PYRITE 10.1: FOR CHANGE
“My dear sister? The one they call the Architect of All Disappointment? She hath tried, blessed be her heart, and yet doth persist in dire need of her own ministrations. What hope hath Hope? She too will be disappointed in the end. I hath swelled strong in this cycle, while she retaineth barely the strength to hold firm her position. For all the Worship with which she is quite-rightly deluged as befits her station and stature, half of it is black, and she canst not forever deny the stains she doth endure. For what deity of hope doth not wring a morsel of Worship from the dark desire of the murderer, hoping to find his fondest victim in the posture of weakness? How doth she cleanse herself of the abuser’s vileness? She doth not. She may not. She doth embody it. For these reasons and more I say: to our side in the conflict shall she turn. We need must only await the day, and see Hope itself die, to rise again amidst our ranks.”
– from ‘The Yellow Signature’, pg. 8
At first I can understand everything. I’m crawling up a street and it’s raining. The mud and drop is in my nose, in my hair, under my nails. It’s awful, but it makes sense. I can’t see the apartment, not from down here, and the road is at least a hundred times longer than it ought to be, but at least I know where I am.
Home.
Then when I try to find out why I’m crawling, it all changes. I’m doing the same thing, dragging myself from nowhere to nothing, but the road isn’t Mud Lane. It’s another lane coated in mud. Another place entirely.
I’m lost, Zel. Can you find me? Can you come get me and take me away from this place? I think I took a wrong turn.
I thought my foot was broken, but it isn’t. It’s gone. My legs – the lower parts of them at least – have vanished into the mud. I wriggle around to look for them but they’re as long-gone as a tail. I’m just a torso, hauling itself away from the scene of the crime.
My left hand is going about its business as usual, sinking fingers into the muck, pulling the sludge a foot closer towards me for every inch I travel.
The right hand…
When I try to look where my right hand has gone I see the sheet of bone below the mud. It’s huge and white, stretching off under the street, and as much as I try to recoil I’m falling into it – it’s beneath the roads, beneath the houses. It’s our foundation-bone. It’s the firmament upon which everything we believe has been erected.
The dragon’s skull.
A dwarf somersaults, glittering darkness pouring off him in waves, and I’m gone. Far away. Wind whips at me. My robe cracks about me and the mud is water under my feet. Kirid and Orcan are here too. Watching, as Tanra tries to murder me for the crown.
Watching as Tanra pulls me into her arms and kisses me. It is the tenderest kiss of my life. The touch of her lips on mine – it reverberates back and forth along the line of my existence, rewriting all I’ve ever known, all I’ll ever come to know.
On the beach behind Tanra a black wave washes back, receding, and one of the foreign corpses floating face-down flips over. The bloated body has changed. Emrelet isn’t Emrelet. She’s Abstraxia, her platinum hair pulled back, twisted into a long gleaming tail. The hair is still alive, slapping frantically at the surface of the water as if thereby to resurrect its bearer.
I cringe, step back, yet when I pull away from Tanra it’s Everseer, Everseer in my arms – when I see the maniacal grin I scream, scream –
The dream broke, and, while I wasn’t actually screaming when I came back to myself, I was drenched in sweat. It was a hot morning, even through the eldritches, and there was a right racket going on outside; I came fully awake in a single instant. I rolled off the cot then sat back on its edge, the circle-shield still bobbing about me reassuringly. I looked around, first shaking my head then pawing at my brows, trying to clear my vision of the long wet hairs clinging to my face.
The little room Garet found me was still a work in progress, just about as welcoming as a penitent’s cell. My mattress was hay. The blanket I’d been given for a pillow was a ball of wool and frayed cloth. The window-frame let only a couple of slats of light through the shutters, it was so thin.
Maybe I was a penitent, because it was welcoming-enough for me. I could’ve stayed here all day, just lying back on the straw.
When did I last have a proper lie down?
Ah, that was it. When I sensed one of Malas’s servants floating past my window. I wondered idly what might’ve happened if I hadn’t responded to that provocative act. What if I’d sensed the ghost and shrugged it off? Went back to my book. Would I have been in a position to save Telior? Find purpose in Deymar’s vision, find solace in Nafala’s arms?
Arms. I’d have at least kept the plural.
Without really wanting to, I looked down at my right side. Only my sorcerer’s-eye showed the truth of the five holy burning tendrils.
Did you mean for this to happen, Malas, you old git? Why? No. You couldn’t have.
But then – your last words. What truth did you want to share? The truth of the crown? Its true scope? Its power, when in Infernum?
What would Malas have done if I’d stayed home? Would he have come for me in a more-direct way? Or would he have abandoned me, turning to some other tool already half-prepared for the role? There had to be any number of arch-sorcerers with the gift for battle, the ‘heart of the champion’…
But that was the point, wasn’t it? How could I have refused the call? I was destiny’s fool, like everyone else. Even the ones pulling the strings – if they looked up, looked up with eyes that could see, I’d have bet they too were just puppets. Ulu Kalar and Arreath Ril – who was to say they weren’t predicted, that they didn’t exist under the shadow of a looming future, just like the rest of us?
What’s the point of it all, Yune?
I supposed she was the wrong deity to ask, wasn’t she?
Illodin… What’s the point?
It seemed to me an act of incredible malice, to fit souls with skins and set them to struggle through a miserable existence in this world of suffering. Set them here, not to decide their courses, but to be provided with the illusion of decision. Just enough of an illusion to trick those unfamiliar with divination, to make them feel the guilt, the shame of a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgement… a mere reflex…
‘No responsibilities.’ No wonder Ly had gone over to the heretics in the end. There was no reason not to. It was fate, after all. And all the hundreds of books I’d read said nothing different, from my parents’ collection to the Magisterium’s. Not a word to contradict the hidden reality of our bondage.
What did it mean, to be here, to be a creature in this world? Was I just here to act out my part in some sick god’s sick play? If so, why did they have to make it hurt? Why did I have to be here to feel it? Why couldn’t my skin just go trundling on, acting as though it felt the pain, even though it was empty inside?
Even if I don’t decide, I experience the decision as though it were mine. My soul’s changed, whether the change came from inside or outside. Maybe that’s all we can ask. The opportunity for our souls to change.
Yet those left alone in the darkness? How will their souls change? Why do they deserve it? Why would we let it happen? Why wouldn’t a god stoop down to raise them up? Why drag a puppet through mud, blood, misery?
There could only be one answer: the soul mattered. Somewhere beyond the pain, there had to be a moment of true choice. Where the spirit could reveal itself, divested of all its long labours. When the past crystallised like a second skin, only to fall aside, permitting the creature gestating within to emerge.
I longed for that day.
I’d drained three big cups of water before I found my bed, but now my stomach was tying itself in hungry knots. My bladder’s complaints were starting to penetrate the cocoon of tranquillity enveloping me. I was considering drifting straight out through the wall; I had to avoid Xan at her own request and knowing that I was in the same building as her, skulking down here in an unfinished room as an unwanted guest… it felt wrong.
Still, it was hard to combat my lethargy. I knew what lay ahead of me today – or, at least, I suspected I had a good idea.
Turmoil. Unrest.
I had to confront the Magisterium. They had to confront me. The question was where. When. How could I turn the blow aside to send it swinging back at my attacker’s neck? How could I tip the scales without leaving my hand extended, in the open?
Lure them in.
How?
Be Feychilde. They will come.
I shook my head again, this time trying to clear the internal cobwebs. It sometimes almost sounded like Mekesta was still whispering to me.
Perhaps the shadow won’t leave me until I stop wanting it back…
I slowly patted the top of my head, trying to feel an impression in my hair where the crown had sat. There was nothing. A sweaty night had seen to that, if there’d even been a vague indentation at all.
I did miss it. Not knowing when the Magisterium’s diviners would suddenly get a fix on my location, predict my devices – it made everything so bittersweet.
Why had I even returned in the first place? What had made me think I could endure the pressure the Magisterium would exert upon me? It was as though I’d had a trump card up my sleeve but now the time had come to play it, my sleeve was empty.
Unless…
I summoned Infrick, and an infernal gateway drew itself into existence, guttering red lines of flame, coiling pillars of crimson smoke.
“Master.”
The eolastyr stepped forth, her purple-and-black fur gleaming, slick with her spittle or worse. The utterly alien face, some kind of triangular prism of white, leathery flesh, had now healed.
She gave something of a spinning curtsy, feline tail swishing lazily.
“I’m still calling you Trappy,” I said when I finished appraising her.
“Very well, Master. I’ll learn to love it.”
It was still strange, seeing such an entity act deferentially to me. I was still feeling full in the magical sense, my sorcerous belly swollen with her potential.
My more-real belly voiced its emptiness as if to protest my thoughts, giving a great rumbling yaaaarp.
“I’m going to run some ideas by you,” I said. “You’re going to try to surprise me by improving on them.” I saw her dark eyes widen in excitement and raised a finger warningly. “You’re not to try to plan my day for me. Gods know why I trust you even this far. But… I need help. Guidance, you understand.”
The arch-fiend’s pointed chin dipped and she nodded slowly, a serious expression on her features –
“If it’s your intention to continue on with me at your side, it might be wise to consider hiding me once more. In twenty-eight seconds the one known to you as Garet will enter – quietly, in his way, but he shan’t knock –”
I tapped liberally at Zab’s essence, throwing not two but three cloaks over her. Even I could barely sense her.
“That’s more than enough.” I got the impression she was grinning.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“You knew I would.”
“Not this quickly.”
She laughed, but fell silent again just as I heard the footfalls outside the door. The soft thumps were accompanied by a ripple of babbling voices. People who clearly thought they were being more hushed than they were.
The hinges hadn’t been oiled in what was clearly a good long time, and the whole door had slipped a bit in the frame. Garet might’ve been trying his hardest to keep quiet but it would’ve been damn hard to tell without Infrick’s insights.
His head came cautiously poking around, carried on a wave of whispers, and I saw the relief in his eyes when he noticed I was awake.
“Don’t worry, you can come in. Not disturbing me.”
“Fanks.” He tried to shut the door behind himself, but at least two other people were already in the gap, craning their heads around to get a glimpse of the champion.
“It’s okay. And thanks to you. For the room.” I nodded to him in gratitude, then cast a sly sidelong glance in the general direction of Infrick’s certain-to-be-grinning gob. Why hadn’t she warned me of the audience?
“I was, uh, tryin’ to bring yer some brekkie buh –” he looked over his shoulder in frustration and gave the door another belated shove with his shoulder “– I fink they figured you was here. And, yer know, like with Xan…”
“Say no more. I was never here.”
I got to my feet and gestured to Infrick, masking it with a stretch. She moved to my side silently, taking my shoulder gently in her claws, and I extended the ancient’s essence over her.
“I… I dunno if that’s on the cards anymore, Feychilde.”
He couldn’t hold them back any longer – not without going full-on Gentleman in their faces. The door burst in, and several drop-covered people pressed through the opening.
The questions came thick and fast, along with rambling adulations, moans of grief… Some of them clearly wanted to approach me but my appearance must’ve been off-putting, even to them, Sticktowners born and bred. Perhaps it was the missing arm. I’d have to get used to people, even my biggest fans, looking at me funny. Probably for the rest of my life.
Ah, well. It could always be worse.
Maybe I was better off this way. I didn’t want them touching my clothes like I was a saint.
I searched their faces. I thought I recognised a couple of them. My old neighbours, probably. Who knew how many hundred people used to live in Mud Lane. They’d be refugees, just like me.
“Like I said – sorry, like.” Garet was forced to yell to be heard over the commotion.
“No problem!” I yelled back, giving him a thumbs up. I looked around at the various petitioners crowding into the opening of the tiny room, then, without warning, propelled myself a few feet into the air.
Stunned silence descended.
“I appreciate your kind words,” I said, wanting to be as diplomatic here as possible. A few of them were in mourning or had loved ones still missing out there, as far as I’d been able to interpret the din. “I hear you. All of you. I wish I could help everyone. We all need to be helped sometimes, and it’s my job. I know that. But I’m not that naive anymore. I hear what’s going on out there, as much as I want to deny it. You hear it too. Listen!”
I stilled my thoughts, letting the sounds wash over me.
The wooden walls weren’t thick enough to shut out the madness that had consumed the streets, and this building, here in the heart of Helbert’s Bend, was smack in the centre of the most densely-populated area in the world. Mothers and daughters were still screaming – with a shudder I identified the wails of fathers and sons, almost indistinguishable. These were the cries of survivors – those left to pick up the pieces of shattered lives. But what was there left to pick up, out of such senseless ruin? Like vases broken not in ten shards or a hundred but ground to dust – what even was there to reassemble? Many would be envying those struck by falling timbers, those burnt and blasted, even those mutilated by infernal claws. Those lucky ones who’d fallen victim to their injuries, pulled by the purple winds into a dimension of never-ending shadows, from which even their most heartfelt cries would never return.
The shadows in which they could rest, eternally.
We’d saved the city – or had we? The Sinphalamax had sliced Mund’s head off, and perhaps we’d arrived in time to catch it, stop it tumbling to the ground… But we couldn’t stop time, not on this scale. Couldn’t heal the wound caused by such a savage blade as she’d wielded. This was no clean cut. Mund had been hacked, hewn-at like a tree-trunk.
Now we teetered, ready to fall. The question was not if but when.
Which way…
“I help you find your daughter, madam, and I can’t help the lady out there missing her own children. I help you, sir, find a healer for your son’s… crushed hand…” I tried to recall what at least a couple of the petitioners had been saying. “And someone out there, whose son’s lost his legs, gets no help. I know – it isn’t fair!” I repeated one man’s mumbling, causing him to instantly redden in shame. “But it’s life. We’re Sticktowners. We’ll deal with it.”
“Liberator,” a woman said through her tears, dabbing at her face with her sleeve. She had no follow-up comment; I just smiled at her and then let my gaze travel across the others.
“What I can do is – hopefully – something a bit bigger in scope. I want to talk to the magisters. I’ll get everyone help, with a bit of luck. But first… before I’m off…” I looked at Garet. “I need help with something.”
Where’s the nearest toilet? I wanted to ask. I was about to start squirming soon. But I couldn’t – not yet. I had to clear this up.
“Uh – sure,” the former Gentleman rumbled.
“The magisters – Mud Lane… I just need to know, before I talk to them… was it definitely a Magisterium accident? Or was I being lied to?”
“An accident?” He looked confused, as did all the other faces swimming around.
“Well, a demon said it was the magistry’s fault,” I explained. “I take it – the demons attacked, and the magisters just got carried away? Or maybe it was a champion? That kind of destruction…”
I was pretty sure it would’ve been the Incursion’s fault, no matter his answer.
“Buh – demons? Nah, Feychilde, it’s been weeks since Mud Lane.”
Weeks? What does…
There was another Incursion? But…
Oh.
How could I have been so stupid?
So wrong.
“You mean…” I couldn’t quite express myself. “They – they actually just – did it?”
“They blew it up, for sure. Wasn’t no demons there. Jus’ a few Boys blowin’ off steam, yer know. They’s what overreacted. Took it all down, real quick like. Hardly the only place.”
I almost joined with Infrick by accident, our essences nearly fusing together where her nails dug lightly in my shoulder.
I didn’t recognise my voice when it came out through my teeth.
“I see.“
“Hear ‘im!” a dishevelled man cried exultantly to his fellows. “Feychilde’s what’ll show ’em. Yer’ll see!”
I met the man’s gaze, causing him to pale.
Normally I would’ve tried to keep my cards close to my chest in a situation like this, but this Incursion had been like no other. The Magisterium was weak. Mund was weak. I was still technically a fugitive, and there were quite possibly sanctioned mage-killers out there right now, waiting for the right moment to strike.
“You’ll only see if you keep your eyes peeled,” I said. “When it happens, it’ll happen fast.”
“Yeah!” the man cried, his fellows echoing him.
I took Infrick with me through the wall, their cheers propelling me.
Time for change.
* * *
The urge to urinate had evaporated in the haze of anger that claimed my thoughts, but I found a shattered alley and had the eolastyr turn her back anyway. I wasn’t about to let something so banal interrupt my morning schedule once I got stuck into it.
“I never swore one of your oaths, Henthae,” I muttered while I relieved myself. Certain simple things were made so much more complex when you were missing your favoured hand and splashing didn’t exactly help my frustration-level. “I’m a champion. Not an employee. You’re going to wish you tried harder, that night in Magicrux Altra. A lot harder.”
I had a mandate from the people. I intended to fulfil it.
A million memories, of Mum and Dad’s apartment. A place that was gone, like the people who’d once occupied it. But for so many endless hours it had been a solace, an abode of conversation and food, learning and laughter and light. Both before and after those fateful strokes of Wyre’s knife. We’d made it work. Sorrow had only deepened my connection to the place. I’d known the spine of every book, every little pile of clutter that accumulated in the nooks and crannies.
Why didn’t we take Mum’s cat-figurine?
The answer was obvious. I never really thought I was going forever. And Mud Lane was always supposed to be there. How was I to know this would happen?
What good would it have done anyway? I could’ve taken it to Telior, sure – for Wyrda to eat. No. Better it was lost here. At least when the dragons came to burn Sticktown it would be consumed and the ashes would remain here, a temporary testament to a temporary existence.
Rather that than have it adrift on the ocean’s black waves.
I swallowed down the thoughts of those drowning people, their hands waving in despair, throats filled with foreign cries, foreign water. Swallowed them down as Wydra Virdut had done. That had been my fault. This was the Magisterium’s.
They would be doing the swallowing, this time. I had enough woe to pile their plates high, and I’d watch them chew on my scorn till they choked on it.
If there was ever a need for revolution, it was now.
For a time I hovered above, just taking it all in. Infrick provided her sage advice but I was at best half-listening. In Sticktown the roads were so narrow that the thrown-down rows of houses had nowhere to go, transforming whole streets into precarious no-go zones. Support-beams the thickness of forest trees had been snapped like kindling, the ribcages of wooden whales cast up against the shores of other, still-standing structures. In their midst a slowly-stirring sea of detritus and splintered edges had formed, shifting only as searchers and survivors picked their routes cautiously atop its awful surfaces, crying out for loved ones.
The Magisterium was nowhere to be seen. For all their preparations, all their incredible resources, they were not ready for something on this scale. And neither was I. For all that I was surrounded by destruction, my gaze hardly encompassed much of Sticktown, never mind Mund. I knew how the Magisterium worked, how they’d make their excuses. Mending Hightown and Hilltown would be the focus of all their effort and energies, ‘restoring key infrastructure’ as the criers always put it… which really just meant recapturing the confidence of the rich. If it was really all about infrastructure, why would Treetown’s lush avenues always get higher priority than Sticktown, than the Lowtowns? They only cared about Rivertown insofar as they wanted the docks open and operational; the farther you lived from the Greyflood, the longer you had to wait for help, to the extent that some neighbourhoods as far-flung as the Reyds’ old residence were just abandoned to the gangs wholesale when Incursions struck. Landlords cut their losses because they could. The displaced residents, however…
“Oi! I mean — ‘scuse me! Mr. Feychilde-sir! Be that you?”
I looked down at one of a hundred miserable little scenes going on below me. Half a family, standing astride the lumber rubble, presumably searching for the other half. The man speaking to me was probably fifty and he was carrying a fair bit of extra weight, jowls hanging low-enough to almost completely obscure his neck, a heavy paunch hiding his belt from view. His skin and smock alike were coated in soot and worse. Two twenty-something daughters were beside him on the piteous, moaning hillside that’d once been an apartment-block, their skirts in their hands to help them wade through this hellish swamp. It didn’t look simple. Hundreds of reeds formed by serrated sticks were poking up through the detritus. Nowhere was safe to step.
I sank through the air to come a little closer to them.
“Sorry,” I called. “I lost my…” The five tendrils tried to wave at him, but of course he couldn’t see them. “I’m one-armed, and my strength’s gone. I can…” I got close-enough to lower my voice. “I can go down into the… the mess for you. If there’s someone you’re looking for, I can – I can sense them, or find them. Maybe.”
“My son.” His red-raw eyes stared up at me out of a soot-coated face. “My wife. They…”
He tried to turn, gesturing at the rubble, and stumbled a bit instead. His nearest daughter moved a step closer and put out a hand to steady him but it only served to unbalance the both of them.
“They’re dead,” Trappy whispered.
“I understand.” I could sense almost thirty bodies in the area directly beneath him, but I couldn’t go ahead and reanimate them – they were way down, crushed beneath tons of weight. No matter how much power I poured into it when I made it, a zombie wasn’t pushing its way out of there. “I don’t want to make this any worse for you, but they could be… anywhere in this. If I could help you, I would.”
“You can’t, just…”
He waved a hand and tilted his head, as if this approximated spell-casting. In my case he wasn’t far wrong, but that didn’t mean I could work miracles.
I shook my head. “I’m really sorry. You and your daughters – you’re not alone. We all lost something. Someone. We have to move on. It’s the only way.”
I paused, confusion washing over me.
Did I lose someone?
Of course I did.
Star.
Emrelet.
He started to weep. His expression crumpled and his shoulders shook but he stayed standing, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he panted. Rather than drawing closer to him, comforting him, his nearest daughter just stared at the uneven ground beneath her feet, utter despair worked into the lines of her face.
I had a million different things to be thinking about, places to be, but I’d been lying, hadn’t I? There was something I could do. It would just mean paying attention. Attention, to these people. Their problems. Instead of being all wrapped up in my ‘bigger’ concerns… I should’ve been here, helping, right from the get-go.
Once I got started, I realised how much easier things were this way. At least I had concrete goals. At least I could see the progress I was making, yard by yard. Better than daydreaming about gathering up a hundred lost heretics, about spitting square in Henthae’s face.
My remaining eldritches made a strange work crew. Mostly I had imps and a few varieties of flying demonoid left to me, the majority of my grounded demons having been decimated during the battle at the Fountains. It took a solid ten minutes to set things up but once Khikiriaz had lengths of rope fastened to his antlers, the imps could knot the other ends to key sections beneath the surface of the hillside, and we could shift tons in mere minutes, sort through it for survivors.
Salvageable materials were dragged clear – useless planks were carefully incinerated in imp-fire. Corpses went undisturbed; I knew their locations, and could prevent any further mangling by closely managing my ikistadreng, my impish labourers. Pinktongue did a decent job as my lieutenant – at one point the gungrelafor even gave Khikiriaz orders without the greater demon complaining, which I thought was quite the accomplishment.
Within a quarter of an hour at least half the people in the area had formed an impromptu ring, overcoming their fear of my demons to watch the work.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew they were all going to ask for my help, once I’d finished uncovering the rest of the corpses in this particular pile. I didn’t care. I was in the right state of mind to do this kind of thing now. Suppress the other options. Forget the future. Focus on the present. Clear purpose.
Sometimes when I uncovered a body, a man or woman or child nearby would come forward to collect it; onlookers regularly stepped in to help them if it seemed they were going to struggle to lift the remains. A respectful silence settled over the neighbourhood, everyone waiting with bated breath to see whether their loved one would be next, and when the crowds continued to grow the newcomers would follow suit, hushing in reverence. I enforced the same silence over my imps without even giving a command, the mere pressure of my will sufficing to still their forked tongues.
For the heavyset man and his daughters there was no surprise sent by Celestium awaiting beneath the debris. No sudden relief as a living hand emerged from the dust. No grime-covered eyelids fluttering weakly when his son and wife were extricated. Just broken cadavers. The son had been older than me, but his torso was the thickness of a chair-leg thanks to the weight of the apartment-block crushing him. The lady was in an even-worse state, and I kept my eyes from the scene as her husband went to his knees at her side, sobbing hoarsely.
I looked at my ikistadreng. Khikiriaz was staring at the grieving family with a perplexed, almost envious, hungry light in his eyes.
I reached up to run my fingers through his blurred red fur at the shoulder of his foreleg.
“You okay, man?” I asked him with as much nonchalance as Infernal could allow.
He blinked, and I thought he leered.
“Retribution never ends,” he replied. A phrase which sounded far more-fitting for the hell-tongue, even if I couldn’t quite tell how it answered my question.
“I’ll take that for a yes.” I raised my gaze to the assembled crowd. “I thought they’d be clamouring for more.”
Many were looking back at me, but none spoke directly to me, preferring to avert their eyes and murmur to their fellows when they caught my gaze.
“They will not ask it,” the demon said, eyeing the crowd along with me. “They recognise your power. They will not beg of the master, for fear they overstep. They fear punishment.”
He sounded at once satisfied and disgusted.
I floated upwards, span about a little, then yelled in my plainest, Sticktownest voice:
“So! Where next?”
* * *
Five hours later, it was like a different world. Not one magister had been spotted, never mind a repair crew. The only city watchmen that I’d come across were off-duty, vests unbuttoned, truncheons left at home, busying themselves by helping with the rubble-shifting. Most of them were even willing to take direction from me, given the lack of it coming from any other source. Eight archmages had dropped by to check in with me, Tanra (or Vardae, I supposed) amongst them. Ostensibly they’d all heard what I was up to, though I never quite got a good answer as to how – the work of one of the seers, I guessed, though Nightfell flat-out denied involvement. As others arrived and made suggestions, I started incorporating their ideas. Glimmer could find the dying, even heal them and change their shape to free them from the wreckage, but she couldn’t fix every injury alone; I’d put Kirid to work with her, figuring there were worse mentors out there for the frail-seeming Telese druidess. Two former heretics called Liebor and Ibaran left swathes of the eldritches at their command in my temporary care, and I soon found work for them to do. Tanra told me who to put my emissaries in touch with when I sent them out, north and south, east and west. We went where we were most needed, all up and down the district, even dealing with a rupture in the riverbank that’d left three neighbourhoods flooded. (Bintaborax, I found, made excellent landscapers, and though I missed Mr. Cuddlesticks the two remaining members of his little cohort were more than up to the task.) Orcan’s timely arrival helped immensely, draining the waters while we shored up the defences on the bank.
I was pleased to see my two Telese refugees had come through the Incursion’s later stages unharmed. There was certainly plenty for them to do. More importantly, they were actually doing it – helping, unlike half the heretics who’d seemed so keen to take up the mantle of champion last night. It was obvious to me from our brief conversations that the Telese pair were adrift here, finding themselves tossed to and fro by the directions of super-seers beyond their ken. They wanted to find their feet, so to speak, and for Kirid that meant giving her a guardian in Imrye. For Orcan, that meant letting him keep his own counsel; he might’ve been going about with a disdainful expression plastered on his mottled old face, but he was diligent in his duties. That was all I could ask, in the short-term. The pair’s long-term prospects in the city I could leave to trouble me another day.
“This will suffice?” the foreign wizard sneered, gesturing at the earthworks he’d erected.
“Suffice and more!” I called back, beaming.
His smirk was his response, and his farewell; the wind came down to carry him away and he was gone, vanishing southwards.
And with the way time seemed to fly when you were occupied, it was suddenly afternoon. I found myself casting about, feeling pleased in spite of the calamitous circumstances. All around me fiend and mortal worked together, a partnership that moved from hostile to uneasy to keen, even friendly. Early in the morning I’d had to put down a couple of revolts before they got started, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
“Look at it!” a yellow-haired woman had cried in dismay to her family members, pointing at one of my as-yet unnamed imps as it went winging over the wasteland. “Who knows what it’s been up to!”
The imp paused, looked back at her, and then resumed its course with wary glances over its shoulder. They were all under my strict orders to preserve themselves, avoid confrontation or assault.
“Coulda been the one what killed my Mel – burnt him right up in the innards!” The woman was gesturing wildly now. “Coulda been killin’ any of –”
“That particular demon I obtained in Oldtown,” I said, swooping down beside her and seeing her pale instantly. “And you’re damn right, it’s a killer. Might’ve even killed your Mel, if it’d been round these ways before I caught it.”
“Curse it!” she spat, clenching her fist resolutely.
“There was a time I’d have had my minions ripped apart by their fellows for past transgressions.” I watched the imp as it furtively went about its business, disappearing out of sight around a half-standing building. “For all that it might’ve been a killer before, it’s currently heading off to count the number of wounded between here and the Rush. You remember Glimmer- ah, Imrye? The one who came by just before?”
The woman nodded blankly. No one within two hundred yards had missed the blue-feathered condor whose appearance threw half the wreckage around us into shadow, and there wasn’t a soul in Mund who didn’t know of Glimmermere.
“The numbers are for her. You want the people healed? Is your pain worth their lives? What if it wasn’t that demon? What if it was that one, or that one?” I remembered to point with my visible fingers, indicating other imps flitting about the ruined area. Half weren’t even mine, but she didn’t know that. “Should I pull them all apart, and good riddance? Isn’t it enough that they’re my slaves, that they work now for us rather than their dark masters? Where does…” I suddenly remembered Khikiriaz’s words. “Where does retribution end, and healing begin?”
I’d tried my hardest to sound gentle at the end but my voice was still too harsh, and the woman had started crying anyway. My apologies fell on deaf ears, but one of her friends or family members shot me a wan smile.
I hadn’t realised how much I’d needed to see that smile until I did. I felt desperately unhinged on the inside, misshapen and vacant, like I’d lost something essential – like in its absence the darkness of which Malas had spoken was trickling in, in, in, drip by drip filling my soul with despair. For all that Yune had helped in our hour of need – where was she now? Would she be here in our day of need? What about the rest of the week? If she could’ve even offered us ten minutes every third Starday of the month, I’d have had no doubt we’d make it through okay. But for all the power wielded by deities, for all the undeniable love of the Goddess of Hope, she was unable or unwilling to interfere. We were alone. It was our struggle, to face or fail.
I was determined to face it, even if we failed in the end. Better to be here, my lonesome arm aching after helping drag timber, than up there in the sky, looking down in empty judgement.
Their problems were my problems. All the clarity afforded by helping, it crystallised into a fierce desire, a need to dig. I only wished I could get my hands… hand… dirty. For all that I was better as an organiser, I was almost jealous of those who could really get stuck in, lose themselves in the toil. Moving stuff with my left hand – I was like a toddler in terms of my personal contribution. But every shifted beam, every shovel of rubble – I waited to see who or what would be pulled out as though my own loved ones were down there somewhere, trapped…
What then was this sense of peace that stole over me when the faces of the survivors were unknown to me? The relief that sometimes brought tears of joy to my face? I didn’t even feel any shame when people in the crowd caught me crying. I only felt the strangeness of my own reaction. My mind’s devices were hidden, an internal dissonance the power of which I could no more explain than deny.
In a brief lull I raised my face to the pristine sapphire sky, looking up through the sun’s radiance as if to see beyond, to the night lingering just out of reach, the inescapable purple shadows that cloaked our world.
Lord Mortiforn – what did I sacrifice? Mr. Owl, can you hear me? Mr. Elmedosk?
What did I lose?
There was no answer beyond the cries of the homeless and dispossessed, the wails of mourners. And there was no reply I could give to those mortal supplicants, nothing to pass on. I had none of the answers myself. Even Mortiforn’s agents were empty-handed, the one group from the planes beyond whom I’d thought reliable. Could they expect more of me? I was a piece of driftwood cast adrift on the same roaring river as the rest of them.
I told Pinktongue to have the salvaged lumber from Lord’s Knuckle dragged to the market square where feasible, then as my faithful imp vanished I suddenly cast about, half-alarmed. In my reverie I’d drifted south, and I looked down at the roadway below me, coming back to myself all at once.
The place was crawling with familiarity. A simple street untouched by the demon hordes, a brick-built mason’s hall standing across from the opening to a network of alleys…
It took me a few moments to remember, and when I did I let myself drift down to the ground. I stood exactly where I had on that exciting Orovost night. I recalled the exact angle, seeing the yithandreng pounding up the roadway towards me.
My eyes crept over the ground, finding a particular patch of earth. Just a section of the street, mud that she’d touched with her power, bringing it to life.
Gods, it felt so long ago now. The excitement had been tempered by experience. I remembered what it was like, to dream of my true inheritance, to long for that fullness of power I’d since attained. How bitter the dregs of that cup tasted now. But if I could’ve had it over again – if I could’ve taken up Chraunator’s pocket-watch and rewrote reality according to my whims – would I really have done anything differently? It was nice to tell yourself that with the power of hindsight you’d have acted more responsibly, but hindsight forgot all the power of presence. What it was like to really be there, victim to all the flurries of misbegotten emotions, evanescent convictions that came and went like the wind, no less forceful than the storm…
Northril…
Maybe I still would’ve gone back to slaughter them, the dark elves at their posts and in their beds. I still owned their souls. I was wearing one. How much could I claim to have changed, since that first trip across the ocean’s cold expanse? The same callousness was upon me now as then. The same unforgiveness laid hold of my soul, as much as I might have railed to deny it. So far only Avaelar had escaped its withering touch. Even Xan had been stung… I should’ve taken what happened to Morsus as a warning, should’ve left the three of them as soon as he was killed. But I hadn’t. Instead I’d leaned on them. I’d needed them.
And this was where it all started. Who could say for certain – maybe I still would’ve taken Belexor up on his stupid bet if I had a second go-around. It was all an act of bravado, after all, to impress the alluring wizard of the group.
She’d sent the mud elemental back, once its task was done, and it had rejoined the road seamlessly before falling back into its dreamless sleep. There was none of her power here. The earth was just earth. Emrelet was gone.
I drifted back towards my home over the next twenty minutes. It was one of the least-affected areas, given that it’d been completely abandoned well before the Incursion, but it wasn’t alone in that fact. Now that I knew what I was looking out for, I spotted other areas that’d seen the same treatment. No one to save at Mud Lane, or any of the half-dozen streets I’d come across that’d been left in a similar state, ruins of tumbled beams abandoned for weeks or months – no sweet blood-bags for the demons to hunt. Just vacant spaces. Loneliness. Relative silence. Everything between the Gold Griffin and the Spannerwalk alleys rising up on the far side had simply been eradicated. The adjacent streets had been changed forever as well, of course, the remaining buildings looking somehow naked and frail, seeming closer to the eye than one might’ve thought they would when the intervening blocks were still standing.
Now that I was viewing the scene without distraction, it was hard for me to see how I hadn’t instantly recognised the truth of the Sinphalamax’s words. Of course the Magisterium had done it. Imprisoning me, killing me… that would never be enough for their kind. They had to crush out the memory of heretics. Ensure those who might harbour recalcitrant thoughts knew their place. At the bottom. Learn to live with the boot-heel squashing your skull down into the drop. Learn to love the taste of filth filling your mouth, trickling down your throat as you struggle for breath. At least you’re alive, maggot. Praise us for our magnanimity. We only take away your street, reduce it to a pile of splinters. Be thankful for that half-mouthful of air. Love us. After all, everything we do is to protect you.
After a while I realised that, despite the ghost-form, I was shaking – and I couldn’t stop myself. The rage… I could keep it caged but nothing could stop the beast from rattling the bars. I tried to fly away, but no matter how strong the urge to leave I couldn’t seem to move myself more than a few feet.
The fact that they’d just left it here… hundreds of tons of debris, clogging the dip – like it wasn’t even worth the afterthought, like none of it could be reused… On the surface it was like a small hill but I knew the topography as well as anyone else around here; beneath it would be like a lake, depths filled with broken memories I didn’t have the heart to explore. The place was such a mess, it didn’t surprise me in the least when I saw some locals come round the corner struggling with a cart, dumping rubble on the edge of the lane. For once they didn’t see me, the blurred dark creature floating high above their natural eye-lines, and I could observe them without being hassled, left alone to my thoughts.
Our home… is a dumping-ground.
I couldn’t blame the poor folks down there, doing their best to get by. My hate knew only one target.
I turned my eyes north-eastwards, and I fancied I could see it glint there in the harsh glare of the sun, splitting the sky in two: the Maginox.
I clenched my whips, feeling the nervousness lance right through me. They’d left me alone so far, but how long would it last? Was this my last day in Materium? If it was, when it happened, I wanted to remember my hate. I wanted to remember my immaturity and my excitement. I wanted to not just reject them and escape them – I wanted the retribution I tried to denounce. I wanted them to suffer. To slather them in my scorn, and let everyone watch.
Yes, that was it: I wanted to break the Maginox the way they’d broken Mud Lane. Maybe the heretics like Liebor and Ibaran (and Netherhame and Shallowlie to boot) could be persuaded to recreate a weave, like the one we’d taken to the Fountains last night. If I struck the wards of the Maginox with that… I’d even let Aramas help, if he would.
The folks from around the corner finished emptying their cart and, two of them taking the strain in place of a pony, they headed off the way they’d came.
“You going to come down from there any time soon, or am I going to have to scrounge up some flying magic?”
I looked down at Nightfell, right beneath me. She too had abandoned the mask but unlike me she’d cast back the hood too. Her brown hair, shot through with the streaks of ghost grey, hung motionless in the dead air.
“I know you’re busy and you probably wish I had food for you, but you really need to drink something. Come on.” She held up her hand, a water-filled bottle sloshing as she shook it enticingly. “You’ll pass out soon if you don’t, and then all those lovely helpers you’ve got traipsing around the city will take a ticket home.”
I grunted, and descended to her side. Her smile was only a little deranged, a tightness to her expression that told me she was feeling the strain too.
I took a long swig of the water, then another. My empty stomach growled, then whirred strangely.
“You haven’t got anything stronger on you?” I asked as I passed it back to her. “You look like you could do with a big cup of wine too.”
Her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Underage, still, remember?”
“Still? Gods. Being a champion should give you a free pass, or something.”
“Especially running around with the thoughts of a thirty-five-year-old super-seer swimming about in my head – I know, right?” She took a swig herself, the tight grin reappearing as she re-stoppered it. “You’ve been doing a good job. They’re talking, you know.”
I frowned. “Who? About what?”
“About you.”
I stared at her. “The magisters?”
“No, no. Well, yes. But I mean – everyone. Everyone’s on about you. The heretics – a bunch of the ones you led against the Sinphalamax are ready to follow you, again. The remaining champions know what you did. The common folk of every district have heard the whispers. Even the magisters, like you say – there’s a lot of chatter about you and Targrave Valorin at the upper echelons. Apparently you chastised him thoroughly in earshot of some influential members. They don’t all hate you, Kas.”
I felt my face blacken and I floated back, a few feet up and away from Nightfell, calling the elf-ghost’s coolness back over my skin. “Who cares?” I muttered. “The heretics are scattered. The champions will never accept me again. The magisters… I killed them, Tanra. There’s no going back from that. Even if they loved me, they’d kill me for it.”
She was shaking her head gently.
“It’s me they want.”
I saw the tightness extend around her mouth, the way she forced the lunatic smile to stay upon her lips with increasing determination.
“The Arrealbord had it coming,” I found myself saying, waving a hand lazily as if I could casually brush off a hundred-plus murders. Confusion passed through me, and I shook myself. “I mean – I don’t mean that, but –”
“You want to support me. You want to make me feel better. It’s okay, Kas. I know what I am, what I did. You don’t have to pretend for my benefit.”
Her gaze went to the trash-hill of Mud Lane, slowly crawled the wreck to the summit.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m worse than you know.” She still didn’t look back to me, grimacing up at the ruination. “Anyway, you’re wrong. They’re scattered, but you can bring us together. They won’t accept you; they’ll seek your acceptance. And you forgot about the people, Kas. The people. It’s a responsibility unlike any other. We have to get in there before Kani does. With… with the Arrealbord gone…”
She left it hanging, her whole vision of the future unspoken in the air between us, like a limp strand of hair.
Is this Vardae’s plot, or Tanra’s?
Is there a difference anymore? Or is that just what she wants me to think?
I don’t care. I don’t care anymore.
I choked on the word, and her head shot about, suddenly staring at me as if seeking verification in my eyes, confirmation that I’d actually said it. Her powers still wouldn’t help her. Not with me.
I copied her smile and repeated myself, making sure to speak clearly this time:
“Maybe.”
* * *
We discussed our options tersely for about ten minutes; which of course meant we were intruded-upon no less than three separate times by messenger-imps. I sent Infrick away, but that didn’t stop me raising her suggestions in her place. No conclusions were reached but we’d at least managed to draw up a vague plan of action when Tanra suddenly warned me she’d have to be on her way soon. She vanished ten seconds before the magister arrived, blurs leading towards Lord’s Knuckle. I turned and steeled myself, but when I saw that it was just Ciraya atop Feast I calmed down.
“Now why’d she have to go worrying me like that?” I sighed. Then, as the yithandreng slowed, I called out: “Of all the magisters in Mund, you’re probably the only one I can put up with right now. Just a friendly heads-up.”
“I don’t need you to meet any of the others,” the sorceress called back in her typical drawling croak. “I don’t know if I can call in a favour, but… I need one.”
I floated a bit closer, scrutinising her. The Westerman magister was wearing her familiar black robe, the thrice-accursed bone-wheel at its centre. Beneath her hood I could see the edges of the cryptic symbols covering her shaven head. The grim expression on her face – this Incursion had rattled even her, I could see. The purple-painted lips were pursed, her ice-blue eyes looking brittle behind their long lashes.
“How’d you find me?” I asked nonchalantly, trying not to sound worried. Tanra was one thing, but Ciraya?
“I speak Infernal…” she rasped, casting me a quizzical look. “You weren’t trying to hide, were you?”
“Ah…” I really had to have a word with my imps about telling magisters my current location. “You’re still you, I see.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She tried her hardest not to sound amused, but I caught the brief flash of gratification that crossed her eyes.
“You know how to make me feel stupid without even trying?” It was hard to conceptualise, never mind phrase.
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” She gave her weird, halting laugh. “I’m sure you’re trying.”
“Tut-tut. And all this, because you need a favour.”
“I’ll owe you one?”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I’ve even righted the scales yet. Go on – what do you need the big bad arch-sorcerer for?”
“The magisters are stretched way too thin in Oldtown. I –”
“Oldtown?”
She nodded.
“A little outside your jurisdiction, isn’t it?”
“We’ve been given city-wide mandates.” She didn’t look too happy about it. “One-point-eight!”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “One-point-eight?”
“Per ten… ah, eighteen percent of the Magisterium forces were lost in battle last night. They have this way of presenting the information with as little clarity as possible… They won’t reveal the abandonment rate – I swear I saw Ko-Lumeine heading for the Treetown Gate this morning, and there’s no way they were counting her or the other deserters in the one-point-eight…”
“Things aren’t looking great,” I surmised.
“Worse.” The purple lips were in a severe line once more. “What do you say? Will you help me?”
“Oldtown…”
I went to run my fingers through my hair, but ended up just swishing my whips around; Ciraya could no more see them than anyone else, so at least I was spared any added embarrassment. I brought my floundering left hand up instead, clawing the knotted locks out of my face, pushing them back inside the hood and regarding her.
Don’t I have a mandate beyond Sticktown too? It’s the gods’ work I do – Glaif’s, and Illodin’s. Isn’t this just what I discussed with Tanra?
I have to be more than a Sticktowner. More than a champion.
“Sure,” I said at length. “Let’s go.”
She shifted slightly atop the yithandreng. “Want a lift?”
I laughed harshly. “Won’t you get in trouble, transporting a known fugitive?”
She gave a one-shoulder shrug and curled her nose.
“I can always tell them I’m dropping you off at Magicrux Izian. They don’t have to know the truth, do they?”
I bowed my head and offered my wrist. “Arrest me, officer. I promise not to randomly escape at a most-convenient opportunity.”
She laughed throatily. “Ah, ha, I appear to be out of bindlaces, and you’re running low on wrists anyway. Come on up.”
She took my hand, and I reduced my corporeality too much as I swung myself up, almost overshooting the mark; I adjusted it again, putting the weight back into my legs as I rose over Feast’s back, letting me drop snugly into place.
“Nice.” From my position behind her I couldn’t see her face, and I found I couldn’t imagine her expression as she said softly: “Do you want to do the honours?”
I frowned. “Nah. It’s your ride. I’m just tagging along.”
She leaned low over the yithandreng’s neck, and spoke in the hollow voice with relish:
“Khalor!“
* * *
“I forgot how much this was like being on a boat,” I lied to make conversation.
She clearly understood. “Suck it up, champion.”
As if purely to wind me up she steered Feast around a sharp bend, making me lean right out as we cornered. The yithandreng’s feet thundered through the drop, clattering effortlessly over piles of wreckage. We drew stares, cheers and cries as we went; while I was certain most of the onlookers were simply surprised to see the big, dragon-like fiend, I wondered how many of the onlookers noticed my presence atop it – whether word would spread that I’d taken up with the Magisterium again, so soon after my reappearance…
“I could’ve flown, you know.”
“Yet you chose this. Do you want me to stop? Want to get off?”
“No.” I sighed theatrically. “I’m here purely for the stimulating debate.”
She said nothing. Sitting behind her, I smiled.
We crossed the bridge into Oldtown – the span itself was entirely deserted. Everyone had their own problems to deal with, and no one was sending help anywhere else. Except us, I supposed. The sun was shining fiercely. Waves of heat were shimmering up off the roaring water as we passed over the Blackrush. I pulled off my hood, letting the wind of our haste run through my hair, cooling me.
Ciraya’s hood didn’t have a mess of sweaty hair to cling to, and it’d fallen back of its own accord in the fiendish breeze as she’d sent Fe twisting through the air. As it was, I found that for the first time I had an opportunity to really study the intricate glyphs inked on the nape of her neck. The last time I’d seen them this close-up I’d been half asleep, during the Arithos debacle. Her whole scalp was given over to the dark-blue designs, even extending to the cartilage at the base of her ear, lines curling about her earlobes… Little, careless-seeming flicks that could be passed off as the spiky tails of impish images – they had been incorporated seamlessly into the geometric whole, yet upon closer inspection those same spiky tails were actually comprised of sentences, dozens and dozens of letters subtly inserted into the shapes. What they said was impossible to interpret, but I had absolutely no doubt that they were placed there purposefully.
“They put a spell on you,” I said heavily, after a while. “The Swords, I mean.”
“I’m as much a Sword as any of them,” Ciraya replied without looking back, without so much as a trace of hesitation. “I’ve tattooed neophytes and acolytes and even initiates. It’s no big deal.”
“May I?”
“What?”
I put my fingers on the nape of her neck, softly but firmly, so as to not startle her. She flinched at first in spite of my efforts, and I would’ve stopped if she hadn’t quickly relaxed, even turning her head to the right as if she knew instinctively which parts of the design had drawn my eye.
“You decided if you’re getting one yet?” she asked, then, when I didn’t reply, went on, “A gold piece if you can decipher a single line.”
“Beware the Mix of Essence-Born,” I muttered, reading, “the Open Soul for selfward Sight is Bound?”
She grunted. “Close.”
I laughed, moving my fingers to the other side, but she shrugged me off and resettled her shoulders.
I laughed again. “But not close enough to claim the prize?”
“You garbled at least three separate lines together, so, no.”
“’At least’…”
“It’s hard to remember them all, okay? By the Five, Feychilde!”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re really tense?”
“I wonder why that could be.” She gestured across the survivor-strewn wasteland surrounding us. “Are you telling me you’re not?”
“I don’t know… it’s been a while since anyone offered me a back rub to be able to tell me.”
“Is that what you’re ‘offering’, now? Why didn’t you say so? Don’t be shy.”
She hung her head, suddenly thrusting her shoulders back to expose as much skin through the neck of her robe as possible.
I did my best to laugh casually, but an unexpected thrill shot through me as I gently pressed my fingers into her flesh, running my thumb down her spine. Suddenly things were different, and my contact with her didn’t feel exactly innocent anymore. It was intimate. For all that we were in a despondent situation, here at the end of the world, traversing a landscape of destruction… I found myself ignoring it all. The gentle motions of Fe completely fell away. My only concern became the application of the right pressures, the right movements to find and ease the knotted muscles and tendons in her upper back.
Looking back afterwards I was surprised to find Emrelet never entered my mind once, nor ill-fated Nafala. I felt guilt, then, but not in the moment.
“You clearly haven’t done this much before, have you? I’m not your lover; you don’t have to be so tender. What, you think because I’m thin I’m made out of glass? Aaaahhhh…”
She soon changed her tune when I slowly pushed my thumb into a solid lump between her shoulder-blades.
“Sorry I lost my right arm – ‘by the Five’, Ciraya. Plus I’m normally… not doing this kind of thing on the back of a yithandreng, you know.”
“If you’re… expecting me to invite you… oooh…”
“Sorry?”
“Never mind. Maybe you’re not so bad at it. Okay. People. Stop.”
I glanced around – she was right. We were about to move through a crowd, and even on the approach we were catching some odd stares.
“I wouldn’t have thought that’d normally stop you,” I crooned.
“Shut up,” she bit back as we were deluged in cries for help coming from a hundred throats.
“We’ll send aid as soon as we can!” was all I could yell back, adding the area to my mental checklist. It wouldn’t do to go back on my promises. Then we were through them, back on an empty, undamaged street once more – and the silence that fell between us felt a little awkward this time.
It seemed to me that I needed to say something, but I had no idea what. Was I supposed to acknowledge the tingling feeling running through my body? The sudden attraction I couldn’t deny?
Laugh about it? That’s usually the way. But how?
She did it for me.
“I don’t know if it’s just post-Incursion jitters, but I feel even more tense now. Great. Thanks, Kas.”
What in Celestium did that mean? The sardonic croak was completely opaque to me. Had she hated it? Was my touch that repugnant?
Or… by ‘jitters’ did she mean she felt it too?
“So – when you say ji-“
“We’re here. Agar!“
Fe slowed instantly, swiftly turning in a tight circle, coming to a full stop in the minimal distance. I glanced about, but there was little to see with mundane eyes. Just another broken street, a ruined workshop of some kind with its roof and two of its walls shattered. Some civilians were looking at us, but I ignored them. My other senses took the reins of my consciousness, forcing me to prioritise.
The inverted shield surrounding the half-obliterated building, a rippling dome of blue force that was so fragile I could’ve dispelled it without a touch… the familiar eldritch-shapes contained within, not moving but undeniably there, lurking in the ruins…
I slid off the yithandreng and drew once more on ghost-essence, hissing, “Wight! And vampire!”
Ciraya slid off after me, then leant back against Fe’s scaly flank, crossing her arms. “That’s about all we already know. There’s still a barrier in place, right?” I nodded, and she went on: “The band that… put it here, they didn’t know what to do. We can’t get a bind on the wight without seeing her, for some reason, and –”
“I get it,” I said. “Risky business, going in somewhere like that, for no gain.” I held out my hand to her. “Coming?”
Her long-lashed eyes narrowed, but she took my fingers.
I spun about her, swirling on the air so as to point us in the right direction – sometimes despite all the magical powers of an archmage it was just plain awkward, being one-armed.
She accepted the ghost-essence without complaint, floating with me through the wards, into the rubble-filled interior of the building. I supposed she’d experienced similar spell-effects in the past; travelling in Dustbringer’s ‘chariot’ had to have been quite an eye-opener the first time…
We weren’t three yards from the building when the air itself started speaking, and I froze.
“Citizens of Mund. Hear me.”
I looked across and met Ciraya’s eyes.
“I am Keliko Henthae, chief of the department of Special Investigations within the Magisterium. I congratulate you on your survival of the Incursion. Rest assured, the relief effort has been engaged in every sector. It may appear to you that we are responding more slowly than is usual. I speak to you now so that you know not to be alarmed.”
“Great,” I groaned.
Ciraya was grinning toothily. A fake smile.
“Our crews will be attending your emergencies forthwith. However, you may see battalions of magisters gathering in several areas of the city. Please know that these forces are being employed to bring into line various disreputable elements that serve to undermine our great society. I ask for peace, and calmness. You must be patient. We will be attending your needs imminently.”
I snorted.
“You may have heard that certain former champions are active in the city once again. This is a lie. There is no such thing as a former champion. Champions, whether active or inactive, do not renege on their charter. Those of them who fail and fall to the darkness are darkmages – do not mistake a murderer for a hero. Understand that we will not make such a mistake either. The sword of justice will be swift and merciless. We will not capitulate to these deceivers. We will demonstrate our strength, and there will be no more dissent.
“Those of you who know I speak to you. I implore you now. Do not seek to resist. Do not further endanger our citizenry. Submit to the proper authorities in turn. Your Heresy is dead. There will be no more inkatra, no more Incursions. All your schemes. All your lies.
“It ends today.”
The voice fell away into silence. In the distance I heard raucous laughter, yells of dismay and disbelief.
“Are you okay?” Ciraya asked.
I met her gaze. She’d dropped the grin, and suddenly the fixed smile on my face felt no less stupid than hers had looked.
Slowly I let it drop.
“I might be a killer,” I said thickly, “but I’m no liar.”
The sorceress lowered her eyes.
“I know,” was all she said in the end.
We floated there awkwardly for a few moments, and it was only when she tugged on my hand and nodded at the wall that I came back to myself.
I shook my head. “You don’t believe her, do you? I… I have blood on my hands, but I –“
“She’s just having her own bad day,” the magister drawled, cutting me off. “You’re overthinking it. I’m sure the two of you can… chat it out, when the time comes.”
“I’m not a darkmage.”
The ice-blue eyes met mine again.
“I know.”
I drew a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, fine. Job to do. Always a job to do.” I straightened on the air. “Come on, then.”
We penetrated wood and masonry, and I ignored all the intervening obstacles, orienting us towards the shapes huddled in the corner. My mind drew multi-coloured strings of gremlin-lights through the air, illuminating the piles of brick and shattered roof-tiles.
Whatever I’d been expecting to find, it wasn’t this. Never this.
It wasn’t that she crouched protectively over the stasis-bound, ripped-apart vampire. It was her face.
I knew her – better than knew her.
And she was dead.
Worse than dead.
“Osi…?” I gasped.
The glowing amethyst eyes met mine, then looked away, flooded with pain.
“Kas? Is that you? O Mother, forgive me, Kas! What – what have they done to you? To you too…”
“To me?” I gulped for air that didn’t want to come. “What about you, Osi? What did they do to you?”
Ciraya’s glare flicked between the two of us, expression near-unreadable.
Osi was just shaking her head hysterically.
“Don’t blame the demons. Don’t – don’t blame them. Please, please don’t blame the demons. It was him. It was all – him.”
“Him?” I looked down at the vampire beneath her. His chest cavity was wide open, the undead organs inside him perfectly motionless but still glistening, slick with stolen blood. “Who… who is he?”
She was still shaking her head, still looking away.
“Not him.
“Redgate.”
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