COBALT 7.4: HAPPINESS
“The unforgivable act remains unforgivable, especially if the actor is upheld an ethical man – and so then must the sublime act remain sublime, even if the actor is a man of degradation. The only confusion arises when the same act is both unforgivable and sublime; for this is surely only the mark of Evil. Yet in casting down the Tyrant will you throw off the good laws with the bad? Would you so risk truth by the flesh through which it is revealed? Would you so tempt the tempters to ever-greater misdeeds, have them bend all their will to the destruction of the holiest men, that we might all by association forever abandon the light they showed forth for the shadows they cast?”
– from ‘The Book of Lithiguil’, 7:93-98
“What do you mean, it’s my twins?”
My muscles reacted like they’d been touched with lightning – instead of Tanra pushing me back, suddenly I was looming over her, glaring down into her face. I could feel icy waves of panic starting to make their way down my body from my head to my feet, over and over, ten times a second.
“They’ve been taken, Kas!” she snapped. “Almost twenty minutes ago. We have to act now if we’re going to avoid bloodshed.”
“Taken!”
But I wheeled my head towards Timesnatcher.
If he didn’t summon me…
“I knew nothing.” He shook his head, eyes staring back at me blankly. “Nothing whatsoever about this. As you said yourself, my sight –”
“Kani might look after them for you,” I said to him, then moved my eyes to Tanra. “Take me.”
I put my hand out as she lowered her mask into place; then she gripped my wrist, time froze, and we were gone.
Any number of possibilities coursed through my head as we ran. It could’ve been the dragon returning, kidnapping my loved ones so as to blackmail me into becoming her weapon. It could’ve been Everseer or her people, seeking to motivate me into becoming a murderer. But she said inkatra, which suggested something else entirely…
We moved so quickly up the stairs under Tanra’s chronomancy that I didn’t realise we were entering my apartment until she stopped us.
The seeress helped a groggy Xantaire to the bench while I checked on Xastur –
“Still asleep,” I reported tersely, withdrawing my head from the bedroom doorway.
“I could’ve told you that,” Tanra replied, tipping a few drops of healing elixir onto Xan’s tongue.
“But you aren’t telling me anything,” I growled. “Where are th-“
“They’re with Wyre Lulton and the Bertie Boys. I had the feeling something funny was going on with them for the last few days, but I didn’t have chance to explore those landscapes…”
“Tanra!” I barked.
Wyre… Lulton…
Of course. It all tied together. The incident with Orven. Toras…
Wyre thinks I’ve got it in for him? Some revenge scheme?
“Sorry – but yeah, it’s you they’re after, Kas. This is them making a move on you, I’m almost certain of it. Damnable inkatra…” She managed to look a bit embarrassed. “I think they used someone on it to decide –”
“I get it.” I held up my hand to stop her. “Damn you Tanny.”
“Hey!” she blurted, then drew in a breath of realisation. “No – no, it wasn’t Tanny Dengen. It was one of Peltos’s Gentlemen who figured it out, but the real traitor was someone called Sawdan. A boy – so tall, with brown hair in his eyes – your neighbour, Tick! Ticken!”
I shuddered.
If Zel had been with me when I saw the lad give me that portentous second glance, she would’ve told me. She would’ve known.
Damn it all.
“Xan.” I looked at her – she seemed to be much recovered, reclining with her hands folded on her stomach. “I am so, so sorry –”
“You’re sorry?” she said bitterly. “It was me who couldn’t defend them – I got them up inside the shield but they grabbed me on the doorstep and I –”
I started laughing. Horrendous, uproarious laughter.
“What?” Xan muttered darkly, and the two of them looked between each other. “What is it?”
“And I – I thought – at least a darkmage – if not a heretic, or a dragon – but Wyre Lulton and the Bertie Boys…”
The amusement was like a physical thing, something tangible that I could feel lifting my spirits, filling my body with lightness, almost giddiness…
Then it settled. My eyes narrowed as I looked to Killstop.
“Will the boy stay sleeping?” I got my mask out, started putting it on. “It’s time we paid Wyre a visit.”
“But they used inkatra! I need more time to break through – I can’t see what’s going to –”
“You diviners and your crutches,” I snapped. “Get over it! Just act, without foreknowledge, like the rest of us! A minute ago you were so angry you could’ve torn down the sky – now you’re acting frightened!”
“A minute ago I couldn’t see!”
“You still can’t!”
“I mean – I didn’t know what was happening –“
“Look, you can bring my brother and sister out, right? I’ll handle the rest. I say again – will Xastur stay asleep?”
“Yeah, but he’ll wake up in twelve or thirteen minutes.”
“That’s all we need.” I checked around quickly. “My shields are still strong.”
Xan was staring at me. “You mean – do you need me?” She sounded confused. “Sh-shouldn’t I stay here? This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Oh yes it does, Xan. More than you know. You remember I was looking for your brother’s killer?”
“How could I forg…” Her voice faded mid-word, then her eyes lit up, burning like flames. “Oh. Ohhh.” She got to her feet, steadied herself. “I’m coming with you.”
“Tanra, can you slow us please?” I asked, taking Xantaire’s hand and reaching out to the seeress.
“Both of you, alone? I can’t slow you all the way.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “Just do it, please.”
I didn’t feel anything as the chronomancy washed over me, but the sounds from outside faded, slurred.
She sighed. “I’m not sure this is a good idea…”
“You.” I let the word out on its own for a moment, just to drive home my point, my incredulity. “You, are going to tell me to be sensible. Now. Now.”
“Kas, we can’t just take –“
“They took my brother and sister. What can’t I take?”
I took a step closer to her, felt my personal shields raise themselves.
“Help me,” I said plainly.
She shook her head, but I could tell it was a gesture of resignation, not refusal.
“Fine. But you owe me one. And I’m not letting any killing happen.”
I snorted at her. “Who do you think I am, exactly? These idiots have got in way over their heads. I told myself, if I saw Orven again, I would erupt, but there’s no way –“
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
I noticed that Tanra’s eyes were fixed on Xan.
“I’m coming with you,” my flatmate said again, in a tone that brooked no argument.
“If you try to kill someone, I’ll stop you,” Tanra warned.
“Or I will,” I said flatly.
Xan just shrugged. “Can we do this, please?”
She pushed her way past me, heading out into the morning greyness – then paused on the balcony as she realised just what slowed time meant.
“There’s a lot to get used to when it comes to this,” I said as I made my way out of the doorway to join her. “You’ll feel like you’re walking or running, but you’re actually moving ahead of yourself – then you’ll catch yourself up…”
“Don’t bother trying to explain it,” Tanra said. “Let’s just get this over with.”
One moment we were there – and the next, we were gone again.
* * *
To be fair to her, Xan started earning her pay right from the get-go. When the first Bertie Boy stepped into the doorway, exposing his gloating leer, she cracked him in the nose with a left uppercut and let him fall back, dazed, into the arms of his pals behind him.
We weren’t going to do it their way. Weren’t going to go along quietly.
When they made sounds, trying to threaten and bluster, I silenced them, blanketing their faces in Zab’s power, letting them mouth noiseless protests; when they crowded forwards, trying to fill the doorway with their bodies and strike at us with their knives, I cast them back, crushing them against the far wall, watching them struggle pointlessly against my barriers.
“Careful, Feychilde,” Tanra said from behind me in a worried tone. “You’ll kill them. They can’t breathe like that.”
“Shame.” I whipped my head around to stare at her. “And you’re being too cautious. Call me Kas.” I turned back to regard the Bertie Boys. “You guys already know who I am, right?”
They gargled.
I stepped into the hall inside the door and removed my mask, showing them my face. “It’s a secret you’ll take to your graves, believe me…”
Even in their current fatal predicament, they seemed to cringe all the more now that they could see my expression.
“Kas!” Tanra barked.
I sighed, then cut off my shields, letting my prisoners fall groaning to the mucky carpet.
“Coming?” I asked, proceeding past them.
“Okay, but no more shielding through walls,” the seeress muttered. “You could end up pushing someone through a weak wall, bring the whole place down.” She caught my over-the-shoulder glance, and hissed: “I’m not joking.”
The building had four storeys above ground and included an extensive basement area, according to Tanra. Wyre used the whole thing for his business needs, and right now there seemed to be an unbelievable amount of Bertie Boys in the place, all of them wanting a piece of the action.
There was enough action to go around.
Xan took on a guy at least twice her weight – she dodged his clumsy attempt to grapple her and targeted his unfortunately-exposed anatomical area with a swift kick.
Tanra seemed to finally get in the mood. She actually chirped with pleasure as she delivered open-handed slap after open-handed slap, her speed granting each strike the force of a hammer-blow. Teeth flew from their mouths to bounce off the walls, pinging like stones flung from a sling.
I copied her, utilising the reflexes and strength of my satyr to manhandle them, tapping traces of the wraith-form where necessary… It was like fighting little children. I hurled one through a table, and managed to wedge the next head-first in some kind of waste-bin.
Daggers, and indeed all thoughts of resistance, were soon abandoned.
“I do hope you’re going to be good Boys from now on,” I said, bopping Mr. Waste-Bin-Head-Man on the waste-bin-head and following Tanra and Xan out of the room.
Stairs. More idiots, with knives.
More stairs. More idiots, with crossbows.
The last set of stairs. The worst of the idiots, with frostbolts, imps, and self-healing.
Non-lethal attacks left roughly half of them comatose, the remainder abandoned to sort out their broken bones once they recovered from their stupors.
“Through here.”
Tanra kept her mask on, so it was the frowning face of Killstop that Wyre Lulton saw first. Then the iron glare of Xantaire. Finally, Feychilde, unmasked.
We stepped into the room. It wasn’t large – just an office. Wyre was sitting there behind the desk, a rake-thin older man in ancient-looking leather armour; his hair was grey but his face was remarkably unmarked by age.
For now. This might age him.
Orven – there he was, the scraggly-bearded, scruffy-looking murderer, cringing behind his dad’s chair… Another half-dozen Bertie Boys were here too, standing to attention, crossbows readied, with nervous faces and nervous trigger-fingers – but I barely noticed them. I kept struggling to put the outermost shields down, the state I was in. Missiles didn’t worry me.
“Wyre Lulton.” I moved my eyes. “And Orven.”
“Feychilde,” Wyre grated. “Or should I say –“
“We can dispense with the usual barbs,” I demurred, my voice rolling across the space, easily drowning him out and then some. “Where are my brother and sister? We’ll discuss your punishment after.”
“You think I’d be stupid enough to bring ‘em here?” Wyre laughed. “If y’ could only see your face, Kastyr, my boy…”
Killstop tilted her head at him. “The twins are… hold that thought…”
She vanished, a streak of pinks and greens and oranges heading back out the door onto the landing.
Wyre just shook his head. “You’ll never find ‘em. You –“
“Excuse me,” I thundered. “It’s rude to interrupt. You don’t understand. What we are. What a mistake you’ve made.”
He flinched, finally – then suddenly he lifted the end of a rope from his lap and started tugging on it frantically.
Summoning reinforcements? I wondered. Has he got anyone left?
“… safe at home,” Tanra finished as she came to a stop beside me again.
And I could breathe once more.
I felt the sudden stillness in my soul, a tranquillity born of salvation, peace and relaxation washing over me like a warm waterfall unstoppered somewhere over my head – but even then I sensed the way Xantaire next to me was only becoming more and more tense.
Tanra continued: “Wyre… dear gods, Wyre… what were you thinking? Keeping them in the basement? Do you really believe your cronies would’ve killed them when you sent the signal? – even if I hadn’t cut your rope?”
The crime-lord of Helbert’s Bend tugged some more on his rope-end, and reeled it in until he came to a neatly-sliced section of the cord. He stared at it in horror.
“Just so you know, the guys down there were so scared after they heard us moving upstairs, one of them actually started trying to knock out his mates, just so I wouldn’t punish him…”
“You were trying to kill them,” I cut in, speaking as straightforwardly as possible so that I didn’t make any mistakes. I was still trying to wrap my head around this. “After everything, everything I could do to you – you’re pulling on your rope? You’re trying to kill them.”
“I’m trying to kill them?” Wyre snarled. “What about me? What about me and mine, Feychilde? What about my boy’s heart?”
“Him,” Xan interrupted, pointing at Wyre’s ‘boy’. “I want that thing. That dog-lookin’ thing. Yeah. You. Don’t you look away from me! Don’t you dare! You…”
I had to put out my hand, take her by the shoulder to remind her charging across the room into their dagger-blades wouldn’t be strictly advisable. Not that she’d be in any danger – but Tanra would start to lecture us about almost crushing people to death against walls again, or making her catch projectiles with her bare hands, and that was just no fun at all.
Orven shrank down, hiding himself fully behind his father’s chair, and Wyre snapped: “Loose!”
Crossbow bolts sprang forwards about three or four feet, then spun off, clattering against the walls and furniture – one went cartwheeling back at a Bertie Boy’s head, and he was forced to duck.
Slowly, in dawning realisation of their impotence, they lowered their weapons. Xantaire laughed coldly, and shrugged my hand from her shoulder.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why did you bring it to this? Why escalate? My identity… my brother and sister…”
“What exactly doan you get about it?” The boss-man was leaning heavily on the table in front of him, unblinking eyes fixed on my face. Considering his situation, he was remarkably calm. “What, am I s’pposed to just sit ‘ere, waitin’ for you to turn up? I waited long enough, damn it! What I doan get is how you found out! Who tattled, eh? Who told you?”
I was looking at him quizzically. “Wait for me to turn up? I’m not a magister or a watchman – I’ve gone out of my way to avoid wrecking your operations, cos I know what it’d do to the streets… If you think it takes someone tattling to find out who runs things in Helbert’s Bend and where they’re based, you’re underestimating your repu…“
I halted as Killstop drew in her breath suddenly – I turned to look at her, and she took me by the arm.
“Kas – Kas, we need to leave. Stop wanting to be here. Please.”
There was something in her voice. Worse than warning.
“Then why aren’t you carrying me?” I muttered.
“Y-your shield will read it as ill-intent. Kas…”
I frowned. “Why do we need to leave, exactly?”
Even an arch-diviner couldn’t always control their automatic responses – I saw her eyes flicker to Wyre then straight back to me.
She’s hiding something.
“’E don’t know, boss,” one of the Bertie Boys whispered.
Wyre made a quick gesture using only his eyes, a glare that promised a painful death, falling squarely upon the whisperer.
My eyes followed his – then I realised.
“Oh – it’s you. Hadin Rovermun.”
I stared at the dishevelled thief – his eyes widened, and he looked left and right at his colleagues, as though there could be another Hadin Rovermun hiding somewhere in the crowd.
“M-me?”
“You – you’re the one who gave me this.” I raised my fingers to my cheek, the old curved scar of smooth-textured tissue, and laughed. “Gods – Hadin…”
It must’ve sounded threatening, because the unkempt man started quivering. “I – I don’t even remember! Pl-please! I didden wanna be here – please, let me go!”
He’s burnt his last bridge with Wyre, I realised, looking between the two of them as the boss shifted position slightly –
Then Wyre hurled a dagger from out of nowhere; it buried itself in the side of Hadin’s neck, and the man toppled, spraying blood and gurgling.
“Really, Killstop?” I murmured, not looking aside at her.
She truly must have been distracted by something going on here, I realised, even as I produced Avaelar in a flash of ostentatious green fire, pointing at the dying man.
Wyre and one of the other Bertie Boys tried to stab my sylph as he stepped out of the shield’s protections, but the massive bronze-skinned fey just gripped their wrists, reacting with oily precision. He gifted them some reproving looks, and when he released them they let him go about his business, retrieving Hadin and carrying him back into my barriers.
That was one whose ill-will had evaporated.
Does he really think I’d be upset over some old scar? I wondered as Avaelar removed the knife and started treating him. Memories of that part of my life were painful, but that was due to my parents dying… A little cut on the face? Was this what Tanra was worrying about?
These guys obviously thought we just sat there lounging around looking for things to do all day – if they realised how busy we were all the time, dealing with actual serious issues, they’d know we wouldn’t have time to fret over such minor trivialities.
“Leave, Bertie Boys,” I said quietly. “It’s only Orven and Wyre we want.”
“At last,” Xan growled.
The boss’s control over them had broken, and they virtually fell over themselves to get out of the room. I recognised a couple of them from the night Telrose Gaum almost burnt himself alive, the night Tanra got her powers, as they filed past me.
The shield let them through. They’d all had a change of heart, it seemed.
Wyre shouted at their retreating backs, then sat down, spent – now his age came upon him, warping his face, making sandpaper of his forehead – while Orven pranced from foot to foot in horror.
Then the no-longer-gurgling Hadin reached out a bloody hand for me – he wasn’t close enough to grab me, cradled as he was against my sylph’s huge chest, but he got my attention –
And everything stopped – not just slowed, stopped.
“Okay, Kas.”
I looked back to my other side, where Tanra was still holding onto my arm.
“What is it? What’s going on, Tanra?”
“I’ve looked through the options available to me. Unless I fight you, or bring help to do the same, I can’t stop you. You’re going to find out.”
“Find out? Find out what?”
She reached up, tipped back her mask; I could see the pallor of her skin. Her eyelids were lowered, and it was as though she moved a mountain, lifting her gaze to meet mine – then when she did, she instantly averted her face again.
“Are – are you okay?” I looked down at her hand gripping my forearm, then put my hand over hers. “Tell me.”
“He,” her eyes shifted uncontrollably to Wyre again, “he killed them, Kas.” The sound out of her throat was a dry whisper out of the void, smaller than the first pebble that starts an avalanche which has been waiting ten thousand years for the moment to arrive. “He killed your parents.”
* * *
I extended blades from my shields, scythes to reap men, and I reaped Wyre and Orven with a single stroke, shearing through them both with such speed that I unleashed a fountain of blood and bile upon the walls, the windows – they were the killers and this was what they needed –
No. It was too quick.
I took Wyre by the shoulders and headbutted him. I felt his face explode against my forehead. Satyr-strength didn’t just break his nose; it pasted it across what had once been eye-sockets.
“No!” Tanra shrieked.
“Yes,” I growled, drawing back my head, looking down at the mess I’d left. I would hold him, and he would be a corpse in my hands – I would feel it. He would be mine. I would capture him, corpse and ghost together, bound forever into a puppet at my bidding, soul cursed to Nethernum for all eternity –
I tried to bat her away as she approached, an open healing-potion in her hand, but she was far too slippery for me, slinking it and blurring away with him, tipping the concoction between his lips –
I picked up the desk in my hand, hurled it, but she was gone –
No. Not in a way Killstop could hinder.
My shields barred the diviner’s intrusions but I didn’t bring out the blades, instead calling on my faithful servants, instructing them hold my enemies fast with their clawed hands – I took up a dagger and inscribed my mark into Wyre’s flesh, into Orven’s flesh, seals interwoven with the best infinity runes I could trace – illegal, unthinkable – and then, listening to their screams, I cast them both into Infernum –
I met Tanra’s eyes; she flinched.
“I could –“
“That’s a death-sentence,” she hissed. “You know it.”
The moment the words left her lips the personal shield about her faded. She grunted, clearly sensing something as my other barriers itched to push her out, force her back across the carpet towards the doorway.
Was this what she planned?
“A death-sentence!” I growled. “Who said anything about keeping them from the law’s justice? A headsman’s axe, a noose, or… this,” I clenched my fingers, so close to forming the scythe, so close to reaping them –
They were there, right there, frozen behind the desk, right in my power – I had only to close my fist, bring down my arm in a single satisfying motion –
Such a long time ago…
Wyre, looking nauseous as he sprawled over the desk, a dried-up husk older than his antique leather armour; Orven, a mess of unwholesomeness, wide-eyed and pathetic, his hands on the back of his dad’s chair –
Such a long time ago, and there was no fear, no hurting – there was hunger, sometimes, but there was no darkness – only joy, at least in memory – joy until Hadin’s knife’s-edge made reality plain…
Orven had slain Morsus in cold blood, and for that he would be made to pay, pay with his own blood, served hot – I looked at Xantaire, frozen along with them, and I knew now I could do this thing to him – I could do it for her – for me –
Such a long time ago, and Hadin’s blade was only the harbinger of that true reality – the funeral, the bodies going into the earth – the hanged man, this murderer’s own brother – my puny, pathetic struggling to bear the weight of responsibility that was thrust upon me…
But it was Wyre – it was Wyre who would be punished most. Infernum was too good for him, but it would do. I would go with him. I would take him, and I would see that place for the first time with him as my guide – he whose destiny was to be its prisoner until the end of time –
He was frozen. That wasn’t right. I couldn’t splash the walls with their blood, listen to their screams – not like this.
It wouldn’t be satisfying.
“Break your spell, Tanra.”
“No.”
“Break it.” I looked back at her, and what she saw in my face made her blench. “Break it, now.”
“I just need to make this clear.” She drew a deep breath. “What you seek isn’t the law’s justice, Kas.”
“Are you kidding me?” I wheeled on her and she stepped back through the open door, retreating from me. “He’s a murderer! A mass-murderer!”
She shook her head. “He’s no less defenceless now than when I’m not stopping time – you know that, right? Not compared to you, to us. What’s stopping you isn’t the unfairness, or his vulnerability – that’s always there. What’s stopping you killing him is that he can’t react, Kas. That’s all you really want. The revenge.”
I didn’t have words with which to respond. I loosed something like a petulant howl instead.
She was right. Killing them wasn’t enough. They had to know it. They had to die, knowing it was my hands doing the deed, knowing why…
“It’s empty, Kas, and you don’t need me to tell you. You’ve always known it. You already let it go. That’s why it hurts so much.”
It was as though she’d drawn a target on my pain, like squeezing a spot, a suddenly build-up of pressure that had to be released –
The very moment I shifted my weight to lift my hand and foot, forming those pre-thoughts that would coalesce the energies, bringing me stepping back towards Wyre, slashing out – in that very moment she spoke two more words.
It wasn’t the words themselves. Taken on their own, their presence here, now, would be demeaning if anything, a cause for anger, spite.
It was her cadence. Her mood. It changed everything.
“Happy Yearsend…”
Only someone who could imagine being me – someone like her, not just a diviner but a Sticktowner – could speak to me like that. It wasn’t the melancholia – that was just the surface-level. It was the irony. That bittersweet fatalism. Life was drop.
I looked at her, nonplussed, through my tears.
“… Happy Yearsend, Kas.”
* * *
“They – they have to go…” I swallowed. My throat was closed-up; my tongue seemed to be twice its normal size, and my mouth felt like clay. “They have to go to the watch. Th-they –“
“I can get Bor,” she said quietly. “Get them to confess everything, if the magisters can’t get it out of them.”
“That’s a…” I swallowed again. “A great idea, Tanra. They…”
“Of course it’s a great idea, you dolt,” she said, sounding exasperated, dropping back into her usual nonchalant demeanour as though nothing had happened. What she’d said earlier – even just now, when she suggested bringing Bor along… that quiet-voiced Tanra was gone again.
You just talked me out of committing a double-execution, I thought in wonder.
The compulsion had been real. The only other time I could remember it taking over me like that was back when Peltos had been in the apartment, the first day Em came round, when I felt like summoning my demons in his smug face… And this had been ten times worse – but a diviner’s intervention had created a new course of fate once again.
I leaned on the desk, looking across it into Wyre’s near-motionless face. To him our motions must’ve been a tornado of blurs. I watched his eyes, and saw the moment he realised my shape was right in front of him – his pupils dilating. What to him would be an instantaneous recoiling back in his chair would take minutes to me, like this.
I looked at his shock, his anguished face only becoming more so as the subjective seconds ticked by – and it was enough for me.
This is what I brought you. You killed them, Wyre. You messed with me, you messed with mine. I protected you and those like you long enough. Let’s see how notorious the next to wear your crown wants to become now…
I suggested using a glyphstone to leave a message for Bor, so that he could meet us at the watchtower – while you couldn’t have a conversation from within a one-sided time-bubble, the magic in the things was clever enough to let you at least leave a recording – but it seemed she trusted me now not to do anything stupid. She’d read my future, of course, and I had no way now of deviating from the paths she’d foreseen. When she left I amused myself, waiting for Wyre’s eyes to fully widen, his shoulders to start moving backwards in reaction to my presence in his face…
Why didn’t she just –
When she showed Em into the room after Bor, I understood; I smiled and took my girlfriend into my arms, mouthing a silent ‘thank you’ to her over Em’s shoulder. Then I finally, finally felt myself relax, shutting my eyes and breathing easy once more.
“Vhat… vhat happened here?” Em asked, pulling away from me a little to look around.
“Didn’t she explain?”
“Not… vhat did he do?”
“He took the twins. He – he killed Mum and Dad. Not Toras. Not his brother – him.”
I saw her face harden beneath the mask. She was hiding her headache well, or she’d been to see a druid, or something.
“And this one – this is Orven.” I gestured. “He’s –“
“Ze one who killed Morsus,” Em breathed, then I saw the lightning enter her eyes, blue electricity flickering across the surface of her irises.
“It’s okay… Killstop’s calmed me down… Heh…” I coughed, swallowed with some difficulty again, and tightened my arms around her. “We’re going to take them to the watch.”
“Oh, you can be sure of zat… So Bor is here to ensure zey are exposed?”
I nodded into her shoulder and snivelled a bit. “Thanks for c-coming, Em.”
“Of course.”
She nestled her head into mine; I drank deep of her fragrance, and I suddenly felt a million times better.
While I was talking to Em, Tanra brought Xantaire into our time-flow. I overheard her outlining the situation to my flatmate and our enchanter, but then her voice started to slur:
“Guuuys, I have to let it goooo now. Too-too much mooooving. Too many of uuuus.”
“Do it,” Em said in a brittle voice, stepping away from me, facing our prisoners.
All at once Wyre fell back away from me into his chair, and Orven’s dancing on the spot resumed.
It took them a moment to take in the fact that there were now five of us.
“Looks like someone’s bad day just got a whole lot worse,” Spirit commented smoothly.
“Yeah,” I murmured, folding my arms across my chest, “not a very Happy Yearsend, not at all.”
“You killed Feychilde’s mother and father,” Em intoned – and here, with the mask down, the rage up, the voice on – she was Stormsword. “You killed them, and sacrificed your brother in your place?”
Wyre managed to look almost unafraid as he shrugged. “It’s too late to fight. I’ll roll over. Yeah. I killed ‘em. You didden know that, champion?”
I shook my head, unable to pull my eyes from his once more.
He sighed. “Then all this – it was really for nuffin’? I was sure, so sure you had it in your head to end me…”
“What you mean, Da’?” Orven blurted.
“I mean you was right, and you was wrong, all along.” Wyre lowered his face, looking down into his lap. “And I was the mug what believed you. Feychilde… we coulda just left him alone.”
“And none of this would’ve happened,” I grated.
“And none o’ this woulda ha-happened,” the boss-man said, the horror finally causing his voice to catch in his throat. “None o’ this… at all…?”
“Why?” I shouted – I couldn’t keep the volume down. “Why did you kill them?”
He didn’t lift his eyes, and shrugged again.
“They was there,” he murmured – and that was all.
* * *
Xantaire only got on board with the plan if I let her have three free shots at Orven’s face before we got started – the guy did his best to back away, protect his (frankly already valueless) features with his arms. She landed at least seven just on his nose, and when Bor finally put the Lultons to sleep Orven seemed glad of it. Tanra opened the window, then Em’s flight-spells saw us through the aperture and out into the smoggy city air.
I kept a firm hold of Xantaire’s left hand as she had her first flying experience, while Em held her right. Down below us I spotted a cluster of Bertie Boys in the street – most of them must’ve already fled and another group scarpered once they saw us, but four stayed stoic, gazing up at us as Em brought our sleeping captives out behind us.
When I released Xantaire’s hand and drifted down towards them, another one ran.
“Who’s in charge now?” I asked.
The three looked at each other. Two of them were the ones Wyre had kept close, the ones I knew from before.
“Your names!” I snapped.
“J-Jarle.”
“Lark, sir.”
“Garet…”
“Garet.” I looked the big, hulking man over. He had an honest face, which was more than the other two could boast. “You’re the new boss.”
“I – the new boss?” He looked dumbfounded.
“Don’t worry, you’ll do just fine.”
“B-but, Peltos –“
“If Peltos – or anyone else –“ I glowered at J-Jarle and Lark “– has a problem with it, I’ll have a problem with them, see? If they’re putting so much as an ounce of pressure on you, I’ll put a thousand pounds on them… Look, I’ll come back in a week, talk things over. If you still don’t want the position then, we’ll fix it. For now, get your guys in order, damn it. If you stop killing people, I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want you to think I’m your new big boss here – if you don’t stop the indiscriminate slaughter, I’ll be back, believe me.”
I saw Garet mouthing out the word ‘in-dis-crim-in-ate’ and sighed.
When I moved my eyes across the other two, I noticed Jarle in particular was still eyeing me with terror.
“What’s your problem, exactly?” I asked, feeling tired already, considering it wasn’t even noon yet.
“It’s, er, yer – yer –“
He gestured at his face.
“Oh – my mask.” I squared my shoulders. “Yeah, there’s so much point in wearing that now, isn’t there? Thanks to you fellas… Better to just own it now.” I glanced around – there were only a few people on the street, but there were dozens of eyes at windows.
I sighed and moved my eyes back to Garet. “Good luck. If these guys don’t back your play or decide to stab you in the back, just remind them I’ll be looking for them.”
Offering a swift prayer to Yune on the oaf’s behalf, I went to catch the others up, using my wings to increase my speed.
The brick-built watchtower was in Cutterwells, only a two hundred yards – a brief hop as the mage flew, though getting there on foot would’ve probably comprised a journey of half a mile or more. Xantaire was relishing the opportunity to fly by the time we arrived, and it wasn’t until she realised she had the chance to watch Wyre and Orven get clapped in irons that she decided to actually land and enter.
The handover was smooth, simple. The few watchmen on duty looked terrified to have received the crime-lord of the Bertie Boys, on Yearsend morning, from four champions no less – and then Spirit did something that explained the situation to them in about five seconds flat, before putting an extended truth-telling charm on the Lultons.
When we got back outside and stood in front of the tower, buffeted by a cold breeze Em didn’t choose to stop, I spent a good few seconds simply staring at Bor and Tanra in stupefaction. My voice was almost tinny to my hearing as I numbly thanked them for what they had done. Bor magnanimously clapped me into a bear-hug, while Tanra curtsied, as though it were nothing.
Like I was fifty feet away, listening to my own voice through a metal pipe, I heard myself say: “Do you fancy stopping at ours? Mine first, I mean.”
“Yes, we’re heading up to mine after…” Em threw me a questioning look.
I nodded. “So long as the twins are still up for it.”
“Bor’s coming round to meet my mum for the first time,” Tanra said, without much by way of enthusiasm, folding her arms across herself to ward off the chill.
“What’s the problem?” the enchanter asked her. “I’ll charm the socks off her.”
“That’s what I’m worried about…”
“What?” I stared at her, perplexed. “You don’t think he’d actually, you know, use his powers on her?”
“If I don’t head him off, he will.” She sighed, and easily evaded the elbow he threw at her ribs. “He’s more worried than I am, even if he isn’t showing it. He’d do almost anything to make a good first impression.”
“Oi!” he snorted. “I’m right here!”
I grinned despite everything. “Well – I wish you both the best of luck.” I looked at Em. “Are you free to come back, for a bit at least?”
“Jaid will want to see you, I’m sure,” Xantaire said absently – she was looking down at her bruised knuckles, rubbing them affectionately with a proud smile on her lips.
“Let’s go check on them,” the wizard said, staring at me curiously.
“What is it, the mask?” I waved at my head.
But the curious look resolved into a smile. “No, Kas. I like it. But won’t they think you’re… you know… trying to ‘claim credit’?”
I cast about, and Xantaire nodded in agreement.
“Your girlfriend’s got a point,” she said.
“Hmm.” I hadn’t thought about it that way – perhaps people would think it was big-headed, showing off, a self-congratulatory revelation… “Fine.” I grabbed my mask from my pocket and settled it across my upper face once more. “For all the good it’s going to do me.”
Em renewed everyone’s flight-spells, and we all took off, Tanra and Bor heading southwards.
“Happy Yearsend,” the seeress called back as they vanished out of sight.
We headed for Mud Lane, her words ringing in my ears.
I know, Tanra, I thought. I know.
* * *
My gremlin wasn’t the best flier, but with Em’s direct assistance he managed to keep up as we flew, cloaked in invisibility, to Rivertown, hauling a sack of presents behind us as we went. The Reyds had never met my family before – never mind my extended family – and, while they knew in advance how many to cook for, the main room was awfully full of bodies while we ate the Endfeast. Atar had prepared the traditional five-bird roast twice over, and at least three of the birds were stuffed with unusual, Onsoloric spices. No one except Linn seemed to enjoy the potent pheasant, which he washed down with copious amounts of ale; I did my best with it to save face, but I filled up on the grouse. Thankfully, Xastur, Jaid and Jaroan all found something they could stomach – they almost polished off both partridges between the three of them, along with a platter of gravy-soaked veg. Orstrum seemed to delight in trying a bit of everything, though he still had the tears in his eyes that’d been there since he returned from the graveyard to hear what had happened. Xantaire didn’t eat much, looking down at the fist with which she’d pummelled her brother’s killer. Occasionally her granddad would reach out and pat her on the shoulder, and she would offer him a wan smile.
It was finally catching up to us. The events of this morning would’ve felt like a distant dream, especially now that my belly was fit to burst and I’d had a couple of beers – the lethargy of the exertion and the excitement washed over me, and I was ready to fall asleep. But Jaid stayed right next to me, often holding onto my arm between mouthfuls as though she were afraid if she let it go for too long she’d be taken away again. Jaroan had taken it all on the chin, merely looking at me sternly whenever I dared even suggest that he’d been through a rough ordeal. Being taken by those ruffians, held by knife-men until Killstop appeared to free them and return them home…
Whenever I thought of it, my head seethed, and I came back around – each and every time Jaid wormed her hand between my arm and my side, wrapping her elbow around mine, I felt the fury inside that had almost decapitated the murderers where they stood.
At least there was one silver lining – they weren’t going to become archmages. If there’d ever been a time for a pair of twins to suddenly inherit earth-shaking powers, it would’ve been then.
All in all, it was a good job I had Jaid keeping me awake, because next came the gift-giving. A couple of my more-intimate presents for Em I would save for later, but we opened the sack she’d carried through the skies for us which contained the vast majority of what I’d bought. The kids distributed the adults’ gifts first before they got theirs from the Reyds, which should’ve normally meant they’d be moving frantically to get it over and done with, get their pressies – but only Xastur, blissfully unaware of today’s events, seemed to get into it. In any case, the presents from these near-strangers weren’t going to outstrip the things I’d bought them; they did their best to seem grateful for the wooden toys, which was all I could ask for considering the circumstances. They did better than Linn, anyway – Atar managed to beam brightly when I produced the customisable sheath I’d bought her, a clever bit of kit that would let her transform the appearance of her z-shaped flute-instrument; she went and tried it out right away – but Em’s dad merely gave me a sceptical ‘hmm’ while digging through the master-craft woodworking set I got for him.
“Give him time,” Atar silently mouthed at me across the room, with a conciliatory wave of her hand.
I smiled back. It was difficult, smiling, sometimes. More difficult than smashing gangs of thugs, more difficult than taking on darkmages.
Em forced me to dig my robe out of my satchel before giving me my primary gift, and once I had it on she produced a truly magnificent item: a gem-studded belt of silver-blue dragonscale leather, far more elegant and ‘magician-y’ than the nice-enough black leather cords I’d used till now. I quickly untied my current belt, freed my pouches, then tried it on for size.
It was perfect – despite its apparent weight and sturdiness the dragonscale was as light as air. I kissed my girlfriend for the first time right in front of her paza, then let her go back to her mazan, where they’d been poring over one of the recipes in the Too Hot To Handle cookbook I’d gotten her. I was beginning to regret that one purchase, given the devious looks Em’s mum started to throw in my direction. She was every bit as bad as her daughter.
A while later, once Jaid and Jaroan finally fell asleep together on the couch, I found Orstrum outside – somehow he’d managed to lower himself onto the frozen back doorstep, using a scrap wooden pallet from one of Linn’s bins as makeshift cushion. As I stepped out to join him I noticed he was chewing something, and I caught the aroma instantly.
I studied him for a moment. The shaven head was covered in bristles. The trimmed white beard was festooned with long whiskers.
How long had it been since I’d looked at him? Really looked at him?
“I didn’t know you ate wane,” I chided him lightly, folding my arms across my chest like I could parent this man who was sixty years or so my senior. I was still wearing my new belt – at least when I crossed my arms wearing the robe I didn’t look like some petulant, scrawny ghoul; it definitely had space in it for me to pack on some muscle.
“Oh-ho, my boy,” he chortled, “after a day like today, a man must be forgiven for his indulgences. You fly your way – I have my own.”
I held out my hand, and he only raised an eyebrow for a few seconds before grabbing a pouch from inside his coat-jacket and placing a leaf in my fingers.
The taste was acrid, bitter and, in my current mood, relatively enjoyable. The effect of the substance diverged wildly from beer, serving to settle me down rather than rile me up, slowing and elongating the thoughts churning in my head. After a few minutes I found myself sitting beside him on the pallet, staring up at the darkened sky, reminiscing about his dead grandson.
“That night, when your little chap made those wine creations,” he said wistfully. “I think that was the happiest I ever saw him, Kas.”
That ‘little chap’ is dead too, I thought – but he didn’t need reminding. The twins had long since found out and went through their own mourning process, their grief dampened by my reassurances Flood Boy wouldn’t be gone for that long… Not that I’d know where to find him in Etherium if and when he did come back… not that I knew who he really was, either…
“I should’ve never given Morsus that money.” I still smiled, though, remembering his gratitude. “He was a good man. You should be proud, that you helped raise him.”
Orstrum sniffed. “He was a weak man, Kas. He lived for the moment. I… I failed him, not you. I should have been harsher. Harder. I should have stopped him being that kind of person, filled with his greed, his lust for things… Things, they just bring complication, my boy. The less things you got, the less there is to worry about.”
“There’s wisdom in that.” I shut my eyes, leaned back against the cold door, and breathed deep of the chill twilight air. “But he wasn’t weak. He was strong. It was just… a different kind of strength.”
The other door swung in, and Em poked her head out. I could tell from the narrowing of her eyes that she could smell the wane on my breath, and I felt my face flush.
Damn aeromancy…
“Mazan is going to play,” she said curtly, then turned away and headed back inside, leaving the door open behind her.
“Come on, we’ve been summoned.”
I got to my feet and helped the old man stand, but instead of moving off with me he stood his ground – I faltered, and he put his hands on my shoulders, looking in my face.
“I call you my boy and I mean it, you are family to me – everything you’ve done… But I know you’re a boy no more. You understand me, right? I’m not trying to put you down. You are a good man, Kas. A strong man.”
I felt a wellspring of positive emotion, undiluted, indelineable, that seemed to come up through my being from out of nowhere, and I didn’t know what to do with it until he hugged me. It was just a swift bear-hug, manly-enough for his sensibilities, but I had no idea whether or not he knew what it had done for me.
That’s the magical flora talking, Kas, my cynical side said in a chuckling tone.
I followed the old man in through the door, and somehow it had worked. Today – Yearsend… The Bertie Boys – the precipice of slaughter on whose lip I’d faltered, almost falling… The distress, the damage, Xantaire’s injuries, everything the twins went through –
I was happy. Somehow, in spite of everything, I was happy.
* * *
Notes of music dancing like motes of light on an ethereal breeze, the flute’s song lulled my reclining mind into a dreamless slumber in which the only sensation was satisfaction, the feeling of putting your feet up on the table after a long day of toil. I floated in the empty blackness, buffeted by warm winds, borne by them far beyond the cares of mortal flesh, need and worry and want. Here was the bliss we all sought. Here I could rest.
I sit with Mum and Dad in Firenight Square. I sit between them. The twins are babies: Mum has Jaroan in her lap, and Dad has Jaid.
I look up at them, from the one to the other.
I can’t remember, can’t recognise their faces.
When Em shook me awake, noises ringing out, at first I had a flashback to the night of the Incursion, being awoken in almost the exact same spot, hearing the Mourning Bells –
But this wasn’t the Bells – it was my glyphstone. Em had clearly already answered hers, and all the eyes in the room were focussed on the two of us, questions on every set of lips.
“Wha…? What’s going on? Em?”
“Kas, they’ve escaped.”
“Wha…”
Tranquillity extinguished, a solitary candle-flame before the tidal wave, flattened such that it was as though it had never been.
I didn’t need to ask who, why, where, even how. There was only one question:
“When?”
She backed off as I rose to my feet, and even she seemed shocked by the iciness of my voice.
“M-minutes,” she mumbled. “Zey killed two vatchmen. Zey think one of ze ozzers voz in zeir pay.”
I hissed. I wasn’t going to make any more mistakes.
My imps hadn’t found Nighteye – but this pair of scum weren’t shapeshifters protected by seers.
I raised both my arms, stabbing my hands straight out at the walls in either direction, then turned my upper body ninety degrees, bringing them down to my sides again.
Seventeen gungrelafor entered Materium through my portals: twin-horned faces were poking over the backs of chairs, short tails flicking behind the curtains, wing-tips protruding from under the couch…
Teleporters.
Most of the others in the room had some idea what to expect; despite his inexperience with this kind of thing Linn managed to keep his stern fortify-face, but Atar shrieked, staring around in horror, and Em tried to calm her down –
But I wasn’t really listening.
Zabalam, awaken.
“Feychilde?” he crooned in my head.
These men. Remember them.
Then another gesture birthed the gremlin onto our plane.
“Show them Orven. Show them Wyre.”
He took the images from my mind and, while everyone but Em watched on in astonishment, he swiftly built the illusion of the two murderers in the centre of the room, almost capturing their likenesses perfectly – it was close enough that I felt the irrational urge to attack the glamours.
By the time he was done, Atar had calmed down, staring in awe instead. Linn’s expression still hadn’t changed, his outward demeanour giving off disapproval, if not a faint whiff of outright contempt.
I didn’t care.
I cast my gaze around at the imps and barked in Infernal: “Cutterwells Watchtower, Sticktown. Start there, move out. They’ll likely be indoors.” Each of my minions looked a little different, and I smiled thinly when I found the one who’d acted as my messenger to Zakimel back in Zadhal. The gungrelafor was on top of the curtain rail, leering. “You, Pinktongue – report back to me. Now, go.”
Seventeen heatless red flames consumed them instantly, vanishing right there off the furniture.
Almost immediately everyone started speaking, but I had no time for them now. I just flicked my eyes to the people most important to me, giving them a look as I started materialising wings and drifting towards the wall. The hand I reached out in front of me as I moved increased in transparency. By the time I reached the plaster and bricks I would pass right through them –
I brought Zab back into my being, then used a blurring effect to disguise what I did with the amethyst rift, summoning and joining with my vampire.
“Kas – vait!” Em was blurting.
“Catch me up,” I murmured just before entering the coldness of the physical boundary, keeping my fang-distorted face turned away from the others.
Within seconds I was out. It was night. I was free.
I flew north-east, as quickly as I could fly, but before I passed over the Greywater I saw Stormsword sweep through the sky above me; then her flight-spell enveloped me, and I could really put on some speed. My glyphstone’s buzzing was becoming increasingly loud, increasingly distracting – I was tempted to just lob the damn thing in the river. Common sense won out, and I graced it with a moment of my attention, enough to stop the incessant trilling without it pulling me into the trance.
I knew full-well what it said, what it portended. I didn’t need to hear it in person – that would just drive me into a rage.
More of a rage.
Oldtown was a blur beneath us – then we passed over the Blackrush and central Sticktown. Below, a few revellers ambled idly through snow-coated streets; even the mudflows of my home district looked picturesque from up here. Many more would be indoors, enjoying their Endfeasts by meeting friends at bars, or relaxing in their homes with their families gathered around them.
As I should’ve been. For the first time, I felt it bite at me: the sheer normalcy I’d lost, becoming Feychilde… I could’ve hidden my sorcery, moved more slowly, carefully…
But what I’d gained… My parents’ home. The twins’ futures. My amazing girlfriend. Friends. Prestige. Power.
It all tangled together, the good with the bad, and at the heart of it all was this man.
Wyre Lulton. The low creature whose vicious mind had fired the muscles, the extension of his arm that brought the blade down, eagerly cutting Mum’s throat, piercing Dad’s heart as he sacrificed himself pointlessly, trying to intervene when it was already too late.
That’s what the witnesses had said. But they’d lied, all of them, motivated by fear or greed or both, motivated by Wyre Lulton to condemn his own brother Toras to the gallows.
Maybe he didn’t kill them like that. Maybe their murders had been less gruesome in actuality than the horrible tale I’d been told. But maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it had been worse.
I promise, Mum and Dad. I’ll make sure he hangs for this. I’ll put him in the noose myself if I have to. Put him in the noose, kick away the stool and watch.
If he hadn’t killed them, I wouldn’t have been there that day, where a fairy and a faun spun their first web about me. Wouldn’t have been granted authority over fundamental forces of existence.
I owed it all – the good and the bad, the Good and the Evil – to him.
Pinktongue appeared in a red flash, checked my trajectory, then spun and teleported again, four wings flapping to keep up.
“Master!” he croaked. “Follow, if you still seek the Wyre Lulton!”
He blinked away, skipping ten yards each time, and within five seconds I had my course corrected.
Towards home.
“Stormsword!” I cried.
It was needless. The flight-spell she’d put on me seemed to make her aware of my change in direction – when I looked up at her she had already gotten out ahead of me again.
When her voice came back to me, it was the softly-spoken tenor of a confident highborn, the winds carrying Stormsword’s words: “You know that if they resist, they can be killed. They are active murderers. The watch themselves issued the edict.”
I didn’t know that, but it made sense.
A satisfying kind of sense.
Just a few seconds after I saw the trail of destruction, the imp croaked again: “Master!”
Pinktongue blinked down towards the street.
I focussed my vampiric senses, descending like a winged shadow, and the ‘how’ of their escape was instantly made plain as I saw them moving up the roadway.
Gods-dropped inkatra.
They weren’t in hiding. They weren’t indoors. They weren’t doing any of the things I’d have done in their situation. Quite the opposite.
Inkatra. The first few times, users were incredibly unfocussed. The drug took hold of their thoughts, eroding their inhibitions, twisting them into indulging their primordial instincts. A forceful personality, like a gang-leader, could possibly rein them in, even on their first go of the stuff. But Wyre wasn’t going to be taking orders from anyone else – and he had taken the herb himself. I could tell that much – the man was thirty feet tall.
There was nothing to indicate Orven had taken it, or the ex-watchman still in his uniform – those two ran along behind the titanic crime-lord, avoiding the huge sloppy ditches he left in his wake, the falling timbers that showered down like deadly hail. Ah, no – the watchman moved with oily precision to pull Orven away before he was buried beneath someone’s furniture; a divination trait… The three others I could see were definitely on the drug – there was a ridiculous sorcerer fascinated by the world’s weakest-ever shields that surrounded him, a man exuding frosty air from his hands, and a giant white bear that still only came up to Wyre’s knee. All of them moved as one, all seemingly in the same state of ecstatic misery.
They weren’t heading to my home. That wasn’t what the boss’s instincts had compelled him to do – no, nothing so complex as vengeance. They were heading to their own home, their former base of operations – and Wyre’s main motivation appeared to be simple annihilation. As if by destroying the place he’d lived in for years he could just take it all back, have it all over again.
Or maybe it was just that he knew there could be no escape from my wrath. There was no hiding. The magical herb couldn’t conceal him for long, not without him perishing from over-consumption.
If he wanted to go out with a bang, he was going about it the right way. He stumbled through Helbert’s Bend as though he were a child running amok in a toy shop filled with matchstick houses; he was literally pulling down the fronts of structures as he went wading towards the base, a river of debris flowing behind him. What was worse, it seemed many of the inhabitants were being drawn towards their windows before he arrived – to see what was happening, what that awful din could be – only to be pulled down into the plank-strewn snow along with their walls.
There were injuries, and cries of distress, and delicious-smelling blood-puddles – but my mind was shaped like an arrow and it knew its target.
The life of Wyre Lulton.
As I descended towards him I held up my hand, forging a tremendous blade of force that would shatter his huge, druidry-reinforced sternum, pierce his massive heart with good-will to all men, a Yearsend gift to the human race bestowed in a torrential red rain –
My azure sword gleamed as I raised it –
Yet the wane slowed the thought, blunted the tip of the arrowhead.
The happy memory had only faded, not died.
“You are a good man. A strong man.”
A good man. A strong man.
A bad man. A weak man.
What was the dividing line? Who got to decide? Could I be considered good for killing them, ridding the plane of their stained existences, robbing the dark gods of the power they gained through the base actions these men committed? Or would I automatically serve the dark gods’ aims, darken my own soul, even when I sought justice? Was it nobler to accept that sacrifice, lose my high ground – take lives to save lives, stop the chaos in its tracks? Or was it only my rage speaking, my own desire to simply vanquish them, rip them apart?
I descended, but I slowed; my arm fell limply to my side, my vast sword dissipating. My eyes looked up to Stormsword, and hers down to meet mine.
I couldn’t do it, and she knew it now. She knew me, and I knew her. I could tell it all from the way she came to a screeching halt.
She could help me, couldn’t she? She could help this weak, useless man?
I could surrender it to her, couldn’t I? This burden?
That was the truth of it, wasn’t it? I wasn’t a good man, or a bad man. A strong man, or a weak man. I could play at being grown-up, which was what my society expected of me.
But I remained a boy. I couldn’t make my own choice. I couldn’t own it.
As I’d expected, Stormsword halted only to draw back her own arms, raise her fingers to the skies.
Even as Wyre plunged into another house, heedless of the wails as he ripped through a bedroom and spilled its contents into the street, Em coaxed down the lightning.
She didn’t let it fall upon him at once – the thunder laughed, as loud as an avalanche, and she gave him a few seconds to stop, raise his face and look up at her –
That animal expression, twisted in anger and fear and hate, would stay with me until the day I died.
I could see it, reflected in his overlarge eyes: the crackling ribbons of white fire were immense, stretching like pillars from her hands to the vaults of the heavens –
And then the air fell silent; the lightning leapt down, and that was the end for Wyre Lulton.
She didn’t scorch him, or let him suffer. She simply executed him.
Where in one moment stood a thirty-foot, living breathing human, there now stood a thirty-foot statue, charcoal, grey-black throughout, trapped in its last moment of anguish.
I didn’t see her swinging the sword of white light, the hundred-foot blade of pure dancing electricity that rushed down at his neck – but I saw it connect, saw it effortlessly part the crumbling head from the crumbling shoulders.
He’d taken inkatra for druidry, for self-augmentations. She wasn’t taking any chances. It was like Winterprince had told us, that day we first met him.
Druids don’t regrow heads.
The charcoal boulder landed with a thump, losing almost half its mass into the sludge. The body followed it, collapsing down where it stood.
There, Mum and Dad. There. It’s done. Look.
They weren’t here, so I floated in the air, looking down for them.
The remaining Bertie Boys decided to fight rather than flee, but I didn’t move to help. She didn’t need it. She focussed on the other druid, and Stormsword’s namesake beheaded him, the huge bear’s-head sailing through the air – meanwhile, she seemed to unconsciously form elementals of debris and mud, frost and excrement, towering creatures rising from the very substance of Sticktown to grasp the diviner tight, smash the sorcerer’s shields, overwhelm the paltry wizard. They were surrounded, compressed, submerged – and this time she gave them no airway.
She drowned them.
All of them decided to fight rather than flee – all except for Orven. The vile excuse for a human turned tail and fled, running off through the drop like he always did.
Until its snow-capped arms reached up for him, dragged him beneath the surface.
He too didn’t rise again, and I watched it all, bemused.
I felt it when they became tools for my magic, corpses my mind could reawaken, crude intellects my power could restore, torturing their souls with a nigh-unbreakable anchor to the inner planes…
I came to attention, then I noted the arrival of Bor and Tanra, saw them helping people out of the wreckage, Em adding her powers to the relief effort –
So many people…
Instincts finally kicked in, and I realised. I could hear them screaming, but I didn’t care. I could smell the wounds, but it only tempted me.
Gods, how do Shallowlie and Netherhame deal with this?
I was less experienced, less knowledgeable than I’d thought. I’d avoided joining with the bloodthirsty eldritches for a reason, and I was now living with the consequences of my decision, one moment at a time. It exposed a callous streak in me I didn’t know existed.
I expelled and dismissed my vampire with a single definite intention, then whipped about – I brought Avaelar out, started shifting timbers with satyr-strength, seeking out pinned victims with the wraith-form, swiftly whittling down my quota of healing potions –
It took over fifteen minutes, and that was only thanks to Killstop and the other diviners who’d shown after someone put out a general call: Star and Dimdweller. Glimmermere – Imrye – arrived just too late to treat a girl whose head was crushed by a beam. I didn’t have much time to think, relying on pure emotion to drive me from place to place – it wasn’t difficult, to bring myself to help people.
It was the other thing – harming them – killing them – that I had a problem with. Doing this, the meagre rescue-work, the grunt-level magician-labour – that was what I was good for. That was what made me a ‘good man’, a ‘good boy’. If it didn’t have ‘Soulless Evil’ painted in big bright letters on its Anti-Life Crown and a dead champion’s body for a garment, I was incapable of taking action.
I didn’t kill the killer of my flatmate, never mind the killer of my own parents. If I’d killed Wyre this morning, that girl Imrye failed to save would still be alive, still have a future – but it had been stolen away by his malice, by my cowardice… I didn’t even kill the heretic in Firenight Square, whatever that sorcerer said at the battle over the heath – the spider-druidess could’ve got away and messed with my head too, if not for Winterprince’s intervention. And I didn’t kill Everseer when I could’ve, in the battle at the library, and she went on to kill… who knew how many people.
Everseer…
Why had Tanra not foreseen all these events today? Was it really inkatra messing with her head? And where was Timesnatcher in all this? Surely he’d had plenty of opportunity to deal with his twin arch-sorceress problem by now, given his particular repertoire of skills… Had this whole thing been invisible to them all?
I didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know. Once we’d done all we could and the local authorities took over, I made my excuses and headed straight back towards Rivertown with Em. I was just sick of it, sick of it all. Sick of myself most of all. Em had killed Wyre, and I found it magnificent to watch, even now when I played it back before my mind’s eye. Then she’d drowned five other men in filth, and while I experienced a kind of horror when I considered these deaths, it was more muted than I would’ve liked. A horror at arm’s length. A horror that you know ought to be dreadful but just somehow falls a little short of the mark, almost into the bearable category… Were they less culpable than Wyre? What right did I have to choose between them, decree death for one but mercy for the rest? All agents of the law, from watchman to magister to champion, were licensed to kill the escapees if they resisted – and they did take aggressive postures against Em when she attacked them. As futile as it had turned out to be, they did resist.
But did they? Really?
I looked over at her as we flew – she met my eyes and smiled.
She didn’t have the eyes of a killer… not anymore. She was just her.
I smiled back.
I didn’t care if the Bertie Boys didn’t stand a chance. I didn’t care that Orven ran. So, they could have lived – perhaps she didn’t need to kill them. But, almost certainly, they would’ve gone on to murder others.
And so despite not needing to kill them, she took by choice the more difficult road. She shouldered the burden of their deaths on behalf of those who would live out full lives thanks to her action here today.
She was a good person. Better than me.
I flew closer to her, took her by the hand, and brought us to a stop. We were hundreds of feet over Oldtown’s ancient ruins, the zone of Mund time forgot. Now that we were no longer moving, the snow drifted slowly down past us, zig-zagging softly on the breeze coming down off the mountain.
“How cold is it?” I asked.
“How… Kas.” She smiled again, then brought herself inside my embrace, lying her head sideways against my chest. “You really vont to know.”
“Show me.”
The breeze was as glacial as I’d expected. I shivered, and suppressed the urge to become insubstantial.
“It is exhilarating, is it not?” she breathed, nestling even closer.
“You… You did it, Em.”
“You knew zat I vould. I did it for you.”
“You did it – just for me?”
“Of course. It’s vot you needed. Zat’s vot I’m here for.”
“I love you.”
Her chin tilted up, swimming cobalt eyes radiant like stars.
“I love you too, Kas.”
“Move in with me.”
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