her brother, was a highlight with his three sarcastic songs – so what if each song was only two lines long? It was basically a masterpiece.
I told her as much as I headed out into the rain, then I kissed them both and bade them goodnight before letting Xantaire lock me out. She’d leave the chains and bolts off when she went to bed, so I could get in with my key.
This was becoming a more and more common experience, I reflected as I made my way to my customary shadowy spot on Springwalk. I was waking later, staying out later… seeing the others less. Every day, more of my thought and energy was being expended on my night-time activities, my struggle to pin down the vampires who were waging a quiet campaign of terror on the folk of Mund. I was determined to juggle the two opposed lives I now had to lead, but sometimes it felt as though I were being torn in two, worse than when I raised two shield-sets at the same time.
If I could just catch even one, I could extract information from the blood-drinker, find out where to begin. My inability to leverage my unique capabilities to help my girlfriend was starting to grate on me.
I summoned my wings and started flying north-east. Below me the streets were filled with more than the usual amount of travellers for this hour, and a few spotted me as I sailed over Ebondock Knot, pointing and voicing wordless cries. Stragglers heading to the cleansing, probably. The druids of the Unwilted Bloom would maintain the spell from moonrise to moonset, curing the minor wounds and diseases afflicting those who entered the Fountains of Merizet. Many of the poor with more serious conditions or injuries would go back time and again, hoping that this would be the time their sickness would be lifted, their diseased limb be made whole again. And many of them would come back disappointed, too broke to do anything but knuckle-down and wait for the next cleansing, praying that next time it would be different…
As I progressed farther I was in the perfect position to see just how clogged the muddy streets were getting, despite the drizzle. They said that somewhere between one in a hundred and one in fifty Mundians attended the ritual. That was a lot of people moving through the city, and whole industries of stalls had sprung up out of nowhere throughout the evening, lining the commonly-used roadways, hawking alcoholic refreshments and rain-covers, cooked snacks and witch-doctor remedies. Those who were too unwell to transport themselves (but whose friends and family still retained their dreams of a miracle-cure) were being hauled in carts and on wagons. I caught the dejected gaze of a young girl with a wasting-sickness, slumped back in her rickety seat with her eyes on the sky. I gave her a little wave as I coursed overhead and saw the flicker of a smile briefly replace her pained expression.
She wasn’t the only one to get a wave off me. More than once I caught the attention of whole groups of pilgrims, given how low I was flying. My take-down of Shadowcrafter was still recent news, and my name came easily to the lips of my fellow Mundians.
Hilltown started to give way to Hightown and then I could see it before me – my destination, the three-sided Tower of Mourning, its smooth black rock pulsing with bright threads of colour, lines as blue and pure as any shield of force.
I landed at the edge of the huge grey courtyards surrounding the tower. I could’ve kept on flying, but down this low the wind had dropped, and my otherworldly wings felt ungainly without a breeze. It wasn’t that it was particularly difficult for me to maintain my momentum, but I sensed it would only be appropriate, somehow, to use my own two feet in this place.
Okay, so I was nervous.
There were no people here. The nearest buildings were run-down, mostly abandoned. The Tower of Mourning wasn’t on the route to the Fountains. The place was accounted creepy by most, and even those from around here who didn’t outright fear the place probably wouldn’t trespass on the grounds in case they got on the bad side of one of the patrols. I could see a band of magisters on the far side of the courtyard; it didn’t look as though they were stationed there in any kind of permanent capacity, but neither were they moving. Peering back at me.
If they saw us here –
They’ll be briefed, won’t they? Minds secured against the knowledge-thieves… Perhaps even their memories adjusted…
I doubted they could see as well as me. Thin wisps of purpled clouds crossed the face of the full moon, but to my eyes it was almost as bright as midday and getting brighter. I strode across the cracked paving, rain in my face, skirting the low remnants of long-destroyed walls now more moss than brick, treading the great grey squares of stone and avoiding the rows of black weeds, the leafless, skeletal stalks that had burst through the narrow fractures in the rock. This place was a living shrine to Illodin, the very air redolent with the scents of sorrow, memory, stillness. Perhaps that was why the wind had dropped unnaturally around its base – an open space as wide as this should’ve had a fair breeze if not gusts, but the air was barely tickling my fey appendages. It seemed even the elements themselves only whispered in the presence of the God of Grief.
As I drew closer to the tower I made out the doorway. It was an irregular, almost rectangular hole, yawning open like a blackness in the blackness – and it was then that the excitement finally began to overcome me. The pace of my steps quickened. I was glad to have my mask and not my old scarf covering my face as I drew in deep lungfuls of the cool, morose night air.
Was I early, or late? What awaited me in that blackness? Who would I meet, and how would I be received? What were the ‘foundations of the tower’ like and why were we meeting there? I’d never been anywhere like this. I kept telling myself I’d been to the Maginox – all the way to the top, to the strange rooms of Magicrux Altra – and I’d dealt with enemies and events a thousand times more terrifying. Yet still, I was nervous, feeling the thrill of this place tingling in my very bones.
This was it. I was a champion now. This was my official entrance into my new world.
Zel. I’m here.
I forced myself to stand a little straighter as I walked, and took control of my jittery breathing. It was time.
“So it appears.”
I passed beneath the lintel of black stone, cutting off the soft blue radiance of the tower’s glowing walls, plunging into the shadows that were dark even to my eyes.
* * *
The air went from cool and damp to cold and dry in the matter of ten paces, and I could barely see. Then a faint blue light began to illuminate my path, coming from the other end of the tunnel, and after thirty seconds or so I emerged into the central area of the hollow tower.
The throbbing azure crystal that was worked into the outside of the three black walls – some of that radiant material was also worked into the interior, strings of the stuff imbued into the rock, serving to light the space – if only dimly. I saw there were three dark openings leading outside, one for each side of the Tower.
Not a defensive structure, then. Something for show. Something… highborn.
In the very middle a wide stair of small, easy steps, built from the plainer grey stone, ascended towards a dark ceiling high, high above me. It wasn’t quite a spiral staircase – instead, each flight went straight for ten or so steps, then twisted, mirroring the triangular shape of the walls.
“The stair goes down as well as up, Kas.”
I went around to investigate and saw that she was correct. The stairway was hewn directly into the rock, but it seemed to copy the same triangular pattern – the first flight heading down was the same distance, ten or so steps, before it turned off.
That’ll be the way to the foundations, then.
“I suppose it will.”
What can you tell me about what’s down there? I asked as I approached the stairway and started on my way down.
“A door. You’ll be descending for a few minutes, though – I’d be surprised if this doesn’t go deeper than the tower is tall. Beyond that… I don’t know. I suspect there’s a few arch-diviners down there. It’s just a big wall of fog.”
I’m definitely in the right place, then…
I found it interesting that I hadn’t seen anyone else. I tested my wings. They still worked, even if the air was dead, but they wouldn’t serve me well descending narrow flights of stairs; they were nowhere near as responsive as one of Em’s aeromantic spells. It was pitch black down here without the benefit of the blue-threaded stone to light my way and the wings didn’t really illuminate anything, so I created a smattering of floating witch-light using my gremlin essence and counted on Zel to not let me make a misstep.
I seemed to be walking down the flights for longer than just a few minutes. With every footfall I felt my sense of anticipation grow, serving only to extend the perceived duration of this interminable descent. Time flowed slowest when my mind was in a state such as this, filled with wonder and nervousness.
At last, the stairwell terminated in a short tunnel, at the end of which I could see a crack of light where double-doors were shuttered.
Did I need to knock?
I was spared the embarrassment of a mistake thanks to the two big, metal doors swinging open inwardly at my approach. As they did so, by the light of the floating orbs in the room beyond I saw that they were made of brass, and were engraved with curling, vine-like patterns that formed the letter-rune of Illodin.
The foundations of the Tower of Mourning…
I let the witch-light fall away by accident, gaping.
The place was vast beyond my wildest dreams.
A broad granite terrace welcomed me, stretching off into an abyss, like I stood on the shelf atop a mountain in darkness. Only one of the floating globes, wandering out over the drop, served to illuminate the edge of the plateau and the far wall of the chasm. Water streamed from the ceiling of the cavern in dozens of places, pooling here and there or flowing out over the cliff.
Most remarkably, there was a forty- or fifty-foot tree of living glass standing there in the centre. The water poured down through its crystalline leaves, light reflecting and refracting through it in a rainbow of myriad colours that bewitched my fey-sight.
Beneath its branches I saw some familiar faces, or familiar masks at least, staring back at me as I emerged into the room: Timesnatcher, Leafcloak and Lightblind were about sixty or seventy feet from me.
Other than the trio, no one else was present.
Timesnatcher was hooded in his black, white-hourglass-covered robe, his star-browed mask covering his upper face. Leafcloak wore her patched, iridescent green robe, yellow leaves protecting her identity, her grey-white hair flowing over her shoulders.
It was Lightblind I’d never seen up-close before – she was tall and slim, and wore her pristine white robe covered in the black eyelashes of a closed eye. Her mask was the featureless gleaming pane that inherently made it look like she couldn’t see – not with her mortal eyes, in any case – but for all I knew there could easily have been some trick to the mask that let her peer through. Her shortish hair was half pitch-black, half shining white, as though she’d dyed it to match the rest of her outfit. The belt, gloves and boots of white Drathdanii leather completed the ensemble.
“Good evening, Feychilde,” Timesnatcher called.
I walked towards them, looking around and marvelling at this place. You could’ve fit thousands of people into the space, so long as some didn’t mind standing near the ledge of a sheer drop-off into nothingness.
“Evening all,” I said when I got close. “Am I too late? Where is everyone?”
“Quite the contrary.” Lightblind’s voice was musical, with just a trace of a highborn accent. “You were almost the first here.”
“There was no time on the invite,” I said sardonically, reaching out to shake their hands.
Timesnatcher clasped mine readily, and Lightblind seemed to have no problem finding my hand despite the full-facial covering she wore. I noticed that she was dark of complexion, displayed only by her earlobe poking out through her hair – there were no other patches of skin she’d left visible.
“The Slave and the Sorcerer,” she said in a musing tone.
“So I’m told,” I replied, releasing her hand, moving on to shake Leafcloak’s.
The old druid’s grip was firm – beyond firm – quite how she’d stepped into my shield with this in mind I wasn’t sure –
“Aii! I don’t suppose – Timesnatcher told you –”
“He told me,” she said, in a somewhat-amused tone of voice. “Saving your family. That’s just about the only reason I’m not using you like a chew-toy right now.”
She released my hand and I bravely resisted the urge to hop around, shaking my fingers out and saying ‘ow’.
“Point made,” I said, wincing. Did she know I had a regeneration effect? She hadn’t broken anything but damn. I was pretty sure that without Zel I’d have needed tending-to by a druid…
“Next time, my dear, if I have to kill you, I will,” she said sweetly. “I can always bring you back, so long as I’m quick and I don’t do too much damage.”
This was the mentor who’d harangued Nighteye about nearly killing his opponents?
My eye crossed to Timesnatcher, who wore a wry expression on his face.
“Let’s pray there’s never a ‘next time’,” I replied.
She shrugged. “You pray. I quite like chew-toys.”
I laughed, and it sounded just a trifle nervous to my ears.
“Come on, Leafcloak, enough teasing,” Lightblind said, turning her face towards the druidess as though she could see her. “We don’t want to scare off the newbies. You know Henthae wants him to wear the ten-pointed star.”
“Of course she does.” Leafcloak sounded dismissive. “She wants every new archmage. Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to replace us.”
“She’s not quite that stupid,” Timesnatcher said. “She would be much happier in those futures where she weakened us, though. Forced us to come to the Magisterium for support, instead of the other way around. I half-suspect she wants access to this place…”
I looked back at the wall of the cavern, the brass doors which had silently closed behind me.
“You mean, she can’t just…”
“Only a self-avowed champion can enter here,” Lightblind supplied. “No ulterior motives. It has something to do with Illodin and Glaif, as far as we’ve been able to determine.”
“So we’re in a literal ‘thank the gods’ kind of situation?”
She nodded in response, seemingly unfazed by this fact.
As much as I could joke about it, it did fill me with a certain sense of… pride? Grandeur? To know that the gods themselves had taken an interest in you was to know that you mattered.
“Don’t let it go to your head.” Timesnatcher put his hand on my shoulder in a friendly fashion, smiling grimly. “They let us in. They also let us die.”
Dustbringer. Smouldervein. At least one of the Binding Brothers.
“I remember,” I said.
“I know you do.” He dropped his hand and retrieved a silver chain from the folds of his robe. “And this is to stop other people deciding what goes to your head.”
He held it up so that I could see the bluish, leaden pendant dangling from it: four spikes radiating from a central circle, like an ‘x’ or four-pointed star.
“I can trust it?” I asked, taking it from him and untangling the chain.
“Absolutely. Its maker wasn’t present at its examination.”
Anti-enchantment protections?
“Looks that way.”
And I really can trust it?
“I’m not getting any sense of danger from it.”
That’s reassuring.
“Timesnatcher’s got a better chance of seeing if there’s something wrong with it.”
But do I trust him?
“I… I think you have to.”
“Feychilde?”
“Sorry – I always wanted one of these.” I had my hood and mask to consider, so I wrapped the chain around my right wrist and tucked in the pendant so it wouldn’t come loose. (My left was housing my explosive dagger, and I didn’t fancy seeing how the two ensorcellments interacted.) “I’ll put it on properly later.”
“Good call,” Lightblind said. “We’ve got company.”
I turned, but whoever it was hadn’t yet arrived – and my hearing couldn’t penetrate the brass double-doors with the water dripping down everywhere.
“They’ll just be a minute,” Timesnatcher said. “Would you like the grand tour?”
“Erm – I suppose?”
“Good. This is the Ceryad, the Stone of Amplification. The First Wonder of Mund. Don’t touch it. Don’t talk about it.” He waved first at the tree, then turned and gestured over at the edge of the cliff. “That’s the cliff. An ordinary cliff, but, still… Don’t walk off it.” He looked back at me, smiling. “Here endeth the grand tour.”
I nodded, adopting a thoughtful expression. “I liked it. Well worth the money. I felt like you padded it out a bit much in the middle, though. Trim some of the fat next time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” His smile twisted further.
I turned aside and headed towards the drop, keeping out of the streams that coursed like miniature waterfalls over the cliff. It made me swoon when I got a couple of steps from the edge and I cautiously peered over, suddenly feeling like I wanted a rope or rail to hold onto.
“I said not to walk off it?” the arch-diviner yelled.
“These are my wings,” I called back without turning, and twitched my gleaming appendages at them. “You actually can’t touch them. Like, really.”
For all my outward confidence, I still experienced the dizzying sensation. It was fifty feet or more to the sheer wall on the far side of the abyss – and far, far more than fifty feet to the bottom. Too deep for me to penetrate with my sight. Several hundred feet, certainly. My wings could sense the light breeze drifting through the chasm, streaming through imperceptible cracks in the cavern-walls…
The door opened, and I took a step back before turning around.
It was a pair of druids, their raiments visibly damp from the rain. I’d never met either of them before, but I could tell they were druids from their attire, unless I was much mistaken. The first through the door was a slim, wide-hipped woman wearing earthy brown; her mask was a thing of living green wood, bark-covered, with jagged holes for eyes, nostrils and mouth. The second was of indeterminate gender but I suspected the tallness and slender frame were those of an elven male – his robe was the yellow-red of autumn leaves and his mask was a curious fox-like face of hardened leather.
I was introduced to Petalclaw and Wanderfox (who was a male elf), and by the time I was done greeting them more and more champions were arriving – first some mage-champions I’d never seen before, then Shadowcloud and Nighteye, then the Rainbow’s Edge mages and three more archmages I didn’t know –
“We’ve got something to discuss,” Timesnatcher said, approaching me. “Come over here.”
I looked around at the other champions.
“We’ve got time, I’ll make sure of it.”
I followed him to the corner farthest from both the door and the cliff, and once we were safely sequestered in the darkness he turned to me and spoke telepathically.
“Glancefall’s set us up, private link. There’s a couple of things to discuss with you before it all gets going.”
I had to admit, I was intrigued. “Go for it.”
“Neverwish is a traitor.”
“Neverwish?” The dwarven enchanter was a little difficult to get along with, but a ‘traitor’? “What do you mean?”
“In the last months he has committed at least eight acts of violence on the unprotected minds of new champions. Lovebright has been assisting me in ensuring no permanent effects will be experienced by his victims. He invested heavily in Starsight, and believed himself to have found a useful ally. You are lucky, Feychilde, to carry such a passenger. Lovebright informs me that you have some measure of innate protection against the tricks he could employ?”
He was digging for information about Zel – I recalled his surprise when he realised I had her within me, the first time we met…
I merely nodded.
“In any case, yourself and Killstop and Ms. Reyd –“
“Emrelet!”
“I’m afraid so, but please don’t be alarmed – as I implied, all traces of his crimes have been washed away.”
I frowned. As reassuring as it was to know the three of us hadn’t been turned into his unwitting agents, erasing the evidence hardly sounded like the first step on the path to proving Neverwish’s guilt.
“What was he…”
“What was he doing to you? Tiny adjustments to outlook and attitude. Miniscule ones, in your case, given your defences. He’s a very jealous person. If it weren’t for Lovebright, you might’ve found yourself having an inexplicable argument with Emrelet, for instance…”
My frown became a scowl.
“And might she have started to find herself inexplicably attracted to dwarves?” I asked, barely keeping the rage from my mind-voice.
“I don’t know why, precisely, but it’s very important that you know this. It’s very important that you’re the one to call Neverwish out.”
“Me? Why do I have to do it?”
“I don’t know, for sure.”
I stared at him.
“I wish I could tell you but – it’s complicated.”
I cast about, looking at the others in the cavern. They were moving more slowly than usual, the sounds of their voices blurred.
“I’m sure we’ve got time… Snatcher.”
“I can’t take us much faster, or the link we’re using will stop working, and out loud other diviners will be able to overhear us.”
“You don’t want them to hear us?”
“I can’t be certain of every moment of every arch-diviner’s life, you know.”
Suddenly I felt cold, like the cavern had been filled with a wintry gale that bypassed my wings to stream right up my spine.
“There could be more traitors?”
He chuckled aloud. “Of course there could, Feychilde. We’re archmages. There are about fifty thousand hundred ways we can mess with each other. Don’t look at me that way, I’m just trying to demonstrate the reasons we must employ caution.”
I continued to stare.
“Okay, okay… You. Neverwish. If we do it right, there comes a time when you and he… I can’t tell you much. If I say certain words to you, it won’t happen, and things will be worse. What I can’t see I can infer from the consequences. I just…” The arch-diviner suddenly looked weary as he stared right back into my eyes. “I wish I could make you trust me, but I wouldn’t even if I could. I just hope you do – some day, if not right now.”
“Why does it have to be me…?”
“If it isn’t you, we know who it will be, and things would be worse. Far worse, in the end. Even if I were to do it…”
He spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness.
I nodded again, slowly, and looked down at the floor.
I couldn’t help but get the vibe that he was being sincere. The anti-enchantment pendant… Lovebright’s magic, presumably. I ground my teeth a little. It was impossible, in this world, this role, to trust anyone.
Neverwish… Redgate?
I looked back at him. It would be possible to fake it, to feign trust, until it came – if it ever did.“Okay, Timesnatcher. I’ll do it.”
“Good, good. Thank you. Just be yourself. The cogs in the machine are well-oiled. Now, just to pre-empt you – about Redgate, and Direcrown…”
* * *
As we turned to rejoin the assembled champions my mind was reeling with doubts of deceits, betrayal. I supposed I’d never really thought about it before – champions were people. They weren’t the monolithic entities they were made out to be, they weren’t chiselled from stone. They were flesh and blood, urges and instincts. They were strong, and they were weak. Human or elf, gnome or dwarf – they were people. Capable of great deeds and capable of terrible mistakes.
Capable of evil.
There were fifty or so gathered now, mages and archmages standing in small groups and chatting. I scanned the crowd – purposefully keeping my gaze far from the quartet of dwarven champions talking near the cliff. Except for Starsight, who was apparently still in recovery, every champion I’d ever met was present – every surviving one, at least. Save for…
“Killstop?” I said aloud, making it a question.
“I don’t know for sure,” Timesnatcher replied. “There’s a small chance she’s hung up her robe for good. But I think not. I think she’s coming. And… ah, yes.” A mysterious smile slipped over his face. “Let’s introduce you to Netherhame, Shallowlie and Direcrown.”
Walking through the crowd at his side, I shook hands and exchanged greetings with some of those I’d met already – Nighteye, Shadowcloud, Lovebright – before we halted in front of the two sorceresses. Our shields slipped harmlessly across each other’s – it was reassuring to know I wasn’t the only sorcerer who kept their protections up by default. I put a lid on my slow-boiling anger, hiding my disgust at Neverwish’s machinations, as I regarded my new colleagues.
Netherhame wore a garish purple robe decorated with pinkish swirls and a green mask like the howling face of a banshee; she was tall, broad-shouldered, heavyset. Shallowlie was almost her opposite, a shrunken waif of a thing dressed in utilitarian black embroidered with small peach-coloured gravestones, evenly-spaced; her mask was a pale, smiling face that was all the eerier for its plainness.
I shook Netherhame’s hand first, whose grip was no less firm than that of a man her stature; then Shallowlie’s, whose cold, limp fingers seemed eager to release my own as quickly as possible. They each regarded me silently.
“So…” I looked across at Timesnatcher, then back at them. “We’re going to be working together?”
“Pleased to have you on board,” Netherhame said politely, but with a hard edge to her voice. She had a faint Rivertown accent, if I had to guess. “Congratulations on Shadowcrafter. I hope you’re a fast learner, Feychilde. There’s a lot to show you.”
Shallowlie said nothing at all, and I could see her eyes were downcast, not even looking back at me through the slits in her mask. If I had to guess, the smiling face of her covering was hiding a sorrowful expression.
Of course. I might’ve hoped, before he’d died, to have Dustbringer take me on as his student – but these women had lived that experience, and now he was gone, leaving them to pick up the pieces. On top of that, Shallowlie had been brought close to death during the Incursion, and it’d sounded like it could’ve been quite nasty.
I addressed Netherhame, recognising that there was a good chance Shallowlie (quite understandably) wasn’t going to be too forthcoming with her responses.
“I just wish I was joining the team under better circumstances.” I kept my voice dry, free from the complications too much levity or pity would bring me. “I’ll work my hardest to catch up, I promise. I…”
What was it called again?
Zel sighed. “The weave.”
“I watched what you were doing with the weave, with Redgate, when the smi- smikkle-”
“Smikelliol,” Zel supplied dejectedly –
“Smikelliol,” Netherhame said at the same time, her voice brittle.
“Yeah – that.” I could feel my face flushing with colour – my attempt to strike up a professional conversation wasn’t off to the best of starts. “I’d like to see it again, try it for myself, some time, if you were willing…?”
Timesnatcher placed one hand on my shoulder and another on Netherhame’s, a small, proud smile on his lips. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to sort that out. You’re going to be on assignment together this week; you’ll be able to contact each other.”
Assignment? I parroted internally, feeling a sudden wave of anxiety and excitement.
“I’ll explain more after the Gathering begins,” the arch-diviner continued, then turned aside. “Direcrown!”
A man, taller and thinner than both me and Timesnatcher, approached us. His fine robe was a burnt-brown, almost rusty hue, and he had a gold-cloth cape about his shoulders. The sorcerer wore a tall diadem atop his hooded head, the crown of his namesake. Its slightly-irregular golden teeth were long and jagged, pointing up more like dagger-blades than anything else, extending off a thin silver band. And hanging from the band at the front, there was the snarling mask of a fanged, bat-like fiend, its black fur covering him entirely within the cowl’s rim, probably fastened behind his head with a string…
Here was a champion who took his privacy seriously.
A crown, like that of Lord Undeath, but with a demonic visage…
Direcrown looked me up and down.
“Feychilde.” His voice was crisp but cool, not cold. His accent, more than merely refined, made him seem altogether aloof, superior-sounding.
“Direcrown.” I held out a reluctant hand. From what Timesnatcher had said, I got the impression I was about to shake the hand of a darkmage.
A darkmage willing to risk his life fighting the forces of Infernum… a darkmage who would enter my shield, whose shield I could enter…
But still a darkmage.
The man’s grip was light, perfunctory, but not because of sorrow like Shallowlie. Because of disdain.
He lowered his hand and looked me up and down again.
“We shall be glad of thine aid, what with our new chief-sorcerer, the esteemed Redgate, gone from the city for some weeks.” He spoke gloatingly, as though nothing more than the eloquence with which he spoke were needed to insult me. “It would behove you to listen closely to the advice of Netherhame, and follow the commands of all your betters – I am to take it that you have been placed in her care, am I not?”
And now if I say ‘yes’ I’m not only confirming she’s going to show me the ropes – I’m implicitly accepting I need ‘care’, accepting Redgate as my chief, accepting Direcrown as my better, and accepting that I’ll take his orders…
I smiled joyously, and kept my lowest-born accent as I gushed: “Indeed, noble Direcrown! Thou most of all had I hoped to meet and impress, ere this night I came hither. But speak thy heart’s desire and I shall see it done, or be much remiss. Verily I am thine to order-about as thou see’st fit –”
“And I see thou art a greater knave than our late, great leader.” Direcrown looked over the sorceresses as he turned away – Netherhame seemed to bristle, her limbs taut and chin raised, while Shallowlie just shrank further into herself.
“I get the whole Direcrown thing now,” I said as he stalked away. I was pretty sure he’d have a way to hear me, even as he slipped into the crowd, but I didn’t care. “Did someone once insult his tiara, and he took it as a compliment? Five help him…”
“Did you ever see Dustbringer and Direcrown together?” Timesnatcher asked, smirking.
“No… why do you ask?”
“If you showed up a few weeks later Direcrown would be hypothesising that Dustbringer faked his death, visited Facechanger and came back with a new name. He always spoke to him like that. Thee’d and thou’d right back at him.” The smirk on his face became the tight smile of one fondly remembering a friend gone from this world.
“If you carry on like that, Feychilde,” Netherhame said, “you’ll do alright.”
Shallowlie’s body language gave me the impression she’d enjoyed hearing me being all insolent in Direcrown’s face – she still hadn’t spoken in my presence but she was at least looking at me now.
“That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask about,” I said, turning back to the arch-diviner. “This Facechanger chap –”
“We’re going to discuss them, and your little vampire problem, as a group.”
My mouth almost dropped open. I hadn’t been planning on asking for help, but if it was being offered…
“First,” he turned and gestured towards the doorway, “I think you’ll find you’re going to want to watch…”
I stared, jaw still on the floor, as she entered the cavern, the doors opening inwards for her just as they had for me.
More than just my eyes went to her – it seemed half the room stilled and silenced at the sight of an unfamiliar champion.
She wore a new robe, a white and electric-blue exterior with darker blue-grey inner layers; she hadn’t let the rain touch it. Her distinctive hair was hidden by the aquamarine hooded cape about her shoulders, such that I doubted any who didn’t know her intimately would recognise her. Her upper face was concealed by the flaming phoenix. The mask she’d seen in the shop.
She went back and bought it.
Her radiance still clinging to her, Em strode purposefully into the room, stopped, and looked about at us.
When she spoke it was in a clear voice that carried across the chamber, a voice that bore only a hint of her Onsoloric brogue, which had somehow been replaced by an almost highborn air.
“Whatever name you’ve known me by,” she said, “I’d ask that you call me Stormsword.”
* * *
I was unsure whether Em was going to approach me once she’d been filled-in by Timesnatcher and equipped with her own anti-enchantment pendant. When it became plain that she was heading towards me I thought ruefully that this action on its own would probably be enough to confirm her identity to those who’d been uncertain before. She came to stand by my side, carefully keeping her eyes on mine so that she wouldn’t catch Neverwish in her gaze – if she did, I could tell, she would rush over and burn him to a cinder on the spot. Her stare was cold, her lips were pressed together firmly, and I could almost sense the aura of dreadful anger emanating from her.
If I could almost sense it, I doubted any pendant designed to counter enchantments would prevent Neverwish from picking up what she was putting out there – unless the charms were far cleverer than I’d thought.
“I like the name,” I said, smiling brightly as she halted. “I’ll do my best to use it, but I had a soft spot for Stormchilde…”
“He says that you will start it.” She barely moved her lips, and her voice was dead, joyless even as she continued to use her Mundic accent. “Start it.”
“Do I not get a minute to say I’m glad to see you here?” In spite of the situation I found that I still wanted to gush about how she’d decided to take up the mantle of champion – but I didn’t want to rub her face in it, tell her ‘I told you so all along’, which was what that’d be like for her.
The smile that crossed her lips was nothing more than a brief twitch.
That’s a no, then.
I turned around, finding the purple-clad, stony-masked Neverwish with my eyes, still in the company of the dwarves by the cliff.
Brokenskull, the druid. Mountainslide, the wizard. Dimdweller, the diviner.
I’d been eavesdropping on the crowd’s varied conversations while I waited for Timesnatcher to finish discussing things with Em.
Show me the other enchanters, I thought at Zel.
Glancefall near the doors, with Voicenoise and Dancefire… Lovebright by the Ceryad-tree… Rosedawn beside Lightblind… Spiritwhisper and Wilderweird towards the rear of the chamber…
Any of them doing anything suspicious?
“I’m pretty sure that Rosedawn has her eyes on you. And Dimdweller’s told Neverwish something. Look how straight he’s standing. He’s mad… and nervous.”
I didn’t notice.
“Humans,” she sniffed.
They’re dwarves… It’s hard for me to notice the difference between four-five and four-six, Zel.
“Do it,” Em urged me.
“How much would be the fine for what he’s done?” I asked her quietly. “To commute his sentence?”
“Multiple counts of attempted subversion? At least two hundred platinum… and not enough.”
My eyebrows raised behind the mask. Two hundred…
The pressure of the moment was making me sweat. How was I supposed to talk in front of all these assembled champions, call out one of their own as my very first act?
He’d told me to be myself. How would I usually handle this…?
“Neverwish.” I proclaimed his name like a man calling a dog to heel. “Why aren’t you chasing up your money?”
The blond beard sticking out from beneath the grey mask was quivering with rage.
“I’ve got four platinum here for you.” I patted my pocket. “A neat little start for you. The way I figure it it’s, what, two percent of your total fine? I do hope you’ve been saving up?”
“My fine?” Neverwish growled. “What is this nonsense? What’s happening, Timesnatcher? Why is everyone acting so strangely?”
He turned his face towards the arch-diviner, who merely shook his head.
“Did you think because we were new, we were fair game?” I called. “That you should make sure you get inside our heads before we pick up better protections against creeps like you?”
“What’s going on, Timesnatcher?” Dimdweller asked in a grizzly voice. I saw the dwarven diviner casting the odd questioning glance at his fellow dwarf, but the enchanter wasn’t meeting his eyes.
“Well I guess you aren’t getting one copper piece out of me,” I continued. “Your share can go towards Starsight’s care.”
“You and Star would be dead if it wasn’t for me!” Neverwish hissed.
“That’s a pretty shocking exaggeration, and even if you’re right, that doesn’t give you the right to go poking around in my head or those of my friends. Who knows if Starsight would even be your friend if you hadn’t been squatting in his skull?”
I noticed the questioning looks of Dimdweller had turned into a not-so-subtle backing away, while Neverwish bunched up his shoulders and clenched his gloved fists.
“It won’t work, Neverwish,” Lovebright said suddenly.
I cast about, finding her still in her place by the tree, the hem of her robe skirting the surface of the water in which she stood. Her love-heart mask was centred on the dwarf, and I could make out the corners of her mouth and her cheeks: she was frowning in anger. Her white arm was raised, her yellow-gold sleeve drawn back – and she was touching a single finger to the crystalline branch that extended over her head.
The Stone of Amplification… She’s touching it?
“What won’t work?” Neverwish panted.
“I can feel what you’re trying, Neverwish,” Glancefall interjected, his Rivertown-accent rolling out from beneath his jester’s mask, his mop of fake gold-hued hair.
“I… I do too,” Rosedawn said – the other enchanters were murmuring their agreement.
I saw out of the corner of my eye as Winterprince slowly extended a blade of ice from his hand.
“I’m not trying anything!” the dwarf snarled. “It’s her! It’s always been her!”
He pointed a trembling finger at Lovebright.
“I see your future more clearly than ever before,” Timesnatcher said, blurring forwards. “You are delusional, Neverwish, to think you would get away with this.”
“I’ve had my eye on her for months, Timesnatcher, I swear.” Neverwish’s voice was shaking. “Fine! I did go into their heads – but you should know why! To protect them, against her! I didn’t know how to bring it to your –“
“I foresaw her power before she found it!” the arch-diviner retorted, scowling.
“Let me touch the Stone, then,” the dwarf said. “Let me see what they all say when I have the power.”
There were two, three heartbeats of utter stillness in the cavern, broken only by the gushing of the waters from the ceiling, and then –
Lovebright laughed. “You think we can trust you, Neverwish? You think I’m so full of myself I’d vouchsafe every ward I’ve placed on our amulets, if you tapped the Ceryad?”
Timesnatcher was looking over his shoulder at her.
“I foresee no danger, Lovebright,” he said. “There’s enough of you here to keep an eye on what he’s doing, and he couldn’t possibly take all of you at once. Step aside. Give the dwarf his chance.”
Lovebright slowly lowered her hand, and shuffled a few paces away, her back turned to the diviner – Neverwish stomped over, pulling off the grey glove of his right hand.
He waded into the pool about the great glassy tree, placing his palm directly onto its trunk.
I looked around at the other enchanters. They were all staring at Neverwish, their masks making their features unreadable, their body language already tense from the anticipation.
What do you think?
“I think he looks guilty.”
“It still won’t work,” Lovebright said softly, sorrowfully, her face still turned aside.
The other enchanters were nodding, many with their arms folded across their chests in resolve.
“What?” Neverwish asked, panting again. “What’s – no, wait –“
Everyone looked at each other, as if to see who would make the first move.
Dimdweller did it, flickering to Neverwish’s side, raising a big dwarven fist to smash into the side of his comrade’s head –
“Not there!” Lovebright cried, flinging up an arm to point –
Zel turned on my brownish illusion-piercing vision, seeing right through the Neverwish standing by the tree. I blinked the magical vision into my left eye so that I could keep an eye on the fake as well as the real.
Even Timesnatcher was following Lovebright’s finger, lips set in a concerned line. I did the same and spotted Neverwish, invisible and sprinting for the doorway, just as Timesnatcher also seemed to find his prey –
Just as the doors swung open, and a champion appeared in the entranceway, flinging a big heavy net into the empty space containing the dwarf.
The newcomer was robed in a clash of orange, pink and green fabrics, a thin-lipped, frowning mask fully covering the face –
“Hi, everyone,” she called over the roars of the invisible enchanter whom I could see struggling in his bindings. As Neverwish started aimlessly throwing fists – a course of action that served only to further entangle him – she darted forwards, blurring, and half-kicked, half-stomped him down to the ground. “I’m Killstop. Pleased to make your acquaintances.” Still with one foot atop the moaning, thrashing dwarf, she gave the room a little wave. “I know, you all love the name almost as much as you love the robe. No need to swamp me with compliments – I was born with these refined tastes.”
Groans and chuckles echoed around the room, deflating some of the tension.
I was one of the ones groaning, but I smiled all the same.
Leave a Reply