COBALT 7.6: THE CALL
“And to her I say this: there are aspects of death that cannot be discussed with those to whom a deontology of bliss has become the measure of being. Death! It is taboo even to discuss. Do her words make more sense than mine? Yes, every smile becomes bittersweet! Have you not lived with the aches of existence?”
– from ‘Grandfather’s Open Arms’
“So what, they just up and disappeared?”
I sat on Irimar’s couch, cradling my head in my hands. He’d given me a reinvigoration elixir, which barely touched my exhaustion; when Fang arrived she gave me a booster with her magic but it was already wearing off. It felt as though someone had pumped cotton wool into my ears, the stuff pressing in on my brain in every direction, straining against my skull.
“Ostensibly, they did indeed,” he replied. “Each of them left their homes on Yearseve of their own volition; I know that much for certain. But the truth, my friend, is that I see a mist on the water – a familiar mist. I cannot penetrate it with my mind; I must dwell on it awhile longer, build my house of sticks on the ocean and pray for gentle waves. It cannot be Dream… it simply cannot…”
As he retreated into his trance and Em put her hand on my knee in an attempt to comfort me, all I could think was that if Killstop were here we could get on with the eolastyr-hunt already…
How long must the damn girl sleep for! I should’ve got some sleep. I could’ve come up with a different plan. If that tigress is really here – if she’s responsible for thirty-two kidnappings – thirty-two murders… Every death is on my head while I sit here, playing the fool.
But other than ‘Tanra had a vision’, I couldn’t come up with any credible source for my knowledge that wouldn’t get my head chopped off in the telling.
I need sleep!
It wasn’t like it’d make any sense, if I came out with it now, anyway. ‘Hey guys, it’s the eolastyr!’ It would look incredibly strange, that I’d been sitting on the information for all this time.
Unless… could one of my eldritches…?
Timesnatcher had followed my advice yesterday. He’d taken the twin sorceresses to Phanar and Kani, and after my warnings this morning about The Ten-Spoked Wheel he’d sent me over to inspect their instinctual shields. The force-barriers surrounding the adventurers’ house looked, if anything, stronger than they had at Irimar’s. There was nothing I could do to improve on their defences, no holes to shore-up; after a quick word with the mansion’s occupants to wish them a Happy Yearsend, I just set a few gungrelafor in the trees as lookouts and headed back. We even briefly discussed sending Saff and Tarr there, but putting both pairs of twins together in a single location seemed to everyone a bit of a liability, even with such an impenetrable shield in place. Tyr Kayn, if she were to return, would surely remember the slayers of the King of Dragons… She wasn’t so different from us, in all likelihood, beneath all the tons of steel-scale armour, the centuries steeped in evil magic. She would remember those responsible for the death of her chieftain.
Then it hit me. I quickly ran through the options in my head, trying to see it from Irimar’s angle, from Em’s, from Sol’s…
I didn’t have to mention the actual content of Vardae’s message… didn’t have to mention the part affecting Irimar…
“I can sense something familiar too,” I said. My voice sounded thick, almost slurring to my ears. “I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”
“What’s that?” Fang asked curiously.
“You weren’t there when we went into the tower in Lord’s Knuckle, were you, Sol? There was something down there that eluded his sight for a while.”
“The woman who killed Dustbringer,” the druidess murmured in understanding.
Irimar’s eyes flew open. “This… thank you, Kas, this is… ah yes. I see it.” But rather than sounding elated, the opening-up of his vision seemed only to depress him. “I shall have Bor go and wake Tanra the moment he arrives. The more eyes on the problem, the better.”
“The fewer tongues dispensing solutions, too,” I murmured. “Who’s going to take the lead?”
“You would let her run the operation?” he asked mildly. “I’m speaking more of out-scrying the thing, if she is indeed in the city. With a power like Tanra’s, our invisibility increases, and our focus doubles.”
“Can’t ve just call in everyone?” Em asked.
“We will – once we know what we’re doing.”
“You take too much on yourself,” she responded. “Bring Starsight and Dimdveller, at least. Pool your power. Ve can put our masks back on if need be.”
“We don’t need divination,” I said, then sighed. “This is for me, and Netherhame and Shallowlie. And – and…” And who? There was no one else. “Together, we can overcome her shields, I’m certain of it.”
Was I? Why would I be certain of a thing like that? I was half-asleep, that was why.
“Look…” I leaned forwards and heaved myself to my feet. “I need to go get a few hours. Can you guys sort out some kind of plan? Or at least somewhere I can search when I’m back on my feet.”
“Dear me, what have you been doing all night?” Irimar murmured, watery eyes suddenly becoming deep oceans.
“Research,” I said blithely. “You know, Ten-Spoked Wheels and all that malarkey…”
I turned towards the garden door, and Em rose to see me off, but he continued:
“Then why am I getting a big maelstrom on your past, Kas? Were you with Tanra?”
I sensed Em’s faltering footstep, and faltered on my own; instead of stopping I cast him a sidelong glance, forcing myself to keep moving. “Don’t waste time on your hidden agendas, diviner. You can’t drive us apart.”
I reached the door, opened it, but Em had halted halfway.
“Vot is zis?” she asked in confusion, looking from me to him and back again.
I had to get out ahead of him.
“Oh, our pal Timesnatcher has it in his head that I should be with her, or something. Just another sad old scheme.”
It should’ve been obvious that if I was willing to give this much detail, there was clearly nothing going on between me and Killstop; I was gratified to see Em cast her scathing glare not at me, but at our leader.
Distract them from the fact I was with both her and a heretic last night…
“You agreed with me, when I said it,” the slimy, smiling seer gloated.
“I did not!” I laughed, and shook my head. “Unsoothsayer… who’d have thought it.”
“Not in words, you didn’t. But you knew I was right and –“
“And last night,” I shouted over him, “Em, look at me – last night, was I in love with Tanra?”
I looked her square in the face, unflinching. Her eyes were hard, sharp steel – and as I stared into them they melted. Her frown cracked into a smile, and she shook her head.
“No, Kastyr. No you vere not.”
“Try your games, Irimar, meddle all you want.” I opened the door. “I’ll be back later, once you’re done playing and we can get down to work.”
I stepped outside into the bitter breeze, spreading my wings and looking up at the sky. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, and the clouds over Treetown were little more than white wisps, moving quickly against a soft blue background.
Em followed me, as I’d hoped she would, and once I’d taken a few paces onto the paving stones I turned to face her.
“You staying, or going? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to hang around.”
She shrugged. “I vill see… I don’t know if I vont to leave Sol alone viz him, if he’s being like zis… But if he’s wrong, vhere vere you, Kas?”
I shrugged back. “How am I to know if one of the people giving me directions around the place last night was an arch-diviner? I have no idea how many people I spoke to.”
That much was true, at least. Right now I’d have had trouble counting the fingers held up in front of my face, never mind the number of mages I had run into at the library.
She just smiled again, and shook her head sheepishly. “I’ll fly you home,” she said, linking her arm through mine and lifting us both into the air. “I don’t trust you to get zere safely, in your current condition. Ve could do vizzout ze Liberator of Zadhal needing rescuing after a collision viz a chimney, and I can take some time to think about vot I vont to do.”
I pulled her arm tight in my own, acting as though I were feeling dizzy. Really I just wanted the closeness as we soared away. It was that, or the wraith-form.
I didn’t want her to come back here. I didn’t want them to compare notes. Maybe Tanra was a better match for me, but they always said that opposites attracted and Em – Em was clearly my opposite if that was the case. There was this ineffable quality to the way I felt about her; the way her mood could move me, the way her delight filled my soul with pure bliss –
No, Irimar was all wrong. The last thing I wanted was for him to mislead her, make her think something that wasn’t true. But it would be even worse if I artificially constrained her options – if I asked her to stay away. I had to let her make the right choice, freely. All I could do was say my part and let it be.
Yet through it all, I was lying through my teeth to her. I knew perfectly well why I had a huge gaping hole in my history.
And as much as I might’ve tried to ‘get out in front of him’, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I’d simply moved into the exact spot Irimar wanted me in – whether he’d just been pushing me with my own hands all along.
* * *
In my dreams, Arxine and Orieg’s blue shield turns first purple, then red, the deep swirling crimson of an infernal barrier. Just inside the border, beyond my ability to strike, Wyre is pacing – his body is normal, walking around, hands gesturing, but his head is the gigantic boulder of charcoal it’d become after Em executed him, balanced precariously atop his ordinary-sized neck. I laugh at him, and Em is with me, laughing too – still, I want to strike him down but the shield is in my way. Em joins her hand with mine and shows me how – the spear in my mind’s eye passes through the glowing bloody wall and pierces Wyre’s heart –
“They was there,” he says in explanation, the black lips falling apart even as he speaks –
I groaned as Xantaire shook me awake.
“Kas – Kas, I’m sorry.”
I opened my eyes to see that she was standing right over me, so I pushed myself up the bed into a sitting position. By the light coming through the shutters it couldn’t be much past noon; I’d only had a couple of hours at best.
“What’s up?” I managed to mumble.
“Sorry, you haven’t had long –”
“You couldn’t have picked a better moment to wake me, trust me…”
She gave me a sympathetic smile, but there was tension in her face.
“It’s, er, that magister who saved us in the Incursion; she’s here for you. She doesn’t look happy. Her… thing’s with her.”
I tried to reach my robe under the bed and fell out of it, landing unceremoniously in a heap with my sheets tangled about my legs.
It had to be an indication of the seriousness of the situation that Xan wasn’t stifling laughter right now, but she did spin around, saying, “I’ll just face away to preserve your modesty.”
“I’m wearing pants,” I moaned. I managed to grab my robe, pull it over my head –
“Let’s go.”
I scrambled to my feet and half-walked, half-extricated myself to the door.
In the main room, Fe dominated the scene despite her relatively-small size. The yithandreng would be no higher off the ground than your average dog if she’d been standing, but was at least treble the length, a mass of scales and horns and legs, the serpentine body coiled around her summoner. Her massive red eyes were closed. The kids were playing quietly in the corner with Orstrum but there were equal amounts of excitement and fear in their faces.
They shouldn’t have been scared, but Ciraya wasn’t exactly exuding confidence and her own fright, wild in her wide blue eyes, was infectious. She was standing near the front door, her hood cast back, exposing the dark-blue patterns wreathed about her scalp.
“What’s going on?” I said warily. “Don’t even tell me you’re here for help finding another book.”
“Kastyr…” Her eyes narrowed on me. “Your robe’s on back to front.”
“Gah…” I swivelled the damn thing around and started searching for the sleeve-openings again. “Ignore me.”
“Normally I would,” she croaked, “but recent events call for a bit of tact… Say, you don’t happen to be an expert on possession, do you?”
I pursed my lips. “Not really. I’ve got some books –”
“I’ve read a good chunk of the available literature over the years. I’m looking for a more… personal perspective.”
I eyed her critically. “What’ve you gone and done?”
“Not me.”
“Who, then?”
“Can – can we speak in private?” she asked suddenly.
She shrank her demon down to pocket-size and told her to be good before passing her to Jaid to mind; her fear evaporating in an instant, my sister eagerly cuddled the little many-legged lizard.
I let Ciraya into my bedroom and closed the door behind us.
“Tidy, just as I’d expected,” she drawled.
“Possession?” Seeing my bed, I longed to fall into its warm embrace once more, nightmares or not.
Let’s hurry this up.
She turned to regard me. “It’s my – it’s Mistress Arithos.”
I started putting two and two together straight away.
“You didn’t look happy, on your early errand to the vault,” I observed.
In a rare – no, unique – display of vulnerability, the sorceress fell back against the wall and sank down it, coming to sit on the floor, knees together, black magister-robe spilling over the mess.
“It’s not just that. It’s the – the other stuff.” Her bitterness was palpable. “She was missing all yesterday, but when she got back she acted like she’d been there all day. Then she said some of her friends disappeared last night; thirty-two to be exact. I don’t know how she knew, exactly…”
Belatedly, I started putting four and four together.
“… some eldritch power or other. So before I left for the library she asked me to find out whether the Magisterium had completed an investigation yet – these were ‘persons of some repute’, don’t you know? And it seemed normal, it seemed fine… I don’t like it, but I do it, you know? It’s just… something was off.”
I sat down on the edge of my bed, listening, mulling it over.
“But when I took her The Science of the Past everything was such a mess – you don’t understand: she never leaves her desk like that, but she was looking down at the tip, all her ledgers scattered around, ancient textbooks open, sacred pages bent… and smiling, like everything was in perfect order…” The sorceress drew a deep breath. “Then she asked me to find out whether the champions had got involved. And I knew. I – I just knew something was wrong. She was wrong.”
“It’s her,” I growled. “Sure sounds like possession to me.”
“‘Her’ who?”
“The same thing whose tower we watched them build, that night, out of the ashes of Knuckle Market.” I sighed, realising I wasn’t going to visit my bed again in the immediate future. “The eolastyr, Daughter of the Sinphalamax.”
“Emrelet told me all about it,” she cut me off, her voice hard suddenly; but now her eyes shone, irises swimming behind a waterfall of unshed tears. Anger and terror and wonder, they warred within her. “You m-mean Mistress Arithos… it’s inside her? The eolastyr?”
Unless Everseer’s playing a weird-ass game with us, yep.
“I… I came so close…”
“How did you survive?” I asked, curiosity overcoming my empathy.
“Paranoia,” she rasped, smiling thinly. “Have you heard of the rhimbelkina?”
I raised a hand to stop her. “Look,” I said, “you’re pretty certain she’s acting strange. I’m pretty certain we’ve identified the cause of the thirty-two deaths; and she admitted they were her friends… Rhimbelkina or not, I’d definitely guess this is the eolastyr, using you to make sure she covered her tracks.”
I started getting my stuff together to head out.
“Is that how it works?” she asked, still sitting on the floor with her back to the wall. “I thought, with this being an arch-fiend –”
“She can’t see our arch-diviners very clearly, but that’s a two-way street. Every advantage we can muster, the better. Avert your eyes if you’re shy.” I turned my back and threw off my robe, hurling it onto the bed while I found my under-shirt and tunic.
“Once you’ve been sylph, you don’t go filth.”
I was surprised by the return of her usual purring voice; when I cast her a glance over my shoulder I found a caustic little smile on her purple-painted lips, her eyes boldly fixed on me despite my half-dressed state.
She focusses better under pressure, I realised. Now that she knows what the threat is, she’s able to get ready to fight.
“Hey, if she ain’t got hair, don’t go there,” I bit back.
“Wasn’t that phrase designed for a different purpose?” she asked, wedging her boots against the floor and pushing herself up to her feet.
“Probably,” I said with a grin.
What did I do with my damn glyphstone…? I wondered, plunging my arm shoulder-deep into a pile of junk bound together by worn clothing…
“Hey – Kas.”
I found the cursed thing, and spun around with a triumphant expression, holding it up in my fingertips.
“Well done… I don’t know where you want us to meet – should I leave, and –”
“No need.” I shook my head. “I’ll put my mask on, cos it’s the done thing, but they know who I am now.”
“‘They’?” She waved her arm in a general sweeping motion, as if to indicate the entirety of Mud Lane.
“If they don’t yet, they will the next time they hit the Griffin. Come on,” I led the way out, “I’ll have that go on Fe you’ve been promising me for months…” She glared at me, and I grinned. “Everyone will love seeing the demon back that saved their lives in the Incursion, come on…”
I wasn’t exactly wrong. A whole load of people seemed to recognise Ciraya and her pet, and Feychilde was more than a minor celebrity round these parts by now. We actually got some cheers as we made our way up the roadway, Laners standing respectfully out of our path in the narrowest parts. Fe skirted around the lane’s Time Tree and I ducked my head as we passed under the bridges; then we were out of Mud Lane, heading south-east through Helbert’s Bend towards the Oldtown bridge. So far, all I’d told her was that we were going to Treetown.
Travelling atop the demon was every bit as smooth as I’d hoped. The yithandreng’s gait looked crazy to the outside observer, but the relentless tread of the ten heavy feet seemed to absorb the shock of elevation-changes, the non-stop swishing of the meaty tail keeping us steady even when a sudden turn was executed. The first thirty seconds were awkward as I learned to grip with my thighs rather than hold the bone-spurs too tightly with my hands. Then, once I relaxed, it actually became a pleasant way to move through the city. Random obstacles – like wagons and shop-stalls and knots of extremely-squishable human beings – just caused Fe to take what felt like a gentle leap. While it was nothing like flying – we had to stop for the odd impassable crowd, and we had to abide by the lines of the roadways – it was still at least five times faster than walking.
While Ciraya guided us, I lifted my stone and sent my thoughts out to Irimar.
“Feychilde,” he thought at me – he was still sitting there in his drawing room, unmasked. His studious scribe’s-face was almost expressionless, unperturbed by our earlier argument.
“Timesnatcher,” I said, trying to sound amicable – but it sounded a bit brittle to my inner-ear. “I don’t know if you want to apologise for trying to split me and Em up, and frankly I’m not certain how much I care –”
“For the record, Feychilde: Em is here, and I don’t for one minute buy your explanation. You really must have been tired. An arch-diviner of such power, at the library? No. You lied to me. You lied to her. She may believe you. I do not.”
I felt my face flaming beneath the mask. “So you get to know what it feels like, for once.”
“I can tell enough to know you’re not falling to darkness, but then why? If you are doing this to cover some banal tryst, then I must admit, I am at a loss.”
“Don’t waste your breath on it. Or your mind-breath. Whatever.” I scowled. “What have you said to her?”
“I knew this conversation was coming. I’ve said nothing to contradict your story. I will allow you to do that yourself.”
I sighed. He was probably right. But what other option did me and Tanra really have?
“You are coming back to mine, aren’t you, Feychilde? What mist is upon you now? Who is this magister-girl I can see?”
“Look, I’ve got a lead on the eolastyr. With your permission, I’d like to bring the magister to you. She’s called Ciraya; Em will vouch for her. She’s got some meagre protections but she really needs an arch-diviner’s cover.”
“Meagre protections?”
“She cast some spell with a… a fiend of fate-corruption…” I cast him an unimpressed look and he mirrored it. “Anyway, the eolastyr couldn’t get a read on her.”
Timesnatcher grunted in grudging admiration. “She’s good, I’ll give her that. The spell’s fixed fast. I’m only just breaking it now.” He ground his teeth for a moment, then said: “Fine. Bring her to mine. If I foresee a need I can always have Bor wipe her mind.”
“The way this has gone down, she might want that.”
He nodded dismissively, and the connection broke as he lowered his glyphstone.
I lowered mine, my sleep-addled, sleep-deprived brain churning.
He basically just prophesied that I’m going to slip up. And if Em finds out I was with Tanra, and I lied about it…
She wouldn’t chop off my head. Right…?
I have to tell her the truth. Heresy…
But him… what would they do with Nighteye?
“So which end of Treetown?” Ciraya called back to me as we thundered along the planks, crossing over the Blackrush.
I looked to the side, over the rail at the river, the dark water making its own thunder beneath us as its icy flow struck the struts keeping the bridge aloft. It’d been awhile since I’d crossed one of the rivers without the benefit of wings or wizard-flight; I wasn’t used to thinking two-dimensionally anymore, so it took me a moment to realise why she was asking. She needed to know which route to take through Oldtown – which Whiteflood bridge we’d be using to pass into Treetown.
“Head north,” I called back. “I’ve got someone you need to meet – literally.”
* * *
With Feast parked in the garden outside, I led Ciraya through the doors into the drawing room. I introduced her around, and she was noticeably subdued in the presence of so many champions. Doubtless she’d seen or even spoken with some of them before, but this was clearly the first time she’d been so personally involved. Even the unflappable sorceress looked awestruck when people like Timesnatcher and Sunspring used her name. She settled on the couch between Stormsword and Killstop – she’d figured out Em’s identity the moment the wizard announced herself as a champion, it seemed, which I supposed shouldn’t have surprised me. And it wouldn’t have shocked me if she’d run into Killstop any number of times by now, given the areas they tended to cover… She looked most at-ease sandwiched between those two, and she was such a twig that when she sat back and crossed her legs she virtually disappeared into the shadows.
I stayed on my feet, standing near Em’s end of the couch, arms folded across my chest. I probably looked moody but I was just trying to stay awake. No point letting Sol give me another boost. The way I understood it, the amount of healing a person could receive was capped by their level of fatigue somehow. There was a good chance I’d be fighting an eolastyr before too long, and I would want any wounds fixing within seconds or minutes, not hours or days.
Plus, I was down one treacherous fairy… There was a chance the vampire might carry a regenerative effect, but I hadn’t had opportunity to test it – I supposed my fixation on obtaining his sensory capabilities may have prevented me from ever reaching other aspects of his essence… And now it was just his callousness, his bloodlust that I seemed to feel when I tapped into him.
“Feychilde?” Bor was grinning, sitting in a chair within arm’s reach of Tanra. “You still with us?”
I tried to recall what they’d just been talking about. Everyone had accepted Tanra’s story regarding her ‘vision’ at face value, even Irimar, but it appeared she’d neglected to mention anything about him being there. Nonetheless, everyone was one hundred percent onboard with the notion of it being an eolastyr.
Wouldn’t it have been hilarious if, after all this, it was a hoax of some kind? Expose me and Tanra for liars, consorting with heretics…
“Sorry. Off in a world of my own.”
Focus, Kas… They were talking about… talking about… the whip…
Bor laughed. “Man, sorcerers shouldn’t say things like that! Off in your own world indeed…”
“Sorcery can’t actually create worlds,” Neko chided him. The gnome was in his thistle-green cat-shape, spread in front of the fireplace. “Demiplanes are structurally unsound.”
“Maybe not,” the enchanter replied, “but if you went and took over Infernum –”
“That’s enough of that,” Timesnatcher said crisply.
“And quite absurd,” the gnome-cat huffed. “A number of dark gods have their domains on that plane!”
“The whip,” I muttered, having got my thoughts in order, “might be something I can help with. If we can get enchanters to… to stop us feeling sick. My eyes are, like, better at that kind of thing now… Say, Killstop – mind if I borrow a dagger? Heavily ensorcelled?”
I caught the flash in Irimar’s eyes as she passed one over. I could imagine what he wanted to say, what I would say to me in his place: “Which darkmage do you intend to give this knife to?” Or maybe it was more like, “Whose back is she helping you stab, Kas, when you’re alone together at night?” Either way, I’d never seen his gaze smouldering like this before.
But he checked himself, and broke eye contact – chatter broke out once more, and I turned my attention to the glistening dagger in my hand. Belatedly, I sat down. I least I had something to keep my mind sharp now, something to actually work on.
I swished the thing through the air. The grip was bound tight with black leather, and the oval crosspiece was a muted gold colour – just gold-plated, I suspected. The blade itself was a dull black in hue – after the look of scorched iron, if I didn’t know better. But the ensorcellment had given it the most marvellous, dreadful visual upgrade. As it moved through the air, globules of scarlet matter formed in its wake, streaming off the blunt edge of the blade, a bloody smear hanging in the air for a few moments until they seemed to evaporate away.
Yet that was what any mere mortal could make out. It took me the first ten minutes just to ascertain what I was really looking at. I’d never handled something like this before – my previous experiences with spellbound weaponry had been brief moments, usually taking place in periods of stress, and Tanra had definitely followed my last instruction to the letter in choosing this particular knife. It was imbued with a matrix of several distinct latticeworks, the glyphs bound in loops through eight different dimensions. Each structure was a variant shadow of a vertex relationship, mirroring the higher forms of the glyph: at the centre, those highest forms spun, held in careful equilibrium by a single glob of pure sorcerous force. The full infinity rune.
Actually making the rune was tough as all hell, and, while recognising one was easy, I had the feeling that adjusting its magic or, especially, undoing its magic, would be more like the former than the latter. Nigh impossible.
I could get a sense of the spells woven into it, though. It was like strings of force combined to form letters of some underlying magical language, something soundless, unverbalisable, but nonetheless comprehensible – this one was a petal of perfect symmetry, the next a spear rotated through five dimensions –
Even without the descriptors, on a base level the symbols themselves served like words, forming sentence-strings related by concept, a kind of cryptogram that only a sorcerer’s instinct could unlock.
I was getting the hang of it, but there was no way I’d be better at this than Netherhame or Shallowlie, or indeed an arch-sorcerer who’d chosen to work for some manufacturer’s guild. It was a dead-end in any case – unless they would be able to do it at range, instantaneously, we weren’t going to be able to destroy or even deactivate the eolastyr’s whip.
I waited for a lull in the conversation between Em and Tanra, then passed it back to her hilt-first, saying: “Predominantly druidic in ensorcellment. It’s got life-stealing. You stab them and the amount of damage you do… it’s roughly equivalent to the healing you receive. Blood for blood. I never thought I’d see the Maiden of Compassion arm-in-arm with the Blade-Lord like this. Quite the disturbing little thing. But, no. Whatever’s in there keeping it bound together, I’d have to have hold of it, probably for quite a while, in order to break it… I can’t imagine a weapon straight from one of the infernal treasuries is going to be any easier to break. No way I can do it at range.”
Killstop slid it back into its sheath inside her robe’s folds. “More’s the pity. I guess we’ll just have to wing it.” She drew a different knife, this one pale-rose in colour, black lightning-bolts buzzing all up and down the flat sides of the blade. “The hell-queen didn’t look so tough. Round two should be fun.”
She’s psyching herself up, I realised. She didn’t want to go to Zadhal, but this is Mund. This is her turf. She’s a true champion, and she’ll protect it. I looked across to Em, who grinned appreciatively at the seeress’s words. And she doesn’t need psyching up. She would’ve come to Zadhal at a moment’s notice, if not for Henthae. She’ll do the things we can’t, to protect Mund.
I thought about all the talent we were leaving out. “Maybe we should call the others anyway?” I asked. “Between us, me and Netherhame and Shal-”
“No,” Timesnatcher cut in. “You know its purpose – it’s one of the champion-slayers. We can’t risk the others’ lives unnecessarily.”
I shook my head. “You’re doing the ‘I can’t see the future so let’s stop thinking altogether’ thing again. The more of us work on it, the less chance any of us will die. Otherwise going in alone would be the best route, wouldn’t it?”
The arch-diviner cast me a strange look, cocking his head at me. “Are you ready to bear the burden, if they fall to her claws, those who wouldn’t have attended otherwise?”
I shook my head at him. “Do you leave half your army at home, because there might be casualties in war? Or do you put your best foot forward, try to minimise casualties, by bringing an overwhelming force? I’m not saying we have to coerce people – the Bells aren’t ringing, not yet, anyway… But we have to give them a chance, to join us if they would.”
He sighed at me. “Put out the call, then, if you’re willing to shoulder the blame, if –”
“No!” I cried. “Gods, man. You’ve led so long, you’ve forgotten what it is to follow! It’s not slavery, Timesnatcher. Stop blaming yourself! Set down the weight you’re trying to carry before you sink the lot of us.”
He stared at me, then in the next instant he vanished, presumably moving to another part of the house to be alone with his thoughts.
Everyone stared at me in varying degrees of shock.
“Ooooh,” Tanra said, “Feychilde done a naughty. Right there on the carpet in front of everyone. No wonder our host’s gone ghost.”
“Killstop,” I growled. “Look, he’s wrong. We need all hands on deck for this.” I caught Fang’s look. “A sailing expression… I mean, we need everyone to contribute.”
“And when people start dying, you really won’t feel guilty?” the seeress asked. She sounded more curious than anything.
I shrugged. “No thanks to him. Anyway, should someone else feel guilty if I die? I’m a big boy. I can decide for myself.”
“You could’ve said that to him.”
I stared at her. The realisation she might even be seeing Irimar’s future, it came slowly, a soft fluttering of dread tickling up my spine.
“I am with you, Feychilde,” Em said in a steady voice – Stormsword’s voice.
I drew a deep breath, then retrieved my glyphstone from my pocket and started to put out the call.
* * *
We met on the heath – Tyr Kayn’s heath, the site of the death of Shadowcloud, the ‘death’ of Winterprince… Below, the trees of Ryntol Wood and Cadersglen were whole once more, their shadows lengthening as the sun started to sink. The mood was solemn as row upon row of champions assembled, forming a loose ring at the top of the tor where the dragon had crouched. Wizards had smoothed over the depression where she’d stretched out her enormous body, but they’d missed some grooves in one patch where her claws had dug into the earth, scratching narrow ditches in the dirt big enough for children to hide inside.
By the time we’d all left Timesnatcher’s, he still hadn’t shown back up. I asked Killstop to search the house but she couldn’t find any trace of where he’d gone. We decided to proceed without him.
The majority of the champions who attended appeared confused when they arrived, largely due to the fact that I’d been ambiguous in my messages. Many of them cast Ciraya strange looks. Sunspring managed to pacify the eldest champions, lots of whom seemed disgruntled at our sudden interruption of their holiday, and he did his best to explain what was going on – but he hadn’t been face-to-face with an eolastyr before and all his information was second-hand, so the old gnome’s advice could only take them so far.
Timesnatcher was absent, and Starsight never made it the whole way down into the arch-fiend’s throne room in the repurposed warehouse. Nighteye was ‘missing’. Dustbringer, Redgate, Shadowcloud and Winterprince were gone. Lovebright had evaporated into the air and Neverwish’s fate sounded even worse. While half the people on the hill probably knew the secret of Em’s identity, we didn’t know which, so Stormsword couldn’t step forward.
In the end I supposed it would fall to me, Killstop and Glimmer – three of the youngest champions, or at least the youngest-looking in Imrye’s case – to field the questions.
I started by expressing our gratitude for their attendance – it was Yearsend, after all – and then we got stuck into the specifics. The eolastyr’s appearance. Her strength and agility. Her shields. Her augmented pets and summons. Her circlet, capable of rebounding attacks. Her whip: the terrible dirge it produced, and its power to shake those who heard its crack…
Her disintegration effect. The way she’d destroyed Dustbringer.
Giving his soul to the dragon-kings, I thought, keeping it to myself.
By the time we were done, many of the eyes visible through the slits in masks were thrown wide in bewilderment, even stupefaction. It seemed most of them hadn’t faced creatures of this calibre often during Incursions. However, Netherhame’s arms were folded across her chest, the sorceress exuding confidence as she asked pertinent question after pertinent question. How long did the whip’s crack freeze time for? How high could she leap? How many eldritches did her fires summon at the same time? How long did her shields stay active and how many spells did they absorb? We did our best to provide responses, making clear which parts of our answers were evidenced by what we’d witnessed, and which parts were pure speculation.
Then we started to dig deeper into the details. Eneleyn Arithos, Mistress of the Seven-Star Swords, had been imbued with the essence of the eolastyr after thirty-two of her friends had been taken… highborn fools, their corpses likely residing at the bottom of the bay with the sea urchins by now. Ciraya stepped forward at Killstop’s gesture to explain the signs of the old sorceress’s descent into possession, and everyone seemed to agree something was up.
We didn’t have to mention Everseer, Nighteye or anything about Heresy, not even once – we got them onboard, and almost every champion who’d answered our call decided to help. Ripplewhim, the new enchanter, again didn’t show, but Copperbrow was there, the inexperienced gnome wizard doing his best to sound cool and collected when he voiced the fact he would participate – but that voice was squeakier than ever.
“So I suppose the only thing left to do is contact the Magisterium and let them know what’s happening,” Glancefall said, the bells atop his jester-hat tinkling along gently behind his words.
“I got in touch with Zakimel on the way over here,” I said. “We’re good on that front. We’ll have back-up if we need it.”
The first magister who’d answered my call had been more than happy to pass me up the chain, once he realised who I was and why I was calling, and I was quite impressed – I only had to speak to three people before someone woke Zakimel up for me. The chief Magisterium diviner had looked like he’d been hitting the bottle pretty hard last night, given his red eyes and the dirty-looking stubble covering his chops, the usually prim and proper moustache quivering with long hairs. Nonetheless, the sheer focus and determination in his gaze couldn’t be denied. Had he been surprised by my news? Of course. Had he shrunk away from the prospect of confronting such a high-ranked demon? Not one bit.
“I guess we just need a plan, now?” Copperbrow cheeped, looking over at Sunspring.
“You’re not wrong, son,” the druid replied, keeping his eyes on us.
I looked over to Tanra and Imrye; Imrye was looking at Tanra.
Slowly it became obvious everyone’s attention was focussed on Killstop. Even the other diviners, Starsight and Dimdweller and Doomspeaker.
“Well, shucks, guys, thanks for the vote of super-confidence.” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her frowning head at the lot of us. “Fourteen-year-old girls grow up dreaming of responsibility like this.”
“Killstop,” I murmured.
“Fine. I’ve got an idea. But I sure wish Timesnatcher were here…”
“We’ll find him. Give us your idea to start with.”
She looked about at the ring of champions, and Spirit nodded to her reassuringly.
“Okay… okay, but bear with me on this.” She spun, taking us all in. “We need to circumvent her whip, but she knows it’ll be her weak-point this time, and she’ll put up her shield if she’s threatened. We have to get in close, move in waves, control the engagement. Get hold of the damn thing.” I could imagine her grin behind the mask as her gaze halted on Ciraya. “At first it’s going to sound crazy…”
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